Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/467

1807. New Orleans had regained him Executive confidence, and the President would sustain him; that after the actual bustle was over there might perhaps be an inquiry, but meanwhile Wilkinson must and would be supported. Attorney-General Rodney went even further.


 * "What would be the result," he asked Bruff, "if all your charges against General Wilkinson should be proven? Why, just what the Federalists and the enemies of the present Administration wish,—it would turn the indignation of the people from Burr on Wilkinson. Burr would escape, and Wilkinson take his place."

Rodney did not add, what was patent to all the world, that if Wilkinson were to be convicted. President Jefferson himself, whose negligence had left the Western country, in spite of a thousand warnings, at the General's mercy, could not be saved from the roughest handling. The President and his Cabinet shrank from Marshall's subpoenas because under the examination of Wickham, Botts, and Luther Martin they would be forced either to make common cause with the General, or to admit their own negligence. The whole case hung together. Disobedience of the subpoena was necessary for the support of Wilkinson; support of Wilkinson was more than ever necessary after refusing to obey the subpœna. The President accepted his full share in the labor. No sooner did he hear of Wilkinson's arrival, at the moment when his own subpœna was issued and defied, than he wrote a letter