Burr, according to Merry, suggested that his former estimate of naval strength needed to be increased by a number of smaller vessels since he had learned on good authority that East and West Florida and other parts of the Spanish dominions on the North American continent were impatient for independence. Therefore the increased British force and whatever he himself could provide would be required for this additional task.
Burr mentioned no names in his conversation with Merry, contenting himself with presenting his plans in broad outline. “Throughout the Western country,” Merry quoted him as reporting, “persons of the greatest property and influence had engaged themselves to contribute very largely towards the expense of the enterprise; at New Orleans he represented the inhabitants to be so firmly resolved upon separating themselves from their union with the United States, and every way to be so completely prepared, that he was sure the revolution there would be accomplished without a drop of blood being shed....”
Merry concluded with Burr’s reference to Wilkinson’s army: “... the American force in that country (should it not, as he had good reason to believe, enlist with him) not being sufficiently strong to make any opposition.” It was accordingly settled that the revolution would begin at the end of the coming March or the beginning of April, provided always that the British Government should “consent to lend their assistance toward it, and the answer, together with the pecuniary aid which would be wanted, arrived in time to enable him to set out the beginning of March.”
To spur the British Government to action Burr once more threatened them with the prospect of the people of Louisiana turning to France. Then he presented another impelling argument for British help in the enterprise though at the expense of his own loyalty to his native land.
“He observed,” reported Merry, “what I readily conceived may happen, that when once Louisiana and the Western country become independent, the Eastern States will separate themselves immediately from the Southern; and that thus the power which is now risen up with so much rapidity in the western hemisphere will, by such a division, be rendered at once informidable....”
Despite Burr’s pleading and Merry’s indorsement, the British Government remained apathetic. The last hope of assistance from that quarter vanished when in January, 1806, William Pitt died and was succeeded as Prime Minister by Charles James Fox, an avowed friend of the United States.
Burr, however, had more than one string to his bow. If he could not wring money from the British he might still try his luck with the Spaniards. The most convenient victim was Yrujo, the Spanish Minister. Yrujo had married a daughter of Thomas McKean, signer of the Declaration of Independence and at the moment Governor of Pennsylvania. He was well informed as to what was going on in the United States. As early as the summer of 1805, when Burr was in the West and the rumors were beginning to fly, he reported to Cevallos, Spanish Minister of State: “The supposed expedition against Mexico is ridiculous and chimerical in the present state of things; but I am not unaware that Burr, in order to get moneys from the English Minister or from England, has made to him some proposition, in which he is to play the leading role.”
Having thus early divined Burr’s purpose of extracting money from the British he should not have been surprised when, six months later, he found himself the object of financial solicitation. Burr did not personally approach Yrujo. He sent as his emissary his old friend Jonathan Dayton, the ex-Senator from New Jersey. The visit took place in Philadelphia where Dayton was already present and to which Burr repaired after his last apparently futile appeal to Merry.
Dayton, according to Yrujo’s report to Cevallos, explained that the reason of his visit was that he had information, known only to three persons in the country, which he thought would be worth thirty or forty thousand dollars to the Spanish Government. When Yrujo encouraged him to proceed Dayton disclosed the story of Burr’s secret conferences with Merry. It included the plan for taking the Floridas and for effecting the separation and independence of the western states. The Floridas, said Dayton, were to be associated with the new federated state, and for her share in bringing it about England was to receive a preference in matters of commerce and navigation. The plan, he continued, had obtained the approval of the British Minister who had recommended it to his Government. Dayton added that on his trip to the West Burr had found the people of that section not only disposed toward independence but also anxious to make an expedition against the kingdom of Mexico. The proposal, said Dayton, had been well received by the British Cabinet.
In his previous letter to Cevallos, Yrujo had spoken of Burr’s proposed expedition into Mexico as chimerical. Surely nothing was more chimerical than his present plan to help pay for it by frightening the Spaniards into giving him money for warning him of what was going to happen to them. General Jackson and other prominent westerners who were enthusiastic over such an expedition and had hailed Burr as the leader no doubt would have been astonished had they known that he was thus divulging his plans to the Spaniards in the hope of getting money from them.