signation had been accepted he
received information that grave charges would be preferred against him
should he return to the army at Natchez. This determined him to return
at once to his post and meet the charges. Scott had openly given it as
his opinion that General Wilkinson was equally guilty with Colonel
Burr. Soon after his return he was arrested and tried by a
court-martial at Washington, near Natchez, in January, 1810. The first
charge was for "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman," and
the specification was "in withholding at sundry times men's money
placed in his possession for their payment for the months of September
and October." Another charge was "ungentlemanly and unofficerlike
conduct," the specification being "In saying, between the 1st of
December and the 1st of January, 1809-'10, at a public table in
Washington, Mississippi Territory, that 'he never saw but two
traitors--General Wilkinson and Burr--and that General Wilkinson was a
liar and a scoundrel.'" This charge was based on the sixth article of
war, which says: "Any officer who shall behave himself with contempt
and disrespect toward his commanding officer shall be punished,
according to the nature of the offense, by the judgment of a
court-martial."

Captain Scott's defense to this charge was that General Wilkinson was
not, at the time the words were charged to have been spoken, his
commanding officer, that place being filled by General Wade Hampton.
General Scott, in his Memoirs, says that some of Wilkinson's partisans
had heard him say in an excited conversation that he knew, soon after
Burr's trial, from his friends Mr. Randolph and Mr. Tazewell and
others, members of the grand jury, who found the bill of indictment
against Burr, that nothing but the influence of Mr. Jefferson had
saved Wilkinson from being included in the same indictment, and that
he believed Wilkinson to have been equally a traitor with Burr. He
admits that the expression of that belief was not only imprudent, but
no doubt at that time blamable. But this was not the declaration on
which he was to be tried. This was uttered in New Orleans, the
headquarters of General Wilkinson. The utterance on which he was
tried, as will be seen, was made in Washington, Mississippi Territory,
when General Wade Hampton was his commanding officer.

The finding of the Court on this charge was guilty, and that his
conduct was unofficerlike. The facts in regard to the charge of
reta