>> especially again in things that we don't use that often. we don't really know the price of. there's a case where, you know, diabetic testing equipment, you know, do we know what the price of that should be. we can't necessarily anticipate the cost of use. >> it's what has to be used like the disposable razor which has to be replaced, replaced, replaced. >> that's right. >> do we have time for one more? >> oh, okay, yeah. >> i wonder if you found any generational differences between young buyers and older buyers? >> well, i don't do surveys.

i can say that i've done a lot of radio interviews for this and i get a lot of callers and what really surprised me i get a lot of young callers and i thought oh, heck, who cares, you know? we have disposable stuff. we go to ikea and we trash it. we move all the time. who cares? that's been a minority of young people. young people have a growing interest about environmentalism. they're concerned about the economy and they've actually connected the dots quite effectively. i've been talked to by several young oriented publications, quite a few, actually, they've universally approved of this message. the only people i've gotten a lot of push-back of are the readers of the "wall street journal." i'm not sure that it's all that surprising. these are people who have made their wad and are worried, you know, about others taking it away from them.

and they're also very whetted to the status quo. i'm not saying this is true of all "wall street journal." this is someone who has been interviewed angrily to the "wall street journal." i'm sure it cuts across ages, but i would say older people, of course, who are familiar with the -- with this proverb, you know, i've been saying this for years and now i understand it. younger people also have kind of bought into it in a different way. but it's fairly -- what's been really interesting to me it has been pretty much across-the-board. they are on board, yeah. thank you. [applause] >> ellen ruppel shell is a contribute to the atlantic monthly. she's the author history distal the hungry gene" and "a child's place." for more information visit ellenruppelshell.com.

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i fear i should begin with an apology. i spent the best part of the last three years particularly the last two intensively writing about a really nasty piece of work and there's little good to be said of general james wilkinson. what else can be said you would say for a man who combined a career as commander in chief of the united states army and that's how congress designated him commander in chief with his second existence as agent 13 in the spanish secret service. 11 years he commanded the nation's forces. he garrisoned its forts and patrolled the forests. and at the same time he fed the military secrets to the largest power in the hemisphere and if spain had acted a little more vigorously on the warnings that

agent 13 passed on they would have captured the lewis and clark expedition and put a halt to their westward exploration. and they did heed his advice about fortifying the border with texas and so they kept the united states out of texas for about a generation thanks to his warning. so he was a pretty effective agent. it has to be said. and then there's also his reputation as the man who founded the spanish conspiracy and the spanish conspiracy was designed to split away kentucky and tennessee from the rest of the country. so a guy like that, you know, he really makes sort of snakes seem like a model of good and chameleons look good compared with wilkinson. and, and i simply refer to him an artist in words he was the

most consummate artist in treason. roll over benedict arnold here's james wilkinson. i really enjoyed writing about him. there might have been two possible explanations i could offer. there's two psychologically compelling about somebody who can lead a double life absolutely in the glare of publicity for so long. and the other quite curiously is that he played a role that was extraordinarily important to the survival of democracy in a very new and very vulnerable state. in short, i'm going to suggest that despite his despicable behavior, james wilkinson did a lot for which we should be very grateful.

now, what's so surprising about his career as a spy is that almost everyone suspected him of being one. [laughter] >> he must be one of the most outed secret agents in history. he was referred to as wilkinson the spanish pensioner which means he was in the pay of spain. and there's all sorts of pamphlets printed accusing him of being a traitor in in kentucky there was an entire paper called the western world which was devoted to exposing him. and each of the first four presidents, george washington, john adams and james madison were all aware of wilkinson's uncomfortably close contacts with the spanish authorities in new orleans. and they discussed repeatedly what should be done with him. now, founding fathers were no fools so clearly there was something that wilkinson did that was more important than the threat of his treachery.

so there's not just the psychological puzzle of what made him do it. there's this historical mystery to be solved. yes, there's -- the historical mysteries. i'll give you a quick outline of the first half of his life. he's born the son of a penniless maryland tobacco grower. his father, joseph wilkinson, died when james was barely 8 and the boy adored him. quote him endlessly about how he should live his life. takes him really as the model for a way that a maryland gentleman planter should live his life. but it's pretty obvious that joseph was a south windler. swindler. he borrowed from his friends. he never paid them back and died virtually bankrupt. this is not a great model on which to build your life.

after his father's death he was brought up by a devoted, adoring grandmother who spoiled him on her. it was on her that he practiced his dominant talent. that's his ability to charm people. now, charm is a quality that history tends to ignore. you know, the person who practices it dies. but we know how important it is when we meet a charming person how immediately you warm to them. and that's certainly the effect that he had on people. he was rebullient. he was vigorous and energetic. he talked superbly about himself but the stories were very good and he had a nice turn of phrases. one moment when washington said i received yet another report about you being a spanish pensioner and wilkinson said oh, this is the sort of thing that happens in an era -- this is his quote, when slander on stilts stalks over the fence of reputation.

now, that's a good phrase. there was a nice tribute paid to him really on the eve of the battle of sarasota when he was a 20-year-old general to general gates. and militia colonels don't care for regular officers particularly but this is what he said about young wilkie. he was this young great kid. he said wilkie's conduct endeared me to me. he seemed to be the life and soul of the headquarters of the army. he in the capacity governed at headquarters. and this is a part of what he really contributed to was the extraordinary victory at saratoga when gates' army trapped the general's army up against the banks of the hudson river and forced a surrender.

and gates certainly felt that wilkinson played a major role. this is not exact portraiture but we're assuming the guy holding the flag behind gates is indeed wilkinson because he was so close to gates both professionally and personally he would refer to him as a son. you're a son to me he wrote on several occasions. and when the news of the great victory was taken to congress, it came with strong recommendations, a certain absolute insistence that this kid of 20 should be made a general and so he became the youngest american general in the army. so that's part of the power of his charm. i think the other part again of his personality -- this is his

wife nancy, formerly known as ann biddle. it's a little miniature of a very good portrait of charles wilson peel. take a look at that little mouth and those sort of bright eyes. she's a quaker. she is delicate and sensitive. she writes beautifully. wonderfully funny quicks. and when we come to the motivation one of the things this golden couple. he charming, she delicate, civilized, flirtatious. he always insists she has a carriage. she loves it. they are a charming couple. and so out on the frontier, this is even more valuable. because after all a frontier is

a place where there isn't much. if you have a couple like this they're very welcomed but they are very expensive and so he has to borrow money. he borrows a lot of money and the great thing is out on the frontier, people, of course, are straight-talkers but they are very susceptible to charm. charm is worth its weight in gold. one old timer as late as 1834 about wilkinson came out and his neighbor had lent him something like $250 and hadn't been paid and a long time he went to see wilkinson to demand his money back. and he remembered the neighbor came out after 20 minutes lent him another $200. so it's not surprising really that his personality also played a part -- and i remember in 1787, he went to meet his what turned out to be his spanish handlers down in new orleans. he took a flat boat of kentucky

produce down to new orleans and he met these two very experienced administrators. and he proposed them something extraordinary. he said if he was given a trade monopoly on the mississippi he would guarantee to split off the western straits from the rest of the country. that's an absurd proposal in a way but again, his ability to charm people plays its part. and one of the soldiers writing back to the king of spain in madrid said here's a young man of about 33 years of age. although he looks older of exceedingly agreeable appearance, married with three small children. in his manners and address he chose that he's had a very good education which his uncommon talents have taken advantage of. and so they suggested that spain should take up this extraordinary offer. and they lent $7,000 in order to

secure his talents. now, he was still technically a civilian when he made this deal. he had left the army at the end of the revolutionary war. and he was trying to make it on the frontier. he was a hopeless businessman. even with this monopoly which they've given him even with the $7,000 he was fast approaching bankruptcy about four years later and so he had to rejoin the army. and that's a critical moment. because if you're going to rejoin the army, you have to swear an oath of allegiance to the united states. in that moment he technically becomes a traitor. in 1791 he rejoins as a colonel. i think it's terribly important that the money is there. he virtually doubled his salary but there was something else he really liked that feeling of being important.

of knowing a secret that nobody else knew. and he made -- he took extraordinary care to make sure that his secret did remain a secret. so though everyone did suspect him of being a spanish pensioner, nobody really knew -- and i just want to give two illustration of the sort of care he took. there are two points for a secret agent and perhaps you all are secret agents that you will know this anyway. two points when it's really dangerous. one when you're sending your information out. and the other is when you're getting paid for it. this is a message that wilkinson sent in 1794 soon after a new spanish governor came in replacing the other. and wilkinson wanted to impress him. he told his spanish handlers how many troops he commanded. how much he was being paid by the united states government and by implication how much he expected to be paid by the spaniards. you may remember on the timeline his salary was increased from

$2,000 a year to $4,000 a year. well, this is the message that triggered his pay rise. and if you found that message, it wouldn't tell you very much. i have to say there was a first class guy in the 1920s looked at wilkinson's codes. this is what he figured it meant. 2,000 select troops. i think it's light horsemen and artillery. and i'll just quickly show you how lieutenant rhodes was able to break at that time. if you look at the numbers to the left of the dot, you will see for the letters which are and artillery at the beginning of the alphabet the numbers are quite small. as we get to the w, things after the alphabet things are really large. rhodes figured out very quickly it must refer to a dictionary. that's what they're using.

a is page 2. so what they're talking about is the numbers to the left of the dot are the page numbers and from that, you deduce pretty quickly the ones to the right must be the line numbers. and the actual dictionary was a spelling dictionary and that has two columns on each page so you will see besides some of the numbers there's a little double line over the second number and that tells you the line it's on, i think, whatever it is, the second line of the second column. it wasn't until the 20th century when historians began digging through an estimated 200,000 documents in the spanish archives which were related to the united states and they came

across -- i mean, i looked at the archives both in madrid in the library of congress and there are hundreds if not thousands of pages -- sorry, i'll just go back like that. and those poor dogged spanish decoders had to decode these messages because wilkinson was incredible verbosed and produced 60-page reports in this thing. and there's one occasion they wrote back, i like this particular message. in spite of your directions and the multiplied efforts we get nothing from your communication of april the 8th. we could only guess at the meaning of the first five lines. so sometimes he was so clever with his code he defeated even the spaniards. but they were very efficient in the archives of film of these messages.

the other area of vulnerability, you'll remember, is getting paid. and when you're getting sort of some of these quite large sums, $4,000 a year, it doesn't come in paper money. it comes in silver dollars. and if you're putting $4,000 or on one occasion $6,000 silver dollars it has to be transported. it actually was transported in casts and clearly there's a possibility the boat carrying the casts might be stopped and the casts searched and anyway you could hear the silver jingling so they filled it in with coffee and sugar so that it looked as if it was a normal cargo. but even so, on one occasion, a poor messenger bringing up $6,000 and go in a big boat in the mississippi in the mouth and how you transfer into smaller boat because wilkinson's

headquarters are in cincinnati. and the boatman could hear the clink of the coins of the casts and they murdered the messenger who took the silver and ran off across kentucky. they immediately found out and arrested and taken before the magistrate and they confessed. they confessed they murdered this guy and taken the silver that was going to general wilkinson. and in there he's found out but no they could only confess in spanish and there was nobody who could understand spanish. they sent down to the nearest spanish fort to get an interpreter and they get thomas power who was in the pay of the secret service and so when he came to translate, he carefully let have left out about the silver going to general wilkinson. and so the guys -- well, the guys who were sent to prison was

hanged but wilkinson got away scot-free. and, in fact, there's another occasion power himself brought up some barrels of silver and was stopped by a lieutenant steel just outside the fort and steel looked at these casts and power said, i'm a spanish merchant taking coffee up to louisville and steel is a bit suspicious but the steersman said if steel had looked into a bucket on the top of the boat containing old tobacco, he would have found papers enough to hang wilkinson himself. but he was rather a dozy lieutenant and he finally waved them through and power when he was talking about the incident afterwards he said you used up a fortnight rum ration as a reward to keep his oaresman because power said had i fallen into him a second time i was lost.

so there's some close shaves getting the money in to wilkinson. but he got away with it. so that in a way is a psychology of wilkinson. he's charming. he's duplicitous. and he loves the idea of secrecy of power. but he's also extremely energetic. he really is a very good soldier. and that is really what the first three presidents anyway valued him for. thomas jefferson valued him for something else. just take a look at the bold type down at the bottom. 1804, president thomas jefferson appoints wilkinson territorial governor of upper louisiana. why? and that is the historical mystery. because for jefferson it was a

point of democratic principle that the military had to be under the control of a democratically elected government. otherwise, there was no control over them. and a general could not -- there had been a previous occasion where it was suggested that the general should be made a governor and he specifically said there will be nobody to control him. he must be under a civilian governor. yet here he appoints wilkinson to be governor of upper louisiana and you'll notice immediately wilkinson has taken $12,000 on this occasion from the spanish in new orleans. and just to give you an idea how powerful that position made him, take a look at this map of the louisiana purchase being governor of upper louisiana put wilkinson in control of the upper two-thirds of the purchases. all that sensitive land between the united states and spain

proper -- nobody quite knew where the boundaries lay and it was a source of aggravation and it started to come to war but he was in charge of it all and he was commander in chief of the army. so why did jefferson take that gamble?[c that incredibly foolish gamble of putting a man so deeply suspected of being agçv traitor a position of such overwhelming power and influence? and he received two specific warnings that we know about. concerning wilkinson. and one came from a kentucky judge a man named joseph davis, who wrote an alarm to the president. you have appointed general wilkinson, the governor of st. louis who i am convinced has been for years and now is a pensioner of spain. and the other in a way was even more specific. it was right at the beginning of jefferson's presidency. it came from a man namedñs" an ellicott, an upright quaker and he had come across specific information about the money that

had been paid to wilkinson.&')z and he wrote to jefferson -- he was a friend of jefferson and with all this information at the 1:er @&hc% is not a man to be trusted. and if continued in employ, he will one day or other disgrace and involve the government in his schemes. well, it's important to remember that the army after the war in independence was reduced to a tiny size. it was about 3,000 men. a size of a brigade. so it was quite small. but it was washington's army. that's to see it was a federalist army. now, that's a matter of real significance because to the federalists, jefferson was a man who could not be trusted. he was a man who plotted against washington when he was president. he was trying to undermine adams when he was president and he encouraged the factional divisions and brought an end to

12 years of federalist administration. so when jefferson became president, many republicans knowing how well he was hated by the federalists assumed there would be a military coup and jefferson was warned that every fort and arsenal should be placed.dú under the protection faithful officers meaning republicans in order to prevent the seizure or destruction by a desperate faction meaning federalists. this wasn't just para no, ia.ná -- paranoia because all the whigs had a professional full-time army because a government with a full-time army could make it do whatever it wanted and it could overrule and it had happened just, oh, five years before in 1799 in france when the army under napoleon bonaparte overthrew a

government which was elected by a million votes just 12 months earlier so that was very clear in people's minds and so one of the first measures that jefferson did when he became president was to askwé wilkinso to release captain lewis for special duties and lewis's special duties was to go through the list of officers noting down their political affiliation and marking out those who were, quote, opposed to the administration. most violently opposed to their administration and still active in theirvillification and the most extreme ones on the list were dismissed. but nothing guaranteed the safety of the administration like the presence of a sympathetic commander and james wilkinson made it plain that he was jefferson's general.gi and one angry federalist officer

said that he was the only senior officer friendly to the politics of the now-reigning party and he showed his sympathy by various ways. he posted the critics of jefferson to horrible outposts far away so they couldn't do any damage. but he also devised his own way of weeding out federalists and this is it. the critical thing is the pigtail or the cue and that was really the ornament of the federalist army. it was incredibly difficult to keep looking smart. you had to smear it with lard and power. and the lard went rancid and the powder turned brown and everyone 2009 cut it off. that was his reason. but the real reason was that cropped layer was the republican way. it was a plain down-to-earth republican hairstyle. and the federalists hated it. this is one officer saying i was

determined not to cut my hair provided i less sacrificed and i wrote my resignation but the colonel refused to accept it so i was obliged to submit to the hair that i despised and if you ever see me again you will find that i have been closely cropped. and this particular man we have here is a man called thomas butler. i've had to blow it up because it's a tiny little thumbnail silhouette which was a popular way of portrait. and this is a picture of the death bed bore a hole in my coffin so my cue can hang through so that damn wilkinson still refuse to obey his order.

the outcome really was butler did die and everyone else fell into line or resigned so what happened after sort of a year was that you had a closed cropped republican army. so the paradox running through wilkinson's career is while he was unmistakably betraying his country to spain, he was also performing a service that was that's to say keeping the army under the control of a democratic government. and i think the reason why wilkinson is so little known is that his perfect example of the case of the dog that did not bark almost every revolutionary government sooner or later was overthrown by its army. it happened in france. it happened in every other revolutionary country in the american hemisphere. the army moves in. it did not happen in the united states. and that is very much to wilkinson's credit.

there's another even more secret reason for jefferson's favor and this is it. this is an incredibly famous map. it was made by alexander von humboldt which was kept in mexico city and it showed better than anyone else, than any other map, what that bit of southwest of what we now call the united states but then mexico looked like. now, you can see the inaccuracy to it. there's just a single mountain range going through. but for jefferson, that was extremely interesting indeed. because he saw it as another route, the southern route to the pacific. and it looked so easy and once you're over the range of mountains there's bound to be a river down to the other side. and that would be the way a second route, western route, could be found.

and so he borrowed the map from humboldt. and gave it to wilkinson. wilkinson copied it and shared with his protege who used it about two years later when he explored into that area. now, it was -- wilkinson knew more than just the map. he knew more than anyone else what was happening down there. because he had a wonderful protege who would break the mustangs for the spanish army so he had direct information about how you might very well go in there or alternatively you could turn to the south and you might very well find a way into mexico. i don't know how complicit jefferson was. he was seen on one occasion having dinner and discussing something secret.

the entire table fell silent when this witness came in. but there around the table was wilkinson, philip noland and thomas jefferson. and wilkinson had written to jefferson saying i know you're interested in this part of the world. my friend, philip noland, knows more than anyone else. we should all meet. what were they discussing? we don't know. but certainly his appointment of wilkinson to this very sensitive place at least suggests he wanted to find a route through to the pacific and possibly he also wanted to see if there could be some way of expanding into mexico. wilkinson, you'll remember, had this need to be liked. he wanted to be approved of. and he responded enormously to it. he responded to jefferson's promotion to him with an absolute don't-like adoration.

he wrote to a friend, tell the president that i would gladly give my life to him and count it a loss that i have but one to give. and you begin to see happening the beginnings of a terrible morality tale. wilkinson who has always been prone to treachery has found somebody that he's going to be loyal to. what is really terrible for him is that just one year earlier, before he was promoted, he and his friend, aaron burr, had decided on -- had started to plot a little conspiracy to carve out some kind of a kingdom down there partly in louisiana, partly certainly in mexico because what makes mexico is valuable is this mother lode of silver running through the sierra madre which produces about a third of all the silver in the civilized world. get your hands on that. and it's really like being in charge of the mint.

nobody quite knows what burr had in mind. but quite certainly it could only happen with wilkinson's help. clearly, he had the control of the army but more importantly he had the ability to go to war with spain. if there was war with spain, all burr's contacts amongst the militia generals people like andrew jackson, we will go to war with spain. we will bring you out 5,000 people, 10,000 people and so that was the critical thing. and in the summer of 1806, it looked as though war would break out. because spanish troops crossed into what was taken to be united states territory. they moved down to just about there and america -- the united states' line was there. and it's effectively about 65 miles. now, you could have had war with

no trouble at all. indeed, in october, 1806, wilkinson was discussing with his second in command, thomas cushing and at that moment the fate of the united states was in his hands if they had made the attack, the army would have been engaged, war would have broken out and the militia would have supported burr coming down the mississippi. burr certainly intended to take new orleans, whether it was a huge angry rebellious french population waiting to welcome him, waiting to give him gold and guns. ostensibly he was going to go to vera cruz to invade mexico but who knows? who knows? and on october the 8th, while wilkinson was talking to his -- talking to his second command, a young man came in with a letter from burr.

and that really was the moment at which wilkinson had to decide was he going to be loyal it off jefferson? or was he going to be loyal to his lying treacherous friend, aaron burr? i just want to read you how terrible the letter was for wilkinson. it came from burr. i have obtained funds and have actually commenced the enterprise. detachments under different points will rendezvous on the ohio. wilkinson will be second to burr. wilkinson should dictate the rank and promotion of his officers. burr guarantees the result with his life and honor. and for 10 days wilkinson agonized which way would he jump? which way would he go and finally he made the choice. absolutely critical choice. on october the 21st he wrote a personal letter to jefferson announcing his discovery that a

numerous, powerful association with a design to levy and rendezvous 8 or 10,000 men in new orleans is coming down the mississippi. so he had gin the secret away. -- given the secret away. he had been loyal for the first time in his career. he had been loyal to jefferson. he said to frustrate this plot he proposed to make the best peace with spain that is within my power and to throw myself my little army in new orleans to be ready to defend that capitol against violence. if you're going to be a traitor, stay a traitor. if you're going to be loyal, then this is what happens. burr was arrested. he came to trial. he immediately accused wilkinson of being a spanish pensioner again. it's not for the first time but this time there was a lot more evidence to suggest that he was.

and specifically burr said the only reason he didn't come with me on this enterprise was because the king of spain had paid him so much money. more and more people joined in. there was fought one but two but three but four tribunals of inquiry into wilkinson's behavior. jefferson became rather cooler. didn't really support him. only offered formal assistance. and then there was a terrible moment when the camp which wilkinson recommended a terrible loss of life from disease. he was forced to resign. well, he was not quite finished because none of these four tribunals, thanks to his good tradecraft as an agent could find anything to pin on him. so he was always found not guilty. and when the war of 1812 broke out, he was reinstated and in a

clever little campaign he forced spain to hand over a bit of west florida. and you could see just this tiny little bit of west florida just nearest the white bit of the map. that is what wilkinson conquered. it was the only territorial gain in the war of 1812 and he was promoted to being -- to command a second attempt to invade canada and this one was a total disaster. a third of his men died of disease. he was again forced to resign. and his military career ended then. and after that, his life really sort of declined very rapidly. he tried to grow cotton in the south. didn't really succeed. he was never really good as a businessman so he went to mexico and tried to gain lands there. but really the -- there was very little to wilkinson in the end. who was he? nobody really knew.

the one thing that really was remained constant in his life was this extraordinary obsession with jefferson. wanting jefferson to give approval. and he wrote repeatedly to jefferson asking him -- just saying just send me a letter. that is all need to do and reply. and they piled up and you can see jefferson received them clearly by 1820s which is when we're talking about, 1824 jefferson is very ill indeed. and you can see his shaky handwriting endorsing these envelopes coming may the 21st and he doesn't reply. he doesn't give the approval that wilkinson wanted. and i think it broke wilkinson's heart. and on christmas day, 1825, he died. and i just want to read you the

nice little coder that occurred because in a sense if you're going to be -- lead a life of secrecy, that's really where your real life is going to be and this outside life is a disguise and it's quite difficult to tell where you exist. was he a traitor? was aye patriot? -- was he a patriot. was he spanish? was he american? he died on december the 28th 1825 at the age of 68. he would have been gratified to learn that a distinguished congregation including the future president of mexico and the american ambassador assembled in the church in mexico city for his football. -- funeral. outward appearances is what was important for the general wilkinson. the inward was less easy to discern. for the general it never counted for much. the final disposal of his remains was oddly appropriate. in 1872, the cemetery of the

church of st. michael where wilkinson was buried was scheduled for development. when the news reached washington the senate decided the body of such a distinguished soldier deserved a proper resting place and orders were given to exhume his body. the embassy sent the official party for due honor but when they arrived they discovered that the graves had already been dug up and the bones consigned to a common vault. american bones were mixed with mexican. it was no longer possible to tell one from the other. friend from enemy, patriot from traitor, general from spy. whoever was behind the outward appearance once known as james wilkinson had simply disappeared. thank you. [applause]

>> if you have any questions about this mysterious character, i would be glad to take them. >> well, first of all, is this live -- am i live? okay, first of all, i really enjoyed your presentation. two questions, if i may, could you explain just briefly the first contact that wilkinson had with the spanish authorities where he became their person? and the phrase "spanish pensioner," i guess that means something different than we would use the term pensioner today. >> yeah. well, just to explain that term, it is -- it just means that he is -- he is being paid by spain. and i think it also means also that it's a regular payment. it isn't just a one-off payment. he is actually receiving a salary.

but, yes, the first contact really was when he took this flat boat of kentucky down the mississippi. the mississippi was a spanish river. it was controlled by spanish forts and spanish galleys running up and down it. of course, technically the eastern bank was american territory. but in practice, the spaniards had total control and they had put a ban on american boats coming down the mississippi. i think he just decided to try to as a way of breaking the ban on american shipping. but he clearly -- just the force of his personality allowed him to get under the skin, if you like, of the spanish authorities.

and he sensed that they had an agenda of their own and their agenda was to build up the wealth of louisiana because they were very nervous about this huge growth in the american population. and i think he just understood that. and he said i've got a solution to your problem. i'm going to detach these new states. and that will solve your problem. and he always -- it is said by his defenders that actually it was just a way of extracting money from the spaniards but i think it's perfectly true after he rejoined the army that he was giving them really a lot of valuable information. and i think they got a very good bargain actually. yes, sir. >> how was it discovered that he was actually a spy? in other words, during his lifetime, at least from what you were saying he was never caught

but quite clearly from the evidence you've presented it's unquestionable that he was. so when did that come out? and how did that play? >> well, it really didn't come out till the 20th century. i mean, really it was -- it was remarkable. at one point -- he was always terribly nervous that the spaniards would leak the information because at least they had the smoking gun, not just one smoking gun they had sort of hundreds of smoking guns in the form of these reports. and one of the last of his handlers said don't worry we'll send all the papers off to havana and long before madison is then president or anyone else discovers your secret, the papers will be far away. there will be no way that you'll ever be discovered and he was absolutely true. there was really wonderful dogged historians in the 21th

century started going through these piles of absolutely unordered, disordered document is. -- documents. the library of congress has got scores of the copies of these coded messages and they are really very exciting to read because there it is just laid out. but you need a lot of time because they are very long. but it's a good read. or, of course, you can read about them in the book. yes, ma'am. >> is there any information his family life? it looks like they were uprooted a number of times. >> that's a very question. i'm glad you asked. i'm sorry i had to skip over nancy biddle, his wife, because i was very fond of her. and to his credit, james wilkinson was very fond of her, too. but she used to write lovely letters saying how much she was missing my jimmy as she called him. and i think the question that was always in my mind was how much she knew, you know, how she must have guessed because he was

getting an awful lot of money than a general could earn. and i think to a certain extent she just sort of blinded her eyes from it. she came from a very sophisticated, wealthy philadelphia families, the biddles. and so she liked that. i think -- i think she just sort of blinked her eyes to it. the terrible thing is she was dying during the burr conspiracy. i think that she had tuberculosis and he's downstairs writing this reports to jefferson saying i will lay down my life to defend you and to defend the united states and

whatever -- and whatever i can give in support of democracy. i will. at the same time knowing, of course, that he had been prepared to do exactly the opposite. and so she died fairly soon after the defeat of the burr conspiracy. and then after about 10 years he remarried a young french girl. and i think he was very happy with her. yes, i think -- nancy, is really quite a wonderful woman. so thank you for asking about her. >> three questions. if i may. did he know spanish or did he communicate in english. >> conveniently from my point of view i do read some spanish but conveniently from my point of view, the reports are all decoded in english. i mean, they are written with this spelling dictionary which

is an american spelling dictionary and so they are decoded into english but certainly what is very interesting from my point of view and i could read most of them are the -- are the reports from madrid to new orleans talking about the value of his information. and madrid took a bit of convincing it has to be said that he was valuable. and constantly new orleans is saying, no, no, this man he can give us all this territory or he can give us all this information. he's worth having. >> being a pensioner and being under suspicion, how come he was never investigated? and another question, how did he betray arnold? >> well, just to deal with the investigation. he was investigated on four different occasions after the burr conspiracy.

and as i say, nobody found any hard evidence. and, of course, he was always able to say, i have been trading with spain before. so they owed me some money for tobacco. they owe me money for this after. it was passed off as a legitimate business expense. his relationship with arnold where he hero-worshipped in the early on. arnold was easily the most effective, aggressive military general that there was. and he was really regarded as the star and particularly during the canadian campaign. and wilkinson really became his general at the age of 18. and then came horashow gates and

gates and arnold quarreled bitterly and wilkinson stitched arnold up while they were both in the army and then later again did the same thing when arnold was appointed military governor of philadelphia. and wilkinson said, you know, he's a traitor. he's a spy. and virtually forced him into the hands of the british. so he was quite a dangerous person to have as an enemy, wilkinson, but he certainly was very early spotting that arnold's loyalties were in the balance. yes, sir. >> thank you for an excellent presentation. you really brought the general to life. >> thank you. >> i got a couple of unrelated questions. you reside in england. did you do most of your research in europe and spain, here? how did you put it all together? >> well, some in spain because the originals of the documents

are in spain. but a lot here. i mean, because the library of congress has a wonderful collection of spanish documents where they relate to the united states. it has a wonderful collection of spanish documents in any case but specifically those ones and they have, in fact, as i realized later -- they have duplicates of all the -- of all the archives in madrid. but i have been writing -- i mean, this is my third book of american history. and gradually you acquire a lot of information about that period. and something, you know, which you had written about -- i'd written a book about andrew ellicott, for instance, and so i was familiar with what wilkinson looked like from ellicott's point of view. it's very funny seeing ellicott from wilkinson's point of view because wilkinson really plays with him like a cat plays with a mouse so that was really how i did it.

and i have to say the third element really is the internet. there's so much information -- i mean, you can see original documents online. and, for instance, the particular thing of jefferson's sort of shaky handwriting. there it is. it's online. i never saw that original. i simply saw the internet picture of it original. so there's -- there's the three ways that i approach it. >> and my last question is that, you spoke of the importance of his loyalty to jefferson and not using the army to basically establish a coup. but earlier when general washington resigned his commission as general of the army in annapolis, i guess, now the state house, that sort of institutionalized the principal of civilian control over the military. did that carry through in that period?

did that impact any on the general wilkinson or do we just think of this later on that's where it started? >> it was hugely important that gesture in the annapolis state house of general washington laying down his command. in reality, most of the army had been either followed or had been sent back to civilian life. so there wasn't much army to resign. nevertheless, i mean, it is of critical importance but it was -- it was extraordinary. i don't know how well you know the last sort of few months of the revolutionary army, the continental army. but there was strong feeling that congress hadn't paid them enough. that they hadn't paid in the warrants and there was this talk of mutiny and washington went

there and tried to read the document. and he said my hairs have gone gray in the service of my country and my eyes, too. it was such an intense personal bond that he had. and for the federalists, that was the real, if you like, that was the real bond. that was really why they found jefferson so hard to stomach because really from the second -- washington's second administration he had been, you know, forming his own -- his own faction. and he was really distrusted deeply by that federalist army. so i think -- i mean, i have no doubt jefferson would not have gone to the extent of weeding out federalist officers. he would not have gone to the extent of trusting wilkinson had he not felt there was a genuine

possibility that the a democratic government might be under threat. that's. thank you very much. [applause] >> bendict arnold is the author of measuring america and the fabric of america. find out more, visit walkerbooks.com and search andrew linklater. >> did you know you could view book tv programs online. go to booktv.org. type the name of the author, book, or subject into the search area in the upper left-hand corner of the page. select the watch link. now you can view the entire program. you might also explore the recently on book tv box or the featured programs box to find and view recent and featured programs. >> you've been watching book tv on c-span2.