From New Orleans Burr retraced his steps and visited Wilkinson at St. Louis.  But Wilkinson was no longer in the same frame of mind as at Fort Massac.  He had tested his officers, to see if they could be drawn into any disloyal movement, and had found that they were honorable men, firm in their attachment to the Union; and he was beginning to perceive that the people generally were quite unmoved by Burr’s intrigues.  Accordingly, when Burr reached him he threw cold water on his plans, and though he did not denounce or oppose them, he refrained from taking further active part in the seditious propaganda.

    Burr Returns to Washington.

After visiting Harrison, the Governor of the Indiana territory, Burr returned to Washington.  If he had possessed the type of character which would have made him really dangerous as a revolutionist, he would have seen how slight was his hope of stirring up revolt in the West; but he would not face facts, and he still believed he could bring about an uprising against the Union in the Mississippi Valley.  His immediate need was money.  This he hoped to obtain from some foreign government.  He found that nothing could be done with Great Britain; and then, incredible though it may seem, he turned to Spain, and sought to obtain from the Spaniards themselves the funds with which to conquer their own territories.

    His Burlesque Proposals to Spain.

This was the last touch necessary to complete the grotesque fantasy which his brain had evolved.  He approached the Spanish Minister first through one of his fellow conspirators and then in his own person.  At one time he made his request on the pretence that he wished to desert the other filibusterers, and save Spain by committing a double treachery, and betraying the treasonable movement into which he had entered; and again he asked funds on the ground that all he wished to do was to establish a separate government in the West, and thus destroy the power of the United States to molest Spain.  However, his efforts came to naught, and he was obliged to try what he could do unaided in the West.

    His Second Trip to the West.

In August, 1806, he again crossed the Alleghenies.  His first stop of importance was at Blennerhassett’s.  Blennerhassett was the one person of any importance who took his schemes so seriously as to be willing to stake his fortune on their success.  Burr took with him to Blennerhassett’s his daughter, Theodosia, a charming woman, the wife of a South Carolinian, Allston.  The attractions of the daughter, and Burr’s own address and magnetism, completely overcame both Blennerhassett and his wife.  They gave the adventurer all the money they could raise, with the understanding that they would receive it back a hundred-fold as the result of a land speculation which was to go hand in hand with the expected revolution.  Then Blennerhassett began, in a very noisy and ineffective way, to make what preparations were possible in the way of rousing the Ohio settlers, and of gathering a body of armed men to serve under Burr when the time came.  It was all done in a way that savored of farce rather than of treason.