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I deem it essential to keep these prisoners apart to
prevent the adjustment of correspondent answers, or
confessions to any examination which may ensue, and
I hope the measures of the executive may be so
prompt and efficient as to relieve the officers in charge
of them from their trust before the interposition of
the friends of the prisoners may effect their liberation.

By this procedure we may intimidate the confed-
erates, who are unquestionably numerous in this as
well as the adjacent territory, disconcert their arrange-
ments and possibly destroy their intrigues; and I hope
the zeal which directs the measure may be justified
and approved, for whilst the glow of patriotism actuates
my conduct, and I am willing to offer myself a mar-
tyr to the constitution of my country, I should in-
deed be most grievously disappointed did I incur its
censure.

Here, sir, we find the key to the western states,
and here we must form one grand depository and
place of arms ; combine to this disposition a river
fleet competent to its occupation, and post it thirty or
forty leagues above the Yazoo river, and we may re-
pose in security, for the discontent and sufferings of
our insurgent citizens which must immediately ensue,
will soon open their eyes to the wickedness of their
leaders, and work a radical reformation without blood-
shed. This is my plan for resisting an internal attack;
for external defence gun boats and bomb ketches, with
floating batteries at the mouths of the Mississippi, and
the passes from lake Ponchartrain, will be necessary.

Extract of a letter from gen. James Wilkinson, dated

NEW ORLEANS, December 18, 1806.

SIR,

SINCE my last of the 14th instant, writs of
habeas corpus have been issued for the bodies of Boll-
man, Swartwout, and Ogden ; the two latter by judge