“ pledge you my honor that neither man nor woman knows of this application to you, except myself:

" Question.

"“Are there not periods when, in free governments, it is necessary for officers in responsible stations to exercise an authority beyond the law--and, was not the time of Burr’s treason such a period?

"Gen. Wilkinson goes to press with his memoirs this autumn, and intends them to be published by the next meeting of Congress . . .”

Jefferson replied from Monticello on September 20 in a letter of 3½ pages quarto, which reads in part: “ . . . To proceed to the conspiracy of Burr, & particularly to Gen. Wilkinson’s situation in N. Orleans. in judging this case we are bound to consider the state of the information, correct & incorrect, which he then possessed. he expected Burr & his band from above, a British fleet from below, and he knew there was a formidable conspiracy within the city. under these circumstances, was he justifiable 1. in seising notorious conspirators? on this there can be but two opinions; one, of the guilty & their accomplices, the other, that of all honest men. 2. in sending them to the seat of government when the written law gave them a right to trial in the territory? the danger of their rescue, of their continuing their machinations, the tardiness and weakness of the law, apathy of the judges, active patronage of the whole tribe of lawyers, unknown disposition of the juries, an hourly expectation of the enemy, salvation of the city, and of the Union itself, which would have been convulsed to it’s center, had that conspiracy succeeded, all these constituted a law of necessity & self preservation, and rendered the salus populi supreme over the written law. the officer who is called to act on this superior ground, does indeed risk himself on the justice of the controuling powers of the constitution, and his station makes it his duty to incur that risk. but those controuling powers, and his fellow citizens generally, are bound to judge according to the circumstances under which he acted. they are not to transfer the information of this place or moment to the time & place of his action: but to put themselves into his situation. we knew here that there never was danger of a British fleet from below, & that Burr’s band was crushed before it reached the Missisipi, but Gen ^l. Wilkinson’s information was very different, and he could act on no other . . . ”

The text contains copies of letters from Jefferson written to General Wilkinson on various dates and of which polygraph copies are in the Jefferson Papers in the Library of Congress.

On February 4, 1811, Colvin wrote to Jefferson from Washington City: “Gen. Wilkinson having informed me that he had transmitted to you the 2 ^d vol. of his “ Memoirs”, which contains his Vindication from the charge of being connected in the scheme of Col. Burr, I presume that you have, by this time, read, in your own words, the arguments in favor of the proceedings at New Orleans against the conspirators. In truth, I copied those arguments, and gave them to Gen. Wilkinson, without the least intimation that they were from your pen: And thus, Sir, you have contributed to do good without being seen in it--a thing which you, no doubt, have often done--and which, more than any thing else, assimilates a man to the deity.

"No one, except the president’s lady, has seen your letter to me. I shewed it to her when the Book came out, to demonstrate to her satisfaction, the agency I had in the work; for, as Gen. Wilkinson is a man of very violent temper, I was apprehensive that he might have introduced into it some abuse of the President, and my enemies would not have failed to ascribe it to me. It is owing to my unceasing representations to him that the language of the volume is as temperate as it is. I fear that of the succeeding volumes will not be so much so. The General is becoming desperate; but his constitution is so peculiar, that it is rather the desperation of Anger than the despair of the fulfilment of Hope deferred.

"I hope that you will properly appreciate my motive in disclosing to M ^rs. Madison (who is both sensible and discreet) the contents of your letter. I have been so often accused of writing things that I had no hand in, that I have felt the injury of that species of persecution, and on this ”