Collapse of the Conspiracy.

But Burr’s career was already ruined.  Jefferson, goaded into action, had issued a proclamation for his arrest; and even before this proclamation was issued, the fabric of the conspiracy had crumbled into shifting dust.  The Ohio Legislature passed resolutions demanding prompt action against the conspirators; and the other Western communities followed suit.  There was no real support for Burr anywhere.  All his plot had been but a dream; at the last he could not do anything which justified, in even the smallest degree, the alarm and curiosity he had excited.  The men of keenest insight and best judgment feared his unmasked efforts less than they feared Wilkinson’s dark and tortuous treachery. [Footnote:  E. G. Cowles Meade; see Gayarre, IV., 169.] As he drifted down the Mississippi with his little flotilla, he was overtaken by Jefferson’s proclamation, which was sent from one to another of the small Federal garrisons.  Near Natchez, in January, 1807, he surrendered his flotilla, without resistance, to the Acting-Governor of Mississippi Territory.  He himself escaped into the land of the Choctaws and Creeks, disguised as a Mississippi boatman; but a month later he was arrested near the Spanish border, and sent back to Washington.

Thus ended ingloriously the wildest, most spectacular, and least dangerous, of all the intrigues for Western disunion.  It never contained within itself the least hope of success.  It was never a serious menace to the National government.  It was not by any means even a good example of Western particularistic feeling.  It was simply a sporadic illustration of the looseness of national sentiment, here and there, throughout the country; but of no great significance, because it was in no sense a popular movement, and had its origin in the fantastic imagination of a single man.

    After-Effects in the West.

It left scarcely a ripple in the West.  When the danger was over Wilkinson appeared in New Orleans, where he strutted to the front for a little while, playing the part of a fussy dictator and arresting, among others, Adair of Kentucky.  As the panic subsided, they were released.  No Louisianian suffered in person or property from any retaliatory action of the Government; but lasting good was done by the abject failure of the plot and by the exhibition of unused strength by the American people.  The Creoles ceased to mutter discontent, and all thought of sedition died away in the province.

    Sufferers from the Conspiracy.

The chief sufferers, aside from Blennerhassett, were Sebastian and Innes, of Kentucky.  The former resigned from the bench, and the latter lost a prestige he never regained.  A few of their intimate friends also suffered.  But their opponents did not fare much better.  Daveiss and Marshall were the only men in the West whose action toward Burr had been thoroughly creditable, showing alike vigor, intelligence, and loyalty.  To both of them the country was under an obligation.  Jefferson showed his sense of this obligation in a not uncharacteristic way by removing Daveiss from office; Marshall was already in private life, and all that could be done was to neglect him.