"Good-bye, Aaron; I augur well of your undertaking. The auspices are favorable. We are engaged in a scheme full of danger, requiring enterprise; but, if successful, fraught with fortune and glory."
"General, we are engaged, not in a scheme, but in a sublime exploit. We are to create an ideal commonwealth. The materials are ready. I go to take seizin of the grandest dominion on the curve of the globe. Military force will be requisite to sustain civil polity. The names Burr and Wilkinson are linked together in the chain of destiny. Farewell, and God bless you. When I return, I will hasten to join you at St. Louis, and give a full report of my stewardship."
With rhetoric like this, the parting guest closed his valedictory. His barge was soon under way. Down the calm Ohio, down the solemn Mississippi fared Aaron Burr, bound for the prodigal South. Swept along by the urgent stream, his boat seemed the plaything of fate, and the unstable element upon which it rode and rocked and trembled, he likened to human life, fleeting, turbulent, treacherous, yet grandly beautiful. Yielding to that mood in which the judgment and the will are suspended, and the passive brain is played upon by every sight and sound, he sat in an easy chair smoking, lost in sensuous languor, like an Asian prince. He was, for the time, possessed by the sensation of being royal. He enjoyed by anticipation the prerogatives of sovereignty, the power, the luxury, the voluptuous pleasure. The objects of his ambition appeared then how easy of attainment! To accomplish seemed no more difficult than to desire. The stream was running his way, and the wind was blowing his way. As surely as the Mississippi goes to the Mexican Gulf, would destiny waft Burr to the ocean of his desire. Imaginations so extravagant, courted in solitude and fed by indolence, served to beguile the days of the long voyage from Fort Massac to New Orleans.
At last the barge rounded into port, late in the afternoon of a perfect summer day. Aaron the First, standing upon deck, was coming unto his own; or rather, the city came floating out to meet her king. The bending shore which gives the name Crescent City to the emporium of the South, was lined with ships from every sea, and with innumerable river craft. New Orleans was one of the richest marts on the hemisphere. Burr stepped ashore and quickly ascended the levee. Hundreds of pleasure-seekers swarmed the footpaths or rested on the benches under the rows of orange trees which shaded the broad causeway.
On turning his eyes towards the city, Burr experienced a thrill of surprise. The prospect surpassed his pre-conceptions. In the subdued glow of the setting sun, he saw all things touched with a visionary splendour. Streets, roofs, belfries, the cathedral spire, and the flag of the Union streaming far away above the fort, appeared objects in an enchanted scene. Were the seven cities of Cibola clustered in one golden capital?
The spell was broken by the practical promptings of common sense. Not in possession, but only in pursuit of a treasury and a scepter, the would-be monarch addressed himself to the solution of his complicated problem. It was necessary to learn how the Louisianians regarded the Federal government, how much prejudice they felt against the Atlantic States, and whether they could be influenced to break away from the Union and to organize a separate autonomy. Burr wished further to know who and how many were disposed to wage war against the Spaniards with the ulterior design of conquering Mexico. In order to learn the inside facts he must gain the confidence of all, must make himself popular, must fathom hearts and steal away brains. The final success of his plans would depend on the good-will of the people. The good-will of the people must be won by address—by social tact. Social tact was Aaron Burr's art of arts. He deliberately set about the delicate business of captivating a city that he might eventually capture it.
Wilkinson had pressed upon him letters of introduction to the magnates of the town. Neither letters nor formal receptions were needed to introduce Aaron Burr to society. His manner was passport, entitling him to cross all borders; his sympathy was cosmopolitan, his toleration unlimited, his pleasure, to please others, his study urbanity. Jews thought him a Hebrew, and Christians voted him orthodox. The amiable but capricious creoles, easy to take offense, yet blind in their devotion to those they confide in, swarmed to his standard. The Roman Catholic bishop countenanced him, endorsed his aims, and signalized an official friendliness by accompanying him on a visit to the Ursuline Convent, and there the son of a Protestant preacher chatted pleasantly with my lady prioress and her demure nuns. Burr went everywhere, and wherever he went, he made discreet use of his opportunity to inquire, to observe, to listen, to make friends and proselytes. He felt the pulse of public sentiment. Never to any person did he fully disclose his designs. Without argument or appeal, he convinced, persuaded, and inflamed the victims of his corrupting influence. To the avaricious his intimations promised riches; to the luxurious, pleasure; to those disaffected towards the East, revolt and secession.
Affairs in the Southwest were unsettled. Only a year and a half had elapsed since Louisiana had passed into American hands. Jefferson's land purchase was a current topic of conversation. Opinions differed, and men hotly discussed the question whether, even if the President had a constitutional right, he had a moral warrant for saddling upon the young republic a wild domain, of doubtful value, sparsely inhabited by Indians and already dedicated, by tradition, to the rule of an alien, white population. The Spaniard and the Frenchman, sold and transferred, by one power to another, could not be expected to submit. The citizens had long yielded willing allegiance to his Spanish majesty, the emblem of whose sovereignty had been hauled down, to give place to the tri-color of France; and now that second banner had disappeared. Though an American governor ruled the district, there prevailed among the populace a hope and belief, that, after a brief meteoric display, the red, white and blue, emblazoned with stars, would fade and vanish from its proud height over the old fort, new garrisoned by American soldiers. Spanish officers in disguise lingered in the haunts of their former dignity and sway. They stirred up secret dissension. They deemed themselves not extinguished, though eclipsed. Discontent and resistance were in the air. War-clouds hung dark along the Mexican and Floridan border, rumbling with ominous thunder.
Into this chaos of troubled politics, and conflicting interests, Aaron Burr came exploring, vigilant to note and sedulous to question. The sum of the impressions which he received confirmed him in the belief that the people of the West and Southwest were ready and anxious to separate their section from the Atlantic States; and he felt convinced that it would be no trouble "to enlist recruits and make arrangements for a private expedition against Mexico," especially in case of war with Spain.
It was the middle of September when, true to his promise, Burr appeared at St. Louis, in Wilkinson's quarters, to unfold the tale of his triumph in New Orleans. In the course of his animated narrative, he said: