[893] Wilkinson to Freeman, Wilkinson: Memoirs, ii, Appendix xcix.
[894] Wilkinson to Claiborne, Nov. 12, 1806, ib. 328.
[895] Wilkinson to Claiborne, Dec. 6 and 7, 1806, as quoted in McCaleb, 205-06.
[896] Ib. 209-10.
[897] Wilkinson to Clark, Dec. 10, 1806, Clark: Proofs, 150; also McCaleb, 212; and see Wilkinson to Claiborne, Dec. 15, 1806, as quoted in McCaleb, 213-14.
[898] Swartwout was treated in a manner peculiarly outrageous. Before his arrest Wilkinson had borrowed his gold watch, and afterward refused to return it. When the soldiers seized Swartwout they "hurried" him across the river, lodged him "for several days & nights in a poor inhospitable shed—& deprived of the necessaries of life."
Finally, when ordered to march with his guard—and being refused any information as to where he was to be taken—the prisoner declared that he was to be murdered and leapt into the river, crying, "I had as well die here as in the woods," whereupon "the Lt drew up his file of six men & ordered them to shoot him. The soldiers directed their guns at him & snapt them, but owing to the great rain, 3 of the guns flashed in the pan, & the other's would not take fire. The men pursued & took him. But for the wetness of the powder this unfortunate young man must have be[en] murdered in very deed."
Swartwout was not permitted to take his clothing with him on the ship that carried him to Baltimore; and the officer in charge of him was under orders from Wilkinson to put his prisoner in chains during the voyage. (Plumer, Feb. 21, 1807, "Register," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
[899] Wilkinson's return reported in the Orleans Gazette, Dec. 18, 1806, as quoted in McCaleb, 217. It does not appear what return was made in the matter of the application for a writ of habeas corpus in favor of Swartwout.
[900] Wilkinson to Jefferson, printed in National Intelligencer, Jan. 23, 1807, as quoted in McCaleb, 218.