Rusk: The Adventures of Gilbert Imlay 
13 
IV 
It is impossible to say whether Imlay, who, according to 
the evidence cited above, left America in December, 1786, was 
at that time already entangled in a web of French intrigue 
against Louisiana, or, perhaps, had taken some share in the 
incipient Spanish plot involving the allegiance of Kentucky to 
the Union. Both General Wilkinson and Judge Sebastian, 
ring-leaders, somewhat later, in the separatis,t agitation and 
both in the pay of Spain, had, as we have seen, acted as agents 
for Imlay.^“ As to the possibility of Imlay’s interest in 
French schemes at this early date, there is no substantial evi- 
dence; but it is interesting to note that as early as 1785 a 
French agent, D’Arges, had been posted at the Falls of the 
Ohio;^^ and the subsequent history of Imlay suggests that it 
is not impossible that he came under the influence of this man. 
Before the end of the next year, 1786, Kentucky was in a fer- 
ment of excitement over the question of the navigation of the 
Mississippi, and the turbulent spirits among the ex-soldiers, 
now well beyond the reach of the authority of the Federal 
government, were threatening to apply to some foreign power 
for aid in securing their commercial rights.^^ Whatever the 
cause of Imlay's departure, such were, at any rate, the symp- 
toms of political unrest in Kentucky when he left America, 
bound, as one may reasonably conjecture, for Europe. 
But it is not until some half-dozen years later that his 
career in England and France brings him again into promi- 
nence. The intervening period^'^ he undoubtedly spent partly 
in preparing for the press the two works which have done 
much to secure his fame — A Topographical Description of 
the Western Territory of North America (London, 1792) and 
A further, hut enigmatic, proof of dealings between Wilkinson and Imlay is to be 
found in a letter from Wilkinson to Harry Innes dated March 29, 1796, and preserved 
in Vol. 2 of the Wilkinson Papers, Innes MSS., Library of Congress. Cf. also Wilkin- 
son to Irvine, September 28, 1784, as cited above. 
42 See Gayarre’s History of Louisiana, III, 238. 
44 See, for example, the letter of December 4, 1786, from “a gentleman at the falls 
of the Ohio, to his friend in New England”, in Secret Journals of the Acts and Pro- 
ceedings of Congress, IV, 320. 
4'> It is difficult to escape the conviction that somewhere there must be records of 
Imlay for these years in the files of law couit or consulate ; but I have so far been 
unable to discover anything of the kind. The information which I have received re- 
garding American consular records is wholly negative ; but it is incomplete, and it 
still seems likely that something positive will sooner or later come to light from this 
source. Imlay certainly retained his American citizenship as late as 1795. (See his 
power of attorney granted to Mary Wollstonecraft on May 19 of that year, as cited 
below.) 
