Norfolk Gazette And Publick Ledger

From the Alexandria Gazette.

GENERAL WILKINSON.

We have been furnished by respectable friend with the following extract of a letter from Frederick town, Maryland, containing summary of the trial of Gen. Wilkinson together with the conclusion of his defence, which we feel it a duty we owe the public to lay before them.

Fredericktown, 19th Dec. 1811.

Dear Sir

Your last letter came in good time to remind me of my promise of presenting for your information the trial going on here as soon as concluded, as it reached this place the very day the court martial broke up--The opportunity I had of knowing the whole affair, widened by the general's confidential communication with me upon every topic which came into view and my perusal of his defence before delivery, done at his request, enables me to give to you a just view of his case, which I will do with all possible brevity.

You recollect the charges-Spanish pension-- Burr's conspiracy, and the mortality of the troops in 1809, ascribed to his disobedience of orders, by his occupation of the position of Terre au Beuf near New-Orleans instead of ascending the Mississippi and taking post on its high grounds near Fort Adams, considered peculiarly salubrious.

With respect to the first charge, it appeared in evidence that the privations of the inhabitants of Kentucky, of whom general Wilkinson was one, in consequence of the impracticability of exporting the products of their labor, as the mouth of the only river leading from their country to the ocean was shut by the Spaniards who possessed New-Orleans and the adjacent territory, and whose government interdicted trade either with themselves or others.

In this humiliating and comfortless condition, Gen. Wilkinson, pressed by the common wants and urged by his high minded spirit of enterprize, determined to make an effort to change the sore state of things. He sent a small adventure down the river -it was seized by the Spanish officers on arrival at New-Orleans. He nevertheless, persevering in his determination, followed his boat, and by his address and vigor contrived to gain permission from the Spanish government to carry on a limited trade.

The Kentuckians were rejoiced at the success of their fellow citizen, and the permitted commerce although limited, was at that juncture most comfortable in its effects to the newly settled district. Wilkinson himself chiefly profited, as was natural to expect-He proved incontestibly that this commerce gave $50,000 dollars; a much larger sum than his alledged bribe and pensions amounted to --a balance of his money became due unexpectedly from the recovery of tobacco supposed to be damaged, after Wilkinson had quitted the trade, and the occasional payments when made gave rise to the fable of " pension" which the subsequent malice of a few enemies aided by art and intrigue contrived to fix in the public mind as a fact.

The attempt to convert a mere farce, into reality, was powerfully abetted by the necessary secrecy with which all Wilkinson's arrangements with the Spanish officers had been necessarily conducted.

In permitting this trade the Spanish policy had been suspended, and no doubt the Spanish officers found their interest in this. But to obtain justification with their government many pretexts and devices must be formed and rendered current, or they would be subjected to enquiry and punishment. The most profound secrecy not only then became indispensable for their security, but any coloring they might chose to give with a view to their own safety to Wilkinson's secrets and connexions, was cheerfully admitted by the general, anxious only to perpetuate the licensed trade and regardless of idle, and in one sense, useful fictions, the falsehood of which he knew, and never could suppose that even at any future period could be turned to his injury among his own countrymen.

Who could have supposed it possible that a people enjoying a most desirable boon through the exertions of an individual could ever have become the dupes of their own credulity, by sanctioning the perversion of trifling attendant circumstances when devised by malice and art and levelled against the name of their benefactor. Yet this has taken place in the case of General Wilkinson ; and had he not been brought before a military tribunal, most probably the unjust suspicions and cruel allegations would have haunted his reputation to its latest hour.

As it is, I believe not a man who has attended the trial, except a few desperate witnesses, remains unconvinced, and who does not wonder at his own folly in accrediting for a time the profligate assertions of Clarke and his associates.

The 2d charge, viz. Burr's conspiracy had not even the shadow of appearance to justify it. It appeared in evidence never to be questioned, that a long and sincere friendship had prevailed between them, began in the revolutionary war and continued in all subsequent vicissitudes to the mysterious descent of Burr down the Mississippi. but after Burr's unwarrantable duel with one of the best and most useful of our countrymen, General Hamilton, and his consequent exile from his state, Wilkinson, always ardent in the cause of his friends exerted his influence to get Burr elected to congress--this conduct, although as far as the testimony goes, unmingled with any other view, has been ushered by clarke and his associates to excite suspicions unfavorable to Wilkinson and on it as a basis, has the art and malice of the general's enemies erected a superstructure capped with the charge of treason..

But the baseless fabric tumbled to the ground. when assailed by the batteries of truth, and has buried in its ruins Clarke, Power and their malignant associates. It has been made as clear as the noon day sun by convincing and irresistible testimony. that from the moment general Wilkinson was apprised of Col. Burr's probable intentions, he exerted himself by stratagem to discover his plan and his coadjutors, and prepared to resist with arms every step that Burr might take in the consummation of his designs.

Happily for the United States and many innocent though deluded individuals, Burr's plan was crushed in its beginning, and civil war probably was thus arrested. By whom? by the very man, who, from that hour to this day has been assailed publicly and privately in the most virulent and outrageous manner. Relieved at length it is to be hoped that gratitude and reward will hereafter distinguish him.
dissipated by the unequivocal and full testimonies which the prisoner advanced. Not only did he prove that his orders contemplated the defence of New-Orleans, but he proved that in his selection of a position for the army he combined in the most effective manner with the primary object, the reservation of the health of his troops. He shewed that he had saved large sums of the public money by his arrangements in the execution of his duty, and that the season being uncommonly sickly, no personal efforts of toil, vigilance or exposure of his own health was omitted in fulfilment of duty evidently dear to his heart.

Since the elevation of the late president to the chair of state, the spirit of change and the substitution of theoretical for practical knowledge which distinguished him and his administration extended itself to the army. The quarter-master-general's department was pruned to a mere shadow, and citizens styled military agents, without military rank or responsibility, were appointed to do the duties performed in good old times by the quarter master general and his staff. These military agents were independent of the commanding general, and responsible only to the war minister.

Thus money could be withheld, however necessary, by the military agent, nor was it possible for the commanding officer to prescribe a remedy for the evil, without resort to the war department, more than a thousand miles distant. The Jeffersonian change of system was rigidly executed, so much so, that his war minister actually forbade the chief agent from authorising advances of money which might exceed 50 dollars.

It followed, that the responsibility of the commander was transferred to the secretary of war, and with this mutation of responsibility were sown the seeds which yielded such an abundant crop of derangement and insubordination that ensued on the shores of the Mississippi.

When disease visited our camp, the fatal consequences of the certain effects of the change in our military system spread far and wide, nor could the commanding general draw to himself efficient aid to resist or mitigate effectually the destructive sickness, inasmuch as the present secretary of war had exactly conformed himself to the new regime.

Had the commanding general been authorised, as was formerly the case, to require without reserve every article necessary for his sick soldiers, it appeared very plain that the afflicting mortality which took place, might have been considerably restricted. Or if the secretary of war had never ceased to confide in his general, and had left the army to his uncontroled care, instead of directing at his distance from the scene of action, (although from the best motives) its ascent up the river in its then state, and at the most pestilential season, no doubt was entertained by the generality who heard the testimony offered to the court by the prisoner, that we should not have had cause to lament the heavy loss of lives which thereafter followed.

In the course of the prisoner's defence, which will be read with interest by all, an unsubdued spirit dominated, manifesting his own consciousness of innocence, his confidence in the independence and intelligence of the court martial, and his thorough reliance on the justice of the president, putting at defiance Clarke, Power, and his host of enemies, inviting the strictest and most comprehensive scrutiny into his conduct, and contrasting his ruined, degraded condition, with that which a grateful, liberal and just policy ought to have bestowed, Everywhere you find flashes of eloquence, and occasionally bursts of indignation. A Colonel Smythe is among the first that his rage falls upon, but he seems to have passed over this gentleman lightly, reserving him, as he suggests, for further inquiry. The lieutenant colonels Freeman and Backus and major Dorrington, next engaged his attention, and they are lashed severely. The lieut. col. B. and the major appear to be in the full-spread mantle of ignominy. At length brigadier-general Hampton is introduced; his conduct as respects the prisoner is spread before you, accompanied with syllogistic and cutting conclusions.

Then follows his finale, the whole of which is copied, with the general's permission, and added to this letter, as the best way of gratifying urgent inquiry.

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Court,

If in this voluminous appeal to your judgment, rendered necessary by the extent, variety and complication of the charges, under which I stand before you, I have deviated from the respect which I owe to myself and which I feel for you, individually and collectively, I shall ever deplore it as a misfortune.

If the expositions, which the occasion has extorted from me, bear hard upon the feelings of any one, I will refer him to my general orders, to his own breast, and the outrageous calumnies which have been pointed at my immortal part, and after such appeal I am persuaded no candid man will murmur against me. If I have treated some witnesses with derision and others with severity, if I have animadverted freely on men and things, let it be imputed to the sensibilities of a mind agonizing under misfortune and privations the most poignant, and to the keenest sense of the lingering and incessant persecutions by which I have been harrassed, from the hour I proclaimed my opposition to Burr and his traitorous associates, now more than five years since.

You have witnessed, gentlemen, the inequality between the accuser and the accused on the inquiry. To support myself against all the weight of this prosecution, my penury and powerless condition left me almost without resource. It was the sense of this inequality which caused my mind to revolt against the proposition for a general court martial, when first mentioned to me; and it was the dreadful prospect of endless suspence, which induced me afterwards to seek it with solicitude. The dignity, the patience, and the candor of this court, throughout this painful and protracted inquiry, is a sure presage of the sacred respect to justice by, which it is animated; and these demonstrations of an equitable disposition, establish the strongest claim to my gratitude,

Gentlemen if in the course of this examination a single instance has been proved, wherein I have been found guilty even of an omission of duty, then let your denunciation be heavy upon me. But if on the contrary I should appear to you, that my life has been faithfully and zealously devoted to the service of our common country, then, I feel well assured your award will administer consolation to this long afflicted bosom; and by restoring to me my sword and my honor that you will enable me to mingle my endeavors with your own--in the rightful war, to the threshold of which our government appears at this moment to have approached.

In the dawn of manhood, I dedicated myself to the defence of my country in the decline of life I trust, with a full reliance on your justice, gentlemen, that I shall not be deemed unworthy to die In his service.

Boston, April 6.