While Burr was writing this letter, Jefferson was signing a document that, when sent forth, as it immediately was, ignited all the rumors, reports, accusations, and suspicions that had been accumulating, and set the country on fire with wrath against the disturber of our national bliss.
When Wilkinson received Burr's cipher dispatch, he took time to consider the best methods for saving himself, filling his purse, and brightening his tarnished reputation.[871] The faithful and unsuspecting young Swartwout, Burr's messenger, was persuaded to remain in Wilkinson's camp for a week after the delivery of the fatal letter. He was treated with marked friendliness, and from him the General afterward pretended to have extracted frightful details of Burr's undertaking.[872]
Seven more days passed, and at last, two weeks after he had received Burr's cipher dispatch, Wilkinson wrote Jefferson that "a Numerous and powerful Association, extending from New York to ... the Mississippi had been formed to levy & rendezvous eight or Ten Thousand Men in New Orleans ... & from thence ... to carry an Expedition against Vera Cruz." Wilkinson gave details--dates and places of assembling troops, methods of invasion, etc., and added: "It is unknown under what Authority this Enterprize has been projected, from where the means of its support are derived, or what may be the intentions of its leaders in relation to the Territory of Orleans."[873]
Surprising as this was, the General supported it by a "confidential" and personal letter to Jefferson[874] still more mysterious and disquieting: "The magnitude of the Enterprize, the desperation of the Place, and the stupendous consequences with which it seems pregnant, stagger my belief & excite doubts of the reality, against the conviction of my Senses; & it is for this reason I shall forbear to commit Names.... I have never in my whole Life found myself in such circumstances of perplexity and Embarrassment as at present; for I am not only uninformed of the prime mover and Ultimate Objects of this daring Enterprize, but am ignorant of the foundation on which it rests."
Wilkinson went on to say that, as an inducement for him to take part in it, he had been told that "you [Jefferson] connive at the combination and that our country will justify it." If this were not true, "then I have no doubt the revolt of this Territory will be made an auxiliary step to the main design of attacking Mexico." So he thought he ought to compromise with the Spaniards and throw himself with his "little Band into New Orleans, to be ready to defend that Capitol against Usurpation and violence."