180 HISTORY OF OHIO. 



under oath, then, or at any other time, during their lives, 

 John Smith was beset, on all sides, for his supposed friendship 

 to the late Vice President. He wrote to Burr, then at Frank- 

 fort, Kentucky, inquiring " what his real objects were in vis- 

 iting the western country?" Burr, answered, and as he said 

 in that answer it would be, so it was; the only one that he 

 ever vouchsafed to give any one, relative to his business in 

 the western country. He said, in substance, " that, he had 

 purchased a large tract of land in Louisiana, on the Washita 

 river, and he wished to engage emigrants, to settle on it. 

 That the position would be a good one for mercantile and agri- 

 cultural purposes. That these, and these oqly, were his 

 objects." 



Early in the autumn, perhaps, sooner. Burr's associates, be^ 

 gan to build boats, along the navigable waters connected with 

 the Ohio, and Mississippi rivers, Provisions were purchased, 

 such as pork, beef and flour, with which to load these boats. 

 The administration of the general government, sent express 

 after express to the west, in order to save the country, from 

 the ruin, which these boat loads of provisions, and nearly 

 seventy men, without arms, could do by descending the Ohio 

 and Mississippi rivers, possibly, even to New Orleans! 



The legislature of Ohio, full of patriotic devotion, to Mr. 

 Jefferson's administration, passed a long and complicated act, 

 to detect and punish the boat builders and all connected with 

 them. This was in their session of 1806-7. 



To look back upon this farce, now, is like reading an ac- 

 count of the Massachusetts witchcraft; or of the plots during 

 the reign of Charles 11. of England. Sergeant Dunbar is a 

 fine parallel of Titus Oates. 



At the session of the United States' courts for Ohio, at 

 Chillicothe, in the winter of 1807, a vast concourse of people 

 attended, expecting many indictments would be found against 

 all who belonged to the expedition, especially if they had been 

 in the state! and of all, too, who had built boats or sold provi- 

 sions to load them. Michael Baldwin, a great wit, then our 

 marshal, seeing a citizen of Ashtabula county, iq attendanco 



