An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson (59 page)

65 For JW’s Philadelphia distractions, see Hay,
Admirable Trumpeter.

66 “Is it not a possible Thing to revive”: General Huntington to Jeremiah Wadsworth, May 5, 1780, quoted in Royster, “Nature of Treason.”

67 For the profound shock of Arnold’s treason, see Royster, “Nature of Treason.” Next to Washington himself, no one could be thought more patriotic. In 1776, Mercy Otis Warren thought “the name of Washington and Arnold [would be linked] to the latest posterity, with the laurel on their brow.”

67 “Address of Confidence”: Jacobs,
Tarnished Warrior
, 62.

68 “Direct the Commander-in Chief”: New York’s 1780 petition cited by Baack, “Forging a Nation State.”

68 “I should be wanting in Personal Candour”: JW to Samuel Huntington, president of Congress, March 27, 1781, PCC.

69 “I think General Wilkinson too desponding”: Reed to General Lacy, commander of the Pennsylvania militia, quoted in Hay,
Admirable Trumpeter
, 52.

69 “It is a pity so good an officer is lost to the service”: Nathanael Greene to Clement Biddle, June 26, 1780, quoted in Reed,
Life and Correspondence.

69 without “cash or credit”: Wilkinson to Henry Lee, quoted in Davis, “By Invitation of Mrs. Wilkinson,” 156.

C
HAPTER 7:
T
HE
K
ENTUCKY
P
IONEER

For JW’s early years in Kentucky, the Harry Innes Papers are indispensable. Yet the chaos of land titles as illustrated in Abernethy,
Western Lands and the American Revolution
; Aron,
How the West Was Lost
; Sakolski,
Great American Land Bubble
; and Dunaway, “Speculators and Settler Capitalists”— allied to JW’s habitual exaggeration—lend mystery to his speculations.

71 “The vallies are of the richest soil”: John William de Braham, “De Braham’s Account,” in
Early Travels in the Tennessee Country: 1540–1800
, ed. Samuel Cole Williams ( Johnson City, TN, 1928).

71 “more frequent than I have seen cattle in the settlements”: “The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boon,” in John Filson,
The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of
Kentucké
(Wilmington: James Adams, 1784).

71 “The country might invite a prince” quoted in Archibald Henderson,
The Conquest
of the Old Southwest etc
,
1740–1790
(New York: Century, 1920).

72 “A person not quite tall enough”: Humphrey Marshall,
History of Kentucky
, 1:165.

72 For JW’s links to Hugh Shiell, see Hay, “Letters of Mrs. Ann Biddle Wilkinson.” 73 JW’s “wonderful address” in borrowing money: William Leavy, “A Memoir of Lexington and Its Vicinity,”
Kentucky Historical Society Register
40 (April 1942).

73 JW’s traveling hardships were described in “Letters of General James Wilkinson,”

Kentucky Historical Society Register
24 (September 1926).

73 John Lewis dealings: July 3, 1784, agreement with JW for locating land, John Lewis papers,
First American West:The Ohio River Valley, 1750–1820,
LoC.

73 “Be sure you bring a double stock of great variety”: JW to Scott, July 4, 1784, ibid.

74 “Our country is now a continued Flower Bed”: JW to Scott, quoted in Hay,
Admirable
Trumpeter
, 62.

74 “It is impossible for me to describe the torture,” “I feel so Stupid”: Ann Wilkinson to John Biddle, February 14, 1788, Hay, “Letters of Mrs. Ann Biddle Wilkinson.”

74 A detailed study of Kentucky’s chaotic system of land registration and confusion over multiple claims appears in Wilma A. Dunaway, “Speculators and Settler Capitalists,” in
Appalachia in the Making: The Mountain South in the Nineteenth Century
(University of North Carolina Press, 1995). In 1821 Judge Joseph Story attributed the confusion to the decision to allow settlers to appropriate land “by entries and descriptions of their own, without any previous survey under public authority, and without any such boundaries as were precise, permanent, and unquestionable.” “An address delivered before Members of the Suffolk Bar” (Boston, 1829).

76 “And when arrivd at this Heaven in idea”: “Memorandum of M. Austin’s Journey from the Lead Mines in the County of Wythe in the State of Virginia to the Lead Mines in the Province of Louisiana, 1796–1797,”
American Historical Review
5 (1899–1900): 525–26.

76 “The titles in Kentucky w[ill] be Disputed for a Century”: Quoted in Dunaway, “Speculators and Settler Capitalists.”

76 “under the necessity of employing about £40 of your cash”: JW to Shiell, “Letters of James Wilkinson.”

76 “far from affluent”:
Memoirs
, 2:109.

77 The many Danville conventions were made necessary by the impossibility of achieving any agreement between the large speculator settlers and the smaller landholders whose titles were less secure. The arguments could be as fierce as they were inscrutable.

77 “There is nothing which binds one country”: GW to Richard Henry Lee, August 22, 1785, GWP.

77 “The People of Kentucky alone,” “I pleased myself”: JW to James Hutchinson, “Letters of James Wilkinson.”

78 “They shall be Informed”: JW to unknown correspondent, April 1786, quoted in Hay,
Admirable Trumpeter
, 77.

79 “throw them into the hands eventually of a foreign power”: James Monroe to James Madison, quoted in Harry Ammon,
James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity
(Richmond: University of Virginia Press, 1990).

79 “this country will in a few years Revolt”: Harry Innes to Patrick Henry, quoted in Linklater,
Fabric of America
, 98.

79 “an outrage . . . generally disavowed”: JW to Francisco Cruzat, quoted in Whitaker, “James Wilkinson’s First Descent to New Orleans in 1787.”

C
HAPTER 8:
S
PANISH
T
EMPTATION

From the moment that JW descended to New Orleans, his actions become the subject of at least three differently motivated accounts: JW’s version in volume 2 of his
Memoirs
, designed to demonstrate his patriotism; Daniel Clark’s
Proofs of the Corruption of
General James Wilkinson and His Connexion to Aaron Burr,
composed, as the title suggests, to prove the opposite; and the relevant legajos in the
Papeles Procedentes de Cuba
, together with some other documents in the Archivo General de Indias, written in triplicate to show that JW’s influence and information were being used to Spain’s best advantage. Apart from those already cited, the later historians involved are William Shepherd, an early pioneer in the Spanish archives, Isaac Joslin Cox, and Arthur P. Whitaker.

81 “a considerable annual supply of tobacco”:
Memoirs
, 2:113.

82 “thence round the western shores of Lakes Erie and Huron”: John Jay’s account of negotiations with the Spanish envoy Count d’Arande in Paris in July 1782, quoted in
The Life of John Jay: With selections from his correspondence and miscellaneous
papers by his son, William Jay
(1833: repr. 2000), Bridgewater, VA: American Foundation Publications, 2:472.

82 JW’s first journey to New Orleans: Arthur P. Whitaker, “James Wilkinson’s First Descent to New Orleans in 1787,”
Hispanic American Historical Review
8, no. 1 (February 1928).

83 Humboldt’s estimate might have been too low; silver production in Mexico mint in 1783 is estimated to have been 23.1 million pesos in Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein,
Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003).

83 Navarro’s dispatch dated September 25, 1780, No. 23, cited in Whitaker, “The Commerce of Louisiana and the Floridas at the End of the Eighteenth Century.” See also Navarro to Marquis de la Sonora, minister for the treasury and the Indies: “The only way to check them [the Americans] is with a proportionate population, and it is not by imposing commercial restrictions that this population is to be acquired, but by granting a prudent expansion and freedom of trade.” February 12, 1787, quoted in Gayarré,
History of Louisiana
.

84 Miró and Navarro to Antonio de Valdes y Bazan, September 25, 1787,
Papeles de
Cuba,
legajo 3893A, cited in Shepherd, “Wilkinson and the Beginnings of the Spanish Conspiracy.” This document, given the number 13
reservado
(secret) among papers sent to Madrid by Miró and Navarro, gave rise to JW’s
nom d’espionnage
. In another document from Navarro to the king, dated April 30, 1789, JW is referred to as “a person endowed with high talents, and in whom the aforesaid [western] settlements have placed their hope of future happiness; and he informed the governor and myself that it was the intention of all to put themselves under the protection or vassalage of his Catholic Majesty.” Museo-Biblioteca de Ultramar, Madrid,
Papeles relativos á la I.uisiana
, vol. 3, quoted Shepherd, “Wilkinson and the Beginnings.” The reference to Kentucky being prepared to seek protection as “vassals” of the Spanish king was the major difference between the “First Memorial” as sent to Madrid and as referred to later by JW.

84 “He is a young man”: Miró and Navarro, document No. 13.

84 “Negroes, live Stock, tobacco”: JW’s “First Memorial,” document No. 13.

85 “First Memorial”: Document No. 13.

86 Instruction to McIlvain: May 10, 1790, Harry Innes Papers, LoC.

86 “[Self]- interest regulates the passions of Nations”: document No. 13.

87 “the prediction of our transatlantic foe!”: Washington to James Madison, November 5, 1786, GWP.

88 “one of the most complex ciphers”: Document No. 13.

88 “be rewarded generously”: Ibid.

89 “I have look’d for my Wilkinson”: quoted in Hay, “Letters of Mrs. Ann Biddle Wilkinson.” See the same source for her circumstances in Kentucky.

90 “your business was so pressing”: Washington to JW, February 20, 1788. As was his habit, JW had sent Washington a present of seeds and “Indian fabricks.” The rise in prices following JW’s visit is vouched for by Daniel Clark in testimony to the House of Representatives, January 11, 1808,
Annals of Congress
(AC).

90 “My much esteemed and honored friend”: JW to Miró, quoted Gayarré,
History
of Louisiana
, 242.

91 For the New Orleans fire, see Gayarré,
History of Louisiana
, 204.

91 “you cannot be at a loss to know”: Dunn to Wilkinson, June 15, 1788,Wilkinson Papers, vol. 1, Chicago Historical Society.

91 JW’s profits were presented by Daniel Clark in
Proofs of the Corruption of General
James Wilkinson
, 55.

91 “It is exceedingly important”: Miró to Valdes, August 28, 1788, quoted in Gayarré,
History of Louisiana
, 219.

C
HAPTER 9:
C
ASH AND
C
ONSPIRACY

The spread of the Spanish Conspiracy was guessed at in 1824 by Humphrey Marshall in his
History of Kentucky
and given considerable substance in 1867 by Charles Gayarré’s
History of Louisiana
, written with the assistance of some Spanish documents discovered in Baton Rouge. But William Shepherd first found the documents in Madrid and Seville originally sent by Miró that provided proof of the conspiracy’s existence.

93 “the mischief that might arise from vexing him”: Miró to Valdes, June 15, 1788, legajo 3893A.

94 “The consequences of depending on a body”: JW to Miró, February 12, 1789, legajo 3893A, quoted in Gayarré,
History of Louisiana
, 224–26.

94 “This affair progresses more rapidly”: Miró to Valdes, November 3, 1788, ibid.