st. Wilkinson suavely set about
scheming for Clark's ruin. His communication or memorial to the Virginia
Assembly--signed by himself and a number of his friends--villifying
Clark, ended Clark's chances for the commission in the Continental
Army which he craved. It was Wilkinson who made public an incriminating
letter which had Clark's signature attached and which Clark said he had
never seen. It is to be supposed that Number Thirteen was responsible
also for the malevolent anonymous letter accusing Clark of drunkenness
and scheming which, so strangely, found its way into the Calendar of
State Papers of Virginia. * As a result, Clark was censured by Virginia.
Thereupon he petitioned for a Court of Inquiry, but this was not
granted. Wilkinson had to get rid of Clark; for if Clark, with his
military gifts and his power over men, had been elevated to a position
of command under the smile of the Government, there would have been
small opportunity for James W Wilkinson to lead the Kentuckians and
to gather in Spanish gold. So the machinations of one of the vilest
traitors who ever sold his country were employed to bring about the
stultification and hence the downfall of a great servant.

* See Thomas M. Greene's "The Spanish Conspiracy," p. 78,
footnote. It is possible that Wilkinson's intrigues provide data for
a new biography of Clark which may recast in some measure the accepted
view of Clark at this period.

Wilkinson's chief aids were the Irishmen, O'Fallon, Nolan, and Powers.
Through Nolan, he also vended Spanish secrets. He sold, indeed, whatever
and whomever he could get his price for. So clever was he that he
escaped detection, though he was obliged to remove some suspicions. He
succeeded Wayne as commander of the regular army in 1796. He was one of
the commissioners to receive Louisiana when the Purchase was arranged
in 1803. He was still on the Spanish pay roll at that time. Wilkinson's
true record came to light only when the Spanish archives were opened to
investigators.

There were British agents also in the Old Southwest, for the
dissatisfaction of the Western men inspired in Englishmen the hope of
recovering the Mississippi Basin. Lord Dorchester, Governor of Canada,
wrote to the British Government that he had been approached by important
Westerners; but he received advice from England to move slowly. For
complicity in the British schemes, William Blount, who was first
territorial Governor of Tennes