November 7 he wrote to Colonel Cushing from Natchitoches:[222] “On the 15th of this month Burr’s declaration is to be made in Tennessee and Kentucky. Hurry, hurry after me; and if necessary, let us be buried together in the ruins of the place we shall defend!” He had at last chosen his part; and having decided to act as the savior of the country, he began to exaggerate the danger. “If I mistake not, we shall have an insurrection of blacks as well as whites to combat.”[223] “I shall be with you by the 20th instant,” he wrote to Freeman the same day;[224] “in the mean time be you as silent as the grave!” He left Natchitoches November 7, and reached Natchez on the 11th, whence he wrote “from the seat of Major Minor” a letter of alarm to the President, confiding to the messenger an oral account of Burr’s letter, for Jefferson’s benefit:[225]—
“This is indeed a deep, dark, and widespread conspiracy, embracing the young and the old, the Democrat and the Federalist, the native and the foreigner, the patriot of ’76 and the exotic of yesterday, the opulent and the needy, the ‘ins’ and the ‘outs;’ and I fear it will receive strong support in New Orleans from a quarter little suspected.... I gasconade not when I tell you that in such a cause I shall glory to give my life in the service of my country; for I verily believe such an event to be probable, because, should seven thousand men descend from the Ohio,—and this is the calculation,—they will bring with them the sympathies and good wishes of that country, and none but friends can be afterward prevailed on to follow them. With my handful of veterans, however gallant, it is improbable I shall be able to withstand such a disparity of numbers.”
If this was not gasconade, it sounded much like intoxication; but on the same day the writer indulged in another cry of panic. He should have written to Governor Claiborne a month before; but having made up his mind to speak, he was determined to terrify:[226]—
“You are surrounded by dangers of which you dream not, and the destruction of the American government is seriously menaced. The storm will probably burst in New Orleans, where I shall meet it, and triumph or perish!”
If the courage of Claiborne did not, on the arrival of this letter, wholly desert him, his heart was stout; but he had yet another shock to meet, for on the same day that Wilkinson at Natchez was summoning this shadowy terror before his eyes, Andrew Jackson at Nashville was writing to him in language even more bewildering than that of Wilkinson:[227]—
“I fear treachery has become the order of the day. This induces me to write you. Put your town in a state of defence; organize your militia, and defend your city as well against internal enemies as external. My knowledge does not extend so far as to authorize me to go into details, but I fear you will meet with an attack from quarters you do not at present expect. Be upon the alert! Keep a watchful eye on our General [Wilkinson], and beware of an attack as well from your own country as Spain! I fear there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.... Beware of the month of December!... This I will write for your own eye and for your own safety. Profit by it, and the ides of March remember!”
A storm of denunciations began to hail upon Claiborne’s head; but buffeted as he was, he could only bear in silence whatever fate might be in store, for General Wilkinson, who was little more trustworthy or trusted than Burr himself, arrived in New Orleans November 25, and took the reins of power.
CHAPTER XIV.
For several days after Wilkinson’s arrival at New Orleans he left the conspirators in doubt of his intentions. No public alarm had yet been given; and while Colonel Cushing hurried the little army forward, Wilkinson, November 30, called on Erick Bollman, and had with him a confidential interview. Not until December 5 did he tell Bollman that he meant to oppose Burr’s scheme; and even then Bollman felt some uncertainty. December 6 the General at length confided to the Governor his plan of defence, which was nothing less than that Claiborne should consent to abdicate his office and invest Wilkinson with absolute power by proclaiming martial law.
Considering that this extraordinary man knew himself to be an object of extreme and just suspicion on Claiborne’s part, such a demand carried effrontery to the verge of insolence; and the tone in which it was made sounded rather like an order than like advice.