enturous and often lawless temper, impatient of restraint.
Representatives of the French and Spanish governments still remained in
Louisiana, and by their presence and their words tended to keep alive a
disaffection for the United States Government. It followed from these
various causes that among all classes there was a willingness to talk
freely of their wrongs and to hint at righting them by methods outlined
with such looseness as to make it uncertain whether they did or did not
comport with entire loyalty to the United States Government.

The Filibusters.

Furthermore, there already existed in New Orleans a very peculiar class,
representatives of which are still to be found in almost every Gulf city
of importance. There were in the city a number of men ready at any time
to enter into any plot for armed conquest of one of the Spanish American
countries. [Footnote: Wilkinson's "Memoirs," II., 284.] Spanish America
was feeling the stir of unrest that preceded the revolutionary outbreak
against Spain. Already insurrectionary leaders like Miranda were seeking
assistance from the Americans. There were in New Orleans a number of
exiled Mexicans who were very anxious to raise some force with which to
invade Mexico, and there erect the banner of an independent sovereignty.
The bolder spirits among the Creoles found much that was attractive in
such a prospect; and reckless American adventurers by the score and the
hundred were anxious to join in any filibustering expedition of the
kind. They did not care in the least what form the expedition took. They
were willing to join the Mexican exiles in an effort to rouse Mexico to
throw off the yoke of Spain, or to aid any province of Mexico to revolt
from the rest, or to help the leaders of any defeated faction who wished
to try an appeal to arms, in which they should receive aid from the
sword of the stranger. Incidentally they were even more willing to
attempt the conquest on their own account; but they did not find it
necessary to dwell on this aspect of the case when nominally supporting
some faction which chose to make use of such watchwords as liberty and
independence.

Burr's Conspiracy.

Under such conditions New Orleans, even more than the rest of the West,
seemed to offer an inviting field for adventurers whose aim was both
revolutionary and piratical. A particularly spectacular adventurer of
this type now appeared in the person of Aaron Burr. Burr's conspiracy