was. To defend all of Louisiania and the entire length of the Mississippi, Spain had two regiments of regular soldiers, and between Illinois and Mobile there were no more than 5,440 militia, insignificant beside the 80,000 citizen- soldiers ready “to march at a moment’s notice” that the U.S. president was authorized to raise under the 1794 Militia Act. Behind the vast panoply of Spanish imperial power lurked a reality as puny as the Wizard of Oz.
Much of this information came from the magnetic, twenty- six-year- old Philip Nolan, who joined Ellicott on his way down the Mississippi. Characteristic of the dazzling effect Nolan had on all who met him was that Ellicott should have believed he was “strongly attached to the interest and welfare of our country,” while the young man was in fact the bearer of a letter from Wilkinson to Gayoso that read, “Nolan . . . is a child of my own raising, true to his profession, and firm in his attachments to Spain. I consider him a powerful instrument in
Despite the melodrama in Detroit, the pressure to move troops south continued to grow during the summer and fall of 1797. Knowing the frailty of the Spanish defenses and their intention to ignore the treaty, Ellicott begged both Wilkinson and Guion to send forces downriver to secure control of Natchez. In their absence, the town and surrounding district threatened to break up in disorder as competing factions struggled to take over. Despite his lack of official status, Ellicott steered the volatile inhabitants away from violence and, in July, underlined Spain’s weakness by persuading the most influential planters to set up a de facto government on behalf of the United States that took over administration of the district.
In September, Wilkinson blandly told Ellicott, “You have a warm place in my affections . . . and I regret the obstacles you have experienced to the execution of your commission.” But, far from promising support, Wilkinson warned that in the opinion of influential senators Ellicott had “been too stern and peremptory” with the Spanish. The official army position, as Guion informed Ellicott from Chickasaw Bluffs, was that no troops would be moved farther south without direct orders from the general or permission from Gayoso. The general’s attitude was made abundantly clear that summer when he withdrew three companies from a regiment in Tennessee under the command of a fire-eating martinet, Colonel Thomas Butler, who was aggressively protecting farmers against the threat of Indian and Spanish attack.
In exasperation, McHenry tried to counter the effect of the general’s tactics. He wrote directly to Butler, suggesting that he should keep all his men in Tennessee, then to Guion insisting that he move on to Natchez, and finally to Wilkinson demanding that he tell Guion not to let himself be distracted by “any frivolous pretences which may be presented to him on his passage.” McHenry’s attempt to bypass a general’s orders provoked a blistering response. Wilkinson accused McHenry of unwarranted interference by issuing orders “to my subordinates immediately under my eye,” by breaking “the chain of dependence that exists from the ranks to the chief in immediate command,” and by taking action that “could be construed into a want of confidence in my command.” Wrong-footed, McHenry offered an apology, but Wilkinson refused to be mollified. The bullying tone of his letters showed who held the upper hand.
WILKINSON NEVER DOUBTED his hold over the army. What he feared was the sort of political ambush he had mounted against Wayne. Several members of Adams’s Federalist administration, including Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, regarded him with suspicion, not only for his Spanish connection, but as “a Jacobin” and a Republican. In Congress, Humphrey Marshall had finally proved his right to be admitted as Kentucky’s junior senator and was thirsting for vengeance. These enemies knew where the general was most vulnerable, and Wilkinson had good cause to fear the leakiness of Spanish security, especially the confidence placed by Carondelet and Gayoso in the thin- skinned Thomas Power.
Infuriated by the way the general had treated him, Power had in fact approached Daniel Clark Jr., a well- known New Orleans merchant, in October 1797 with damaging information. The Clark family and Wilkinson went back a long way. Clark’s Irish-born uncle, also Daniel, acted as Wilkinson’s New Orleans agent in his first trading scheme in 1787, and both uncle and nephew had represented him in the city until Nolan came south in 1791. In the New Orleans commercial community, the Clarks were recognized as among the city’s most secretive and successful merchants, and in 1795 when the uncle retired to live in Natchez, Daniel Clark Jr. took over the business—and its secrets.
Although a Spanish citizen, Clark had already decided to switch loyalties from Spain to the United States when Power contacted him and was lobbying Ellicott to be made American consul in New Orleans. After consulting his uncle, Clark decided to demonstrate his newfound loyalty to the United States by bringing Power with him to tell Ellicott about the general’s behavior.
In a dispatch sent to Pickering on November 14, 1797, Ellicott described how Power had traveled upriver to confer with members of the conspiracy and with “Gen. Wilkinson at Cincinnati . . . The first object of these plotters is to detach the States of Kentucky and Tenesee [
This information should have destroyed Wilkinson’s career. That it had the opposite effect of strengthening his position was due to the general’s brilliant countermove. With the cool calculation that contrasted so surprisingly with his histrionic behavior, Wilkinson forged a personal link with the unlikeliest of allies, President John Adams.
His means was Little Turtle. Discovering a sudden enthusiasm for Native American ways, Wilkinson sent the Miami chief in late December to meet the president so that he could plead for what was essentially Washington’s old inclusive policy toward the Indians. “Could I be made instrumental in any way to ameliorate the condition of these people,” the general wrote in an accompanying letter, “and to lay the foundation of their permanent prosperity, it would be more acceptable to me than the most distinguished triumph of arms.”
Adams was delighted both by the chief and by the general’s desire to see what was still Federalist policy carried out in the Northwest Territory. “He is certainly a remarkable man,” the president told Wilkinson. “We shall endeavor to make him happy here and contented after his return. I thank you for introducing him to me and for the infomation you have given me concerning him.”
Wilkinson’s real purpose, however, appeared in the letter that he gave the chief to present to Adams. In it, the commander in chief personally informed the president about the rumors that he was being paid by Spain. “I most sincerely wish an inquiry into my conduct military and political. I know, sir, that a sinister connection with Spain is slanderously imputed to me . . . but conscious of my innocence I court inquiry to obtain an opportunity of vindication, which I have amply in my power.”
Adopting the excuse originally prepared for Washington, he explained away the money from New Orleans as payment for tobacco sales or insurance losses. He reminded the president of a conversation at his inauguration when, as a patriot, Wilkinson had sworn he would employ any means in defense of the United States against British attack. He ended with the superb declaration “It is the invisibility of my enemies only which I fear; for while I dare the open assault, I dread the secret stab.”
Adams habitually relied more on his solitary judgment than the advice of his colleagues— a permanent cause of dissension in his administration— and on this occasion, too, he dismissed the doubts of leading members of his cabinet. In his reply he told the general that he had heard many such allegations, especially that Wilkinson was an officer in the Spanish army— “scarcely any man arrives from [the Mississippi] who does not bring the report along with him,” Adams asserted—but that he believed them to be motivated by malice and jealousy. “I esteem your talents, I respect your services and feel an attachment to your person,” he wrote in February 1798. “What measures you may think fit to take to silence the villainous rumours and clamours of your connections with Spain and France I know not; but no violent or military ones will do any good. I shall give no countenance to any imputations unless accusations should come & then you will have room to justify yourself. But I assure you I do not expect that any charge will be seriously made.”
It was an extraordinary endorsement. Effectively it nullified both Ellicott’s warning and any other that might be made to the Adams administration. Yet in reality the president had little room for maneuver. The federal government was still too new to be sure of its power. The previous summer, Senator William Blount of Tennessee had been discovered plotting with the British to seize New Orleans and the Mississippi Valley, but despite the near unanimous vote of his fellow senators that he was guilty of “a high misdemeanour inconsistent with public trust and duty,” he had simply returned to Tennessee and the U.S. government proved powerless to bring him to trial. Any attempt to remove the efficient, popular Wilkinson might also fail and thereby risk causing a mutiny. Speculating
