Dayton’s reply was dated July 24, 1806, and was sent by his nephew, Peter V. Ogden, to Wilkinson.
“It is now well ascertained that you are to be displaced in next session,” wrote Dayton, working on his old friend’s pride and fears. “Jefferson will affect to yield reluctantly to the public sentiment, but yield he will. Prepare yourself, therefore, for it. You know the rest. You are not a man to despair, or even despond, especially when such prospects offer in another quarter. Are you ready? Are your numerous associates ready? Wealth and glory! Louisiana and Mexico!”
Together with this exhortation from Dayton, Burr sent a cipher despatch, afterward famous as the key to the whole conspiracy. Published at different times with varying versions, as suited Wilkinson’s momentary objects, the correct reading probably ran very nearly as follows:—
“July 29, 1806. Your letter, postmarked 13th May, is received. At length I have obtained funds, and have actually commenced. The Eastern detachments, from different points and under different pretences, will rendezvous on the Ohio 1st of November. Everything internal and external favors our views. Naval protection of England is secured. Truxton is going to Jamaica to arrange with the admiral on that station. It will meet us at the Mississippi. England, a navy of the United States, are ready to join, and final orders are given to my friends and followers. It will be a host of choice spirits. Wilkinson shall be second to Burr only; Wilkinson shall dictate the rank and promotion of his officers. Burr will proceed westward 1st August, never to return. With him goes his daughter; the husband will follow in October, with a corps of worthies. Send forthwith an intelligent and confidential friend with whom Burr may confer; he shall return immediately with further interesting details; this is essential to concert and harmony of movement. Send a list of all persons known to Wilkinson west of the mountains who could be useful, with a note delineating their characters. By your messenger send me four or five commissions of your officers, which you can borrow under any pretence you please; they shall be returned faithfully. Already are orders given to the contractor to forward six months’ provisions to points Wilkinson may name; this shall not be used until the last moment, and then under proper injunctions. Our object, my dear friend, is brought to a point so long desired. Burr guarantees the result with his life and honor, with the lives and honor and the fortunes of hundreds, the best blood of our country. Burr’s plan of operation is to move down rapidly from the Falls, on the 15th of November, with the first five hundred or a thousand men, in light boats now constructing for that purpose; to be at Natchez between the 5th and 15th of December, there to meet you; there to determine whether it will be expedient in the first instance to seize on or pass by Baton Rouge. On receipt of this, send Burr an answer. Draw on Burr for all expenses, etc. The people of the country to which we are going are prepared to receive us; their agents, now with Burr, say that if we will protect their religion, and will not subject them to a foreign Power, that in three weeks all will be settled. The gods invite us to glory and fortune; it remains to be seen whether we deserve the boon. The bearer of this goes express to you. He is a man of inviolable honor and perfect discretion, formed to execute rather than project, capable of relating facts with fidelity, and incapable of relating them otherwise; he is thoroughly informed of the plans and intentions of Burr, and will disclose to you as far as you require, and no further. He has imbibed a reverence for your character, and may be embarrassed in your presence; put him at ease, and he will satisfy you.”
Had Burr and Dayton not felt strong reason to doubt Wilkinson’s course, they would not have invented a tissue of falsehoods such as these letters contained. So far as concerned Wilkinson’s future conduct, no one could deny that this gross deception set him free from any ties that might have previously bound him to Dayton or Burr.
Furnished with these and other letters almost equally compromising, Ogden and Swartwout, at the end of July, started on their way. Swartwout was directed to see Adair in Kentucky, and to deliver to him despatches, the contents of which have never been made known, but were doubtless identical with the letters to Wilkinson. At the same time Erick Bollman started by sea with similar despatches for New Orleans.
Early in August Burr followed, taking with him his daughter Mrs. Allston, and his chief of staff Colonel De Pestre. After crossing the mountains he threw aside ordinary caution. At Canonsburg, about fifteen miles beyond Pittsburg, he stopped at the house of an old friend, Colonel Morgan, and there so freely asserted the imbecility of the Federal government and the certainty of a speedy separation of the Western States from the Eastern, that Morgan thought himself bound to give President Jefferson a warning.
The conversation at Canonsburg took place in the afternoon and evening of August 22. A few days afterward Burr arrived at Blennerhassett’s island, where he found the owner waiting with enthusiasm to receive him. Of all the eager dupes with whom Burr had to deal, this intelligent and accomplished Irish gentleman was the most simple. After wasting half his property on his island, he discovered that he had left himself not more than thirty or forty thousand dollars to live upon; and this small property was invested in funds which produced so little as to leave him always embarrassed. He wished ardently to make his fortune by some bold speculation; and Burr had no more pressing necessity than to obtain the funds which Blennerhassett burned to invest. Burr said to Blennerhassett in effect what he said to Wilkinson; but Blennerhassett was less able than Wilkinson to detect falsehood. The actual speculation which was to make Blennerhassett’s fortune seemed certain of success. Burr had invented more than one way of getting money; and among his various expedients none was more ingenious than that of buying a certain Spanish claim, known as the Bastrop grant, covering an immense district on the Red River, and supposed to be owned in part by one Lynch in Kentucky. Burr had undertaken to buy Lynch’s interest for forty thousand dollars, of which only four thousand or five thousand dollars need be paid in money; and he persuaded Blennerhassett that on the most moderate estimate, they could reap from it the profit of a million. Blennerhassett was assured that before the end of the year Louisiana would be independent, with Burr for its ruler, under the protection of England. Wilkinson and the United States army were pledged to accept the revolution and to support Burr. Tennessee was secured; and though Kentucky and Ohio were doubtful, they would end by following Tennessee. The government at Washington would fall to pieces, and the new empire under a stronger government, would rise at once to power. Then Bastrop’s grant would take character; its actual cheapness was due to doubts as to its validity: but the moment its validity was decided by the new government, all whose members would be interested in it, the value of the grant would become enormous; emigration would be directed to the spot, and Blennerhassett’s fortune would be vast. He would, meanwhile, go at once as minister to England, with Erick Bollman for secretary of legation.[176]
In an incredibly short time Blennerhasset’s head was turned. Unluckily for him, his wife’s head was turned even more easily than his own; and the charms of Theodosia Allston, who became a guest at the island, dazzled the eyes of both. Before Burr had been two days in the house, Blennerhassett was so enthusiastic a supporter of the scheme that he set himself to work, under Burr’s eye, to publish a series of essays in order to show the State of Ohio that disunion was an infallible cure for all its natural or acquired ills. The first of these essays was quickly finished, taken to Marietta, and printed in the “Ohio Gazette” of September 4 under the signature “Querist.”
September 2, before the “Querist” appeared, Burr continued his journey down the river to Cincinnati, where he arrived September 4, and remained a few days with Senator Smith, talking freely about the impotence of the government, the rights and wrongs of the Western people, and their inducements to set up a separate empire. September 10 he crossed the river to Lexington in Kentucky, and shortly afterward went to Nashville in Tennessee.