"At the time Captain Pike explored those regions of our wide-spread interior, almost nothing authentic was known of them. More satisfactory information of the headwaters of the Mississippi than was in the possession of the public was highly desirable, and his narratives relating to them were read with interest. But his accounts of the Mexican territories were looked for with much more interest, and when they came out were received with avidity. The jealous policy of Spain had surrounded her provinces with guards and restraints, that rendered them almost inaccessible. Their condition and prospects were veiled from all foreign observation; and at the time Captain Pike obtained, through an unintentional aberration from his prescribed route, access to them, unusual attention was turned upon the Mexican country by the events of Burr's conspiracy. This extraordinary transaction had awakened an intense curiosity respecting a region which was known to abound with gold, and which precious metal was supposed to have been its ultimate object. The trial of Colonel Burr was beginning, or in progress, when Captain Pike returned, and was known to have visited the El Dorado, on which this individual was said to have fixed an eye of cupidity and ambition. Scarcely anything had been heard of Mexico since the conquest of Cortes, excepting vague reports of the unbounded wealth that flowed from its mines into the public and private coffers of Spain. It is not strange, then, that Captain Pike's tour through some of its provinces should have been regarded as a rare and most opportune work. His statements were of course founded on hasty and imperfect observations, it being obvious from his journal, that, from the time he left Santa Fe, until he reached the United States, he was under a surveillance, and could only take notes by stealth. He could neither survey attentively what passed beneath his eye, nor inquire about that which he did not see, without exciting suspicion and provoking a rebuke. Still, with an acute eye, and a retentive memory, he appears to have gathered up many new and interesting facts, that were well received at the time."
[III-45] It is uncertain to what work we are here referred. There may be some old military treatise, well known in Pike's time, to which he thus alludes; but I think it most likely that he means his own Observations on New Spain, which formed a part of the App. to Pt. 3 of the orig. ed. of this work, and which included a considerable account of the military establishment of that country. If so, the "Essai Militaire" in question will be found [beyond].
[III-46] My editorial function becomes extremely distasteful, with Pike's reiterated insistence upon affecting to believe himself upon the Red r., and expecting us to believe him. See [note44], and imagine Dr. Robinson starting off alone to walk from the Red r. into Santa Fé! I have blinked the business thus far, but I cannot keep my eyes shut to the end of this chapter, as there is worse to come in the miserable straits to which Captain Pike reduces himself through his awkwardness and inexperience in telling lies. He bluffs the thing through, to be sure; but at the present juncture he catches himself in the meshes of his own falsification. For, supposing he had really been on the Red r., as he declared he believed; he had crossed that river, and gone 5 m. up a stream on the other side of it; so he was absolutely in Spanish territory, and this he must have known perfectly well. On the 22d he says, [p. 507], that he "began to think it was time we received a visit from the Spaniards or their emissaries," which shows that he was expecting to be caught. When they come, he makes a show of resistance by blustering a little, then hauls down his flag and goes with them peaceably enough—probably not only a willing captive, but one who had all along intended and desired to be taken into the enemy's country for purposes of his own. And back of this sorry scene there looms the sinister shadow of General James Wilkinson, the traitor and conspirator with Aaron Burr—let the curtain fall.
[III-47] Doubtless the more eligible Mosca Pass instead of the Sand Hill Pass: see [note39, p. 492]. A clause in Pike's next sentence is so singularly constructed as to leave the sense obscure; he simply means to call attention to the fact that Meek and Miller had asked him to order them on that trip.
[III-48] Rio Culebra of present maps—next below Trinchera cr.
[III-49] Escopets or escopettes: the carbine or short rifle used by Spanish-Americans.
[III-50] The roll-call now is:
1. Interpreter Vasquez and Private Smith on the Arkansaw. (2.)
2. Privates Dougherty and Sparks in the mountains, with frozen feet. (2.)
3. Sergeant Meek and Private Miller gone to the relief of the foregoing. (2.)