To the attorney-general he wrote in the same words:[320] “I think it material to break down this bulldog of Federalism.” Jefferson’s irritation rarely lasted long, and it evaporated with these words. Martin railed unmolested.
No one fretted by personal feeling could cope with the Rhadamanthine calm of John Marshall. The President could not successfully strike back; he was fortunate if he should succeed in warding off his enemies’ blows. In the midst of these controversies and irritations, June 15, General Wilkinson arrived. The audiences which in those days still crowded to the theatre and laughed at the extraordinary wit and morality of the “Beggar’s Opera,” found none of its possible allusions more amusing than the often-quoted line which seemed meant to point at James Wilkinson. “That Jemmy Twitcher should peach me, I own surprised me. ’Tis a plain proof that the world is all alike, and that even our gang can no more trust one another than other people.” Wilkinson had not a friend; even Daniel Clark turned against him. To break him down, to prove by his own confession that he was a pensioner of Spain and an accomplice with Burr, was the known object of the defence; but the disgrace of Wilkinson would also discredit the President and shake the Administration which Wilkinson had saved. Whatever the consequences might be, Jefferson could not allow Wilkinson to suffer.
When Major Bruff, of the artillery, came from St. Louis to Washington early in March, 1807, three months before Burr’s indictment, he made bitter complaints to the Secretary of War, accusing the general, under whose orders he served, of being a spy of Spain and a traitor with Burr.[321] General Dearborn listened without contradiction, and replied that there had been a time when General Wilkinson did not stand well with the Executive, but his energetic measures at New Orleans had regained him Executive confidence, and the President would sustain him; that after the actual bustle was over there might perhaps be an inquiry, but meanwhile Wilkinson must and would be supported. Attorney-General Rodney went even further.
“What would be the result,” he asked Bruff, “if all your charges against General Wilkinson should be proven? Why, just what the Federalists and the enemies of the present Administration wish,—it would turn the indignation of the people from Burr on Wilkinson. Burr would escape, and Wilkinson take his place.”
Rodney did not add, what was patent to all the world, that if Wilkinson were to be convicted, President Jefferson himself, whose negligence had left the Western country, in spite of a thousand warnings, at the General’s mercy, could not be saved from the roughest handling. The President and his Cabinet shrank from Marshall’s subpœnas because under the examination of Wickham, Botts, and Luther Martin they would be forced either to make common cause with the General, or to admit their own negligence. The whole case hung together. Disobedience of the subpœna was necessary for the support of Wilkinson; support of Wilkinson was more than ever necessary after refusing to obey the subpœna. The President accepted his full share in the labor. No sooner did he hear of Wilkinson’s arrival, at the moment when his own subpœna was issued and defied, than he wrote a letter calculated to give the General all the confidence he needed:[322]—
“Your enemies have filled the public ear with slanders and your mind with trouble on that account. The establishment of their guilt will let the world see what they ought to think of their clamors; it will dissipate the doubts of those who doubted for want of knowledge, and will place you on higher ground in the public estimate and public confidence. No one is more sensible than myself of the injustice which has been aimed at you. Accept, I pray you, my salutations and assurances of respect and esteem.”
As an American citizen Jefferson had the right to respect and esteem whom he pleased, and need not even excuse his friendships. The world often loved and cherished its worst rogues,—its Falstaffs, Macheaths, and Burrs,—and Jefferson was not exempt from such weakness; but that his respect and esteem for Wilkinson should require him to retain a pensioned Spanish spy and a confederate with Burr and Dayton at the head of the United States army during several years of extreme public danger, was a costly consequence to the people whose confidence Jefferson claimed and held. John Randolph saw this point clearly, and his bloodhound instinct detected and followed, without hesitation, the trail that led to the White House. Whether the chief-justice intended it or not, he never struck Jefferson a blow so mischievous as when he directed the clerk to place John Randolph as foreman of the grand jury.[323] Randolph’s nature revolted from Wilkinson; and if the President and the General could be gibbeted together, Randolph was the man to do it.
Such was the situation when the General was sworn and sent before the grand jury June 15, where his appearance, if his enemy could be believed, was abject.
“Under examination all was confusion of language and of looks,” wrote Randolph to Nicholson.[324] “Such a countenance never did I behold; there was scarcely a variance of opinion among us as to his guilt. Yet this miscreant is hugged to the bosom of Government while Monroe is denounced.”
Randolph ardently wished to indict the General at the same time with Burr; and while he strained every nerve to effect this purpose in the grand-jury room, Burr and his counsel in the court-room moved for an attachment against Wilkinson for attempting to obstruct the free course of justice by oppression of witnesses. The district-attorney resisted both attempts with all his authority; and June 24, to the disappointment of his enemies, Wilkinson escaped.