Pioneers of the Old Southwest [78]
have been made to gain a respite, or it may have been genuine. The situation in the Tennessee settlements was truly desperate, for neither North Carolina nor Congress apparently cared in the least what befell them or how soon. North Carolina indeed was in an anomalous position, as she had not yet ratified the Federal Constitution. If Franklin went out of existence and the territory which it included became again part of North Carolina, Sevier knew that a large part of the newly settled country would, under North Carolina's treaties, revert to the Indians. That meant ruin to large numbers of those who had put their faith in his star, or else it meant renewed conflict either with the Indians or with the parent State. The probabilities aria that Sevier hoped to play the Spaniards against the Easterners who, even while denying the Westerners' contention that the mountains were a "natural" barrier between them, were making of them a barrier of indifference. It would seem so, because, although this was the very aim of all Miro's activities so that, had he been assured of the sincerity of the offer, he must have grasped at it, yet nothing definite was done. And Sevier was presently informing Shelby, now in Kentucky, that there was a Spanish plot afoot to seize the western country.
Miro had other agents besides McGillivray--who, by the way, was costing Spain, for his own services and those of four tribes aggregating over six thousand warriors, a sum of fifty-five thousand dollars a year. McGillivray did very well as superintendent of massacres; but the Spaniard required a different type of man, an American who enjoyed his country's trust, to bring the larger plan to fruition. Miro found that man in General James Wilkinson, lately of the Continental Army and now a resident of Kentucky, which territory Wilkinson undertook to deliver to Spain, for a price. In 1787 Wilkinson secretly took the oath of allegiance to Spain and is listed in the files of the Spanish secret service, appropriately, as "Number Thirteen." He was indeed the thirteenth at table, the Judas at the feast. Somewhat under middle height, Wilkinson was handsome, graceful, and remarkably magnetic. Of a good, if rather impoverished, Maryland family, he was well educated and widely read for the times. With a brilliant and versatile intellectuality and ready gifts as a speaker, he swayed men easily. He was a bold soldier and was endowed with physical courage, though when engaged in personal contests he seldom exerted it--preferring the red tongue of slander or the hired assassin's shot from behind cover. His record fails to disclose one commendable trait. He was inordinately avaricious, but love of money was not his whole motive force: he had a spirit so jealous and malignant that he hated to the death another man's good. He seemed to divine instantly wherein other men were weak and to understand the speediest and best means of suborning them to his own interests--or of destroying them.
Wilkinson was able to lure a number of Kentuckians into the separatist movement. George Rogers Clark seriously disturbed the arch plotter by seizing a Spanish trader's store wherewith to pay his soldiers, whom Virginia had omitted to recompense. This act aroused the suspicions of the Spanish, either as to Number Thirteen's perfect loyalty or as to his ability to deliver the western country. In 1786, when Clark led two thousand men against the Ohio Indians in his last and his only unsuccessful campaign, Wilkinson had already settled himself near the Falls (Louisville) and had looked about for mischief which he might do for profit. Whether his influence had anything to do with what amounted virtually to a mutiny among Clark's forces is not ascertainable; but, for a disinterested onlooker, he was overswift to spread the news of Clark's debacle and to declare gleefully that Clark's sun of military glory had now forever set. It is also known that he later served other generals treacherously in Indian expeditions and that he intrigued with Mad Anthony Wayne's Kentucky troops against their
Miro had other agents besides McGillivray--who, by the way, was costing Spain, for his own services and those of four tribes aggregating over six thousand warriors, a sum of fifty-five thousand dollars a year. McGillivray did very well as superintendent of massacres; but the Spaniard required a different type of man, an American who enjoyed his country's trust, to bring the larger plan to fruition. Miro found that man in General James Wilkinson, lately of the Continental Army and now a resident of Kentucky, which territory Wilkinson undertook to deliver to Spain, for a price. In 1787 Wilkinson secretly took the oath of allegiance to Spain and is listed in the files of the Spanish secret service, appropriately, as "Number Thirteen." He was indeed the thirteenth at table, the Judas at the feast. Somewhat under middle height, Wilkinson was handsome, graceful, and remarkably magnetic. Of a good, if rather impoverished, Maryland family, he was well educated and widely read for the times. With a brilliant and versatile intellectuality and ready gifts as a speaker, he swayed men easily. He was a bold soldier and was endowed with physical courage, though when engaged in personal contests he seldom exerted it--preferring the red tongue of slander or the hired assassin's shot from behind cover. His record fails to disclose one commendable trait. He was inordinately avaricious, but love of money was not his whole motive force: he had a spirit so jealous and malignant that he hated to the death another man's good. He seemed to divine instantly wherein other men were weak and to understand the speediest and best means of suborning them to his own interests--or of destroying them.
Wilkinson was able to lure a number of Kentuckians into the separatist movement. George Rogers Clark seriously disturbed the arch plotter by seizing a Spanish trader's store wherewith to pay his soldiers, whom Virginia had omitted to recompense. This act aroused the suspicions of the Spanish, either as to Number Thirteen's perfect loyalty or as to his ability to deliver the western country. In 1786, when Clark led two thousand men against the Ohio Indians in his last and his only unsuccessful campaign, Wilkinson had already settled himself near the Falls (Louisville) and had looked about for mischief which he might do for profit. Whether his influence had anything to do with what amounted virtually to a mutiny among Clark's forces is not ascertainable; but, for a disinterested onlooker, he was overswift to spread the news of Clark's debacle and to declare gleefully that Clark's sun of military glory had now forever set. It is also known that he later served other generals treacherously in Indian expeditions and that he intrigued with Mad Anthony Wayne's Kentucky troops against their