"You speak emphatically."
"Sir, I give you common opinion when I say there are few men of standing in the Upper Territory, or in the Lower, for that matter, who would trust the General out of sight either with their reputations or with their purses."
My companion frowned as severely as it seemed his philosophic temperament would permit. "You forget, sir, that you are speaking of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Republic."
"A commander whose appointment, it is said, was urged on the grounds that it would keep him out of mischief,—a man who is charged with having been implicated in all the separatist plots of the nineties."
"And if so, what then? With the removal of the misguided Federalists from the control of public affairs, and the purchase of Louisiana Territory, insuring for our Western river commerce the freedom of port at New Orleans, all basis for the just complaints of the West have been removed. I trust implicitly in the loyalty of the people of that great region."
"What of the ovations given to Mr. Aaron Burr during his trip this past season?"
"Greatly as I deplored, and still deplore, the death of Mr. Hamilton, it is a fact that the duel terminated the political career of his slayer,—the man whom we alike distrusted."
"Yet Colonel Burr was received with enthusiasm by nearly every man of prominence west of Pittsburg. I might mention Senator Adair, young General Jackson of the Tennessee militia, General Wilkinson, and our richest New Orleans merchant, Mr. Daniel Clark."
"Very true; and easily accounted for by the reaction of sentiment against the Federalist and partisan animus which procured Colonel Burr's disfranchisement in the State of New York and his indictment for murder in New Jersey. No; once for all, Colonel Burr has been removed as a disturbing element in the politics of the Republic."
Having delivered this confident opinion, Mr. Jefferson stooped to pick up an odd pebble, and after gazing at it a moment, abruptly changed the subject. "The West takes some little interest, I trust, in the expedition which I had some share in planning."