-Caveat Lector- Treason in America -- From Aaron Burr to Averell Harriman ANTON CHAITKIN (C)1984 New Benjamin Franklin House P. O. Box 20551 New York, New York 10023 ISBN 0-933488-32-7 --[2]-- -2- The British Surrender, But the War Continues At the close of the American War in 1783, while the British and French were still fighting, East India Company operative Adam Smith wrote an updated version of the Wealth of Nations. This was to be the essential document of the new order of things in London, for by then Smith's friend Lord Shelburne had established his power in the British government by a virtual coup. In it Smith complained that "Mr. Colbert, the famous minister of Lewis XIV . . . [endeavored to regulate] the industry and commerce of a great country upon the same model as the departments of a public office; and instead of allowing every man to pursue his own interest in his own way . . . he bestowed upon certain branches of industry extraordinary privileges, while he laid others under as extraordinary restraints . . . [Colbert preferred] the industry of the towns above that of the country."(1) This unfair policy (by which France had become a greater manufacturing power than England!), said Smith, was responsible for provoking cycles of retaliation between France and England, and peace between the two nations could only be secured on the basis of "free trade" between them. In France, Adam Smith's theory of free trade was popularized by Burr's new cousin, Jacques Mallet du Pan, who called Smith "the most profound and philosophic of all the metaphysical writers who have dealt with economic questions." Later du Pan's cousin Pierre Prevost, professor at the University of Geneva, would translate the works of Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus. Attacking Colbert's policies in 1786, Mallet du Pan lobbied strenuously with France's King Louis XVI to accept British Prime Minister William Pitt's offer of a treaty that would force France to give up all protective measures, and put the country at the mercy of Britain's "free trade" policies. At the same time the international banking houses, led by the Swiss, suddenly refused credit to the French government, and Louis XVI was forced to sign Pitt's Eden Treaty. No sooner had that been accomplished, than the British launched a terrifying trade war, dumping cheap British manufactures on the French market and cutting off the supply to France of vital Spanish wool. Within France, employment, agriculture, and trade quickly collapsed and starvation followed. In 1789, credit was again withdrawn from the French government. King Louis XVI was forced to reinstall Genevan banker Jacques Necker as minister of finance—after having fired him several times before—in order to "regain the confidence" of the banking community. Necker proposed austerity as the only solution to the crisis. He told the people of France that their troubles stemmed from "wasteful spending' by the King and Queen. Necker was again dismissed by the insulted King, but now mobs surged through the streets crying that Necker was the only hope for the French people. As they stormed the Bastille prison, the French Revolution began. Aaron Burr's kinsman, Mallet du Pan, satisfied that anarchy was burying French greatness, returned to Geneva and then settled in London—where he set up a European-wide spy network for the British. Spymaster du Pan received first-hand accounts of French government secret deliberations from his agents within France. (2) Enter Albert Gallatin Albert Gallatin, who was to serve the British with Burr on American soil in the decades that followed the Revolutionary victory, came from one of the leading oligarchical families of Geneva. Relations of blood, and of bloody deeds, united them with Gallatins, Galitzins, Galitis, and Gallatinis in Russia, South Germany, Holland, Italy and Savoy, where the family originated. They had served the feudal nobility of Europe for centuries as financiers and soldiers of fortune.(3) The Gallatins maintained a seat on Geneva's Council of 200, along with the family that had finally given Aaron Burr a home and identity—the Mallet-Prevost family. The Gallatins were cousins of the Mallets, the Prevosts, and the Neckers, with active relations in England, Holland, and Geneva. Albert Gallatin was born in 1761. His most intimate friend and father-figure in his youth was the writer Voltaire, the Gallatins' neighbor. According to all his biographers, Albert spent countless hours on the lap of the ultra-rich cynic, whose love of British and hatred of Continental philosophy made a deep impression on the youth. At the University of Geneva as a student, Gallatin formed a life-long friendship with classmate Etienne Dumont, who left Switzerland and became the tutor to the sons of Britain's Lord Shelburne, as well as the worldwide agent and translator of Jeremy Bentham. Another formative relationship, not mentioned in any existing Gallatin biography, can best be described by Gallatin himself in an affidavit he filed in New York City, September 18, 1835: Having been requested to state the facts within my knowledge respecting the identity of Paul Henry Mallet-Prevost of Alexandria in New Jersey and sometime ago deceased I do hereby declare and certify as follows, viz: I was myself born in the city of Geneva, Switzerland in the month of January, 1761, and left for the United States in April 1780. From the year 1765-1766 till my departure I was intimately acquainted with the family of Paul Henry Mallet aforesaid, kept on an uninterrupted intercourse with several of its members and particularly with his two younger brothers, and knew him personally, though he being a few years older than myself, my intimacy was less with him than with them. The said Paul Henry Mallet was the son of Henry Mallet a merchant, manufacturer, and highly respected citizen of Geneva and of [Jeanne Gabrielle] Prevost.... The brother of the said Henry Mallet was Professor Mallet, distinguished in the republic of letters as the author of Northern Antiquities, the history of Denmark.... He was an intimate friend of my family, took great interest in me, and to his friendship and kindness I am indebted for having directed and assisted me in my history studies.(4) Gallatin goes on to mention two brothers-in-law of this professor, uncles to his intimate friends, the little Mallet brothers: General Augustine Prevost, who "defended the South from the combined forces of the United States and France," and James Mark Prevost, "also a high-ranking officer in the British command . . . who was the husband of Theodosia Prevost, later t]he wife of Aaron Burr." In the 1790s, Gallatin's intimates the Mallet-Prevost brothers came to America. The affidavit further states: "I met Paul Henry Mallet for the first time [since his arrival in America] at Mr. Burr's, the first husband of whose wife was as above stated Paul Henry's uncle." Gallatin attended the University of Geneva while his cousin Jacques Necker was battling the Colbertist tradition in France by demanding that budget cutbacks, not industrial growth, be the central aim of the administration. Upon Gallatin's graduation in 1778, the American Revolution was threatening to turn the world against London and its allies. Gallatin's grandmother informed him that her intimate friend the Landgrave of Hesse would make Albert a lieutenant colonel in the Hessian mercenary army fighting against America. Here the anglophile biographers have blithely passed along the most preposterous story to explain how the son of one of the most reactionary families of feudal assassins, who himself was a member of the anti-republican Negatif Party in Geneva, could come to America and pose as a friend. According to this legend, Albert Gallatin replied to his grandmother, "I will never serve a tyrant," and received a box on the ear. He then secretly left Switzerland, and traveled to America, an adventure-loving young liberal. His family, the legend lamely concludes, then wished him well and sent along letters of recommendation to help him out in his new country. Gallatin arrived in Boston in mid-July 1780. The Revolution was in its darkest moment: if Benedict Arnold's traitorous surrender of West Point went through as planned for September, the United States would be cut in half—the British and their Tory spy networks would soon be back in power. Albert Gallatin awaited the outcome in Boston. But Arnold was foiled when his British purchaser Major John Andre was caught with the West Point plans. On October 1, 1780, two days after Andre was condemned to death, Albert Gallatin sailed out of Boston harbor toward Maine. He hid in a cabin by the Canadian border until receiving word a year later that the British had surrendered at Yorktown. Gallatin then returned to Boston, where his family had arranged for him to become a Harvard University instructor. Despite Gallatin's fervid assurances to the contrary, some biographers continue to assert that he ''fought in the American Revolution."(5) In 11786, Gallatin moved west, settling on 60,000 acres in southwestern Pennsylvania's Fayette County, a worldly prince among 3 the backwoodsmen. He immediately set to work to prevent his adopted country from becoming a nation. It was the same year that saw the outbreak of Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts and other movements which threatened to dismember the country. Burr's friend from the Quebec Expedition, General Wilkinson, had led a movement to separate the Kentucky region from Virginia and the nation, and cement it comm6ercially with the Spanish-held port of New Orleans. It was only t}he adoption of the Constitution in 1787 which undercut these projects. As soon as the document was sent to the states for ratification, Albert: Gallatin became the mastermind of the Pennsylvania opposition forces. John Smilie, a Gallatin lieutenant, was the floor leader of the anti-ratificationists in the state convention. Smilie condemned the Constitution for "inviting rather than guarding against the approaches of tyranny," and what he said was its "tendency to a consolidations not a confederation, of the states." Gallatin lost; Pennsylvania ratified by a two-to-one majority. In September 1788, Gallatin drew up the resolution of the anti-Federalists calling for another constitutional convention, and corresponded with like-minded men in other states. In 1790, 1791, and 1792, Gallatin was elected to the Pennsylvania state legislature, meeting in Philadelphia alongside the Congress. In the session of 1791-1792, Gallatin was on 35 committees, preparing all their reports and drawing up all their bills. Gallatin's first initiative was the creation of an armed movement against the new federal government. We shall return to this topic after reviewing the continuing career of Gallatin's new cousin. Aaron Burr, the Wall Street Lawyer When the war ended, Aaron Burr began a law career in New York City and became known as an exceptionally clever lawyer. With no interest in the theory or purpose of law, Burr could nevertheless be counted on to amaze and confound juries, sometimes gaining a not-guilty verdict when the jury believed the contrary to be the case.(6) During the war, as chief aide to General George Washington, Alexander Hamilton had observed Burr; and he had observed the British mode of treachery in warfare. Now his suspicions were growing. During the fight over the ratification of the Constitution, Burr took no stand, but he proposed to Hamilton that a coup d'etat might settle the problem. They should "seize the opportunity to give a stable government," he told Hamilton. "Seize?" Hamilton replied. "This could not be done without guilt." Burr retorted with his favorite maxim: "Les grandes ames se soucient peu des petits morceaux [great souls worry little about trifles]." Hamilton solved the problem by writing, with James Madison and John Jay, the Federalist Papers, with which they convinced the national majority to back the Constitution; Hamilton reported this conversation 13 years later, when stopping Burr's drive for the U.S. presidency.(7) One of Burr's most important law clients was John Jacob Astor, whose ill-gotten fortune later saved Burr's neck. Astor had left Waldorf, Germany, at the age of 17, landing in London in 1780. While working for a London-established brother, he became associated with the East India Company. He lived in London during the American Revolution, moving to New York City in March 1784 where his brother, Henry Astor, was waiting for him. Henry had become extremely wealthy during the war years in British-occupied New York, buying and selling the livestock stolen by British rangers from Americans living north of the city.(8) (These rangers were thus called "Cowboys"—reportedly the origin of this term in America.) Staked by his brothers with a boatload of pelts, John Jacob Astor returned to London in 1784 to trade with the East India Company for a fabulous markup. Astor and his fur-trading organization then ranged through the wilderness to and across the Canadian frontier, John Jacob maintaining a close relationship with the Montreal fur monopoly. By 1800, Astor was given permission by the East India Company to enter freely with his ships into any port monopolized by the Company. He thus became the pioneer among a handful of early nineteenth century American merchants to make a fortune on the sale of opium to the Chinese.(9) At the close of the war of the Revolution, the British had continued to occupy forts in American territory, and British military agents and their allied fur traders armed the northern Indian tribes and organized continual slaughter of American settlers. This British-Indian combination continued until the 1796 Jay Treaty removed the British from their military installations. But the British also occupied America in civilian dress. New York Governor George Clinton appointed Burr State Attorney General in 1790, and shortly afterward the legislature made him Land Commissioner as well. The following year they appointed him U. S. Senator from New York. Burr was rapidly becoming political boss of New York State. The legislature had passed a bill following the Revolution to sell off state lands at a low price to encourage settlers to populate the northern areas. Burr and his associates rapidly moved in to take advantage of the situation. Attorney Aaron Burr was legal representative of the head of a ring of speculators—Alexander McComb—and McComb's grouping was permitted by Land Commissioner Burr and Attorney General Burr to buy 3.3 million acres southward from the St. Lawrence River, for eight cents an acre, on long-term credit. Burr was also the New York lawyer for the Holland Land Company, a European company organized and managed by the Swiss adventurer Theophile Cazenove, and partly owned by Albert Gallatin. The Holland Company bought 1.5 million acres in western New York and 3.5 million acres in Pennsylvania. (10) By the end of the year, Aaron Burr, British intelligence, and the British military, would control virtually all the border lands between British Canada and downstate New York. In 1791, Captain Charles Williamson of British military intelligence returned to the United States. Captain Williamson, later to play a key role in Burr's famous "Western Conspiracy," had been captured by the Americans during the Revolution. Exchanged for British prisoners, he married a Connecticut girl and returned to Britain. Now he was to be the agent of a group of London financiers who had purchased 1.2 million acres of land in northwestern New York, which he was to manage.(11) Aaron Burr became his lawyer and confidante, when Williamson moved in to occupy the land. As it was against state law for foreigners to own land, Captain Williamson managed to get himself naturalized as an American citizen. The actual owners of the land, however, were the Pulteney Associates; William Pulteney, a very wealthy Englishman who had been a friend and supporter of Adam Smith for 40 years; John Hornby, former British governor of Bombay; and Patrick Colquhon, sheriff in charge of policing the port on London's Thames. Williamson's father was secretary to the Earl of Hopeton in Scotland. Williamson and the Pulteney Associates all took direction from Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, who was the political boss of Scotland for 30 years beginning in the 1780s. Dundas had restored to the many Scottish aristocrats the lands and titles that had been taken from them by the English. And to ensure their special allegiance to his and Lord Shelburne's management of intelligence and military affairs, Dundas re-established the wearing of the kilt in Scotland. Captain Williamson was the most intimate friend and confidential agent of Dundas and of Prime Minister William Pitt. His lawyer, Aaron Burr, soon came to be Dundas's agent. As British secretary of state in 1787, Dundas wrote a master plan to extend the opium traffic into China. From 1793 until 1809 Dundas was head of the Board of Control of India, and personally supervised the worldwide opium traffic, which had been escalated by the East India Company since the American Revolution. In 1793 Dundas signed the order authorizing British naval units to seize and plunder any U.S. ship trading with colonies of France. Dundas was Minister of War from 1794 to 1801, and Lord of the Admiralty in 1804 and 1805. William Pulteney's son-in-law was Minister of War in 1807 when Aaron Burr was tried for treason in America. The huge extent of land in the hands of Aaron Burr's clients, including Captain Williamson, is shown in the map on page 31. Burr's Western Empire British troops still occupied Forts Oswego and Niagara. Captain Williamson set up crude ports on the lake shore at Sodus Bay and near the present city of Rochester, New York. The towns of Pultneyville, Williamson, and East Williamson are still there, looking across the lake toward Canada. No true cities were built in this extension of the British Empire(12)—but the villages of Geneva and Bath (named for Lady Bath, Pulteney's wife) commemorate Williamson's peculiar enterprises. Williamson used Indian runners as his regular couriers to transport sealed mail pouches from the British military authorities in Ontario down to the U.S. capital in Philadelphia. The Canadian authorities, overseeing cross-border British espionage, included Chief Justice William Smith, brother of Aaron Burr's law teacher and close friend of Benedict Arnold. Smith, the bitter, exiled former Tory leader of New York State, was on hand in Canada, until his death in 1793, to help coordinate the beginning of Williamson's operations. Williamson got himself designated a colonel in the New York state militia, and elected to the New York state legislature. He and Burr worked together closely in the state assembly, while Burr was simultaneously in the U.S. Senate. Williamson worked on a committee which brought to the floor and passed a bill to legalize direct ownership of land by aliens. In order for the bill to pass, Burr supervised the distribution of bribes by his client, the Holland Land Company. The attorney general (one of Burr's successors) received a $3,000 bribe, and Thomas Morris received $1,000 for steering the bill through the State Senate. Because Burr himself received $5,500 and a $20,000 debt was put aside, his biographers scold Burr for "corruption."(13) One gentleman in particular remained a thorn in the side of Burr and the upstate British operations—William Cooper, the father of James Fenimore Cooper. The elder Cooper had begun settling Cooperstown and the area south of Lake Otsego in 1789, devoting his life to establishing the most ideal conditions for the development of agriculture, towns, and industry. He was a close friend of John Jay, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton, who was his lawyer.(14) In 1792, John Jay received a majority of votes for governor, but the vote was contested by Burr's aristocratic toy Edward Livingston. Legal authority over the matter wound up in the hands of U.S. Senator Aaron Burr. On the most absurd technicality drawn from obscure British law, Burr had the entire vote from Cooper's Otsego County thrown out, thereby stealing the election for Clinton. When Cooper complained, he was prosecuted by Burr's lieutenants for "unduly influencing the voters in an election." Cooper won acquittal; but Burr's assaults did not end there. Major Augustine Prevost was the son and namesake of the British "scorched Earth" commander against South Carolina in the American Revolution. Young Prevost was married to the daughter of British Indian agent George Croghan, the former owner of the Cooperstown-area wilderness who had lost it to auction for debts. Prevost's new relative, attorney Aaron Burr, then undertook to represent him for many years in Prevost's litigation to take the land away from the Cooper family—and halt what the British felt was a dangerous consolidation of pioneer strength on the American frontier.(15) William Cooper was assassinated in 1809 by a blow from behind while he was at a political meeting. (16) --(notes)-- 1. Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Oliphant, Waugh and Innes, Edinburgh, Scotland, Second Edition, 1817, Vol. III, p. 2. 2. Acomb, Frances, Mallet Du Pan, A Career in Political Journalism, Duke University Press, Durham, N. C. 1973, pp. 257-59: "Berne . . . was an ideal location for the center of the intelligence network that Mallet Du Pan created.... " The British Representative at Brussels, Lord "Elgin was impressed, decided to employ Mallet's services upon a regular basis, and in the first six months of 1794 received [a] series of intelligence reports . . . [on] the dictatorship of the Committee of Public Safety and the means by which it governed France and managed to wage the war.... "The correspondence with Elgin was succeeded by a similar correspondence with Don Rodrigo de Souza-Coutinho, the Portuguese diplomatic representative at Turin . . . from the beginning of 1795 through 1797. This Lisbon correspondence was set up on British initiative as a way of maintaining communication with Mallet at Berne: Lisbon was a 'letter box' . . . the best known correspondence of this type by Mallet Du Pan is that with the Court of Vienna, from the end of 1794 until the close of February 1798. There was also a much less extensive correspondence with Berlin through Hardenburg, between 1795 and 1799.... "Mallet's sources of information . . . [included] emigres of various descriptions, he also had his regular correspondents within the country [France] . . . One of these . . . was Peuchet . . . under the Directory he went to the Ministry of Police where he was in charge of the bureau dealing with litigation concerning emigres, priests and conspirators...." 3. For an anecdotal introduction to Gallatin family life, see Gallatin, James, [son of Albert] The Diary of James Gallatin, Ed. by Count Gallatin, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1919. This edition has an introduction written by Viscount James Bryce in 1914, just after Bryce's reign as British Ambassador to the United States. The Gallatins' relations with the Galitzins are variously described throughout the Diary. In the entry for October 27 1813, p. 12: "Count Galati called this afternoon. He says he is a branch of our family; that his family were from Savigliano in the Piedmont- that his father was intimate with Count Paul Michael de Gallatin, Councillor of State of the Republic of Geneva, who acknowledged relationship. He is very charming, and father does not doubt the relationship. Count Paul Michael was the head of our family and my father was his ward. Count Galati is a great person in Russia. He was in full uniform, covered with orders and stars. He kindly explained them to me. He has the following orders: the Military Orders of St. George and St. Vladimir of Russia, St. Maurice and S. Lazare of Sardinia, and the Sovereign Order of St. Jean of Jerusalem." The better-known details of Albert Gallatin's life may be learned by consulting any of his almost worshipful eulogies, including: Adams, Henry, The Life of Albert Gallatin, Henry Holt, New York, 1879 (Adams was hired by the Gallatin family to write this book); Muzzey, David, "Albert Gallatin, " in the Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1931- Stevens, John Austin, Albert Gallatin, Houghton Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1883; Stevens was himself a member of Gallatin's family by marriage. 4. Quoted in Mallet-Prevost, Historical Notes; this affidavit was requested of Gallatin in a letter from Andrew Mallet-Prevost, dated Philadelphia, Aug. 21, 1835 (Gallatin Papers). The compiler of the Mallet genealogy was apparently anxious to enhance the value of his own "pedigree" by demonstrating the famous Gallatin's close relationship to his family; the affidavit was a crucial clue which has led the present author to many discoveries in the traditionally semi-private world of oligarchical control in political and academic spheres. See Morris Richard Brandon, The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence, Harper and Row, New York, 1965. Morris describes (p. 100104) the activities of Gallatin's tutor and guide, Prof. Paul-Henri Mallet during the American Revolution: "[Viscount] Mounstuart [son of Lord Bute King George III's closest friend] spent a good deal of time [in Geneva; with his former tutor, Paul-Henri Mallet. The Swiss professor and historian had toured Italy with the young Viscount in 1765 [where] the young Viscount . . . pursued . . . uninhibited explorations of the customs and talents of the courtesans of Rome and Venice . . . Mallet, best known for his history of Denmark, had important connections in royal circles . . . and was at that time committed to write a history of Brunswick for George III. He knew Paris well and from childhood had been an intimate of Jacques Necker a fellow Genevese...." "In the spring of 1780 Mallet spent two and a half months in Paris, a good part in Necker's company. On his return to Geneva he made contact with Mountstuart immediately. The tutor talked free]y to his former pupil 'under solemn oath of secrecy.' Were these talks to be disclosed, he cautioned, they might 'greatly prejudice M. Necker, ' who was now winning the support of the King [Louis XVI] . . . Necker had been frank with the Swiss historian, according to the latter's own account. To introduce fiscal reforms, the court of France had to have peace [i.e. stop France's war with Britain, in alliance with the American Revolution, which was] a war he had never had nor could approve . . . The only thing that was holding up that peace for a single minute was the American rebellion. As regards the latter, Necker . . . was quoted by Mallet as expressing the fervent hope 'in God the English would be able to maintain their ground a little better this campaign.' Mallet, who had done quite a bit of preliminary cogitating on this problem, then proposed to Necker that 'some one province, ' say New England, be declared independent, 'and the others obliged to return to their former allegiance.' Necker's response was favorable...."[emphasis added] ". . . Mountstuart was . . . thrilled at the prospect of playing an important role in ending the war, and he believed that, with the American reverses in the South, the timing was right to 'incline our enemies to think a little more seriously of peace.' From Geneva he rushed . . . a report of these conversations [to London]. Mountstuart [reported]: What Mallet wanted was that the sums advanced to him by George III for writing the Brunswick history would be increased and given to him for life.... ". . . Necker was prepared to go behind [French foreign minister] Vergennes' back and effect a peace without satisfying even the minimum goals of France's . . . allies and without regard to Louis XVI's own honored commitments. "On December 1st, Necker, in the full assurance of his growing power, dispatched a secret message to [British Prime Minister] Lord North. . . You desire peace,' Necker wrote. 'I wish it also.'. . ." [Morris, p. 149]: "In the months and years ahead . . . the notion of dealing with the separate states demonstrated remarkable vitality . . . the partition or fragmentizing of America. In essence the Mallet-Necker plan, it was seriously advanced...." Seriously advanced, indeed, until the Union forces finally put it to rest in 1865. 5. An example of this puffery: ". . . alarms of English invasion reached the settlement, and volunteers marched to the defence of the frontier. Twice Gallatin accompanied such parties . . . and once . . . was left in command of a small earthwork and a temporary garrison of whites and Indians at that place." Stevens, Gallatin, p. 16. 6. Alexander, Pretender, pp. 89-92 Schachner, Nathan, Aaron Burr, Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York, 1937, p. 89. 7. Hamilton to James A Bayard, Jan. 16, 1801, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, Columbia University Press, New York, 1961-1977, Vol. XXV, pp. 319-324. Parton, Life and Times, Vol. 1, p. 283, quotes Burr as saying "moraux," or morals. 8. O'Connor, Harvey, The Astors, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1941, pp. 10-11. 9. Porter, Kenneth Wiggins, John Jacob Astor: Business Man, in the series Harvard Studies in Business History, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1931, Vol. II, p. 601. 10. For Cazenove family political and financial connections see "Autobiographical Sketch of Anthony-Charles Cazenove, Political Refuge, Merchant, and Banker, 1775-1852," ed. John Askling, in Virginia Magazine, Vol. 78, July, 1970, No. 3, pp. 295-307. 11. An interesting though not always accurate account of Captain Williamson's New York State operations is given in Parker, Arthur C., "Charles Williamson, Builder of the Genesee Country," in the Rochester Historical Society Publication Fund Series, Vol. VI, 1927, pp. 1-34. The article's author is by family tradition closely associated with the 19th-century British agentry and freemasonic activities among the Indians in Western New York, through his relative Ely Parker, and Ely's friend Lewis Henry Morgan, founder of the Rochester Historical Society; see Chapter 16 below. See also Cowan, Helen I., Charles Williamson: Genesee Promoter— Friend of Anglo-American Rapprochment, Rochester Historical Society, Rochester, N.Y., 1941. This is an unintentionally hilarious account of Williamson, a spy who tried to end the United States, presented rather as a promoter of "Anglo-American friendship" on the model of the British World War II ambassadors to the U.S., Lords Lothian and Halifax. See also Cox, Isaac J., "Charles Williamson," Dictionary of American Biography. Despite the usual Anglophile bias of that publication, the WilIiamson article has some remarkably frank descriptions of the Captain's activities. 12. Reginald Horsman, in The Frontier in the Formative Years, ] 78-1815, University of Mexico Press, 1975, p. 26, claims: "Particularly ambitious was Charles Williamson, the agent for the English Pulteney interests. Throughout the 1790's he made great efforts to attract settlers to the Genesee region, spending $1,000,000 to accomplish this end." While it is likely that Williamson's superiors provided him with lavish financial resources, it is not at all likely this money was used to promote settlement of the area, which did not take place under the British officer. 13. Parton, Life and Times, Vol I, p. 241. Parton says that the $20,000 debt was cancelled as "a perfectly legitimate transaction, by which [Burr] lost, not gained—facts known to half a dozen persons" but that Burr simply chose not to refute the "slander." Let us quote from Evans, Paul Demund, The Holland Land Company Buffalo Historical Society, Buffalo, 1924, pp. 211-213: "The Act of April 2, 1798, which crowned with success the efforts of Burr and his assistants, was the combined result of deft political management and unscrupulous bribery, the Holland Company's agent supplying the funds. Relatively little opposition was met in the Senate through which house the bill was guided by Thomas Morris who hoped to become one of the Holland Company's agents in western New York.... Divergent as were the views of some of the legislative leaders, the money of the Holland Company as distributed by the fine hand of Mr. Burr. seemed to have had the magic power of bringing them together.... [The payments were] charged on the [Holland Company's] books as for counsel fees since [Company boss Theophile] Cazenove had reported that it was to go to those attorneys who were to guide the affair through the Legislature. As appears in the accounts kept in Holland the total paid out in this way amounted to $10,500.... Of this amount $3000 went to the attorney-general of the state, Josiah Ogden Hoffman, $1000 to Thomas Morris . . . . .$5500 went to Aaron Burr . . . . .Cazenove . . . . .agreed to exchange one bond which Burr had given [to Holland Co. ] as security... for another which he presented...." 14. For a very moving, fictionalized account of William Cooper's achievements, see Cooper, James Fenimore, The Pioneers, New American Library, New York, 1964; this is the first written of Fenimore Cooper's celebrated "Leatherstocking Tales." 15. See Augustine Prevost to Aaron Burr, August 24, 1785, Burr to Prevost April 25, 1789 and August 24, 1789, in the microfilm Burr Papers, relating to Prevost versus Cooper. Major Augustine Prevost was described by the Duke de la Rochefoucauld in his Travels Through the United States, published in London in 1799: "Colonel Burr had given me a letter to Major Prevost, who lives in the township of Freehold [about 60 miles east of Cooperstown] . . . Major Prevost has a neat little house built on a tract of nine thousand acres which belongs to him. He is a son of that General Prevost, employed in the British service, who distinguished himself by the defense of Savannah, and disgraced his character by the burning of many American towns . . . a part of [Major Prevost's] property became involved in consequence of debts contracted by his father-in-law and himself . . . he [retired] to that part [of the land] to which his claim was the least contested there to . . . patiently await the moment when; recovering his other possessions [i.e. the Cooper land], he should be certain of leaving a decent fortune to his children . . . two [of his children] have long been and still continue in the British service.... "Major Prevost, a native of Switzerland, has all the frankness of an honest Switzer, and of a genuine, honest Englishman.... He speaks well of the American government.... "Many of his opponents who have taken possession of his lands, are influential men: he is the son of a British general, and has himself borne arms in America in opposition to the Revolution.... During my stay at Freehold there was no mention of politics. I could easily guess the political sentiments of the Major and his family: but, if I had entertained any doubt on the subject, it would have been completely removed by observing the avidity by which they read Peter Porcupine [a royalist newspaper published in Philadelphia]...." 16. Faced with such well-connected opponents, the Cooper family unfortunately chose not to seek justice in the murder. The present author had occasion to discuss the case with William and James Fenimore Cooper's heirs, and they maintained that it was "not unusual" for people to be killed at political meetings in those days. The family retains a vast collection of Cooper correspondence, which has never been published and to which the public has no access. pps 18-34 --cont-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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