and of all persons in the city Daniel Clark was the one whose conduct showed most signs of guilty knowledge. A few months later, he collected affidavits from four or five of the most important gentlemen in New Orleans to show what his conduct had been. At the moment when Bollman and Ogden arrived, Clark was preparing for his journey to Washington, where he meant to take his seat in Congress as the Territorial delegate. The news brought by Bollman and Ogden that Burr was on his way to New Orleans placed him in a dilemma. Like Senator Smith and Andrew Jackson, his chief anxiety regarded his own safety; and he adopted an expedient which showed his usual intelligence. An affidavit of Bellechasse,[1] on whose character he mainly depended, narrated that—
- "in the month of October, a very few days before Mr. Clark left this city to go to Congress, he called together a number of his friends, and informed them of the views and intentions imputed to Colonel Burr, which were then almost the sole topic of conversation, and which, from the reports daily arriving from Kentucky, had caused a serious alarm; and he advised them all to exert their influence with the inhabitants of the country to support the Government of the United States and to rally round the Governor, although he thought him incapable of rendering much service as a military man,—assuring them that such conduct only would save the country if any hostile projects were entertained against it, and that this would be the best method of convincing the Government
- ↑ Clark's Proofs, p. 145.
