Kitabı oku: «An American Patrician, or The Story of Aaron Burr», sayfa 10
“We are fully agreed, I find. To-morrow I start for Natchez; you are to follow in two weeks, you say?”
“Yes,” responds Aaron. “There should be months of travel ahead, before my arrangements are perfected. I must meet Adair in Kentucky, Smith in Ohio, Harrison in Indiana, Jackson in Tennessee; besides visit New Orleans, and arrange about those eight hundred thousand Washita acres. In my running about, I shall see you many times, and confer with you as questions come up.”
“I shall meet you at Fort Massac on the Ohio. Don’t forget two several matters: The enterprise will lick up gold like fire. Also, that in the civil as well as the military control of the empire, I’m to be second to no one save yourself.”
“I shall forget nothing. Speaking of money, I sell Richmond Hill to-morrow for twenty-five thousand dollars. The deeds are drawn and signed.”
“Oh, we shall find money enough,” returns Wilkinson contentedly. “Only it’s well never to lose sight of the fact that we’re going to need it. Clark, as I say, will plunge in for something handsome – something that should call for six figures in its measure. As to my rank of generalissimo, second only to yourself, it is all I could ask. Popularly,” concludes Wilkinson, preparing to take his leave – “popularly, I shall be known as ‘Wilkinson the Deliverer.’ Coming, as I shall, at the head of those gallant conquering armies which are to relieve the groaning Mexicans from the yoke of Spain, I think it a natural and an appropriate title – ‘Wilkinson the Deliverer!’”
“Not only an appropriate title,” observes the courtly Aaron, who remembers his generalissimo’s recent loyalty to the whisky bottle, “but admirably adapted to fill the trump of fame.”
The door closes on the broad back of the coming “Deliverer.” As Aaron again bends over his “Empire,” he hears that personage’s footsteps, uncertain by virtue of much drink, and proudly martial at the glorious prospect before him, go shuffling down the corridor of the Indian Queen.
“Bah!” mutters Aaron; “Jack Swartwout was right. It is both dangerous and disgusting to build a great design on the trustless foundation of this conceited, treacherous sot. And yet, such is the irony of my situation, I am unable to do otherwise. At that, I shall manage him. Oh, if Jefferson were only of the right viking sort! But, no; a creature of abstractions, bookshelves and alcoves! – a closet philosopher in whose veins runs no drop of red aggressive fighting blood! – he would as soon think of treason as of conquest, and, indeed, might readily fall into the error of imagining they spell the same thing. Besides, he hates me for that presidential tie of four years ago. The plain offspring of his own unpopularity, he none the less leaves it on my doorstep as the natural child of my intrigues. No! I must watch Jefferson, not trust him. His judgment is ever valet to his hatreds. He would call the most innocent act a crime, prove white black, for the privilege of making Aaron Burr an outlaw.”
CHAPTER XVIII – THE TREASON OF WILKINSON
NOW begin days crowded on new faces and new scenes. Aaron ascends the Potomac, and crosses the mountains to Pittsburg. He buys a cabined flatboat and floats down to Marietta. They tell him of Blennerhassett, romantic, eccentric, living on an island below. He visits the island; the lord of the isle is absent, but his spouse, broad, thick, genial, not beautiful, welcomes him and bids him come again.
Aaron goes to Cincinnati, and confers with Senator Smith; to Louisville, where he meets General Adair; then cross country to Nashville to find General Jackson – his friend of a Senate day when he, Aaron, served colleague to the kiln-dried Rufus King.
Everywhere Aaron is the honored guest at barbecue and banquet. Processions march; balls are given to his glory. There are roasting of oxen, drinking of corn whisky, rosining of bows and scraping of catgut; and all after the hearty fashion of the West, when once it gets a hero in its clutches.
To Adair and Smith and the lean Jackson, Aaron lays out his purpose of Southwestern conquest. These stark worthies go with him heart and soul. Each hates the Spaniard with a Saxon’s hate; each is a Francis Drake at bottom. Their hot concern in what he is upon, fairly overruns the verbal pace of Aaron in its telling. Only, he is half-secret, and does not make clear those elements of throne and crown and scepter. It will leave them less over which to hesitate, he thinks; for he perceives that he deals with folk who are congenital republicans.
The lean Jackson, even more heartily than do the others, enters into Aaron’s plans. He declares that the best blood of Tennessee shall follow him. In the long talks they have at the Hermitage, Aaron implants in Jackson a Southwestern impulse which, in its deeds, will find victorious culmination thirty years later at San Jacinto. In that day, Jackson himself will occupy the chair now held by Jefferson.
Being no prophet, but only a restless, strong, ambitious man, Aaron does not foresee that day of Jackson in the White House, San Jacinto, and Sam Houston – the latter just now a lad of thirteen, and hidden away in his ancestral woods. Full of hope, Aaron goes diligently forward with his sowing, the harvest whereof those others are to reap. He lays the bedplates of an empire truly; but not his empire – not the empire of Aaron I, with Aaron II to follow him. He will be tottering on the grave’s edge in a day of San Jacinto; and yet his age-chilled heart will warm at the news of it, and know it for his work.
Aaron leaves Jackson, drifts down the Cumberland to the Ohio, and meets Wilkinson, who – nose as red, with whisky-fuddled soul – is as much in ardent arms as ever. Wilkinson cannot greet him too warmly. The only change perceivable in our corn-soaked warrior is a doubt as to whether, instead of “Wilkinson the Deliverer,” he might not better fill the wondering measure of futurity as “Washington of the West.” Both titles are full of majesty – a thing important to a taste streaked of rum – but the latter possesses the more alliterative roll. The red-nosed Wilkinson says finally that he will keep the question of title in abeyance, committing himself to neither, with a possibility of adopting both.
Aaron regains his cabined flatboat, and follows the current eight hundred miles to Natchez. Later he drifts away to New Orleans. The latter city is a bubbling community of nine thousand souls – American, Spanish, French. It runs as socially wild over Aaron as did those ruder, up-the-river regions; although, proving its civilization, it scrapes a more delicate fiddle and declines the greasy barbecue enormities of a whole roast ox.
The Englishman Clark strikes hands with Aaron for the coming empire. It is agreed that, with rank next to son-in-law Alston’s, Clark shall be of the grandees. Also, Aaron makes the acquaintance of the Bishop of New Orleans, and the pair dispatch three Jesuit brothers to Mexico to spy out the land. For the Spanish rule, as rapacious as tyrannous, has not fostered the Church, but robbed it. Under Aaron I, the Church shall not only be protected, but become the national Church.
Leaving New Orleans, Aaron returns by an old Indian trace to Nashville, keeping during the journey a sharp lookout for banditti who rob and kill along the trail. Coming safe, he is welcomed by the lean Jackson, whom he sets building bateaux for conveying the Tennessee contingent to the coming work.
Leaving Jackson busy with saw and adz and auger over flatboats, Aaron heads north for the island dwelling of Blennerhassett. In the fortnight he spends with that muddled exile, he wins him – life and fortune. Blennerhassett is weak, forceless, a creature of dreams. Under spell of the dominating Aaron, he sees with the eyes, speaks with the mouth, feels with the heart of that strong ambitious one. Blennerhassett will be a grandee. As such he must go to England, ambassador for the Empire of Mexico, bearing the letters of Aaron I. He takes joy in picturing himself at the court of St. James, and hears with the ear of anticipation the exclamatory admiration of his Irish friends.
“Ay! they’ll change their tune!” cries Blennerhassett, as he considers his greatness to come. “It should open their Irish eyes, for sure, when they meet me as ‘Don Blennerhassett, grandee of the Mexican Empire, Ambassador to St. James by favor of his Imperial Majesty, Aaron I.’ It’ll cause my surly kinfolk to sing out of the other corners of their mouths; for I cannot remember that they’ve been over-respectful to me in the past.”
Aaron recrosses the mountains, and descends the Potomac to Washington. He dines with Jefferson, and relates his adventures, but hides his plans. No whisper of empire and emperors at the great democrat’s table! Aaron is not so horn-mad as all that.
While Aaron is in Washington, the stubborn Swartwout comes over. As the fruits of the conference between him and his chief, the stubborn one returns, and sends his brother Samuel, young Ogden, and Dr. Bollman to Blennerhassett. Also, the lustrous Theo and little Aaron Burr Alston join Aaron; for the princess mother of the heir presumptive, as well as the sucking emperor himself, is to go with Aaron when he again heads for the West. There will be no return – the lustrous Theo and the heir presumptive are to accompany the expedition of conquest. Son-in-law Alston, who will be chief of the grandees and secretary of state, promises to follow later. Just now he is trying to negotiate a loan on his plantations; and making slow work of it, because of Jefferson’s interference with the exportation of rice.
Madam Blennerhassett welcomes the princess mother with wide arms, and kisses the heir presumptive. Aaron decides to make the island a present headquarters. Leaving the lustrous Theo and the heir presumptive to Madam Blennerhassett, he indulges in swift, darting journeys, west and north and south. He arranges for fifteen bateaux, each to carry one hundred men, at Marietta. He crosses to Nashville to talk with Jackson, and note the progress of that lean filibusterer with the Cumberland flotilla. What he sees so pleases him that he leaves four thousand dollars – a royal sum! – with the lean Jackson, to meet initial charges in outfitting the Tennessee wing of the great enterprise.
Aaron goes to Chillicothe and talks to the Governor of Ohio. Returning, he drops over to the little huddle of huts called Cannonsburg. There he forms the acquaintance of an honest, uncouth personage named Morgan, who is eaten up of patriotism and suspicion. Morgan listens to Aaron, and decides that he is a firebrand of treason about to set the Ohio valley in a blaze. He writes these flaming fears to Jefferson – as suspicious as any Morgan!
Having aroused Morgan the wrong way,
Aaron descends to New Orleans and makes payment on those eight hundred thousand acres along the Washita. Following this real estate transaction, he hunts up the whisky-reddened Wilkinson, and offers a suggestion. As commander in chief, Wilkinson might march a brigade into the Spanish country on the Sabine, and tease and tempt the Castilians into a clash. Aaron argues that, once a brush occurs between the Spaniards and the United States, a war fury will seize the country, and furnish an admirable background of sentiment for his own descent upon Mexico. Wilkinson, full of bottle valor, receives Aaron’s suggestion with rapture, and starts for the Sabine. Wilkinson safely off for the Sabine, to bring down the desired trouble, Aaron again pushes up for Blennerhassett and that exile’s island.
While these important matters are being thus set moving war-wise, the soft-witted Blennerhassett is not idle. He writes articles for the papers, descriptive of Mexico, which he pictures as a land flowing with milk and honey. During gaps in his milk-and-honey literature, the coming ambassador buys pork and flour and corn and beans, and stores them on the island. They are to feed the expedition, when it shoves forth upon the broad Ohio in those fifteen Marietta bateaux.
Aaron gets back to the island. Accompanied by the lustrous Theo and Blennerhassett, he goes to Lexington. While there, word reaches him that Attorney Daviess, acting for the government by request of Jefferson, has moved the court at Frankfort for an order “commanding the appearance of Aaron Burr.” The letter of the suspicious Morgan to the suspicious Jefferson has fallen like seed upon good ground.
Aaron does not wait; taking with him Henry Clay as counsel, he repairs to Frankfort as rapidly as blue grass horseflesh can travel. Going into court, Aaron, with Henry Clay, routs Attorney Daviess, who intimates but does not charge treason. The judge, the grand jury, and the public give their sympathies to Aaron; following his exoneration, they promote a ball in his honor.
Recruits begin to gather; the fifteen Marietta bateaux approach completion. Aaron dispatches Samuel Swartwout and young Ogden with letters to the red-nosed, necessary Wilkinson, making mad the Spaniards on the Sabine. Also Adair and Bollman take boat for New Orleans. When Swartwout and young Ogden have departed, Aaron resumes his Marietta preparations, urging speed with those bateaux.
Swartwout reaches the red-nosed Wilkinson, and delivers Aaron’s letters. These missives find the red-nosed one in a mixed mood. His cowardice and native genius for treachery, acting lately in concert, have built up doubts within him. There are bodily perils, sure to attend upon the conquest of Mexico, which the rednosed one now hesitates to face. Why should he face them? Would he not get as much from Jefferson for betraying Aaron? He might, by a little dexterous mendacity, make the Credulous Jefferson believe that Aaron meditates a blow not at Mexico but the United States. It would permit him, the red-nosed one, to pose as the saviour of his country. And as the acknowledged saviour of his country, what might not he demand? – what might not he receive? Surely, a saved country, even a saved republic, would not be ungrateful!
The red-nosed one’s genius for treachery being thus addressed, he sends posthaste to Jefferson. He warns him that a movement is abroad to break up the Union. Every State west of the Alleghenies is to be in the revolt. Thus declares the treacherous red-nosed one, who thinks it the shorter cut to that coveted title, “Wilkinson the Deliverer, Washington of the West.” Besides, there will be the glory and sure emolument! Wilkinson the red-nosed, thinks on these things as he goes plunging Aaron and his scheme of empire into ruin.
While these wonders are working in the West, Aaron, wrapped in ignorance concerning them, is driving matters with a master’s hand at Marietta and the island. The fifteen bateaux are still unfinished, when he resolves, with sixty of his people, to go down to Natchez. There are matters which call to him in connection with those Washita eight hundred thousand acres. Besides, he desires a final word with the red-nosed Wilkinson.
At Bayou Pierre, a handful of miles above Natchez, Aaron hears of a Jefferson proclamation. The news touches his heart as with a finger of frost. Folk say the proclamation recites incipient treason in the States west of the Alleghenies, and warns all men not to engage therein on peril of their necks. About the same time comes word that the red-nosed, treacherous Wilkinson has caused the arrest of Adair, Dr. Boll-man, Samuel Swartwout, and young Ogden, and shipped them, per schooner, to Baltimore, to answer as open traitors to the State. Aaron requires all his fortitude to command himself.
The Governor of Mississippi grows excited; he feels the heroic need of doing something. He hoarsely orders out certain companies of militia; after which he calls into counsel his attorney general.
The latter potentate advises eloquence before powder and ball. He believes that treason, black and lowering, is abroad, the country’s integrity threatened by the demonaic Aaron. Still, he has faith in his own sublime powers as an orator. He tells the governor that he can talk the treason-mongering Aaron into tameness. At this the governor – nobly willing to risk and, if need press, sacrifice his attorney general on the altars of a common good – bids him try what he can eloquently do.
The confident attorney general goes to Aaron, where that would-be conqueror is lying, at Bayou Pierre. He sets forth what a fatal mistake it would be, were Aaron to lock military horns with the puissant territory of Mississippi. Common prudence, he says, dictates that Aaron surrender without a struggle, and come into court and be tried.
Aaron makes not the least objection. He goes with the attorney general, and, pending investigation by the grand jurors, is enthusiastically hailed by rich planters of the region, who sign for ten thousand dollars.
The grand jurors, following the example of those others of the blue grass, find Aaron an innocent, ill-used individual. They order his honorable release, and then devote themselves, with heartfelt diligence, to indicting the governor for illicitly employing the militia. Cool counsel intervenes, however, and the grand jurors, not without difficulty, are convinced that the governor intended no wrong. Thereupon they content themselves with grimly warning that official to hereafter let “honest settlers” coming into the country alone. Having discharged their duty in the premises, the grand jurors lapse into private life and the governor draws a long breath of relief.
Aaron procures a copy of Jefferson’s anti-treason proclamation. The West will snap derisive fingers at it; but New England and the East are sure to be set on edge. The proclamation itself is enough to cripple his enterprise of empire. Added to the treachery of the rednosed Wilkinson, it makes such empire for the nonce impossible. The proclamation does not name him; but Aaron knows that the dullest mind between the oceans will supply the omission.
There is nothing else for it. The mere thought is gall and wormwood; and yet Aaron’s dream must vanish before what stubborn conditions confront him.
As a best move toward extricating himself from the tangle into which the perfidy of the red-nosed one has forced him, Aaron decides to go to Washington. He informs the leading spirits about him of his purpose, mounts the finest horse to be had for money, and sets out.
It is a week later. One Perkins meets Aaron at the Alabama village of Wakeman. The thoroughbred air of the man on the thoroughbred horse sets Perkins to thinking. After ten minutes’ study, Perkins is flooded of a great light.
“Aaron Burr!” he cries, and rushes off to Fort Stoddart.
Perkins, out of breath, tells his news to Captain Gaines. Two hours later, as Aaron comes riding down a hill, he is met by Captain Gaines and a sober file of soldiers.
The captain salutes:
“You are Colonel Burr,” he says. “I arrest you by order of President Jefferson. You must go with me to Fort Stoddart, where you will be treated with the respect due one who has honorably filled the second highest post of Government.”
“Sir,” responds Aaron, unruffled and superior, “I am Colonel Burr. I yield myself your prisoner; since, with the force at your command, it is not possible to do otherwise.” Aaron rides with Captain Gaines to the fort. As the two dismount at the captain’s quarters, a beautiful woman greets them.
“This is my wife, Colonel Burr,” says Captain Gaines. Then, to Madam Gaines: “Colonel Burr will be our guest at dinner.”
Aaron, the captain, and the beautiful Madam Gaines go in to dinner. Two sentries with fixed bayonets march and countermarch before the door. Aaron beholds in them the sign visible that his program of empire, which has cost him so much and whereon his hopes were builded so high, is forever thrust aside. Smooth, polished, deferential, brilliant – the beautiful Madam Gaines says she has yet to meet a more fascinating man! Aaron is never more steadily composed, never more at polite ease than now when power and empire vanish for all time.
“You appreciate my position, sir,” says Captain Gaines, as they rise from the table. “I trust you do not blame me for performing my duty.”
“Sir,” returns Aaron, with an acquiescent bow, “I blame only the hateful, thick stupidity of Jefferson, and my own criminal dullness in trusting a scoundrel.”
