“The project of effecting a separation between the Western and Atlantic States marches abreast with this one. Burr, though displeased at first by the arrival of Miranda, who might reduce him to a secondary _rôle_, has set off again for the South, after having had several conferences with the British minister. It seems to me that the Government does not penetrate Burr’s views, and that the difficult circumstances in which it finds itself, and where it has placed itself, force it to dissimulate. This division of the confederated States appears to me inevitable, and perhaps less remote than is commonly supposed; but would this event, which England seems to favor, be really contrary to the interests of France? And, assuming it to take place, should we not have a better chance to withdraw, if not both confederations, at least one of them, from the yoke of England?” That Burr should have concealed from his principal allies--the creoles of New Orleans--plans which he communicated so freely elsewhere, was not to be imagined. Burr remained only about a fortnight at New Orleans; then returned on horseback through Natchez to Nashville, where he became again the guest of Andrew Jackson. He passed the month of August in Tennessee and Kentucky; then struck into the wilderness across the Indiana Territory to St. Louis in order to pass a week more with General Wilkinson and Secretary Brown. He found Wilkinson discouraged by the rebuffs he had met in attempting to seduce his subordinate officers and the people of the territory into the scheme. Although Wilkinson afterward swore solemnly that he had no part or parcel in Burr’s disunion project, his own evidence proved that the subject had been discussed between them, and that his fears of failure had at the time of their meeting at St. Louis checked his enthusiasm:[160]-- “Mr. Burr, speaking of the imbecility of the government, said it would moulder to pieces, die a natural death,--or words to that effect; adding that the people of the Western country were ready to revolt. To this I recollect replying that if he had not profited more by his journey in other respects, he had better have remained at Washington or Philadelphia; for ‘surely,’ said I, ‘my friend, no person was ever more mistaken. The Western people disaffected to the government! They are bigoted to Jefferson and democracy.’” Wilkinson afterward claimed to have written at that time a letter to the Secretary of the Navy warning him against Burr; but the letter never reached its supposed address. He certainly gave to Burr a letter of introduction to Governor Harrison, of the Indiana Territory, which suggested decline of sympathy with the conspiracy; for it urged Harrison to return the bearer as the Territorial delegate to Congress,--a boon on which the Union “may much depend.”[161]