When Major Bruff, of the artillery, came from St. Louis to Washington early in March, 1807, three months before Burr’s indictment, he made bitter complaints to the Secretary of War, accusing the general, under whose orders he served, of being a spy of Spain and a traitor with Burr.[321] General Dearborn listened without contradiction, and replied that there had been a time when General Wilkinson did not stand well with the Executive, but his energetic measures at New Orleans had regained him Executive confidence, and the President would sustain him; that after the actual bustle was over there might perhaps be an inquiry, but meanwhile Wilkinson must and would be supported. Attorney-General Rodney went even further. “What would be the result,” he asked Bruff, “if all your charges against General Wilkinson should be proven? Why, just what the Federalists and the enemies of the present Administration wish,--it would turn the indignation of the people from Burr on Wilkinson. Burr would escape, and Wilkinson take his place.” Rodney did not add, what was patent to all the world, that if Wilkinson were to be convicted, President Jefferson himself, whose negligence had left the Western country, in spite of a thousand warnings, at the General’s mercy, could not be saved from the roughest handling. The President and his Cabinet shrank from Marshall’s subpœnas because under the examination of Wickham, Botts, and Luther Martin they would be forced either to make common cause with the General, or to admit their own negligence. The whole case hung together. Disobedience of the subpœna was necessary for the support of Wilkinson; support of Wilkinson was more than ever necessary after refusing to obey the subpœna. The President accepted his full share in the labor. No sooner did he hear of Wilkinson’s arrival, at the moment when his own subpœna was issued and defied, than he wrote a letter calculated to give the General all the confidence he needed:[322]-- “Your enemies have filled the public ear with slanders and your mind with trouble on that account. The establishment of their guilt will let the world see what they ought to think of their clamors; it will dissipate the doubts of those who doubted for want of knowledge, and will place you on higher ground in the public estimate and public confidence. No one is more sensible than myself of the injustice which has been aimed at you. Accept, I pray you, my salutations and assurances of respect and esteem.”