On a trip east in 1799 Wilkinson renewed his acquaintance with Aaron Burr whom he visited in New York. Burr was instrumental in placing Wilkinson’s son James in Princeton. In the spring of 1804 Wilkinson again came east. On his arrival in Washington he lent welcome color to the dreary newborn capital by leading a cavalcade through the streets, mounted on a blooded mare and magnificent in the uniform of a major general of his own designing, his stirrups and spurs of gold, his saddlecloth a leopard’s skin with dangling claws, his son and namesake James as military aide riding a respectful distance behind him. Again Wilkinson sought Burr’s company, addressing a letter to him at Richmond Hill and asking a bed for the night “if it may be done without observation and intrusion.” Burr had broken with the Republicans by this time and Wilkinson evidently considered it unwise for President Jefferson’s protégé to be discovered on intimate terms with so prominent an enemy of the Administration. Burr just then was smarting under his defeat in the campaign for Governor of New York and his next step was uncertain. The possibilities of fame and fortune deriving from an invasion of the Spanish possessions could well have served as an engaging topic for gentlemen of their adventurous temperament and vivid imagination. Returning to Washington Wilkinson satisfied his gregarious impulses by rubbing shoulders with Congressmen, especially those from the Southwest, and discussing the prospects of war with Spain, lamenting that it was not already being waged. “Mexico,” he commented, momentarily shifting his loyalty from Spain to the United States, “glitters in our eyes--the word is all we wait for.” In July the duel between Hamilton and Burr was fought. In his flight from the New Jersey authorities Burr sought refuge in the home of Charles Biddle, a cousin of Ann Wilkinson and a warm friend of the General. During the following winter in Washington, while Burr was closing out his term as Vice-President, he and Wilkinson saw much of each other. It was then that Wilkinson got his appointment as Governor of Louisiana. He picked as his secretary a Dr. Joseph Brown who had married the late Mrs. Burr’s sister. The Vice-President and the General spent much time together. It was said they were copying maps of the Floridas, New Orleans, and the Louisiana Territory.