The Wheeling Repository

Extract of a letter from Cowles Mead, secretary and acting governor of the Mississippi territory, to the department of war, dated

Washington, M. T. Jan. 19.

SIR,

In obedience to your instructions by express, of the 20th of December last, I immediately, after proroguing the legislature, proceeded to put the territory in a state of preparation for the arrestation of the suspicious persons, and boats, which were contemplated therein. My militia were collecting at particular points, on the river, when I received a letter from col. Burr, who had landed at Bayou Pierre, with nine boats and about one hundred men. This letter went to an avowal of his innocence of the charges which rumor and public apprehension had announced against him, and solicited me to appease the fears which his approach had begotten; at the same time he guarded me against the horrors of civil war, & the evils resulting from such a state of things; this seeming threat, induced me to adopt a different mode of conduct, from what the colonel might have expected; and, instead of adopting his pacific admonition, I ordered a very large portion of the militia of the territory to rendezvous at certain points, and wait further orders—with the promptitude of Spartans, our fellow citizens shouldered their firelocks, and in twenty four hours, I had the honor to review 575 men at Natchez, prepared to defend their country. They were ordered under the command of colonel Claiborne, to a point on the river, about 21 miles above the city, there to remain to guard the river, and intercept, for inspection, all boats that might descend the river.

On the 16th, I dispatched two of my aids to col. Burr, who had tendered his respect to the civil authority; these gentlemen engaged on my part to give the colonel an interview in the neighbourhood of the detachment stationed at the mouth of Cole's creek—conformable thereto I met the colonel on the 17th, and after a lengthy interview, he offered his boats to be searched—on the 18th, col Burr, accompanied by my aids, majors Shields and Poindexter, rode down to the place, and was committed to the highest tribunal of the civil authority, where he now remains for trial.

Four gentlemen of unquestionable respectability, with a detachment of 30 men, are now in the act of making the search of the boats, and to morrow I expect their report.

Thus, sir, this mighty alarm, with all its exaggerations, has eventuated in nine boats, and one hundred men, and the major part of these are boys, or young men just from school. Many of their depositions have been taken before judge Rodney, but they bespeak ignorance of the views or designs of the colonel; I believe them really ignorant and deluded: I believe that they are the dupes of stratagem, if the asseverations of generals Eaton and Wilkinson, are to be accredited.