Yet around him the city was trembling with excitement; and of all persons in the city Daniel Clark was the one whose conduct showed most signs of guilty knowledge. A few months later, he collected affidavits from four or five of the most important gentlemen in New Orleans to show what his conduct had been. At the moment when Bollman and Ogden arrived, Clark was preparing for his journey to Washington, where he meant to take his seat in Congress as the Territorial delegate. The news brought by Bollman and Ogden that Burr was on his way to New Orleans placed him in a dilemma. Like Senator Smith and Andrew Jackson, his chief anxiety regarded his own safety; and he adopted an expedient which showed his usual intelligence. An affidavit of Bellechasse,[214] on whose character he mainly depended, narrated that-- “in the month of October, a very few days before Mr. Clark left this city to go to Congress, he called together a number of his friends, and informed them of the views and intentions imputed to Colonel Burr, which were then almost the sole topic of conversation, and which, from the reports daily arriving from Kentucky, had caused a serious alarm; and he advised them all to exert their influence with the inhabitants of the country to support the Government of the United States and to rally round the Governor, although he thought him incapable of rendering much service as a military man,--assuring them that such conduct only would save the country if any hostile projects were entertained against it, and that this would be the best method of convincing the Government of the United States of the attachment of the inhabitants of Louisiana, and of the falsity of all the reports circulated to their prejudice. And Mr. Clark strongly recommended to such members of the Legislature as were then present not to attend any call or meeting of either House in case Colonel Burr should gain possession of the city, stating that such a measure would deservedly expose every individual concerned to punishment, and would occasion the ruin of the country.” According to Bellechasse, the society of New Orleans between Oct. 1 and Oct. 15, 1806, was in serious alarm. Burr’s intentions formed “almost the sole topic of conversation;” daily reports were arriving from Kentucky, although in Kentucky, down to October 1, no alarm existed, and Burr’s intentions were not even developed. Each of the four affidavits which Clark obtained, one of them signed by Peter Derbigny, affirmed that about the middle of October, 1806, Burr’s projects were the general theme of conversation in the city; but nothing was more certain than that this knowledge of Burr’s projects must have come not from Kentucky, but from Burr’s own letters and from the messages brought by Ogden and Bollman.