Out of the mass of perjury and counter-accusations brought out at this examination only one thing was clear—that is that Mason and his gang, as far as testimony and confession went, were not guilty of any crime on the Spanish side of the Mississippi. Whatever crimes they may have committed it was essential to their present safety to locate them on the American or eastern side of the river. The Spanish authorities had no power to punish them for violations of law on American territory, but the Spanish Intendant Salcedo at New Orleans had the power under the comity existing between the Spanish and American governments to deliver them up to the American authorities. The New Madrid court, therefore, ordered the prisoners to be transferred to New Orleans and brought before the intendant.
At that point in the march of events fate took relentless grip on Samuel Mason and Little Harpe, alias Setton, for their crimes. The way of atonement was as swift as its end was to be terrible. It might be quickly summarized, but there is the better way of pursuing the astonishing and dramatic story through the faded records and old scraps of publications of those times, thus getting into actual touch with the persons and with the primitive conditions under which this strange duel of two master criminals was fought out. Each feared the other; Mason, perhaps, not knowing his antagonist. The grim headsman was silently stalking both. In the language of crime fate was double-crossing both.
From New Madrid to New Orleans was a distance of about nine hundred miles and to travel it by boat in those days required more than two weeks. It was as if it had been decreed that Mason should make a farewell tour through a part of the country in which he had become so execrated. New Orleans was then the capital of the Spanish province of Louisiana, the seat of the highest court, and had been for more than three-quarters of a century the most important town on the Mississippi.
In 1803 New Madrid was a frontier settlement about fourteen years old. It was a military post occupied by a small force of soldiers and a town with a population of about eight hundred who were French, American, Canadian, and Spanish, or an extraction of these peoples. New Madrid remained under Spanish rule until 1804 when, as a part of the province of Louisiana, it became a part of the territory of Louisiana acquired by the United States.[29]
If an official account of what followed Mason’s trial at New Madrid was kept it may now exist among the archives in old Madrid in Spain and may contain data relative to the transfer of the prisoners. At any rate, Captain McCoy and his guard evidently started for New Orleans early in February, 1803. It is more likely that, as a matter of economy and convenience, they traveled down the Mississippi in a flatboat. The records show that some of the goods found in the possession of the Masons were carried along as evidence.
There is neither written history nor oral tradition telling of Captain McCoy’s departure for New Orleans or how he held his prisoners on board during the trip. At least one very probable scene, however, presents itself, and in it John Setton is the central figure. Samuel Mason was then the most widely known bandit in the Mississippi Valley. But in the eyes of the law Setton now suddenly became the most important character of all the outlaws. He was likely to turn state’s evidence, reveal many robberies that were long standing mysteries, and thus convict not only Samuel Mason and his family, but also point out clues that would lead to the extermination of all river pirates.
The boat was necessarily crowded, for even under the most encouraging circumstances room on a flatboat was limited. There were about seventeen persons on board: Captain McCoy, the interpreter, some five men who constituted the guard and crew, the seven prisoners, and the three children. Setton was probably chained in the most conspicuous place where he could be carefully watched. This must have been done not only to prevent his escape, but also to prevent Samuel Mason from trying to persuade him to act in a plot against the crew, or to dictate to him a forthcoming “confession.”
One can easily imagine that Captain McCoy and his men frowned at Setton as they would at a chained sheep-killing dog. There was nothing about him to attract them. On the contrary, he was repulsive. Setton’s countenance, according to one writer, was always downcast and fierce, his hair red, his face meager and his stature below that of the average man. This combination gave him, as Judge James Hall puts it, “a suspicious exterior.” He was about thirty years of age and looked the part of a man who was too much of a villain to smile and thereby try to hide some of his villainy. To his captors he was nothing more than a vicious dog whose life was being spared solely that he might later give Mason a long-deserved, fatal bite.
They not only looked upon him as a thief and murderer, but also as a fool not fit to live. If he were guilty of the crimes Mason laid at his feet, then hanging was too mild a punishment for him. By the same token, if guilty, he was a fool to permit a notorious outlaw to dictate to him just what to confess and whom to implicate. And if he were innocent of the crimes he was even a greater fool for submitting to Mason’s demand and declaring in an affidavit that he, not Mason, was the guilty man.
With Captain McCoy and his guards on one side, and Samuel Mason and his family on the other, Setton stood alone between “the devil and the deep blue sea.” He and Mason were figuratively and literally in the same boat, but Mason had at least the consolation of knowing that the members of his family on board were also with him in sympathy and ready to obey his command, even though it led to certain death.