Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/246

234 the Spanish government would do well to pay thirty or forty thousand dollars for certain secrets; and finding the marquis disposed to listen, Dayton recited a curious tale.


 * "This secret," said he, "is known at the present moment to only three persons in this country. I am one of them; and I will tell you that toward the end of the last session and near the end of last March Colonel Burr had various very secret conferences with the British minister, to whom he proposed a plan not only for taking the Floridas, but also for effecting the separation and independence of the Western States,—a part of this plan being that the Floridas should be associated in this new federative republic; England to receive as the price of her services a decisive preference in matters of commerce and navigation, and to secure these advantages by means of a treaty to be made as soon as she should recognize this new republic. This plan obtained the approval of the British minister, who sent it and recommended it to his Court. Meanwhile Colonel Burr has been in New Orleans, in the Mississippi Territory, in the States of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio, to sound and prepare their minds for this revolution. In all these States he has found the most favorable disposition, not only for this emancipation, which the Western States evidently desire, but also for making an expedition against the kingdom of Mexico. This is an idea that occurred to us after sending the first plan to London; and having given greater extension to the project, Colonel Burr sent to London a despatch with his new ideas to Colonel Williamson,—an English officer who has been many years