[Footnote: John Mason Brown, "Political Beginnings of Kentucky," 138.] He never understood the people with whom he was dealing.

He was sure that they could all be reached by underhand and corrupt influences of some kind, if he could only find out where to put on the pressure.

The perfect freedom with which many loyal men talked to and before him puzzled him; and their characteristicly American habit of indulging in gloomy forebodings as to the nation's future--when they were not insisting that the said future would be one of unparalleled magnificence--gave him wild hopes that it might prove possible to corrupt them.

He was confirmed in his belief by the undoubted corruption and disloyalty to their country, shown by a few of the men he met, the most important of those who were in his pay being an alleged Catholic, James White, once a North Carolina delegate and afterwards Indian agent.

Moreover others who never indulged in overt disloyalty to the Union undoubtedly consulted and questioned Gardoqui about his proposals, while reserving their own decision; being men who let their loyalty be determined by events.