Louisiana and Aaron Burr 331 



conspirator of Burr's type really intended, and ex- 

 actly how guilty his various temporary friends and 

 allies were. Part of the conspirator's business is to 

 dissemble the truth, and in after-time it is nearly 

 impossible to differentiate it from the false, even 

 by the most elaborate sifting of the various untruths 

 he has uttered. Burr told every kind of story, at 

 one time or another, and to different classes of au- 

 ditors. It would be unsafe to deny his having told 

 a particular falsehood in any given case or to any 

 given man. On the other hand, when once the plot 

 was unmasked those persons to whom he had con- 

 fided his plans were certain to insist that he had 

 really kept them in ignorance of his true intention. 

 In consequence it is quite impossible to say exactly 

 how much guilty knowledge his various companions 

 possessed. When it comes to treating of his rela- 

 tionship with Wilkinson all that can be said is that 

 no single statement ever made by either man, 

 whether during the conspiracy or after it, whether 

 to the other or to an outsider, can be considered 

 as either presumptively true or presumptively false. 

 It is therefore impossible to say exactly how far 

 the Westerners with whom Burr was intimate were 

 privy to his plans. It is certain that the great mass 

 of the Westerners never seriously considered enter- 

 ing into any seditious movement under him. It is 

 equally certain that a number of their leaders were 

 more or less compromised by their associations with 

 him. It seems probable that to each of these leaders 

 he revealed what he thought would most attract him 



