But Wilkinson did not reveal his betrayal of Burr to Swartwout. For the next ten days he kept the young man at Natchitoches while he pumped him dry of information and considered his next move. By October 20 he had sufficiently mapped his course to write Jefferson that he had discovered that a powerful association, extending from New York through the western states, had been formed for the purpose of leading an expedition against Vera Cruz. Judging it inadvisable to name names at this stage he stated that it was “unknown under whose authority” the enterprise had been projected. This ten days after he had announced to Colonel Cushing that Burr was the man! The following day, in another confidential dispatch, he reiterated that, “I am not only uninformed of the prime mover and ultimate objects of this daring enterprise, but am ignorant of the foundations on which it rests.” This letter professing complete ignorance was the one Burr asked the court to get from Jefferson through the _subpoena duces tecum_. No wonder. Then in his heart-searching dilemma the General seized upon a fantastic scheme which he thought might enable him at one and the same time to demonstrate his loyalty to the Government without at the same time abandoning his friends. In a postscript he asked, “Might not some plan be adopted to correct the delirium of the associates and by a suitable appeal to their patriotism to engage them in the service of their country?” If he supposed the Government would countenance an invasion of Spanish territory he was wrong. Jefferson’s policy just then was not one of war, but of negotiation by purchase. Wilkinson’s immediate concern was that Jefferson might lose faith in him. Added to other rumors of his guilt was the open charge of the Kentucky newspaper, _The Western World_, that he was an “intriguer and pensioner of Spain, now associated with Aaron Burr in reviving the old Spanish conspiracy.” There was little chance that, with all its avenues of communication, the White House would not be informed of the articles running in _The Western World_. Wilkinson, with an initiative he seldom showed on the battlefield, decided to take the offensive and strike without waiting for Jefferson to inquire. So in another letter to the President on the same day Wilkinson called attention to the attacks, stating that he had been “bespattered with obloquy and slandered with a degree of virulence and indecency surpassing all example.”