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From New Orleans, Isaac Dunn sent word of their warm reception. The goods were not only admitted free of the 25 percent tax that other importers had to pay, they were stored in the royal warehouse, an added favor, although it came at a cost—“you cannot be at a loss to know where a participation of Profits is expected, & where it is due,” Dunn wrote discreetly, referring to Miró’s rake-off. But Wilkinson was accustomed to sharing profits with his partners. The only cloud over the enterprise concerned the quality of the tobacco: a quarter was deemed unsatisfactory, and another quarter was rotten enough to be destroyed. Nevertheless, his own share of the profits amounted to $9,830.50, a sum held for him by Daniel Clark, an Irish-born merchant in New Orleans.

Intoxicated by this return on his agreement with Miró, Wilkinson decided to back another trading scheme, heavily financed by Clark and approved by Miró, which was designed to tie Kentucky more closely into the New Orleans economy. In August 1788, with Dunn as a third investor, Wilkinson and Clark spent almost twenty thousand dollars on a cargo of luxury goods including sugar, linen, wine, and brass candlesticks to be exported back up the Mississippi to Kentucky. “It is exceedingly important,” Miró explained to Madrid, “that the Western people should see, before declaring themselves for a change of domination, that the true channel through which they are to be supplied with the objects of their wants, in exchange for their own productions, is the Mississippi.”

By the time he came to write his Memoirs, bitter experience had taught Wilkinson a lesson: “I am not by education, habit or disposition, fitted for a dealer or trader.” But in the summer of 1788, it seemed that whether as importer or exporter, he could not fail to make the “immense fortunes” that he had dreamed of when he set sail for New Orleans the year before.

9

CASH AND CONSPIRACY

THE EXPEDITION TO NEW ORLEANS cemented James Wilkinson’s reputation among Kentucky’s settlers. Its spectacular effect on prices was seen as confirmation of his political message that the settlers’ interests lay not on the Atlantic but westward with Spain. In June 1788, Miró advised Madrid that, such was Wilkinson’s influence among Kentucky’s swelling army of settlers, Miró had decided to accept the American’s demand for three thousand dollars in expenses rather than risk “the mischief that might arise from vexing him, and the impediments that the lack of Income would doubtless put in the way of his operations.”

The rapid progress of the conspiracy suggested it was a wise decision. On his return, Wilkinson had cautiously shared at least part of his plan for joining the Spanish empire with the “Kentucky notables” he trusted most. His first contact was with his lawyer, Harry Innes, by now impatient for independence from Virginia and willing to consider all options. His outlook was shared, though less enthusiastically, by judges Alexander Bullit and Caleb Wallace, and by other leading figures such as John Brown, the district’s representative in the Continental Congress, and a lawyer, Benjamin Sebastian. Only Innes and Bullit were trusted with the naked proposal that Kentucky should become part of the Spanish empire, and both recoiled. Wilkinson promptly toned down the plan to one of an alliance between Spain and the sovereign state of Kentucky. It was a small setback, but that summer 90 percent of the frontier votes went against ratifying the new, federal Constitution that had emerged from the convention. In Fayette County an overwhelming majority chose Wilkinson yet again to represent them at the next Danville convention, the sixth, to decide Kentucky’s future.

In July the latest convention again failed to resolve Kentucky’s future, but it was remarkable for the speeches of Innes, Wallace, and Sebastian demanding an immediate separation from Virginia without waiting for prior approval from Congress. “The consequences of depending on a body [the Virginia legislature] whose interests were opposed to ours were depicted in the most vivid colors,” Wilkinson reported to Miró, “and the strongest motives were set forth to justify the separation.” The convention agreed that at its next meeting, it would draw up a constitution and negotiate its independence from Virginia. Seen from New Orleans, the current of opinion was clearly flowing in the right direction.

In the summer of 1788, the current accelerated when Kentucky’s petition to become part of the United States was rejected by the Continental Congress on the grounds that no additional state should be admitted before the new federal government took office in 1789. The decision played directly into the conspirators’ hands. When the next convention, due in November, voted for independence from Virginia, it would also inevitably be voting for independence from the United States. To gauge Spain’s response, Kentucky’s representative in Congress, John Brown, made contact with Gardoqui, the Spanish ambassador, and was promised that concessions would be made to Kentucky for use of the Mississippi “if she will erect herself into an inde-pendent government. [But] they can never be yielded to her by Spain as long as she remains a member of the Union.”

In New Orleans, the normally cautious Miró looked forward to Kentucky’s November convention and confessed to Antonio Valdes, the minister for the Indies and his political master in Madrid, “This affair progresses more rapidly than I had anticipated.” In his frustration Brown had told a friend, who passed the news on to Miró, that he intended “to call for a general assembly of his fellow citizens, in order to proceed immediately to declare themselves independent, and to propose to Spain the opening of a commercial intercourse with reciprocal advantages.” In the spring, Miró predicted, “I shall have to receive a delegation [from Kentucky] appointed in due form,” and asked Valdes how he should respond.

A small but significant setback occurred before the convention opened. Brown mentioned Gardoqui’s offer to George Muter, who was in favor of splitting from Virginia but not from the Union. Muter immediately leaked the letter to the Kentucké Gazette. It crystallized opposition among the “country party,” composed of large-plantation owners whose property titles, often acquired with Virginia’s paper money, might be questioned should Kentucky become a sovereign power. Undeterred, Wilkinson delivered a speech on the opening day that outlined the steps needed to achieve the goal that all Kentuckians wanted, the freedom to carry their goods down the Mississippi. “The way to obtain it,” he argued, “has been indicated in the former convention, and every gentleman present will connect it with a declaration of independence, the formation of a [Kentucky] constitution and the organization of a new State, which may safely be left to find its own way into the Union on terms advantageous to its own interests.”

According to Edward Butler, who wrote his History of Kentucky in 1834 while the convention was still within living memory, Wilkinson dominated the proceedings: “This gifted man drew all eyes upon him and was looked up to as a leader and a chief.” But opposition to the idea of independence was already growing from the country party, led by Muter and Humphrey Marshall. Looking for allies, Wilkinson turned to his fellow conspirator John Brown, expecting him to cite Gardoqui’s offer as evidence of the advantages of independence. But Brown had been worked on by Muter. At the crucial moment he lost his nerve and called instead for unanimity in whatever they decided. “He is a young man of respectable talents, but timid, without political experience, and with very little knowledge of the world,” Wilkinson reported in disappointment to New Orleans. “Nevertheless, he firmly perseveres in his adherence to our interests.”