On the evening of October 8, General Wilkinson was sitting with Colonel Cushing, of the Second Infantry, alone in the Colonel’s quarters at Natchitoches, discussing the military problem before them, when a young man was introduced who said that his name was Swartwout, and that he brought a letter of introduction from General Dayton. After some little ordinary talk, Colonel Cushing having for a moment been called out of the room, Swartwout slipped into General Wilkinson’s hands a packet which he said contained a letter from Colonel Burr. Wilkinson received the letter, and soon afterward retired to his chamber, where he passed the rest of the evening in the labor of deciphering Burr’s long despatch of July 29.[218] If the falsehoods contained in the letters of Burr and Dayton found any credit in Wilkinson’s mind, they should have decided him to follow his old bent toward revolution. Everything beckoned him on. His secret relations, nearly twenty years old, with the Spanish officials guaranteed to him the connivance of the Spanish force. The French militia of Louisiana, deaf to Governor Claiborne’s entreaties, would have seen with pleasure Claiborne deposed. About five hundred United States troops were under Wilkinson’s command on the Red River, of whom few were native Americans, or cared for the Government except to obtain their pay. In New Orleans a breath would blow away the national authority; and what power would restore it? If it were true, as Burr wrote, that a British fleet stood ready to prevent a blockade of the Mississippi, the success of the Western empire seemed assured. Severance of the ties that bound him to Dayton and Burr was not a simple matter for Wilkinson. That they were old friends was something; and that all three had fought side by side under the walls of Quebec in the winter of 1776, with the father of young Peter Ogden for a friend, and with Benedict Arnold for their commander, was still more; but the most serious difficulty was that Wilkinson stood in the power of these men, who knew his thoughts and could produce his letters, and who, in case of his deserting them, would certainly do their utmost to destroy what character he possessed. Whatever may have been his reflections, Wilkinson took at once measures to protect his own interests. Like Senator Smith, Andrew Jackson, and Daniel Clark, his first step was to provide against the danger of being charged with misprision of treason. The morning after Swartwout’s arrival, Wilkinson took Colonel Cushing aside, and after telling him the contents of Burr’s letter, announced that he meant to notify the President of the plot, and that after making some temporary arrangement with the Spaniards, he should move his whole force to New Orleans. In one sense this avowal was an act of patriotism; in another light it might have been regarded as an attempt to sound Colonel Cushing, whose assistance was necessary to the success of the plot.