Owing chiefly to the friendship of Andrew Jackson, the town of Nashville was strongly attached to Burr, and was supposed to favor the disunion scheme. Tennessee was the only State which Burr always claimed positively as his own. Whether he had better grounds for his confidence in Jackson than for his faith in Wilkinson and Daniel Clark might be doubted; but Tennessee was at least vehement in hatred of the Spaniards. The Spaniards were pressing close against Wilkinson’s little force at Natchitoches, and Burr made use of the threatened war in order to cover his own scheme. September 27 a public dinner was given to him at Nashville, and Jackson offered as a toast the old sentiment of 1798: “Millions for defence; not a cent for tribute.” A few days later Burr returned to Kentucky; and within a week suddenly appeared in the newspaper at Nashville a strange proclamation signed “Andrew Jackson, Major-General Second Division,” and dated Oct. 4, 1806, in which the brigade commanders were ordered to place their brigades at once on such a footing as would enable them on the shortest notice to supply their quotas “when the government and constituted authorities of our country” should require them to march. This unauthorized step was commonly supposed to be taken in the interest of Burr’s conspiracy, and compromised Jackson gravely in the eyes of the Government at Washington. Meanwhile Theodosia Allston and her husband had been left in charge of the Blennerhassetts, while Blennerhassett himself behaved as though he were a village school-boy playing the part of chieftain in an imaginary feudal castle. He went about the country raising recruits and buying supplies, chattering to every young and active man he met about the expedition which was to make their fortunes. He confided in his gardener, a simple, straightforward fellow named Peter Taylor, “that Colonel Burr would be king of Mexico, and that Mrs. Allston would be queen of Mexico whenever Colonel Burr died.” He added that Burr “had a great many friends in the Spanish territory; two thousand Roman Catholic priests were enlisted in his corps; that those priests and the societies which belonged to them were a strong party; that the Spaniards, like the French, had got tired of their government and wanted to swap it; that the British were also friends to this expedition; and that he was the very man who was to go to England on this piece of business for Colonel Burr.” When at the subsequent trial Taylor told this tale, the world was incredulous, and insisted upon disbelieving his story; but Blennerhassett’s papers proved the extent of his delusion. By common consent the Blennerhassetts and Allstons agreed that Theodosia was to inherit the empire from her father; but doubts existed whether Allston could take the crown as Theodosia’s husband. “I will win it by a better title,” he cried,--“by my deeds in council and in field!”[177] Mrs. Blennerhassett was impatient to