Their discussions took place at a time of high alert, when the mounting tensions over the border between Louisiana and Texas seemed to make war with Spain inevitable. In the summer, the U.S. representatives in Spain, James Monroe and John Armstrong, broke off negotiations and secretly advised the president simply to seize Texas. Days before Burr’s arrival, Wilkinson had actually sent the war secretary a lucid and obviously well-considered proposal for invading Mexico by way of Santa Fe, approaching the city either by the Santa Fe trail or the Arkansas River, and employing “a Corps of 100 Artillerists, 400 Cavalry, 400 Rifle men and 1100 Musquetry.” An otherwise bizarre proposal to bring along “a band of Irish Priests who have been educated in Spain, (of whom I have a dozen)” indicated that the general planned not merely to seize “the Northern Provinces” but to take permanent possession. Clearly Wilkinson envisioned the silver-bearing Sierra Madre as a prize.
That fall, Dearborn wrote to advise Wilkinson that the army should be kept on alert. In a rare show of harmony, he commented approvingly on the general’s plan to invade Mexico with guns and priests: “I am not sure that a project of that kind may not become necessary.” In November, after Burr’s departure, Wilkinson promised Dearborn, “If I do not reduce New Mexico, at least, in one campaign, I will forfeit my command.”
It was Aaron Burr’s habit, according to the modern editor of his papers, “to hear what he wanted to hear.” What he evidently heard was that Wilkinson intended to move against Santa Fe shortly. People he tried to recruit testified later that Burr talked as though the Veracruz attack was part of the official strategy to invade Mexico. What he did not hear was the caveat that the general added when he told Dearborn of his invasion plan, that it would only take place “should we be involved in a War, (which Heaven avert).”
They parted with sufficient goodwill for Wilkinson to give Burr an introduction to Governor William Harrison of Indiana Territory, and a warm letter asking him to consider appointing Burr as the territory’s delegate to Congress. Soon after the col onel’s departure, however, the governor received another warning, this time from Dearborn: “There is a strong rumor that you, Burr, etc are too intimate. You ought to keep every suspicious person at arms length, and be as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove.” Wilkinson’s reaction was carefully designed to distance himself from Burr but without giving him away.
In a friendly message to Robert Smith, secretary of the navy, and brother of Samuel, Wilkinson dropped in a significant phrase: “Burr is about something, but whether internal or external, I cannot discover. I think you should keep an eye on him.” So vague was the wording that Smith did not notice its import and did nothing to act on it. The tone was not so much a warning from someone anxious about possible insurrection as insurance by someone concerned to protect his own back. Should war come, and Burr encourage secession in Kentucky and Tennesee, General Wilkinson could at least claim to have alerted the government.
Yet the general remained troubled. In December 1805, he contacted his old friend John Adair, fishing for information about Burr’s secessionist plans. Adair sent a teasing reply. “You observe to me,” he wrote in January 1806, “that I ‘have seen Colonel Burr, and ask me what was his Business in the west?’ Answer. Only to avoid a prosecution in New York. Now, Sir, you will oblige me by answering a question in turn for I know you can, Pray how far is it, and what kind of way from St. Louis to Santa Fé, and from thence to Mexico?” The answer he received sounded boastful on first reading, but more cautious on the second. “Do you know that I have reserved these places for my own triumphal entry,” Wilkinson declared, “that I not only know the way but all the difficulties and how to surmount them? I wish we could get leave, Mexico could soon be ours.”
Since Jefferson’s policy was to avoid the expense of fighting, no leave was given for attack. In the absence of war, Wilkinson would not move. As a result, Aaron Burr and his chief of staff, Jonathan Dayton, were forced to resort to blackmail.
DESPITE FAILING TO GET any encouragement for his plans from Governor Harrison, Burr immediately set about fund-raising on his return to Philadelphia. During the winter he was promised more than fifty thousand dollars, ostensibly to buy land west of the Mississippi on the Ouachita River. Burr’s son- in-law, Joseph Alston, governor of South Carolina, provided substantial financial guarantees, but the most generous supporter was Jonathan Dayton, who personally lent twenty thousand dollars. He did so on the specific understanding that the commanding general would be an active participant. Dayton had known Wilkinson since 1794 and was well-informed about his connection to the Spanish Conspiracy. But he had not been in contact with the general since their meeting at Cincinnati in June 1805.
Apart from a note sent shortly after Burr left St. Louis, Wilkinson had in fact ceased to communicate with the leaders of the conspiracy. “Nothing has been heard from the Brigadier since October,” Burr wrote in exasperation in April 1806. By contrast Burr had written several times to Wilkinson to keep him in touch with the conspiracy’s development. “On the subject of a certain speculation, it is not deemed material to write till the whole can be communicated,” Burr told him guardedly in December. And in April 1806 when it appeared that not enough funds were available, he announced, “The execution of our project is postponed till December: want of water in Ohio [i.e., money] rendered movement impracticable other reasons rendered delay expedient. The association is enlarged, and comprises all that Wilkinson could wish.”
The general’s silence clearly alarmed Burr and Dayton. They needed war with Spain, and when it failed to materialize, they realized that he would have to be forced to cooperate. As early as December 1805, Burr wrote suggesting that had war broken out earlier in the year, “[General] Lee would have been commander in chief: truth I assure you.” A month later in another letter, he retailed the gossip of Washington insiders that a road that Wilkinson claimed to have built through Tennessee had never really existed—“One, professing to be your friend, whispered to me soon afterwards that this conversation was calculated to do you injury”— but, Burr added innocently, Jefferson knew all about the allegation, “and I could not perceive that any inference unfriendly to you was drawn from the fact.”
The direction of the hints was always the same— Wilkinson could no longer depend on Jefferson’s support. When the letters drew no response, Dayton took more drastic action. In the summer of 1806, he financed a Kentucky newspaper, Western World, and supplied it with a series of stories exposing Wilkinson as “a Spanish pensioner.” In great detail, and with much imagination, it described how he had been commissioned into the Spanish army, how his money arrived in leather bags, and how he repeatedly tried to get Kentucky to secede from the Union. The motive was clear, to make him unemployable by the federal government and thus force him to fall in with Burr’s plans.
Not entirely by coincidence, the governor’s enemies in St. Louis began to step up their attacks. During the winter of 1805–6, Bruff and Hammond had sent repeated complaints about his behavior to Congress and petitioned for his removal. Once the allegations of the Western World began to be published, they openly predicted that he would be replaced before the end of the year. In the summer of 1806, one critic, Seth Hunt, even specified the month, September, and the identity of his successor, Samuel Hammond.
WILKINSON WAS NOWHERE MORE VULNERABLE than in his concern about Jefferson’s commitment to him. The most consistent feature of his time as governor of Louisiana was neither his friendship with the Creoles nor his vendetta with the settlers, but his unstinted efforts to cement his personal relationship with the man who’d appointed him. His behavior suggested something akin to the emotional seduction that he once displayed toward his generals.