Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/333

1806. taken care to show that he meant in reality to protect and not to punish the chief men of the city. After the first shock, his arrests were in truth reassuring. The people could afford to look on while he seized only strangers, like Bollman and Alexander; even in Swartwout and Ogden few citizens of New Orleans took much personal interest. Only in case the General had arrested men like Derbigny or Edward Livingston or Bellechasse would the people be likely to resist; and Wilkinson showed that he meant to make no arrests among the residents, and to close his eyes against evidence that could compromise any citizen of the place. "Thank God!" he wrote to Daniel Clark, December 10, "your advice to Bellechasse, if your character was not a sufficient guaranty, would vindicate you against any foul imputation." In another letter, written early in January, he added, —


 * "It is a fact that our fool [Claiborne] has written to his contemptible fabricator [Jefferson], that you had declared if you had children you would teach them to curse the United States as soon as they were able to lisp."

Claiborne had brought such a charge only a few weeks before, and Wilkinson must have heard it from Claiborne himself, who had already written to withdraw it on learning Clark's advice to Bellechasse. Nevertheless Wilkinson continued,—