Your friend,
[Signed] James Wilkinson.
Captain Pike, U. S. Army.
Art. 13. Letter, Pike to Wilkinson. ([Orig. No. 5], pp. 57-63.)
Nachitoches, July 5th, 1807.
Dear General:
Once more I address you from the land of freedom and under the banners of our country. Your esteemed favor of the 20th of May now lies before me, in which I recognize the sentiments of my general and friend, and will endeavor, as far as my limited abilities permit, to do justice to the spirit of your instructions.
I must premise to your Excellency that my letter of the 20th of April, dated at Chihuahua, went through a perusal by General Salcedo, previous to his forwarding it.
That letter stated the mode of my being brought into Santa Fe, and I will now state to your Excellency the proceedings on the subject of my papers. I will omit the hauteur of the reception given me by Governor Allencaster, for a more particular communication; it changed afterward to extreme politeness. Being under no restrictions previous to arriving at Santa Fe, I had secreted all my papers which I conceived it necessary to preserve, leaving my book of charts, my orders, and such others as should induce the governor to know me in my proper character, and prevent his suspicions being excited to a stricter inquiry.
On examining my commission, orders, etc., he told me to remove my trunk to my own quarters, and that on the morrow he would converse with me on the subject. I had caused my men to secrete my papers about their bodies, conceiving this safer than [leaving them] in the baggage; but in the evening, finding the ladies of Santa Fe were treating them to wine, etc., I was apprehensive their intemperance might discover the secret, and took them from all but one, who had my journal in full, but who could not be found, and put them in my trunk, conceiving that the inspection was over. But next morning an officer, with two men, waited on me and informed me that he had come for me to visit the governor, and brought these two men to take up my trunk. I immediately perceived I was outgeneraled. On my arrival at the governor's house, his Excellency demanded if I had the key. My reply was in the affirmative; when he observed, "It is well"; my trunk should be a sacred deposit in the charge of the officer who would escort me to Chihuahua, for which place I marched after dinner, under the escort of Lieutenant Don Facundo Malgares and 65 men. His character I beg leave to introduce to the attention of your Excellency as that of a European possessing all the high sense of honor which formerly so evidently distinguished his nation, the commandant of the 600 troops who made the expedition to the Pawnees, an officer of distinguished merit, who in his mode of living fully justified the pomp and style of his actions, who outshines many of the governors of provinces, and whom in my future reports I shall have frequent occasion to quote. He observed to me: "The governor informs me, Sir, your trunk is under restrictions; but your word of honor as a soldier that no papers shall be taken out, and you have free ingress, as usual." I gave it, and I presume it is scarcely necessary to add it was religiously adhered to.