While Burr was in the East General Jackson had been fully occupied. In April his thoroughbred stallion Truxton won a classic race against Joseph Erwin’s Ploughboy, earning a stake of $3,000, which the General greatly needed, and establishing his owner as the leading turfman of the West. This sporting event was followed by the General’s meeting with Charles Dickinson in a duel in which Dickinson was killed. On the way to the duelling ground the General was not too preoccupied with the business in hand to discuss the Spanish matter with his second, General John Overton. He doubted that the conquest of Mexico would be as easy as Burr imagined. “Burr,” he commented, “is as far from a fool as ever I saw, and yet he is as easily fooled as any man I ever knew.” Jefferson’s help the General did not value highly. He was then under the impression, which had been encouraged by Burr, that the Government was a silent partner in the plotting against Spain. He prophesied that the Federalists, when they learned about it, would assail the policy tooth and nail. And, he observed, when they did so Mr. Jefferson would “run like a cottontail rabbit.” Here was the rugged frontiersman’s scorn for the timidity of the intellectual in the White House. In the autumn of 1806, more than a year after his first visit, Burr returned to Nashville. His welcome was as cordial as ever. Another banquet and a ball were given in his honor. Burr entered the hall on the arm of Jackson, resplendent in the uniform of a major general of militia. The General had seen to it that all his friends were on hand to pay their respects to the distinguished visitor. The tall, raw-boned Jackson and the trim, diminutive Burr made a striking contrast. When time came for the drinking of toasts, Jackson arose and offered the always popular one: “Millions for defense; and not one cent for tribute.” Did he have in mind the two millions Jefferson was just then trying to get from Congress for the purchase of the Floridas? On this visit Burr gave Jackson an order for five large boats and provisions sufficient for the complement of men they would carry. In payment he tendered $3,500 in Kentucky bank notes. Jackson turned over the execution of the contract to his faithful friend and partner, John Coffee. Meanwhile another friend of Jackson’s, one Patton Anderson, set to work in earnest raising a company of young men to go with the Burr expedition down the river, whatever the destination might be.