General assured Governor Claiborne that the safety of the Territory was seriously menaced; but nothing happened. Almost the Governor may have been prepared to believe what Cowles Meade had suggested in November, that "General Wilkinson is the soul of the conspiracy. Is New Orleans in

vaded? Is it threatened

is concentrating the whole military force of the United States at New Orleans.

What is all

this for? Is it to act for you or against you?"

But on December 6, the General finally told the Governor what it was for. "The dangers," he notified him, "which impend over this city . . from an unauthorized and formidable association must be successfully opposed at this point, or the fair fabric of our independence will be prostrated, and

the Goddess of Liberty will take her flight from this globe forever. Extraordinary measures must be resorted to and the ordinary form of civil institutions must for a short period yield to the strong arm of military law. . . I most earnestly entreat you to proclaim martial law over the city," otherwise "the defects of my force may expose me to be overwhelmed by numbers, and the cause and place will be lost." And the militia would be of no use for

"you could not . . withstand the desperation and superiority of numbers. . . and the brigands might resort to the dreadful expedient of exciting a revolt of the negroes.'

And the next day he wrote again. "Proclaim martial law. I must entreat you to act with Our measures must be taken with

decision.

promptitude..

for I apprehend Burr with re

Original in the possession of the New York Public Library.

FACSIMILE OF AARON BURR'S SKETCH MAP OF THE BASTROP GRANT

bellious bands may soon be at hand." Always these brigands, these rebellious bands, these overwhelming thousands descending upon the devoted city-just as later, at Washington, Mr. Jefferson had shouted treason and had to keep on shouting it, so at New Orleans, General Wilkinson had bellowed rebellion and had to keep on bellowing it. And to play his melodrama properly, he must have martial law. But Governor Claiborne would not give him martial law. The Legislature was not in session, and preparatory to martial law, he told Cowles Meade, "the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus would be necessary." He would summon the militia, but "as to martial law, I shall not proclaim it."

So matters stood on December 9, when the members of the Chamber of Commerce were finally summoned to Government House to be told what all the uproar was about. With Mr. Lanusse presiding, Governor Claiborne explained the emergency, whereupon General Wilkinson outlined the "base plot' in which the desperate conspirators had tried to involve him, but without success-and there he was to defend the city against the onslaught of unnumbered rebels and to sacrifice himself, if needs be, in the cause of patriotism and duty. It was all going to be very dreadful unless they took the most stringent measures to assist him; and if he had not told them before, it was because the hero was afraid of being assassinated. The merchants were mildly impressed, and voted an embargo on shipping, so that sailors might be free to enlist in the navy.

"I am here," the General wrote to Daniel Clark the next day, to defend "our darling city and poor

devoted Louisiana" against "revolution and pillage by a hand I have loved." But he must have martial law. "For heaven's sake take decisive measures to raise the sailors required," he urged the Governor on December 12; but Governor Claiborne replied that "many good disposed citizens do not appear to think the danger considerable, and there are others who endeavor to turn our preparations into ridicule;" the people were beginning to laugh at General Wilkinson, and on December 15 he was bellowing again.

"Having put my life and character in opposition to the flagitious enterprise," he informed his colleague, "of one of the ablest men of our country, supported by a crowd of co-equals, ceremony would be unseasonable and punctillio unprofitable. Pardon the honest candor which circumstances require and my situation demands, when I observe that with the most upright intention you suffer yourself to be unduly biased by the solicitations of the timid, the capricious or the wicked. What will our alertness import, without force and energy to support it? And can we be prepared without means? Shall our reverence for our civil institutions produce their annihilation, or shall we lose the house because we will not break the windows?"

5

But General Wilkinson had already started in to break the windows, and the reign of terror had begun. Mr. Swartwout and Mr. Ogden had been arrested, at Fort Adams on December 12; Doctor Bollmann in the city, on December 14. They had all three been placed aboard the bomb ketch Etna, in close con