Last Years
In 1821 Wilkinson visited Mexico in pursuit of a Texas land grant. While awaiting government approval of his Texas scheme, Wilkinson died in Mexico City, where he was buried.
Wilkinson's involvement with the Spanish (Agent 13), although widely suspected in his own day, was not proven until 1854, with Louisiana historian Charles Gayarré's publication of the American general's correspondence with Rodríguez Miró, the Spanish governor of Louisiana. Other historians would subsequently add to the catalog of Wilkinson's treasonous activities. According to recent Burr biography by David O. Stewart, Wilkinson was severely condemned in print by then-New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt, some 65 years after the general's misdeeds, with this judgment: "In all our history, there is no more despicable character."
Read more about this topic: James Wilkinson
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“Chrome: her pretty childface smooth as steel, with eyes that would have been at home at the bottom of some deep Atlantic trench, cold gray eyes that lived under terrible pressure. They say she cooked her own cancers for people who crossed her, rococo custom variations that took years to kill you.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“The easiest way to get a reputation is to go outside the fold, shout around for a few years as a violent atheist or a dangerous radical, and then crawl back to the shelter.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)