They openly advocated Kentucky's entering into a treaty with Spain on her own account.

Their leaders must certainly have known Wilkinson's real purposes, even though vaguely.

The probability is that they did not, either to him or in their own minds, define their plans with clearness, but awaited events before deciding on a definite policy.

Meantime by word and act they pursued a course which might be held to mean, as occasion demanded, either mere insistence upon Kentucky's admission to the Union as a separate State, or else a movement for complete independence with a Spanish alliance in the background.
It was impossible to pursue a course so equivocal without arousing suspicion.

In after years many who had been committed to it became ashamed of their actions, and loudly proclaimed that they had really been devoted to the Union; to which it was sufficient to answer that if this had been the case, and if they had been really loyal, no such deep suspicion could have been excited.