1806.
CLAIBORNE AND WILKINSON.
303
In the same month of May Lieutenant Murray of the artillery, an intimate friend of Daniel Clark, came with a Lieutenant Taylor from Fort Adams to New Orleans, and heard the ordinary conversation of society.
- "Lieutenant Taylor and myself," he afterward testified,[1] "were invited to dine with a gentleman there whose name was on the list before mentioned [of persons engaged in an expedition against Mexico]; it was Judge Workman. We three dined together. After the cloth was removed, Mr. Lewis Kerr came in. . . . After a number of inquiries about Baton Rouge and the Red River country, they proceeded to lay open their plan of seizing upon the money in the banks at New Orleans, impressing the shipping, taking Baton Rouge, and joining Miranda by way of Mexico. . . . When I told Mr. Clark that I was calculated on as the officer to attack Baton Rouge, he advised me by all means to do it. He urged as an inducement that he was coming on to Congress, and would do all he could in my favor; that he would represent to the Government that it would require a large force to retake it; and he further observed that, at any rate, if the Government should be disposed to trouble me, before they could send off a sufficient force I should be in a situation to take care of myself."
This attempt to seduce officers of the United States army into Burr's conspiracy was flagrant; for although Burr's name was not mentioned, no one could fail to see that the seizure of government money in
- ↑ Report of the Committee to inquire into the Conduct of General Wilkinson, Feb. 26, 1811; 3 Sess. 11 Cong. p. 320.
