|
GEN. JAMES WILKINSON AND OF HIS CONNEXION WITH AARON BURR. [“Proofs” Pages 61-80] Daniel Clark  1766-1813 |
|
GEN. JAMES WILKINSON AND OF HIS CONNEXION WITH AARON BURR. [“Proofs” Pages 61-80] Daniel Clark 1766-1813 |
Note |
Each section below reflects a true page of this historical publication. Note links refer to the letters and documents that Daniel Clark used as evidence of his former friend's treachery. People and place-name links are to biographical and geographical pages in Encyclopedia Louisiana. Time links are to the Encyclopedia Louisiana Timeline. |
|
Page
***61*** |
reputation for veracity. one circumstance however in my own justification I ought to notice. In my disposition I state that the general's explicit confession took place in October 1798, at Loftus's Heights, where I had passed three days and nights in his tent. Feeling how deeply this evidence would affect him, it was necessary to throw doubts on some circumstance which I had detailed, thereby to weaken the whole. He has therefore denied that I was with him for three days - he has denied that I was at his tent, because he said he was then not encamped, but slept in his boat. (No. 46.) If I had been mistaken in these points; if it should appear that instead of three days I had been there but one, and if the confession had been made in a boat, I believe it would have been as important as if whispered in a tent. But I was not mistaken, and if I prove clearly that I was not, his denial of these circumstances will be a persuasive proof that he feels the truth of my communication, since he strives to disprove it by denying circumstances which are proved to be true and which he must have known to be true. The fact than of my stay with Wilkinson in 1798, and of his being then encamped, though otherwise trivial circumstances, become important in this inquiry. On this subject I refer, First, to a letter, dated 2d November, 1798, from my kinsman Daniel Clark, who then lived at his plantation about three miles from the camp, and who died two years after it was written, in which he says, " I presume you will not get away from the general for a day or two to come; indeed the weather seems |
|
Page
***62*** |
unfavorable for the prosecution of your journey to Natchez. His excellency proposes a jaunt to the Desert to see his convalescents, as soon as you depart. Second, the affidavit of William Miller, (No. 47.) Third, that of capt. Guion, (No. 48.) Fourth, that of David Mackey, (No. 49.) Fifth, a letter from col. John Clay, (No. 50.) Sixth, the affidavit of Marselis, (No. 51.) All of these gentlemen have a perfect recollection of my having been there, and relate particular circumstances which induce them to remember my being with the general in his tent. How miserably are men blinded by the confusion of guilt. They think they must deny something—they grope about in the dark; and as they are directed by chance, not judgment, in the selection of their means, they are frequently weapons of greater annoyance to themselves than their enemies. Thus if Wilkinson had contented himself with denying the substance of the conversation between us, it could have procured no other evidence of that particular fact, as our conferences on the subject were not held in the presence of witnesses; but finding a person whose inaccurate recollection of [laces and dates would, he thought, throw a doubt on my testimony, he seizes it with eagerness, he denies my visit to him, he denies the place of his residence, and he puts it in my power unquestionably to prove by other witnesses, what would otherwise have rested on my own assertion. In my disposition too I state that Wilkinson desired me to propose the purchase of governor Gayo- |
|
Page
***63*** |
so's land, for the arrears of the pension still due to him. I have since discovered one of the general's letters which corroborates this proof; it is dated Loftus's Heights, 13th March, 1799 and contains in reference to that subject the following paragraph: " The Mingo(a) asks more than I can give for his dirty acres, therefore say not one word on that subject." This caution was wholly unnecessary, for, as I had stated in my deposition, I had refused to have an agency in his negotiation for the land. After these remarks I proceed to examine the general's means of defence against the great body of proof which has been offered: His first object was to fortify himself by certificates of innocence—his second to procure an inquiry by a court which he knew could not compel the attendance of witnesses—his last, and the most congenial to his disposition, to blacken the character of the witnesses against him. Let us examine separately each of these means, and see how they have succeeded. Never were attempts made with so much art as those by which the general endeavoured to support his sinking fame by the testimony of those who had in the service of their country seduced him from the allegiance he owed to his own. His first address was to Mr. Power, who, then a subject and an officer of Spain, thought he would be abandoning the work at which he had so long laboured, if he suffered his proselyte to be disgraced and deprived of that influence and (a) This is an Indian word meaning great chief, and is usually applied by Wilkinson to designate a governor. |
|
Page
***64*** |
command which he foresaw might be yet useful to his country. The general threw himself also on his compassion: Can you, was the substance of his address—can you, Power suffer me to be ruined on account of those very measures into which, by your ministry, I have been led? A word from you will save me from destruction—sign a declaration of my innocence which I may show to the president, and I shall retain his confidence, and we may yet see the success of our schemes. Moved by false pity, convinced by false reasoning, Power signed the evasive certificate that has been published with so much triumph, Short-sighted, guilty man!—you did not foresee that this success would be the cause of your ruin—that the haste with which you published a document given to you for another purpose, would induce a disclosure of all the circumstances which it was so much your interest to conceal—a disclosure accompanied by so many irresistible proofs, that not an individual can doubt of its accuracy, and a detail of circumstances which would otherwise have forever been unknown—an exposition of documents which but for this could never have been produced. The use that was made of this certificate—the attempts to blacken his character, induced Mr. Power to come forward in support of his reputation, and his change of allegiance, and the resignation of his employment enabled him to do it with propriety. The next attempt was upon the compassion of governor Folch; the same arguments were probably addressed to him that were so successfully employed |
|
Page
***65*** |
with Power; and no one will require a stronger evidence of guilt than the correspondence which is at last concluded and dressed up between them. Folch was not disposed to go further than he could with truth, though at the same time his certificate was to bear as near a resemblance to untruth (that is to say, to an assertion of the general's innocence) as could possibly be managed without sliding into actual falsehood; for the purpose, the general asks boldly whether governor Folch knows or believes that he (W.) is (at the time he writes) commissioned or pensioned by Spain. Now mark the answer: First some common-place about the fraternity among those who embrace the profession of arms—then a most solemn asseveration of what nobody would be led to doubt, the period at which he arrived in the country, the intimacy in which he was with his uncle, governor Miro, and his being the most proper person to give a satisfactory answer to the general's quere. Let us now examine this answer—how satisfactory it is! Before we come to it , however, we are assured that it is barely possible that his uncle may have concealed the general's pension and commission from him: but as neither the one nor the other is ever conferred without a patient, it is natural that he should have met, not only with the copy, but the original, as the archives have been under his care. after all this comes the important, the satisfactory answer that is to operate, as he says, his correspondent's satisfaction, and the utter shame and confusion of his calumniators. What is it—that he has never seen any warrant for the pension, or any re- |
|
Page
***66*** |
cord of the commission? that his uncle never told him they had been granted? that he does not believe in their existence? No: but he asseverates most solemnly on his most sacred word of honour that no such document, not any other paper tending to substantiate such assertions exists in the records of his possession. And with this general Wilkinson is perfectly satisfied! This he thinks ought to satisfy his country. What, because governor Folch declares that the records of his guilt do not remain in his archives—when they may have been taken to the Havana instead of Pensacola—when Folch himself may have removed them when he was writing his letter, to make it consistent with literal truth. Because this is asseverated upon his sacred honour, all clamour is to cease—Wilkinson is a persecuted man. There is no record of his guilt at Pensacola—he is therefore innocent. There is no commission in the archives of Baton Rouge—therefore he must be calumniated. Governor Folch asserts it on his honour—and therefore his enemies ought to be covered with confusion. There is, however, an air of irony in this letter that must have deeply mortified the general if he could feel mortification> If this assertion, says he (to wit, that he had not then got the record) will not erase the impressions of weak minds against you, [They must have been very weak if it had] you are to comfort yourself (with what?) with the recollection that you are a soldier, and with the approbation of your unsullied conscience.—What bitter, what cutting reproach! what a sarcastic sneer! What! the man who had betrayed his professional trust, and re- |
|
Page
***67*** |
ceived the hire of infamy! the man who when solemnly appealed to for his exculpation, answers one inquiry by an insulting equivocation, and passes the other over in silence - that man has the cruelty to talk to him of an unsullied conscience, and to remind him of the honour of a profession which he had tarnished by his treachery. These documents (a) are published by the general; let them be carefully examined, and I am persuaded that every reader will discover the evident instances of evasion which I have pointed out. The general was not yet, however discouraged from further attempts of this nature. His next application was to another Spanish governor, who did not take the pains that governor Folch did to save appearances. Mr. Salcedo passing through Philadelphia to go to the government of Texas. the general thought it a good opportunity for an experiment: if Mr. Salcedo could be prevailed upon to give a certificate of exculpation, it was well; if his answer was unsatisfactory it might be suppressed. Thus reasoned the general, but he reasoned wrong; the answer was very unsatisfactory, and he could not suppress it. They were published in the Philadelphia Gazette, and the copies (No. 52) can be proved to be authentic. The queries are first pointed to Mr. Salcedo's means of information in the office of Don Andreas Armesto on '95, '96 and ’97; 2d, to the receipt of the 9640 dollars by Power, or any other money or pension to gen. W.; 3d, whether he I. |
|
Page
***68*** |
would not probably have known such payments had they been made? 4th, whether Powers or myself had access to the archives, and what were our characters; 5th, a prayer for general information that may be useful, a and particularly to know in what estimation W. was held by the officers of his catholic majesty. Mark the answer. “Governor Salcedo cannot and ought not to answer the foregoing queries, excepting that pert which relates to the character and conduct of Mr. Daniel Clark, and hereby declares that this gentleman was universally known at all times in Louisiana as a zealous patriot of the United States, an upright man, and of the highest integrity both in his public and private affairs, always preferring the public good to his own interest.” What a dreadful rebuff is given to our inquirer by this blunt answer. Governor Salcedo cannot and ought not to answer any part of the foregoing queries, except that part which relates to Mr. Clark, and why? be cause he could only answer them by revealing the intrigues of his own nation, and exposing the citizens she had seduced from their allegiance. If he could have given an answer favourable to Wilkinson's views, he has shown that he would have done it. He has shown in my case, that when he can bear an honourable testimony in favour of innocence, he does it with pleasure. No principle stands in the way of giving exculpatory testimony. But duty prevents his answering any queries respecting Wilkinson. The conclusion is |
|
Page
***69*** |
plain: he “ought not” to speak the truth, because it will expose an adherent, a pensioner of his nation, and he cannot speak any thing but the truth if he answers at all. He is therefore silent, and this very silence is more convincing than the most energetic words. Any other man but our hero would have been discouraged in pursuing this course of justification. He however persevered and with the same success. The mental derangement ever attendant on guilt induces him to apply to Mr. Andrew Ellicott, for some testimony in his favour. We have his answer dated 21st January , 1808. Let us see whether it contains a single expression that may be construed into a presumption of innocence—this is his own testimony, and it is so important that I lay it at once before the reader: Lancaster, Jan. 21st, 1808 Sir, In reply to your favour of 16th, I assure you, that during my residence in our southern country I do not recollect to have ever received a hint, that the late Mr. P. Nolan was concerned in any plans or intrigues injurious to the United States. On the contrary, in all our private and confidential conversations, he appeared strongly attached to the interest and welfare of our country. With that candour which is due from one gentleman to another, I shall relate the whole of my agency in the business to which you allude. Mr. Eppes's resolution in some measure removes the injunction of secrecy. |
|
Page
***70*** |
Before I left Philadelphia in the year 1796, as commissioner on behalf of the U, States to carry into effect our treaty with Spain, President Washington communicated to me, in the most confidential manner possible, that suspicions had been signified to him of certain citizens of the U. States, improperly connecting themselves with the Spanish government, among whom you were particularly noticed. He thought it a business of so much importance, both to the honour and safety of the country, as to merit a thorough, though private investigation, and directed me to pay a strict attention to that subject. On my arrival at Cincinnati, it was hinted to me that you had had several interviews, (some of them private, with a Spanish agent. and who it was asserted had brought a considerable sum of money into Kentucky. This information appeared to me at that time to merit no little attention, that I never communicated it to our government, Immediately on my arrival at Natchez, I heard the common reports of the time from Green, Hutchins and others;—they never had any influence on my mind. The doubts and suspicions of colonel Burr and the late Daniel Clark, made some impression, but never so much as to be the subject of communication. About the latter end of May of the beginning of June, in the year 1797, I was minutely informed of the mission of Mr. Power to the states of Kentucky and Tennessee—the object of the mission with the proposition he would make to those states, to induce a separation from the union, and that he was instruct- |
|
***71*** |
ed by the Baron de Carondelet, not to return without having an interview with you. His being so often detained and examined in the states above mentioned, was owing to letters which I had forwarded to some confidential friends for that purpose. Mr. Power left Natchez to effect the object of his mission, on the 5th June 1797, which I believe is he date of my communication to the department of state on that subject. In October 1797, I received (and probably) from the same source, the outlines of a plan for dismembering of the United States, in which your name is mentioned as one of the principals. That the correspondence between yourself and the officers of his catholic majesty, was decyphered by the aid of a pocket dictionary. This circumstance I think is mentioned in my communication (a) to the department of state on that subject, bearing date the 14th day of November, 1797. In the beginning of November, 1798, a confidential letter of governor Gayoso fell into my hands for a short time; in that letter you, with several others, was mentioned as having been in the interest and pay of Spain. The interesting parts of that letter were reduced to cypher, and accompanied my dispatches of the 8th of the month above mentioned. The original is, I presume, in the hands of D. Clark or T. Power. About the 16th October, 1799, capt. Portell, who then commanded at Apalachy, informed me that at New-Madrid, in the year 1796, he put on board a |
|
***72*** |
boat under the direction of Mr. T. Power, 9640 dollars for your use. I questioned him frequently whether this money was not on account of some mercantile transaction, he declared it was not. He likewise mentioned several other gentlemen who received money from the Spanish government by the same conveyance, and assured me that they were considered as pensioners by the officers of his catholic majesty. I entered the 9640 dollars on a piece of paper, (now in my possession,) and handed it to capt. Portell, who told me it was correct. Thus far is one side of the picture. Let us now take a view of the other. So far as your conduct in that country, while we were both employed in it, came under my observation, it was perfectly correct, and such as I could expect from a gentleman and a friend of this country, and is mentioned with eulogium in several of my communications to the department of state. (Signed) I am sir, &c. ANDREW ELLICOTT Gen. James Wilkinson This application was made to Mr. Ellicott at he time the court of inquiry was sitting at Washington. Was his answer communicated to them? I believe not. Had the witness contented himself with presenting the favourable “side of the picture,” had he merely stated that the general's conduct, “as far as it came under his observation was unexceptionable,” his testimony would have been blazoned to the world. But Mr. Ellicott felt too deeply the duty of a con- |
|
***73*** |
scientious witness. In telling the truth he felt himself bound to tell the whole. The rank of the applicant, his favour with the government, could not induce him to pass over in silence those circumstances which in his opinion marked the general's conduct with suspicion, and had excited those of his government, - he has detailed them, and in every point they corroborate the testimony of Mr. Power, and coincide with the other public facts I have laid out before the public. The “SUSPICIONS OF WASHINGTON ARE WIDE AWAKE,” says Wilkinson in his cypher letter to Gayoso. “President Washington communicated to me,” says Mr. Ellicott, “that SUSPICIONS had been signified to him of certain citizens of the United States, improperly connecting themselves with the Spanish government AMONG WHOM YOU (Wilkinson) WERE PARTICULARLY NOTICED.” Again, compare the hints which Mr. Ellicott says he received at the time of Mr. Power's frequent and private interviews with the general, the minute information he received in May or June, 1797 of his mission to Kentucky and Tennessee, his orders from the Baron not to return without an interview with Wilkinson, the impediments he met with, occasioned by the active patriotism of Mr. Ellicott, the confidential letter he perused from Gayoso, the pocket dictionary cypher, and the communication of Mr. Portell—compare these with the testimony of Mr. Power, remark the coincidence of dates and other circumstances—reflect that this proof could not have been obtained but by the agency of Wilkinson himself—and then adore that Providence which thus |
|
***74*** |
leads guilt to produce evidence for its own conviction. All these attempts at exculpation proving abortive, the accusation appearing in a most respectable form, something was necessary to satisfy the public mind—an investigation of some sort must be had; and one of that species was resorted to which offered the greatest facilities to his acquittal: a military court of inquiry must be composed of men intimately connected with the general, and in some degree under his controul, while the want of a compulsory process to procure the attendance of witnesses, it was foreseen would deprive the prosecution of the most material evidence in its support. The result of this inquiry, without intending any reflection on the gentlemen who composed the court, was such as might have been expected. Their sentence expressly states that they had no evidence of the receipt of money from the Spanish government, but the copy of an account current presented by him, (W.) together with several letters from Nolan, The court therefore could give no other sentence then the one they have signed, that there was no evidence (meaning, I suppose, that none had been laid before them) of the general's having received a pension of money for corrupt purposes from the Spanish government, It is extraordinary, however, that none of the documents presented to the court, particularly this all-important account current, have never been laid before the public. They are expressly referred to in the sentence, and as they are essential to the general's justification, as well as to that of the gen- |
|
***75*** |
tlemen, who acquitted him of all suspicion. Has he desired it, doubtless those vouchers would have been published. He has not desired it; and he has important reasons for the omission. Precision is dreadful to guilt; dates and sums are troublesome articles to get rid of; and it is much more convenient to say I have presented a satisfactory account, than to give the items of which it is composed. Though I have not had it in my power to examine the papers presented by general Wilkinson to the court, yet the administration may compare them with the evidence I now produce. If this be done, as I trust it will, without prejudice or partiality, I have not the slightest doubt that evidence may be drawn from them, which will confirm the truth of the charges I have made. On the subject of this inquiry I need not enlarge; it has deceived nobody; it has not removed a single imputation of guilt; and its result was clearly foreseen from the moment of its institution. It gave, however, to general Wilkinson, an opportunity of making and ushering into the world charges on my reputation of the most serious import, which it is one part of my present design to evince were false and malicious. Let me remark, however, before I commence this investigation, on the singularity of the court's permitting witnesses to be examined to discredit a man, who did not appear as a witness before them, and to contradict testimony which they refused to admit, for I take it for granted that my evidence, as laid before the House of Representatives, and |
|
***76*** |
the documents I then produced, were not considered as being before the court, or they could never, with any decent regard to their reputation, have declared in their sentence that there was NO EVIDENCE of the general's having received money for corrupt purposes. I am endeavoured to be discredited— 1st. By an attempt to shew that I continued an intimacy with Wilkinson, inconsistent with a knowledge of his guilt. 2d. That my evidence had been contradicted by other testimony. 3d. That I have before profaned the sanctity of an oath. 4th. That I was concerned in the conspiracy of Burr. Under some of these heads I believe all the public calumnies resorted to by general Wilkinson may be arranged. I shall examine and refute them in their order. It is said, first—That my continuing on terms of intimacy with general Wilkinson, long after the period at which I pretend his guilt was known to me, is an evidence that I had no such knowledge. This argument, however, if it proves anything, proves the homage which the general undesignedly pays to my character. It shews that he thinks it such as to make my associating with a man I knew to be guilty so improbable, as to outweigh the other strong positive testimony ( I do not now speak of my own) against him. If my character were not unblemished, where is the improbability |
|
***77*** |
of my continuing on good terms with him after I knew of his corruption? He appeals, therefore, for his justification, to the purity of that character, which he tacitly acknowledges was unsullied, but which now says has suddenly been forfeited, by a malicious attempt to injure his. Nemo repente fuit turpissimus, is an adage established by long experience; and I should present a singular exception to its truth, if, after passing through poverty and riches, and all the vicissitudes of life, with a reputation, to the excellence of which my most deadly enemy bears his reluctant testimony, I should at once have plunged into the depth of crime, where he wished to persuade the world I am sunk. That my countrymen may fully appreciate both the charge and defence on this head, it will be necessary to state, that although I always had the sincerest attachment to the United States, and frequently pursued their interest to the utter disregard of my own, I could never claim the privileges of a citizen until the year 1798, when the establishment of the American government in the Mississippi Territory below Natches, and an oath of allegiance I then took, gave me a title I had endeavoured by previous services to merit, and which no subsequent conduct has tended to disgrace. Previous to this period, though I had an intimate knowledge of general Wilkinson's treasonable designs, I was under no particular obligation t reveal them. I resided in a Spanish territory, and, though not a subject of Spain, I was employed |
|
***78*** |
and trusted by the Spanish government, and I might have been excusable, if , under those circumstances, I should have regarded Wilkinson's project rather in the light of a revolution, favourable to the government under whose protection I lived, that as a rebellion against his own. Becoming an American citizen, however, I thought it my duty to discover whether this disgraceful connexion continued, and then I had the conversation with general Wilkinson at Loftus's Heights, which is detailed in my affidavit. (a) The result of this (a) Since writing the part of this address which relates to the proof of the fact denied by the general, of his being encamped at Loftus's Heights, and of my stay with him there, I have discovered the following evidence among my uncle's papers, which establish that fact beyond the possibility of doubt. 1st. A letter from general Wilkinson to my uncle, dated “Head Quarters, Loftus's Height Camp, October 23d, 1798," in which he says “I am obliged by your favour of the morning, and congratulate you on the arrival of your nephew, to whom be pleased to present me n terms of affection. I shall look for the pleasure of taking you both by the hand to-morrow.” Now then the general confesses he was in camp on the 23d of October, that I was in the neighborhood, and that he expected me daily. 2d. A letter dated Loftus's Heights, Wednesday, 1st November, in which he says - “When Mr. Clark gets tired of us, I will call and treat you with a ride to the desert.” Here then he confesses I was with him on the 1st of November. And on the 5th of November, by a letter, also dated Camp Loftus's Heights, he says “Well my dear sir, Mr. Clark is off with my courier,” Now then we have my stay of several days at his camp fully proved, under the hand of the very man, who has procured an affidavit to prove that I only remained a day with him, and that he then had no camp. In addition to this, I find a letter of my own to my uncle, dated the 3d November, in which I announce my intention of leaving camp on |
|
***79*** |
was, as I have stated, an acknowledgment of the guilt which he knew I was before acquainted with; but an assurance that the disgraceful connexion should be broken off, an assurance to which I gave credit, and from several years from that period considered him as totally disengaged from the treasonable engagements into which he had entered. Perhaps it was wrong to yield this ready credence to the professions of a man, whose conduct ought to have convinced me that he wanted principle; but when the general's insinuating manners and my comparative youth are considered, it will not I believe be imputed to me as a crime sufficient to destroy my credit, that I should continue with him on terms of civility, for really all the letters which he has adduced amount to no more. At any rate, I feel it as a fault, and I am sure it has been one of the greatest misfortunes of my life, ever to have been numbered among his friends, or even acquainted; but if society in error or misfortune could console me, I should find comfort in the number and the rank of those, who will soon have as much reason as I have to regret the countenance and support they have afforded him. It is next said, that my evidence has been contradicted by other testimony. I have anticipated the answer to one point, which I understand has been much relied on by the general and his friends viz., the encampment, and my stay at Loftus's Heights. the next day. All these original documents are lodged, with those contained in the Appendix, in the hands of the person mentioned in the advertisement prefixed to this work. |
|
***80*** |
My conversation relative to the 10,000 dollars laid out for sugar at New Orleans is also adduced as conclusive proof, that my deposition was not founded in fact. But how futile is this objection! Because I told Mr. Smith and Mr. Alston that I was then convinced gen. Wilkinson had not received this particular sum of money in the year 1804, is it conclusive evidence that I am not to be believed, when I say on oath that he had received other sums in 1796? Let it me remembered, that I had not charged general W. with corrupt receipt of this 10,000 dollars; and even now, tho" I firmly believe the fact, yet I have, as I before stated, no legal evidence on which to ground the charge. The truth is, that in the spring or summer of 1804, after general Wilkinson's departure from New Orleans, on my return from a visit to the country, I was informed by Dr., Watkins, who was then in the confidence of Gov. Claiborne, that general Wilkinson had purchased a cargo of sugar for 10,000 dollars; that it was suspected this money had been received from the Spaniards; and that Gov. Claiborne was desirous of investigating the business, that he might communicate it to the government of the United States. Relying on Wilkinson's assurances to me that the Spanish connection was dropped, and supposing that I should have heard something of it from the officers of that nation then in New Orleans (if the fact had existed) I expressed my disbelief of the report. But Dr. Watkins having resumed the subject to me, I offered to investigate, on condition, that if the re- |
|
|