Finding Yrujo obstinate in refusing to advance money, Burr tried to alarm him by pretending to take up again the scheme of attacking Florida and Mexico. June 9, 1806, Yrujo wrote another long despatch on the subject. Burr, he said, had suddenly ceased to visit him as frequently as usual, and Dayton had explained the coldness as due to Burr’s belief that the new Administration in England would be more liberal and zealous than that of Pitt. Dayton added that Burr was drawing up new instructions for Williamson; that he had even decided to send Bollman to London to invite co-operation from the British government in an attack on the Spanish possessions. Dayton professed to have acted as the protector of Spain from Burr’s unprincipled ambition. “Dayton told me[172] he had observed to Burr that although he (Burr) was assuredly the principal, yet a plan of this nature ought to be put in deliberation in the cabinet council which certain chiefs are to hold in New Orleans in the month of December next, and that for his own part he thought this idea unjust and impolitic; to which Burr answered that they would always be able to alter the plan as circumstances should require, and that in fact this point, or at least the direction to be given to it, would be determined in New Orleans. Dayton told me that he would oppose with all his strength measures of this nature, and that he knew General Wilkinson, who was to be a member of the Congress, would make the same opposition; and that in order to drive the idea of such a temptation out of Burr’s head, and of other people’s also, it would be well for us to reinforce our garrisons at Pensacola and Mobile, and that then the circumstance of our respectable condition of defence might be used as a weighty argument for abandoning such a project. After holding this conference with me, Dayton returned to his residence; and before starting, wrote me a note to say that the night before Burr had read him the instructions to be given to Bollman, and that they were of the tenor indicated to me.” Godoy and Cevallos were hardly so imbecile as to pay for creating at New Orleans a new American empire more dangerous to Spanish possessions than the peaceful republic over which Jefferson presided at Washington. Don Pedro Cevallos read Yrujo’s despatches with great interest. At first he even hinted that if the United States were bent on forcing a war with Spain, these adventurers, in case of actual hostilities, might be made useful;[173] but this suggestion was accompanied by many warnings to Yrujo not to commit himself or to contribute money, and at last by a flat announcement that the King would not in any way encourage Burr’s designs.[174]