Furthermore, there already existed in New Orleans a very peculiar class, representatives of which are still to be found in almost every Gulf city of importance.  There were in the city a number of men ready at any time to enter into any plot for armed conquest of one of the Spanish American countries. [Footnote:  Wilkinson’s “Memoirs,” II., 284.] Spanish America was feeling the stir of unrest that preceded the revolutionary outbreak against Spain.  Already insurrectionary leaders like Miranda were seeking assistance from the Americans.  There were in New Orleans a number of exiled Mexicans who were very anxious to raise some force with which to invade Mexico, and there erect the banner of an independent sovereignty.  The bolder spirits among the Creoles found much that was attractive in such a prospect; and reckless American adventurers by the score and the hundred were anxious to join in any filibustering expedition of the kind.  They did not care in the least what form the expedition took.  They were willing to join the Mexican exiles in an effort to rouse Mexico to throw off the yoke of Spain, or to aid any province of Mexico to revolt from the rest, or to help the leaders of any defeated faction who wished to try an appeal to arms, in which they should receive aid from the sword of the stranger.  Incidentally they were even more willing to attempt the conquest on their own account; but they did not find it necessary to dwell on this aspect of the case when nominally supporting some faction which chose to make use of such watchwords as liberty and independence.

    Burr’s Conspiracy.

Under such conditions New Orleans, even more than the rest of the West, seemed to offer an inviting field for adventurers whose aim was both revolutionary and piratical.  A particularly spectacular adventurer of this type now appeared in the person of Aaron Burr.  Burr’s conspiracy attracted an amount of attention, both at home and in the pages of history, altogether disproportioned to its real consequence.  His career had been striking.  He had been Vice-President of the United States.  He had lacked but one vote of being made President, when the election of 1800 was thrown into the House of Representatives.  As friend or as enemy he had been thrown intimately and on equal terms with the greatest political leaders of the day.  He had supplied almost the only feeling which Jefferson, the chief of the Democratic party, and Hamilton, the greatest Federalist, ever possessed in common; for bitterly though Hamilton and Jefferson had hated each other, there was one man whom each of them had hated more, and that was Aaron Burr.  There was not a man in the country who did not know about the brilliant and unscrupulous party leader who had killed Hamilton in the most famous duel that ever took place on American soil, and who by a nearly successful intrigue had come within one vote of supplanting Jefferson in the presidency.

    Burr’s Previous Career in New York.