assuring them that the Kentucky leaders enthusiastically favored his plans, and that the people at large were tending towards them.  As time went on, he was obliged to change the tone of his letters, and to admit that he had been over-hopeful; he reluctantly acknowledged that Kentucky would certainly refuse to become a Spanish province, and that all that was possible to hope for was separation and an alliance with Spain.  He was on intimate terms with the separatist leaders of all shades, and broached his views to them as far as he thought fit.  His turgid oratory was admired in the backwoods, and he was much helped by his skill in the baser kinds of political management.  He speedily showed all the familiar traits of the demagogue—­he was lavish in his hospitality, and treated young and old, rich and poor, with jovial good-fellowship; so that all the men of loose habits, the idle men who were ready for any venture, and the men of weak character and fickle temper, swore by him, and followed his lead; while not a few straightforward, honest citizens were blinded by his showy ability and professions of disinterestedness. [Footnote:  Marshall, I., 245.]

It is impossible to say exactly how far his different allies among the separatist leaders knew his real designs or sympathized with them.  Their loosely knit party was at the moment united for one ostensible purpose—­that of separation from Virginia.  The measures they championed were in effect revolutionary, as they wished to pay no regard to the action either of Virginia herself, or of the Federal Government.  They openly advocated Kentucky’s entering into a treaty with Spain on her own account.  Their leaders must certainly have known Wilkinson’s real purposes, even though vaguely.  The probability is that they did not, either to him or in their own minds, define their plans with clearness, but awaited events before deciding on a definite policy.  Meantime by word and act they pursued a course which might be held to mean, as occasion demanded, either mere insistence upon Kentucky’s admission to the Union as a separate State, or else a movement for complete independence with a Spanish alliance in the background.

It was impossible to pursue a course so equivocal without arousing suspicion.  In after years many who had been committed to it became ashamed of their actions, and loudly proclaimed that they had really been devoted to the Union; to which it was sufficient to answer that if this had been the case, and if they had been really loyal, no such deep suspicion could have been excited.  A course of straightforward loyalty could not have been misunderstood.  As it was, all kinds of rumors as to proposed disunion movements, and as to the intrigues with Spain, got afloat; and there was no satisfactory contradiction.  The stanch Union men, the men who “thought continentally,” as the phrase went, took the alarm and organized a counter-movement.  One of those who took prominent part in this counter-movement was a man to whom Kentucky