seem determined to render themselves independent of the United States and the execution of their design is only delayed by the difficulty of obtaining previously an assurance of protection and assistance from some foreign power....It is clear that Mr. Burr means to endeavor to be the instrument for effecting such a connection....He pointed out the great commercial advantage which his Majesty's dominions in general would derive from furnishing almost exclusively (as they might through Canada and New Orleans) the inhabitants of so extensive a territory....Mr. Burr observed it would be too dangerous and even premature to disclose to me at present the full extent and detail of the plan he had formed....In regard to military aid, he said, two or three frigates and the same number of smallervessels to be stationed at the mouth of the Mississippi to prevent its being blockaded by such force as the United States could send, and to keep open the communications with the sea would be the whole that would be wanted; and in respect to money the loan of about one hundred thousand pounds would, he conceived, be sufficient for the immediate purposes of the enterprise."

On April 29, 1805, Burr reached Pittsburgh, where he planned to meet with General Wilkinson, the new Governor of the just-organized Louisiana Territory. But Wilkinson had been delayed, so Burr left a letter for him and set off down the Ohio River in a specially prepared boat (called by Burr his "ark").

In early May, Burr reached Blennerhassett's Island , a three-hundred-acre piece of