Burr mentioned no names in his conversation with Merry, contenting himself with presenting his plans in broad outline. “Throughout the Western country,” Merry quoted him as reporting, “persons of the greatest property and influence had engaged themselves to contribute very largely towards the expense of the enterprise; at New Orleans he represented the inhabitants to be so firmly resolved upon separating themselves from their union with the United States, and every way to be so completely prepared, that he was sure the revolution there would be accomplished without a drop of blood being shed....” Merry concluded with Burr’s reference to Wilkinson’s army: “... the American force in that country (should it not, as he had good reason to believe, enlist with him) not being sufficiently strong to make any opposition.” It was accordingly settled that the revolution would begin at the end of the coming March or the beginning of April, provided always that the British Government should “consent to lend their assistance toward it, and the answer, together with the pecuniary aid which would be wanted, arrived in time to enable him to set out the beginning of March.” To spur the British Government to action Burr once more threatened them with the prospect of the people of Louisiana turning to France. Then he presented another impelling argument for British help in the enterprise though at the expense of his own loyalty to his native land. “He observed,” reported Merry, “what I readily conceived may happen, that when once Louisiana and the Western country become independent, the Eastern States will separate themselves immediately from the Southern; and that thus the power which is now risen up with so much rapidity in the western hemisphere will, by such a division, be rendered at once informidable....” Despite Burr’s pleading and Merry’s indorsement, the British Government remained apathetic. The last hope of assistance from that quarter vanished when in January, 1806, William Pitt died and was succeeded as Prime Minister by Charles James Fox, an avowed friend of the United States. Burr, however, had more than one string to his bow. If he could not wring money from the British he might still try his luck with the Spaniards. The most convenient victim was Yrujo, the Spanish Minister. Yrujo had married a daughter of Thomas McKean, signer of the Declaration of Independence and at the moment Governor of Pennsylvania. He was well informed as to what was going on in the United States. As early as the summer of 1805, when Burr was in the West and the rumors were beginning to fly, he reported to Cevallos, Spanish Minister of State: “The supposed expedition against Mexico is ridiculous and chimerical in the present state of things; but I am not unaware that Burr, in order to get moneys from the English Minister or from England, has made to him some proposition, in which he is to play the leading role.”