rt Massac, and began the descent of the Mississippi.

The plot was probably most dangerous at New Orleans, if it could be said
to be dangerous anywhere. Claiborne grew very much alarmed about it,
chiefly because of the elusive mystery in which it was shrouded. But
when the pinch came it proved as unsubstantial there as elsewhere. The
leaders who had talked most loosely about revolutionary proceedings grew
alarmed, as the crisis approached, lest they might be called on to make
good their words; and they hastened to repudiate all connection with
Burr, and to avow themselves loyal to the Union. Even the
Creole militia,--a body which Claiborne regarded with just
suspicion,--volunteered to come to the defence of the Government when it
was thought that Burr might actually attack the city.

Collapse of the Conspiracy.

But Burr's career was already ruined. Jefferson, goaded into action, had
issued a proclamation for his arrest; and even before this proclamation
was issued, the fabric of the conspiracy had crumbled into shifting
dust. The Ohio Legislature passed resolutions demanding prompt action
against the conspirators; and the other Western communities followed
suit. There was no real support for Burr anywhere. All his plot had been
but a dream; at the last he could not do anything which justified, in
even the smallest degree, the alarm and curiosity he had excited. The
men of keenest insight and best judgment feared his unmasked efforts
less than they feared Wilkinson's dark and tortuous treachery.
[Footnote: E. G. Cowles Meade; see Gayarre, IV., 169.] As he drifted
down the Mississippi with his little flotilla, he was overtaken by
Jefferson's proclamation, which was sent from one to another of the
small Federal garrisons. Near Natchez, in January, 1807, he surrendered
his flotilla, without resistance, to the Acting-Governor of Mississippi
Territory. He himself escaped into the land of the Choctaws and Creeks,
disguised as a Mississippi boatman; but a month later he was arrested
near the Spanish border, and sent back to Washington.

Thus ended ingloriously the wildest, most spectacular, and least
dangerous, of all the intrigues for Western disunion. It never contained
within itself the least hope of success. It was never a serious menace
to the National government. It was not by any means even a good example
of Western particularistic feeling. It was simply a sporadic
illustration of the looseness of national sentim