Andro Linklater - An Artist in Treason - The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson

IT WAS PRECISELY THE HOSTILITY of the French inhabitants toward their new rulers that Colonel Aaron Burr hoped to exploit when he was rowed into New Orleans in June 1805. He arrived, as he told his daughter, Theodosia, on “an elegant barge, [with] sails, colors, ten oars, [and] a sergeant and ten able, faithful hands.” Burr boasted that it had been supplied by the army’s commanding general, although it actually belonged to Captain Daniel Bissell and was carrying officers to Colonel Butler’s court-martial. More impressive than the boat, however, was the letter that Burr carried with him from James Wilkinson to his former agent Daniel Clark Jr. Written at Fort Massac and couched in typically misty terms, it recommended the former vice president as someone “whose worth you know well how to estimate. If the persecutions of a great and honourable man can give title to generous attentions, he has claims to all your civilities and your services. You cannot oblige me more than by such conduct, and I pledge my life to you it will not be misapplied. To him I refer you for many things improper to a letter, and which he will not say to any other.”

The “improper” phrase would come back to haunt Wilkinson when it was assumed to refer to his complicity in Burr’s plans. But in a letter liable to fall into the wrong hands, the general might have wanted to keep other sensitive topics secret—his wish to see Burr replace Claiborne as governor of Orleans Territory, and, as it turned out, Burr’s intention of involving Daniel Clark himself in his schemes. Clark always dismissed this last option. He vigorously denied any ties to Burr and made much of the fact that he saw the colonel only once during his twelve days in New Orleans. Clark’s actions, however, belied his protestations.

As he had anticipated, Burr found his hints of secession rapturously welcomed by the alienated French community in New Orleans. Their anger at Claiborne’s governorship had boiled over the previous fall, and two spokesmen, sent to Washington to protest against the destruction of their democratic rights, predicted widespread revolt unless his policies softened. Burr’s Veracruz venture also drew support from an informal network of traders calling themselves the Mexico Association, who hoped to back a coup d’état there, and from a group of Ursuline nuns hoping for the restoration of Catholic rule. Nevertheless, the high point of Burr’s short visit to New Orleans was a magnificent dinner given in his honor by the French merchants who dominated the city.

When he started to return north in late June, heading initially for a second consultation with Andrew Jackson, the support of New Orleans and its wealthy inhabitants must have become a factor in his plans. The exact nature of those plans were still a mystery, but in September 1805 a curious letter sent by Clark to Wilkinson shed some light on them.

Ostensibly Clark’s message was a warning about the “many absurd and evil reports circulated here . . . respecting our ex- Vice-President . . . The tale is a horrid one, if well told. Kentucky, Tennessee, the state of Ohio, with part of Georgia and part of Carolina, are to be bribed with plunder of the Spanish countries west of us to separate from the Union; this is but a part of the business.” The writer’s tone was amused and disbelieving. One wild rumor struck him as particularly incredible: “You are spoken of as his right hand man.” Like every public figure of his time, however, Clark appreciated the likelihood of his mail being opened, and his message carried an inner private meaning.

In the winter of 1805, after sending this letter, Clark made the first of two trading voyages to Veracruz, during which he made extensive notes of the military forces in the area, and, according to John Graham, secretary at the time of the Orleans Territory, who saw his report, “particularly of the garrison-towns between Vera Cruz and Mexico [City].” At a time when war with Spain seemed imminent, Graham was intrigued and later testified that he made “several inquiries of Mr. Clark concerning Mexico; he was of opinion it might be invaded with every prospect of success. I asked him, whether, if the United States should undertake the invasion he would bear a part; he evidenced an unwillingness to have any thing to do with an expedition carried on by the government; but expressed himself willing to join in such an enterprize undertaken and carried on by individuals.”

Clark’s motives for aligning himself with Burr’s schemes were both personal and political. He had just been frustrated by Governor Claiborne in his attempt to be appointed the Orleans Territory representative to Congress, but he was also infuriated by the treatment of the Creoles. “I have encouraged, and will continue to encourage, the outcry and opposition to [U.S.] measures,” he promised Wilkinson in 1804, and the strength of his feelings was widely known. “He has often said that the Union could not last,” Claiborne reported, “and that, had he children, he would impress early on their minds the expediency of a separation between the Atlantic and Western States.”

These evident sympathies for the goals that Burr had in mind give a different meaning to the letter Clark sent Wilkinson. Rather than a general warning, his real intention was to share in coded form Burr’s latest thinking. The plan that Clark described looked very like the old Spanish Conspiracy that was so familiar to them both. Thus the critical sentence about Wilkinson being “spoken of as his right hand man” had a double significance.

On September 11, about the time when this letter was sent, Aaron Burr himself came in person to St. Louis for another meeting with the man who appeared more and more clearly to be the linchpin of all his plans. The priorities of James Wilkinson were not what he expected.

ON HIS JOURNEY NORTH, Burr had held extensive consultations with two militia generals, Andrew Jackson in Tennessee and John Adair in Kentucky. Although the details of their conversations remained private, their shape was clear. Both generals publicly stated that once war was declared with Spain, they would lead the militia and thousands of volunteers to seize the Floridas and “Mexico,” an ambiguous label that referred sometimes just to Texas, but sometimes included the Floridas, and occasionally all the Spanish border provinces including the silver state of Chihuahua. It was a prospect they both eagerly looked forward to.

In contrast to their ebullient spirits, Burr found Wilkinson depressed, exhausted by his battles with the settlers, but affected more deeply than anything else by his wife’s deteriorating health. Nancy Wilkinson had developed tuberculosis and, during the steamy heat of the St. Louis summer, suffered difficulty in breathing. Her illness added a bitter note to Wilkinson’s patronizing onslaughts against his enemies. One particular target, Judge John Lucas, who combined speculation with his official position as a land commissioner, was accused not only of venality, but of attacking Wilkinson “because I do not acknowledge his superiority, because I sometimes wear a cocked hat and a sword, and am fond of a clean shirt, which are Eyesores to him, [and] because my infirm wife rides daily for her Health in a carriage, which he considers aristocratic.” In the months ahead, Wilkinson’s erratic behavior would bewilder friend and foe, but one explanation for it lay in the anxiety he felt for his wife’s condition.

His gloomy outlook cast a shadow over his first meeting with Burr. A major difference arose over Burr’s belief that the western settlers could be induced to secede from the United States. According to his own account, Wilkinson exclaimed, “My friend, no person was ever more mistaken! The western people disaffected to the government! They are bigoted to Jefferson and democracy.”