The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 17, July 1913 - April, 1914 Page: 30
454 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The Southwestern Historical Quarterly
President would be warned from the very source that was to profit
by his betrayal. Yet the financial necessity was apparently over-
powering, for Wilkinson finally agreed that Casa Calvo should
enter into the secret and that he should carry on the affair directly
with himself and not through Folch as intermediary. This point
Folch submitted to the captain-general for determination. Wilkin-
son asked that in addition to those already mentioned, Cevallos in
Spain, and Gilbert Leonard, the royal contador of West Florida,
be the only ones admitted into the plot. This seems to have been
the case, for he whom Folch later terms "the Prophet Daniel,"
never learned what would have been a most welcome addition to
his "Proofs of the Corruption of General James Wilkinson."
The sum of money that Casa Calvo paid Wilkinson at this time
was twelve thousand rather than the twenty thousand demanded.
This met with royal approval. Wilkinson had asked that his pen-
sion be raised to four thousand pesos, his salary as commander of
the American army. Someruelos held this up pending royal ap-
proval, which was not forthcoming. As an earnest of the serious-
ness of his intentions Wilkinson presented his "Reflections" shortly
after his interview with Folch, and for the next few years carried
on in cipher with him and with Casa Calvo a fragmentary corres-
pondence that seems more despicable in purpose than dangerous in
execution.
The text of the "Reflections" emphasizes the use of the Floridas
as a bribe with which to obtain the right bank of the Mississippi
or at least so much of it as would suit Spain's policy of excluding
the Americans from Mexico. Wilkinson begins by mentioning the
prodigious growth of the States west of the mountains during the
preceding thirty years. In this development he had occupied a
prominent, if not wholly honorable, part. He mentioned that the
retrocession of Louisiana to France ("that Gothic power") aroused
the "sensibilities of every Spanish patriot" (doubtless including
himself) ; while its transfer to the United States "for a sordid con-
sideration" (How distasteful to him!) "opens great dangers to the
American dominions of Spain." He believed that France, "always
intriguing, unquiet and impatient," was trying to stir up trouble
between Spain and the United States over the western boundary
in order to derive some profit from the controversy. He thought
that Spain possessed a great advantage in the Floridas, from which
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 17, July 1913 - April, 1914, periodical, 1914; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101061/m1/34/?rotate=90: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.