CHAPTER V

BAYOU PIERRE

I

COLONEL BURR himself was still at Nashville, late in December, completing his arrangements. General Adair had gone riding off to New Orleans; General Jackson had finally made up his mind that there was nothing illicit in the Colonel's projects. Indeed, at the time-whatever his previous intentions or his eventual hopes-Colonel Burr can have had nothing in mind but the Bastrop colony. The news of General Wilkinson's Sabine treaty with the Spaniards had already reached him; he was "sorry for it" and felt that the General should have fought the enemy; but, at all events, he understood that war with Spain was again postponed, he realized, undoubtedly, that General Wilkinson had withdrawn his interest in the Mexican venture, there was nothing that he could do, temporarily, except proceed with his colonization scheme.

After various delays, he set out, therefore, on December 22, to join Mr. Blennerhassett at the mouth of the Cumberland. He took with him some horses

and thirty colonists, one of whom was a nephew of Mrs. Jackson; in the two boats which alone were completed out of the five ordered from General Jackson's yard, receiving seventeen hundred and twentyfive dollars from the General for the unfinished barges. On December 23, he was at the rendezvous, greeted by his aides, Blennerhassett, Tyler and Floyd, and being introduced to the young men who comprised the expedition. The Colonel shook hands with all of them, and told them that such objects of the undertaking as had not already been explained would be imparted to them at a more opportune time. In other words, almost all of them had been enlisted to settle the Bastrop lands, and for no other purpose, and it was useless to talk to them about Mexico for the present. There were perhaps sixty of them, all told, and nine boats-comfortable vessels, roofed over and divided into sleeping and living compartments. In the hold of each were stores and implements for the colony, some necessary arms and ammunition, and one of the rafts carried horses.

Such was the imposing and dread inspiring armada which finally got under way, down the river. A little later, poking its nose out of some convenient creek, perhaps, the boat containing Mr. Vidal and his children went floating by.

2

Ahead of them, unknown to the argonauts, at the end of their journey, lay a Mississippi Territory already preparing for their coming, warned by proclamation of December 23 from Cowles Meade against a conspiracy "directed by men of profound intrigue,”

of which Governor Claiborne had advised him. To say nothing of a province of West Florida arrayed to resist invasion, for at no time do the Spaniards appear to have had any doubts concerning the nature of Colonel Burr's designs. Behind them, they left a panic-stricken, rumor-infested countryside through which the President's proclamation was slowly sifting, to be followed not long after by the report of his messages to Congress. And no better proof can perhaps be found of the fact that Colonel Burr had not intended a forcible separation of the Western States than the expressed unwillingness of those States to be so separated. As soon as the President's charges against Colonel Burr became known, editorial after editorial, resolution after resolution voiced the loyalty to the Union of a profoundly shocked and outraged population. Ohio was in a turmoil, Kentucky was up in arms, Tennessee was in a fury.

Many conflicting opinions exist as to the date on which the proclamation reached Nashville. Some historians have stated that the document was public in that city as early as December 19, others insist that it arrived by courier on December 23, on which day Mr. Graham also is said to have made his unhurried appearance. Mr. Parton, the biographer of Burr and Jackson, has only increased the confusion by supporting both theories-that the proclamation reached Nashville on December 19 in his Aaron Burr, and that it came after Colonel Burr's departure in his Andrew Jackson. There can be no doubt that the document must have reached the capital of Tennessee only after Colonel Burr had gone. It could not conceivably have been kept secret for