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THE BEACON BIOGRAPHIES 

EDITED BY 

M. A. DeWOLFE HOWE 



AARON BURR 

BY 

HENRY CHILDS MERWIN 



AARON BURR 



BY 



HENRY CHILDS MERWIN 




'SCJENDVM ' 




BOSTON 
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
MDCCCXCIX 



.£ 



B^Ms 



Copyright, 1899 
By Small, Maynard iff Company 

[Incorporated) 



Entered at Stationers' Hall 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 



'. X ^ 




Vfc V S\ - Q& • Press °f 

George H. Ellis, Boston 



The photogravure used as a frontispiece 
to this volume is from a photograph of the 
painting by Gilbert Stuart , in the possession 
of the New Jersey Historical Society. The 
present engraving is by John Andrew & 
Son, Boston. 



PKEFACE. 

The materials for this sketch have been 
drawn largely from the Life of Burr written 
by the late James Barton. Mr. Barton had 
access not only to books and manuscripts 
relating to Burr, but also to many persons 
who had known him personally, and had 
been impressed by his peculiar traits. En- 
joying these advantages, and having a 
marked talent for biography, Mr. Barton 
produced a book as interesting as a novel ; 
and yet he did not quite succeed in laying 
bare the central motive-poicer of Burr's 
character, he did not paint a figure so 
lifelike as are, for example, the figures of 
Thackeray. Much less can the present 
writer have succeeded in so difficult a task, 
but he has endeavored to state the problem 
fairly. Almost every important act in 
Burr's public career is susceptible of a 
double interpretation, and was diversely con- 
strued by his contemporaries. Never was 
there a man more warmly loved or more bit- 






viii PEEFACE 

terly hated. His life, there/on , presents a 
most interesting study, aside from the fact 
that he played a brilliant part in the Revo- 
lutionary War, at the bar, and in politics, 
and that it teas he icho caused the tragic 
death of Alexander Hamilton. 

II. C. M. 
September, 1899. 



CHEONOLOGY. 

1756 
February 6. Aaron Burr was born at 
Newark, New Jersey. 

1757 

September 24. His father died at the age 

of forty- one. 

1758 

His mother died j and he, with his sister, 

was taken to the home of their maternal 

uncle, the Eev. Timothy Edwards, at 

Elizabethtown, New Jersey. 

1766 
Ean away to sea, but was brought back. 

1768 
Entered Princeton College as a Sopho- 
more. 

1772 

Was graduated with honors, and con- 
tinued at Princeton. 

1773 
Studied theology with Dr. Joseph Bel- 
lamy. 



x CHRONOLOGY 

1774 
Began the study of law at Litchfield 
Connecticut, with Tappan Reeve, his 
brother-in-law. 

1775 
July. Joined Washington's army at Cam 
bridge. 

September 20. Started from Xewburyport 
with Benedict Arnold's expedition to 
Canada. 

December 31. Took part in the storming 
of Quebec. 

1776 
April. Left Arnold, and in May joined 
the staff of General Washington at New 
York. 

June. Resigned his position with Wash- 
ington, and joined the staff of Genera 1 
Putnam. 

September 15. Rescued the brigade v 
General Knox. 

1777 
July. Placed in command of a regiment. 



CHRONOLOGY xi 

1777 (continued) 

September. Routed the enemy at Hacken- 

sack. 

November. Joined the main army at 

Valley Forge. 

1778 

January. Placed in command of "The 

Gulf." 

June 28. Commanded a brigade in the 

battle of Monmouth. 

1779 
January. Placed in command of "The 
lines ' ' in Westchester County. 
March 10. Resigned from the army. 
June. Carried despatches to "Washington 
from General McDougall. 
July. Led an impromptu defence of 
New Haven. 

1780-81 

Was recuperating and studying law. 

1782 
January. Passed an examination at Al- 
bany for admission to the bar. 
July 2. Married to Theodosia Prevost. 



xii CHRONOLOGY 

1783 
December. Removed to New York. 
His daughter Theodosia was born. 

1784-85 
Member of the State Assembly. 

1789 
September 27. Appointed Attorney-gen- 
eral. 

1791 

January. Elected to the United States 

Senate. 

1791 

Rejected by Washington as a candidate 

for the office of minister to France. 

His wife died. 

1797 

Failed of re-election to the United States 

Senate. 

Elected to the New York Assembly. 

1797-99 

Engaged in law business, in land specu- 
lation, and in rebuilding the Republican 
party in the State of New York. 
September 2, 1799. Fought his first duel. 



CHRONOLOGY xiii 

1801 
February. Chosen Yice- President of the 
United States. 

February 2. His daughter Theodosia 
married to Joseph Alston. 

1804 
April. Defeated as a candidate for Gov- 
ernor of New York. 
July 11. Duel with Hamilton. 
July 21. Indicted for murder, and left 
New York for the South. 
October. Indicted in New Jersey. 
December. Eesumed his duties as Yice- 
President at Washington. 

1805 
February. Presided at the trial of Judge 
Chase. 

March 3. Took leave of the Senate. 
April 10. Left Philadelphia for the West 
and South. 

April 30. Embarked at Pittsburg, and 
sailed down the Ohio. 
June 25. Arrived at New Orleans. 



xiv CHRONOLOGY 

1805 (continued I 
September. Stopped at St. Louis on his 
return. 

November. Returned to Washington. 
December. "Went to Philadelphia. 

1806 
January- April. At Philadelphia, pre- 
paring for the Western expedition. 
April. Applied to Jefferson for a foreign 
appointment. 

August. Started down the Ohio. 
November. Arrested, tried, and acquitted 
at Frankfort, Kentucky. 

1807 
January. Arrested at Natchez, but re- 
leased by the grand jury. 
Fled across the Mississippi. 
February. Arrested in Alabama, and 
sent North. 
May-June. Trial at Richmond, Virginia. 

Acquitted. 

1808 
June. Sailed for England. 
July 16. Arrived in London. 



I 



CHRONOLOGY xv 

1808 {continued') 
December 22. Started for Edinburgh. 

1809 
February. Returned to London. 
April 4. Taken into custody by officers 
from the Foreign Office. 
April 24. Sailed for Gottenburg, 
Sweden. 
October 21. Crossed to Denmark. 

1810 
February 16. Arrived in Paris. 

1811 
July 20. Procured a passport after more 
than a year's delay. 

October 1. Sailed for home on the Vig- 
ilant. 

The ship being captured and taken to 
Yarmouth, Burr went up to London. 

1812 
March. Sailed in the Aurora from Graves- 
end. 

May. Arrived at Boston. 
June 7. Returned to New York, where 



xvi CHRONOLOGY 

he spent the rest of his life, engaged in 
practising law. 

July. Received a letter announcing the 
death of his grandson ; and a few months 
later Theodosia was lost at sea. 

1833 

Married the widow Jumel. 

December. Suffered a slight paralytic 

shock. 

1834 

Was rendered helpless by a second stroke. 

1836 
June. Was removed to Port Richmond 
on Staten Island. 
September 14. Died. 
September 16. Was buried at Princeton. 



AARON BURR 



AARON BURR. 



I. 



Aaron Burr was born at Newark, 
New Jersey, in February, 1756, of the 
purest and most pious stock that New 
England could boast. 

His father, the Rev. Aaron Burr, had 
been for twenty years minister of the 
Presbyterian church in Newark ; and he 
was also president of the College of New 
Jersey, or Nassau Hall, which in the 
year of his son's birth was moved to 
Princeton, and became known as Prince- 
ton College. He was still a young man, 
however, having been settled at the age 
of twenty-two. In figure and in many 
of his traits Aaron Burr, the younger, 
closely resembled his father, who is de- 
scribed as short and slight, but well and 
compactly built, ' i with clear, dark eyes 
of a soft lustre, quite unlike the piercing 
orbs of his son.' 7 He was noted, as was 
his son, for the peculiar dignity and 



2 AAROX BURR 

fascination of his manner, for his great 
courtesy and tact, for the clear, concise 
style of his speaking and writing, for his 
indifference to public opinion, for his 
skill as a teacher, for his generous ex- 
penditure of time and money in the edu- 
cation of his numerous proteges, and, 
finally, for his immense energy and dis- 
regard of illness, fatigue, or any other 
obstacle in his path. 

His wife was Esther, the third daughter 
of Jonathan Edwards. He first saw her 
in 1746, while he was on a short visit to 
her father in Stockbridge, where Mr. 
Edwards, with his wife and ten children, 
was then living. Esther Edwards was 
at that time a girl of fifteen j and Mr. 
Burr did not see her again till 1752, 
when he paid another visit to Stock- 
bridge, remaining but three days. In 
those three days, however, the business 
appears to have been transacted, for two 
weeks after his return he sent an under- 
graduate to bring Esther Edwards and 



AAEON BURR 3 

her mother to Princeton. They arrived 
on Saturday, May 27 ; and on the fol- 
lowing Monday, in the evening, the 
wedding took place. 

The " patriarchal" style of President 
Burr's courtship provoked some good- 
humored comment at the time, but the 
marriage turned out most happily. The 
home letters of a boy who was then a 
student at the college have been pre- 
served, and in one of them he says of 
Mrs. Burr, "I think her a person of 
great beauty, though I must say she is 
rather too young for the president, " 
who was thirty- eight years of age. 

Esther Edwards was beautiful, viva- 
cious, and deeply religious. She had 
been married only about four years 
when her husband died of a fever pro- 
duced by overwork and hard travelling 
in hot weather ; and the widow was 
left with two small children, Aaron, not 
yet a year old, and Sarah about two 
years old. 



4 AAEON BURR 

A month after her husband's death 
she wrote to her father : "My little son 
has been sick with a slow fever ever 
since my brother left us, and has been 
brought to the brink of the grave ; but 
I hope in mercy God is bringing him 
back again. I was enabled, after a se- 
vere struggle with nature, to resign the 
child with the greatest freedom. God 
showed me that the children were not 
my own, but his, and that he had a 
right to recall what he had lent. . . . 
A few days after this, one evening, in 
talking of the glorious state my dear 
departed husband must be in, my soul 
was carried out in such large desires 
after that glorious state that I was forced 
to retire from the family to conceal 
my joy. ... I think, dear sir, I hud 
that night a foretaste of heaven. ... I 
slept but little ; and, when I did, my 
dreams were all of heavenly and divine 
things.' ' 

Of such parentage came that Aaron 



AAEON BUEE 5 

Burr whose name, whether rightly or 
wrongly, has been for half a century a 
by-word for irreligion, profligacy, and 
falsehood. 

"Within a few months death deprived 
the fatherless children of all their near 
relatives, — their mother, their grand- 
father, Jonathan Edwards, who had suc- 
ceeded his son-in-law as president of the 
college, and Jonathan Edwards's wife. 
Their father had left property amply 
sufficient for their support; and they 
were brought up in the family of their 
uncle, Jonathan Edwards's eldest son, 
the Eev. Timothy Edwards, who lived 
at Elizabethtown. 

They had for tutor Tappan Eeeve, af- 
terward judge of the Supreme Court of 
Connecticut, who fell in love with Sarah 
Burr, and married her when she was 
seventeen. She was long an invalid, 
and died before reaching middle life. 
She is said to have been of a noble and 
commanding face and figure ; and it is 



6 AAEON BUBE 

certain that her brother cherished her 
memory, and often spoke of her. 

It was almost inevitable that a boy of 
Aaron Burr's spirit should run away to 
sea ; and this he did at the early age of 
ten, escaping to New York, fifteen miles 
distant from Elizabethtown, and ship- 
ping as cabin boy on a vessel about to 
sail. The next morning, however, while 
the ship still lay at the wharf, the Rei . 
Timothy Edwards boarded her. The 
boy, who was at work upon the deck, 
saw him coming, and immediately sprang 
into the rigging, and climbed to the 
mast-head. His uncle ordered him down, 
but, being unable to fetch him, was 
placed at an obvious disadvantage. His 
commands soon softened into entreaties, 
and finally became a negotiation, as the 
result of which Aaron returned to his 
home, but with a guarantee that no pun- 
ishment should be inflicted. The Eev. 
Timothy Edwards was a kind and good 
man, who duly admonished and flogged 



AAEON BTIBE 7 

liis nephew as occasion required, but he 
seems to have had no influence over him. 
Pierpont Edwards, the famous lawyer, 
another uncle of Aaron Burr, but only 
six years his senior, was at school with 
him for a time at Elizabethtown, and, 
in a letter written when Aaron was 
seven years old, he says, u Aaron Burr 
is here, is hearty, goes to school, and 
learns bravely." 

At eleven Aaron was prepared to 
enter Princeton College, having read 
Yirgil and acquired the Greek alphabet ; 
but he was rejected on account of his 
youth. He did his best, however, to 
accomplish the same object by mastering 
at home the studies of the first two 
college years, and then in his thirteenth 
year applying for admission to the Junior 
Class. This application also was refused ; 
but he was permitted, as a special favor, 
to join the Sophomore Class, although 
the limit of age for that class was fifteen 
years. The boy entered college with an 



8 AAROX BURR 

extravagant idea of the learning and 
capacity of his classmates ; and being 
resolved, nevertheless, that they should 
not outstrip him, he applied himself to 
his books with the greatest ardor. Find- 
ing that he could not study so well after 
dinner as before, he became very abstemi- 
ous, and under this regimen he is said 
to have labored sixteen and sometimes 
even eighteen hours a day ; and it is 
not surprising that he looked pale and 
ill. "When the examination came, Burr 
found himself so far in advance of his 
classmates that the motive to extraor- 
dinary exertion no longer existed, and 
thenceforth he was as idle as he had 
formerly been industrious. All through 
life, however, he was a great reader. 

Burr was popular with his fellow-stu- 
dents, and took a leading part in the col- 
lege societies and amusements. One in- 
cident of his career at Princeton has 
survived. He belonged to a literary 
club called the Cliosophic, the members 



AAEOl^ BITER 9 

of which presided in turn at its meet- 
ings. Professors as well as students were 
members of the society, and on one occa- 
sion it happened that Burr was in the 
chair when a professor by whom he had 
often been admonished came in late. 
Burr, with that self-possession for which 
he was ever noted, ordered the professor 
to rise and then administered to him a 
dignified rebuke for his want of punctu- 
ality, observing that the older members 
of the club were expected to set a good 
example to the younger, and concluding 
with the hope that he should not be 
obliged to recur to the subject again. 
The astonished professor was then per- 
mitted to take his seat, amid the laugh- 
ter of the assembly. Several of Burr's 
college compositions have been pre- 
served ; and, though they do not show 
much imagination, they do exhibit a 
maturity of thought astonishing in a 
boy of fifteen. 

In 1772, at the age of sixteen, Burr 



10 AARON BURR 

was graduated with the highest honors ; 
and at Commencement he delivered an 
oration which was well, but not enthusi- 
astically, received. He made, it was 
said, "a graceful appearance," but 
spoke too rapidly and with too much 
emphasis. For about a year after grad- 
uation Burr continued at Princeton, as 
his father had done, studying, reading, 
and enjoying such pleasures as the place 
afforded. In the summer he spent much 
time at Elizabethtown, where he gained 
a knowledge of boating, which was of 
service to him in after years. 

He was deliberating upon the choice 
of a profession, and he even seems to 
have had thoughts of entering the minis- 
try. At this time he was, apparently, 
a believer in Orthodox Christianity, 
though not what was called a professor 
of it. During Burr's Senior year at 
Princeton a great revival occurred in 
the college. Many of the undergradu- 
ates were converted ; and Burr, both 



AAECW BUEE 11 

from his popularity and from the spe- 
cially religious nature of his ancestors, 
became a particular object of entreaty. 
It is said that he was moved by this, and 
that he consulted Dr. Witherspoon, 
president of the college, as to the char- 
acter of the scenes which were taking 
place about him. The clergy at this 
time were divided in opinion upon the 
subject of revivals, most of those who 
had been educated in England disap- 
proving of them. Dr. Witherspoon, a 
descendant of John Knox, belonged to 
this class; and he, it is said, dissuaded 
Burr from yielding to the spirit of the 
revival, assuring him that it was fanati- 
cal rather than religious. 

A year after his graduation Burr re- 
solved to settle the religious question 
once for all in his own mind by pursuing 
a course of investigation under Dr. 
Joseph Bellamy, of Bethlehem, in Con- 
necticut. Dr. Bellamy had studied 
theology under Jonathan Edwards, and 



12 AAEON BURR 

was himself a famous preacher and 
writer upon theological subjects, to 
whom so many candidates for the minis- 
try resorted that his house became a 
theological seminary upon a small scale. 
Hither in the autumn of 1773 Burr re- 
paired, and with his accustomed ardor 
entered upon the course which he had 
proposed. 

Dr. Bellamy prided himself upon his 
skill in the Socratic method, a large part 
of his instruction being given by ques- 
tion and answer ; and he would often 
invite a pupil to assume the part of a 
sceptic, and raise objections against the 
Christian faith for him, the doctor, to 
answer. His object was, of course, to 
teach the young men to think for them- 
selves and to analyze the grounds of their 
belief. But this method proved fatal 
with Aaron Burr. Burr had a mind 
extraordinarily acute, alert, and logical, 
and a coolness of disposition which gave 
him control of all his resources under 



AAEON BUKB 13 

the most disturbing conditions. When 
the Eev. Dr. Bellamy encountered this 
opponent in the guise of a pupil, the 
result was disastrous. In the following 
spring Burr left Dr. Bellamy's house, 
convinced, to use his own language, that 
"the road to heaven was open to all 
alike. " Ever afterward he avoided 
disputes upon the subject of religion ; 
but when, as often happened, he was 
importuned by those who had known his 
father or his mother to follow in their 
footsteps, he met these advances with 
unfailing civility, and sometimes even 
with tenderness. Burr's nature was 
essentially irreligious ; and his case 
might be cited in support of Mr. Gal- 
ton's theory that qualities which are 
predominant in one generation are often 
exceptionally deficient in the succeeding 
one, reappearing again, perhaps, in the 
third or fourth generation. 

Upon leaving Dr. Bellamy, Burr de- 
termined to study law with his sister's 



14 AAEON BURR 

husband, Tappan Reeve, at Litchfield, 
in Connecticut. There he spent the 
summer of 1774, amusing himself with 
his horse and with "the girls," to whom 
there are frequent allusions in his letters. 
One girl made a declaration of love to 
him; and his uncle, Thaddeus Burr, 
endeavored to persuade him into mar- 
riage with another, who was heiress to a 
large fortune. Burr was at this time a 
gay, handsome, rollicking young man, 
generous of heart, cool of head, greatly 
beloved, and much deferred to by his 
friends, many of whom were persons of 
high character, whose regard he always 
retained, despite the faults and vices of 
his later life. 

Aaron Burr, like other young men, 
was keenly alive to the mutterings of 
revolution which now began to be 
heard ; and during the summer of 1774 
his studies were altogether in military 
science and history. In the same sum- 
mer a youth still younger — a stripling 



AAEON BTJEB 15 

of seventeen — made an impromptu pa- 
triotic address which canght the ears of 
a public meeting in New York. This 
was Alexander Hamilton. 



II. 

Burr's genius was essentially mili- 
tary. He was born, not for thought, but 
for action ; and he had that imperturb- 
able coolness, that absolute firmness of 
nerve and presence of mind, despite the 
most trying circumstances, which distin- 
guished Napoleon and General Grant. 
His courage had no flaw, and a habit of 
command was natural to him. It was a 
military age. The echoes of the old 
French War had not died away, and the 
throb of the coming struggle was already 
perceptible. 

On April 19, 1775, occurred the battle 
of Lexington, which, according to a 
common saying in Massachusetts, was 
fought at Concord by men from Acton. 
In fact, it raged from Lexington to 
Concord, and was participated in by 
minute- men from all the neighboring 
towns. As soon as news of this fight 
was received at Litchfield, Burr wrote 






AAEOK BURR 17 

to his raost intimate friend, Matthias 
Ogden of New Jersey, urging him to 
come on and join the army ; but Ogden 
was unable to leave home at that time, 
and Burr restrained his impatience till 
news came of the battle of Bunker Hill. 
Burr then set off immediately for 
Elizabethtown to assist Ogden in his 
preparations, and in July the two 
young men joined Washington's army 
at Cambridge. Burr was now but 
nineteen years old, and a mere boy in 
appearance. 

The gathering at Cambridge was 
less an army than a mob of seventeen 
thousand men, half-armed, ill-clad, and 
undisciplined. The officers were, for 
the most part, either ignorant of their 
duty or else reluctant to give offence by 
performing it; and there was among 
them a continual bickering about rank, 
increased by the jealousy which pre- 
vailed between men of different States 
and of different cliques. As yet Burr 



18 AAEON BUKK 

was attached to no particular corps. He 
mingled indiscriminately with conflict- 
ing factions, until, disgusted with the 
daily scene, he fell ill of a nervous fever. 
In this situation he overheard one day 
his friend Ogden talking in the next 
room with some other young men about 
an expedition which was soon to take 
place. He called Ogden to his bedside, 
and inquired of what expedition they 
were speaking. Ogden told him that 
Colonel Benedict Arnold, with a force of 
ten or twelve hundred men, was about 
to proceed through the wilderness of 
Maine and Canada for the purpose of 
attacking Quebec. Burr thereupon rose 
up in bed, declaring that he would join 
the expedition ; and, though much en- 
feebled, he began at once to put on his 
clothes, despite the expostulations of 
Ogden and the others. He set about his 
arrangements immediately ; and on Sep- 
tember 14, with four or five associates 
whom he had selected, he shouldered 



AAEON BITER 19 

his musket, and started for Newbury- 
port, about fifty miles from Boston, 
whence the expedition was to sail for 
the Kennebec Eiver. Ogden and some 
others made the same journey in car- 
riages. 

At Newburyport young Burr re- 
ceived a shower of letters from his 
friends and relatives, entreating him not 
to join the expedition. Dr. James 
Coggswell, in particular, assured Burr 
in the most vehement manner that he 
would inevitably die in the undertak- 
ing. His uncle Timothy Edwards sent a 
special messenger, armed with a letter, 
and with instructions to bring the young 
fugitive back, by force if necessary. 
Having read the letter and listened to 
the message, Burr calmly said to the 
messenger : ' ' How do you expect to take 
me back ? If you were to make a for- 
cible attempt upon me, I would have 
you hung up in ten minutes. 7 ' There- 
upon the messenger produced a second 



20 AABCXtf BURR 

letter from Timothy Edwards, and with 
it a small bag of gold. This second 
letter was couched in the most affection- 
ate language. It depicted the sufferings 
which Burr must endure if he accom- 
panied the expedition to Quebec, and 
earnestly begged him to abandon the 
attempt. Burr is said to have been 
affected to tears, and he wrote a respect- 
ful reply. 

About September 20 the troops, to the 
number of eleven hundred, embarked 
in eleven transports, and sailed without 
accident to the mouth of the Kennebec. 
There they found provided for them 
two hundred light bateaux, in which 
they ascended that beautiful river ; and 
in a few days they left behind them the 
last outpost of civilization. Thence by 
the upper Kennebec, and by numerous 
connecting streams and lakes, usually 
separated by a " carry, ' ' the army made 
its toilsome way through the wilderness. 
Thirty times or more the boats with all 



AAEOK BUEE 21 

their contents — ammunition, provisions, 
and sick men — had to be carried from 
one water to another, over hills and 
across marshes ; and, when the bateaux 
were finally launched in Dead Eiver, 
many of them were wrecked, and half 
the store of provisions was lost. In a 
few days more the soldiers were reduced 
to living upon dogs or reptiles, and at 
length to devouring the leather of their 
shoes and cartridge boxes, and anything 
else, however loathsome, which con- 
tained the smallest nutriment. It was 
fifty days after leaving Newburyport 
before Arnold saw the heights of Quebec. 
The distance travelled was about six 
hundred miles, and more than half the 
force was lost by disease and desertion. 

During the first part of the journey 
the weather was pleasant and provisions 
were abundant, so that Burr had fully 
recovered his health and strength before 
the cold autumnal rains set in and before 
the rations were reduced. Moreover, 



22 AARON BUER 

the habit which he had acquired in 
college of living upon a small quantity 
of food stood him in good stead in this 
time of privation. Contrary to the im- 
pression of his friend, Dr. Coggswell, 
Burr's nervous constitution and slight 
but well-made body were peculiarly fit 
for the endurance of fatigue ; and his 
skill as a helmsman, his courage, lively 
spirit, and enthusiasm rendered him a 
favorite in the command. In after years 
it was hard to make any one think ill of 
Aaron Burr who had served with him in 
the wilderness under Benedict Arnold. 

It was necessary that Arnold should 
announce his arrival to General Mont- 
gomery at Montreal, and Burr was se- 
lected for this dangerous and difficult 
duty. Knowing that the French popu- 
lation, and their clergy in particular, 
had never become reconciled to British 
rule, Burr disguised himself as a priest, 
and proceeded to the house of a learned 
father, with whom he communicated by 



AAEON BUEE 23 

means of Latin. A few minutes' con- 
versation showed him that it would be 
safe to reveal his true character and to 
ask for assistance. The priest, taking 
him to be a mere boy, at first en- 
deavored to dissuade him from under- 
taking a journey so hazardous and so 
long. Montreal was distant one hun- 
dred and twenty miles. Finding, how- 
ever, that the stripling was determined, 
the good father gave him a guide and a 
rude carriage; and, after some difficul- 
ties; Burr reached his destination. 
Montgomery was so pleased with him 
and with his conduct that he gave Burr 
a position upon his staff, with the rank 
of captain. 

It was now near the end of November. 
The ground was covered with snow, and 
the Canadian winter had begun. Mont- 
gomery put himself at the head of three 
hundred men, and, marching through 
a succession of blinding snow-storms, 
joined the little army of Arnold, already 



24 AAEON BURR 

shivering under the heights of Quebec. 
There were some delays and some 
changes of plan, and in the mean time 
the soldiers suffered greatly from cold 
and from small-pox. By December 20th 
the preparations were completed, and it 
was settled that the attack should take 
place on the first night when a snow- 
storm prevailed. Night after night the 
moon shone clear on the lofty citadel of 
Quebec, and never clearer than on the 
last evening of the year 1775. But 
about midnight the sky became over- 
cast, and soon afterward there set in a 
north-east snow-storm of unusual vio- 
lence. Montgomery was aroused. He 
ordered his men into line ; and by two 
o'clock the whole force — the leading 
column commanded by Montgomery 
himself, with Burr at his side — was in 
motion. 

The outworks consisted of two lines of 
barricades — which were easily removed 
— and a block-house defended by can- 



AAEON BUEE 25 

non loaded with grape-shot. The sen- 
tries fled to the block-house, and com- 
municated their terror to the sailors and 
militia men stationed there, so that the 
whole party abandoned the place in a 
panic. This, unfortunately, was not 
known to the Americans ; and Mont- 
gomery waited until about two hundred 
of his men had contrived to scramble up 
the ice- encumbered hill. Then the col- 
umn advanced ; but at that very moment 
a sailor who had fled from his post vent- 
ured back to the block-house. Seeing 
the Americans approaching, he turned 
to run away again ; but, as he turned, 
he performed an act which decided the 
fortunes of the day, and gave Canada 
back to Great Britain. He touched off 
one of the grape- charged cannon. Mont- 
gomery fell dead, and so did every other 
man who marched in front of the column 
except Burr and the guide. The day 
was just dawning, and the soldiers were 
soon aware of the catastrophe. The com- 



26 AAEON BURE 

mand fell into incompetent hands. There 
were hesitation, wavering, and consulta- 
tion, and finally a determination to fall 
back, although Burr was vehement al- 
most to the point of mutiny in urging an 
advance. 

The enemy now returned in force, and 
the retreat soon became a disorderly 
flight. Then occurred a classic incident. 
Burr, with the greatest difficulty, shoul- 
dered the dead body of his general, a 
very tall man ; and, staggering under the 
burden, ran down the gorge with the 
enemy only forty paces behind, until, to 
avoid capture, he was compelled at last 
to drop the body and hasten after the re- 
treating troops. This act was witnessed 
by Burr's college friend, Samuel Spring, 
who was chaplain of the army. From 
that hour Burr never saw him until they 
met, fifty years later, in the city of New 
York. They would not have met then, 
had Mr. Spring's son been able to pre- 
vent it $ for he warned his father that he 



AAEON BUKB 27 

would inevitably lose caste by visiting 
his former friend. The old gentleman, 
however, replied that the image of little 
Burr, staggering through the snow under 
the weight of Montgomery's body, was 
too vivid in his mind for him to follow 
the politic advice of his son; and the 
visit was paid. 

The death of Montgomery left Arnold 
in command of the whole American 
force, and he immediately appointed 
Burr his brigade major. In the spring 
the army was compelled to retreat to 
Montreal ; and Burr, having become dis- 
gusted with Arnold, determined to leave 
him. Arnold strongly objected ; but 
Burr replied in his usual suave manner, 
" Sir, I have a boat in readiness, I have 
employed four discharged soldiers to row 
me, and I start from Crow Point at six 
o' clock to-morrow morning. ' ? And start 
he did, although Arnold was on hand in 
the morning, and endeavored to prevent 
him, first by commands and then by en- 



28 AARON BURR 

treaties. Arnold, though a madman in 
battle, is said to have been lazy and self- 
indulgent in camp ; and no doubt he 
profited by Burr's activity and skill as 
an executive officer. 

Burr's reputation had preceded him ; 
and upon his arrival home he found a 
letter from his friend Ogden, who had 
returned to New Jersey after the repulse 
at Quebec, which informed Burr that he 
had been appointed to the staff of General 
Washington. Ogden mentions incident- 
ally that he had sold Burr's horse and 
spent the money, — a kind of proceeding 
which Burr (such were his generosity 
and evenness of temper) never resented. 

Burr's stay in the family of Washing- 
ton was short. The youthful aide- de- 
camp failed to appreciate the slow but 
solid sense of the general, and the clerkly 
duties which he was called upon to per- 
form were extremely irksome to him. In 
July of this year he gladly accepted an 
appointment upon the staff of General 
Putnam. 



AABOST BUKR 29 

Washington's distrust of Burr origi- 
nated at this time, but whether it arose 
from any special act or was founded upon 
instinctive repugnance is not known. 
At all events, in this case as in others 
Washington did not allow his personal 
feeling to interfere with his selection of 
public officers. More than once in the 
succeeding years he chose Burr for posts 
of special danger and difficulty. 

Hamilton also, it will be remembered, 
closed his career as Washington's aide- 
de-camp with angry words ; and so strong 
was the feeling between him and the 
commander-in-chief that, when he was 
afterward appointed Secretary of the 
Treasury, Hamilton remarked to a friend 
that he should have expected rather to 
be chosen as a papal nuncio than to re- 
ceive a seat in the cabinet of Washington. 



in. 

September fifteenth, 1776, the Brit- 
ish descended upon Manhattan Island, 
and the American army fled to Harlem. 
Burr was in the rear ; and, passing by 
what is now Grand Street, he came upon 
a small turf fort, in which General Knox 
with his brigade, left behind by some ac- 
cident, had taken refuge. The British 
had landed nearly four miles above the 
battery, and General Knox supposed 
them to be in possession of the whole 
upper part of the island. Burr endeav- 
ored to convince him that there was yet 
time to escape ; and he pointed out that 
the fort was not bomb-proof, and con- 
tained neither provisions nor water. 
General Knox, however, declared that 
to attempt a retreat would be madness ; 
and he refused to stir. 

By this time the officers of the brigade 
had gathered round, and Burr addressed 
himself to them. He declared that, if 



AAEON BUEE 31 

they remained where they were, they 
would all be prisoners before night or 
hung like dogs j that it was better for 
half the corps to fall fighting its way out 
than for all to be taken and rot in a 
dungeon. He added that he knew the 
roads of the island perfectly, and would 
lead them safely to the main body of the 
army if they would follow him. Offi- 
cers and men agreed ; and they marched 
out, Burr riding in advance and return- 
ing at intervals to reassure the terrified 
troops. They met with some difficulties ; 
and at one point Burr, followed by a few 
horsemen, attacked and dispersed an ad- 
vance guard of the British. Finally, he 
succeeded in bringing the brigade to the 
main body of the army, with the loss of 
a few stragglers only. This feat became 
the talk of the army ; but it was not even 
mentioned in the despatches of the com- 
mander - in - chief, — an omission which 
Burr always regarded as an intentional 
slight. 



32 AARON BURR 

"While Burr was with General Putnam, 
there was for a short time another mem- 
ber of the general's official family with 
whom Burr's name has been connected. 
This was Margaret Moncrieffe, the daugh- 
ter of a major in the British army, who 
was stationed with his regiment on Stati'ii 
Island. She was a beautiful girl of four- 
teen with an emotional nature. It was 
inevitable that a love affair should spring 
up between her and the handsome young 
aide-de-camp, and it has been a question 
somewhat debated by Burr's biographers 
how far the affair was carried. 

Miss Moncrieffe was regarded in the 
light of a prisoner or hostage ; and she 
was transferred from General Putnam's 

i 

care to that of General Mifflin, who was 
stationed further inland. This change is 
said to have been brought about by Burr 
himself. He was looking over her shoul- 
der one day, while she was painting a bou- 
quet ; and the suspicion darted into his 
mind that she was using the " language 



AAEON BURR 33 

of flowers " to convey intelligence to the 
enemy. It was in her new place of de- 
tention that Burr became intimate with 
her. A few months later Miss Moncrieffe 
was delivered to her friends, together 
with the following note from General 
Putnam: "Ginerole Putnam's compli- 
ments to Major Moncrieffe. Has made 
him a present of a fine daughter. If he 
don't lick her, he must send her back 
again j and he will provide her with a 
fine good twig husband." u The sub- 
stitution of twig for Whig husband," 
relates the heroine, ' i served as a fund of 
entertainment for the whole company." 
Miss Moncrieffe subsequently became 
Mrs. Coghlan ; and later in life she pub- 
lished a volume of reminiscences, in 
which she speaks of Burr — not, of 
course, naming him — as "the con- 
queror of her soul." "Oh, may these 
pages one day meet the eye of him who 
subdued my virgin heart, whom the im- 
mutable, unerring laws of Nature had 



34 AAROX BURR 

pointed out for iny husband, but whose 
sacred decree the barbarous customs of 
society fatally violated ! ' ' 

It is evident that, whatever may have 
been Burr's conduct toward Margaret 
Moncrieffe, the lady herself, the person 
chiefly concerned, had no complaint to 
make of it. After recounting this affair, 
Mr. M. L. Davis, Burr's literary execu- 
tor, says : " It is truly surprising how 
any individual could have become so 
eminent as a soldier, as a statesman, 
and as a professional man, who devoted 
so much time to the other sex as was de- 
voted by Colonel Burr. For more than 
half a century of his life they seemed to 
absorb his whole thoughts. His in- 
trigues were without number, the sacred 
bonds of friendship were unhesitatingly 
violated when they operated as barriers 
to the indulgence of his passions. . . . 
In this particular Burr appears to have 
been unfeeling and heartless." 

Such is the estimate of Burr's own 



AAEOX BURR 35 

friend and biographer, and yet it is 
almost certainly exaggerated. Burr 
was all Ms life an excessively busy, 
liard- working man ; he was abstemious 
as respects food and drink ; he was re- 
fined and fastidious in all his tastes j he 
preserved his constitution almost un- 
impaired to a great age. It is nearly 
incredible that such a man could have 
been the unmitigated profligate de- 
scribed by Mr. Davis. 

Part of Burr's reputation for profli- 
gacy was due, no doubt, to that vanity 
respecting women of which Davis him- 
self speaks. He never refused to accept 
the parentage of a child. "Why do 
you allow this woman to saddle you 
with her child, when you know you 
are not the father of it?" said a friend 
to him a few months before his death. 
"Sir," he replied, "when a lady does 
me the honor to name me the father 
of her child, I trust I shall always be 
too gallant to show myself ungrateful 



36 AAEON BURR 

for the favor." Burr certainly had a 
code of honor which he punctiliously 
observed. It was the code of a man of 
the world, dashed with a certain old- 
fashioned gallantry which recalls Bret 
Harte's Jack Hamlin, and even sug- 
gests Colonel Starbottle. Both Hamil- 
ton and Burr, the latter especially, were 
far from strict in their relations with 
women ; and no doubt their life in the 
army, and especially their association 
with French officers, made them fa- 
miliar with a standard of morals very 
different from that which had prevailed 
in the colonies. Extravagance was an- 
other vice of the times. Hamilton, 
Burr, and other leading men were in a 
perpetual state of debt and insolvency. 

Burr, though eager for promotion, 
expressed himself as "very happy in 
the esteem and entire confidence of my 
good old general" j and he remained 
with him till July, 1777, when he 
was appointed lieutenant colonel, and 



AAEON BUBK 37 

placed in command of a regiment. 
The regiment was nninstructed and un- 
disciplined, and its officers were mainly 
rich and incapable young men from the 
city. Burr took the bold step of order- 
ing the most inefficient of them home, 
on the simple ground of utter useless- 
ness, at the same time declaring his 
willingness to give them satisfaction in 
case any felt himself aggrieved. 

Before long Burr had licked his regi- 
ment into shape ; and being not only a 
strict disciplinarian, but also careful 
and considerate, tender to the sick, 
generous with his money, vigilant and 
fearless, he soon became the idol of his 
men. Not a blow was struck in the 
regiment while he remained at the head 
of it, although corporal punishment 
was customary in the Continental army. 

In September of this year (1777) 
Burr received intelligence that the 
British had come out of New York and 
were devastating Orange County. He 



38 AAEON BURB 

at once put his regiment in motion ; 
and by sunset he was at Paranius, six- 
teen miles distant. On the way he had 
been met by an express from General 
Putnam, recommending him to retreat 
with the public stores. But Burr, de- 
claring that he would never fly from 
an enemy whom he had not seen, 
pushed on. At Paramus he left the 
greater part of his regiment, and with 
a few picked men went forward in the 
darkness. When he came within four 
miles of Hackensack, he learned that 
the enemy's advance guard was barely 
a mile distant. Thereupon he halted 
his men in a wood, ordering them to 
lie down and sleep, while he recon- 
noitred ; for they were exhausted, hav- 
ing marched more than thirty miles 
since noon. Burr then, alone, crept 
up to the enemy's pickets, ascertained 
the exact situation of each one, and, re- 
turning, awakened his men. He led 
them forward in such a way that they 



AARON BURR 39 

were within a few yards of the picket 
before their approach was suspected. 
All of the advance guard were killed or 
captured ; and the enemy fled back to 
New York the next day, leaving the 
greater part of his booty behind him. 
Burr was prevented from pursuit by an 
order to join the main army in Pennsyl- 
vania. 

During the terrible winter at Valley 
Forge the American army was continu- 
ally harassed at night by false alarms 
of the enemy's approach. These alarms 
proceeded from an important pass 
known as the Gulf, about ten miles 
from the camp at Valley Forge, and 
the only means of access to it. At last, 
acting upon General McDougall's ad- 
vice, General Washington withdrew 
from the detachment at the Gulf all 
officers who out-ranked Burr, leaving 
him in command. Burr immediately 
began a rigid system of police, visiting 
the sentinels every night and at all 



40 AAEON BURR 

hours of the night, and often changing 
their positions. During the day he 
employed the troops in frequent drills. 
The rigor of this service was not agree- 
able to the militia, who had been ac- 
customed in camp to a life of idleness ; 
and the more worthless among them 
concerted a mutiny, of which Burr one 
evening received information. That 
very night he ordered out the troops, 
having first secretly directed that the 
cartridges should be withdrawn from 
their muskets. He had also provided 
himself with a well -sharpened sabre. 
It was a clear, cold night with a bright 
moon ; and Burr marched along the 
line, eying his men closely. As he 
came opposite the most daring of the 
ringleaders, the man advanced a step, 
and, levelling his musket at the colonel, 
called out, "Now is your time, my 
boys. ' ' Burr thereupon, with a celerity 
for which he was remarkable, smote the 
arm of the mutineer above the elbow, 



AAEON BUKK 41 

and nearly severed it from his body, 
at the same time ordering him to take 
his place in the line. In a few minutes 
the men were dismissed ; and the arm 
of the mutineer was amputated the next 
day. No more was heard of the mu- 
tiny ; nor, while Burr remained in the 
Gulf, was the army at Valley Forge 
disturbed by a single nocturnal alarm. 

At the battle of Monmouth, Burr com- 
manded a brigade which, owing to a 
blunder of Washington or of a staff offi- 
cer, was for some time exposed to a 
murderous fire. Burr had a horse shot 
under him, and his second in command 
was killed. This battle came near be- 
ing fatal to Burr in another way. The 
heat was very great, — it was in the end 
of June, — and Burr had been up and 
busy for two nights, the night before 
and the night after the battle. On 
the third day he lay down to sleep 
under the shade of a tree, and awoke 
to find that he had been exposed for 



42 AARON BURR 

some hours to the rays of a burning 
sun. He was in great pain, almost un- 
able to walk ; and for several years after- 
ward he suffered from chronic diarrhoea. 
In October, his health not improving, 
Burr applied for leave of absence, stipu- 
lating that it should be without pay. 
"Too great a regard to malicious sur- 
mises," he wrote to Washington, "and 
a delicacy, perhaps censurable, might 
otherwise hurry me unnecessarily into 
service, to the prejudice of my health, 
and without any advantage to the pub- 
lic." Washington, however, replied 
that such an arrangement was not cus- 
tomary, and would be unjust ; that he 
should have leave of absence, but that 
his pay must continue. And thereupon 
Burr, who was then absent on short 
leave, immediately rejoined his regi- 
ment at West Point. He was now but 
twenty-two years old, and looked even 
younger. There is a story of a farmer 
who, being ushered into his presence, 



AAEON BUKR 43 

requested that he might see the colonel 
himself. "You," he said, "must be, I 
suppose, Colonel Burr's son." 

In January, 1779, Colonel Burr was 
placed in command of the "lines" in 
Westchester County, — a debatable land, 
fifteen or twenty miles in length, be- 
tween the American and the British 
frontiers. The "lines" had been, ever 
since the British took New York, a 
scene of lawlessness and misery, — Whigs 
abusing Tories, Tories Whigs, the Brit- 
ish making continual forays, and the 
Continental soldiers plundering the in- 
habitants, or at least such of them as 
were supposed to be disaffected, with- 
out any very strict inquiry into the 
nature of their political opinions. 

Burr was probably appointed to this 
difficult post at the request of that same 
General McDougall who procured for 
him the command of the Gulf near 
Valley Forge, and to whom he re- 
ported in his new post. Burr's first 



44 AAEON BURR 

step was to improve his position by 
moving the l ' lines ' ' forward three miles 
at one end. "By this arrangement," 
he wrote, "the extent of my command 
is contracted three miles, and the dis- 
tance from my left to the Sound is three 
miles less than before, the men more 
compact and the posts equidistant from 
the enemy." At the moment of as- 
suming command he found that his 
predecessor had arranged a scouting 
expedition to West Farms and Mor- 
risania. This, Burr thought, was very 
ill-advised ; but, not wishing to appear 
ungracious, he consented to an expedi- 
tion to Frog's Keck, a less distant point. 
"I expect little from it," he wrote to 
General McDougall, "but have not so 
much to fear." The party were gone 
all night, returning in the morning 
loaded down with plunder ; and hard 
upon their heels came six or seven 
farmers from Frog's Neck and New 
Rochelle "with piteous applications for 
stolen goods and horses." 



AAEON BUBB 45 

Burr was disgusted aud chagrined, but 
it was not long before he had revolution- 
ized the management of the ' i lines. ' } A 
few nights after his arrival the house of 
a Tory, named Gedney, was plundered, 
and the family insulted by soldiers who 
wore masks. There was no apparent 
clew to their identity ; and yet within 
twenty-four hours Burr, by means that 
were never discovered, had detected the 
offenders. He put them under arrest, 
compelled them to apologize to Gedney 
and his family, and to restore all the 
property that they had stolen. In the 
same week, on returning from an inspec- 
tion of his outposts, Burr said to Lieuten- 
ant Drake, whom he had brought with 
him from his regiment, u Drake, that 
post on the North Eiver will be attacked 
before morning. Neither officers nor men 
know anything of their duty. You must 
go and take charge of it. Keep your eyes 
open, or you will have your throat cut." 
Drake went. The post was attacked that 



46 AARON BURR 

night by a company of horse. They 
were repulsed with loss, and Drake re- 
turned in the morning with trophies of 
war. i ' We stared, ' ' said an officer who 
related these events, "and asked one an- 
other, How could Burr know that !' ; 

Burr soon brought his men under con- 
trol j and, inasmuch as he treated them 
well, they became reconciled to his se- 
vere discipline. ' l He attended, ' ' wrote 
one of them long afterward, " to the mi- 
nutest article of their comfort, — to their 
lodgings, to their diet. For those off duty 
he invented sports, all tending to some 
useful end. His habits were a subject of 
admiration. His diet was simple and 
spare in the extreme. He seldom slept 
more than an hour at a time, and that 
without taking off his clothes, or even 
his boots. Between midnight and two 
o'clock in the morning, accompanied by 
a few horsemen, he visited the quarters 
of all his captains, changing his route 
from time to time, to prevent notice of 



AAEOK BTJER 47 

his approach. The distance which he 
thus rode every night varied from sixteen 
to twenty-four miles ; and with the excep- 
tion of two nights, in which he was other- 
wise engaged, he never omitted these ex- 
cursions, even in the coldest and most 
stormy winter weather." 

Burr made a map of the territory 
between him and the British, show- 
ing all the roads, by-paths, morasses, 
etc. ; and he also prepared a register of 
all the inhabitants in the vicinity, noting 
against each man's name his politics, 
character, and other particulars. In 
order to prevent the intrusion of spies, 
from whom much evil had come, Burr 
selected certain trusty persons who were 
authorized to bring messages and peti- 
tions to him, all others being forbidden 
to come within a certain distance of 
headquarters. The peaceable inhabi- 
tants were protected, robbers and horse 
thieves were hunted down, and in every 
engagement which he had with the Brit- 



48 AAROX BUER 

ish lie was successful. During the time 
of his command not a single death oc- 
curred among the soldiers, not one de- 
serted, not one was taken prisoner. 

Burr's name was revered in West- 
chester County for fifty years ; and the 
value of his services can be estimated by 
what happened after they were with- 
drawn in the following spring. Of the 
two commanders who succeeded him, 
both brave men and experienced soldiers, 
the first was captured, and all his men 
except thirty were killed or made pris- 
oners. The second was killed, and most 
of his officers and men were either killed 
or captured. Within a year after Burr's 
departure the outposts were drawn in, 
and the American frontier was placed 
twenty miles in rear of the line which he 
had successfully defended. 



IV. 

Burr left the army in the spring of 
1779, thoroughly broken in health ; and 
yet within a few months he was twice 
called upon to perform a difficult mili- 
tary service. In June he was staying at 
Newburg with General McDougall. It 
was of the utmost importance for that 
officer to communicate with General 
Washington ; but hitherto he had failed 
to do so, all his messengers having been 
killed or captured by guards stationed 
in the mountain passes for that purpose. 
In this emergency he besought Burr to 
undertake the dangerous mission, and 
Burr accomplished it. 

A month later, while Burr was at New 
Haven ill in bed, word came that the 
British, under Governor Tryon, had 
landed in the neighborhood, and were 
advancing upon the town. Burr arose, 
mounted a horse, and endeavored to 
rally the militia, who, however, became 



50 AAEON BUKR 

panic-stricken, and fled. He then put 
himself at the head of the boy-students 
of Yale College, who had formed a mili- 
tary company ; and, marching out with 
this formidable body, he held the British 
in check until the women and children 
and valuables had been removed to 
places of safety. The next day Burr 
took to his bed again, and remained 
incapable of any exertion during the 
succeeding autumn and winter. 

As soon as he began to recover, Burr 
applied himself to the law, hoping to 
retrieve his fortune, which had been 
greatly impaired by expenditures during 
the war, and by the gifts and loans 
which, in this as in every other period 
of his life, he made with reckless gener- 
osity. In 1781 the legislature of New 
York passed a law that no person should 
practise at the bar whose loyalty to 
the American government could not 
be proved. This measure shut out the 
Tory lawyers, and offered to the others 



AAEOtf BUBE 51 

an opportunity of which Burr was anx- 
ious to avail himself. In January, 1782, 
he applied at Albany for admission as 
a practitioner ; but the rules required 
three years' previous study, whereas Burr 
had studied only six months. His ad- 
mission was therefore strongly opposed 
by certain prominent members of the 
bar. Burr, however, convinced the 
judge then presiding that he ought, if 
found qualified, to be admitted on the 
ground of his military service ; and 
thereupon he was turned over to the 
opposing lawyers for a verbal examina- 
tion. This, it is needless to say, was 
made as severe as possible ; but Burr 
passed it triumphantly, and was licensed 
as an attorney. 

In the spring he took a house in Al- 
bany ; and on July 2, 1782, he was 
married to Theodosia Prevost, widow of 
a major in the British army, who died 
in the West Indies soon after the begin- 
ning of the Bevolutionary War. Burr 



52 AAEON BURR 

first met Mrs. Prevost in 1777, while he 
was at Ramapo in command of his regi- 
ment, and she was living at Paramus 
with her two small boys, her sister, Miss 
De Visme, and their mother. These 
ladies were of Swiss birth. They were 
intelligent and accomplished, and their 
honse was a centre of attraction. 

The reader may remember that in the 
account of Colonel Burr's achievements 
on the "lines" in Westchester County, 
it was stated that he was absent but two 
nights while he remained in command. 
On both occasions he made a visit to the 
house of Mrs. Prevost, which was only 
about fifteen miles from his quarters, 
though the Hudson River, two miles 
wide at that point, rolled between them. 
On those nights Burr mounted a small 
nimble horse, paid his usual visit to the 
sentinels and outposts, and then gal- 
loped to the river, where he had in 
waiting a barge, well furnished with 
buffalo skins, and provided with six 



AAEON BUEE 53 

trusty soldiers to row it. The horse was 
thrown, his legs were bound, and he 
was carefully deposited on the buffalo 
robes in the bottom of the boat. Half 
an hour's hard rowing brought them to 
the other side, where Burr remounted, 
and, after spending a few hours with his 
betrothed, returned in the same way, 
revisited his sentinels, and at dawn 
threw himself upon a couch for an hour 
or two of repose. 

Mrs. Prevost is described as attractive, 
but not beautiful, well educated, literary 
in her tastes, and possessed of charming 
manners. She was older than Burr 
and of a delicate constitution. Her dis- 
position was gentle and affectionate. 
Many years after her death, Burr spoke 
of her as "the best woman and the 
finest lady that he had ever known." 
Burr's letters to her, from first to last, 
express a deep affection in terms which 
have the ring of sincerity, although the 
letters written before their marriage are 



54 AARON BURR 

often amusingly qualified by didactic 
remarks and commands which in a 
lover, and one younger than his mistress, 
might be thought strange. In Decem- 
ber, 1781, Burr wrote every day to Mrs. 
Prevost ; and the following passages are 
taken from his letters during that 
month : — 

"A sick headache this whole day. 
I earned it by eating last night a hearty 
supper of Dutch sausages, and going 
to bed immediately after. I thought 
through the whole day that, if you could 
sit by me and stroke my head with your 
little hand, it would be well ; and that 
when we are formally united, far from 
deeming a return of the disorder un 
malfieur, I should esteem it a fortunate 
apology for a day of luxurious indul- 
gence which I should not otherwise allow 
myself or you." ... "I am surprised 
I forgot to advise you to get a Franklin 
fireplace. They have not the incon- 
venience of stoves, are warm, save wood, 



AAEON BUBK 55 

and never smoke. ... It is of the first 
importance that you suffer as little as 
possible the present winter. It may in 
a great measure determine your health 
ever after. I confess I have still some 
transient distrusts that you set so little 
value on your life. Bemember, it is not 
yours alone. ... I demand one-half of 
an hour every day from you : more I 
forbid, unless on special occasions. The 
children will have each their sheet, 
and at the given hour write, if but a 
single word. Burr, at this hour, is to 
be a kind of watchword. . . . You wrote 
me too much. It is, I confess, rather 
singular to find fault with the quantity, 
when matter and manner are so delight- 
ful. You must, however, deal less in 
sentiments and more in ideas. ... I do 
not know for what reason, Theodosia ; 
but I cannot feel my usual anxiety about 
your health, though I know you to be 
ill, and dangerously so. One reason is 
that I have more belief in your attention 



56 AAEON BURK 

to yourself. Your idea about the water 
was most delightful. It kept me awake 
a whole night, and led to a train of 
thoughts and sensations which cannot be 
described. ... I have not these five 
days past slept more than two hours a 
night, and yet I feel refreshed and 
well." 

In 1783 Burr moved to New York, 
having taken a house there in Maiden 
Lane for £200 a year, " the rent to begin 
when the British troops leave the city," 
which happened in November. 

The ensuing years, which Burr de- 
voted mainly to the law and to his 
family, were probably the happiest of 
his life. Burr was not a profound law- 
yer ; but he was an extremely adroit, 
pertinacious, and successful practitioner. 
He conducted a law-suit as if it were 
a military campaign, with ambuscades, 
brilliant sorties, and tactics calculated 
to mislead and overawe the enemy. His 
style of speaking was concise and per- 



AAEOK BUBK 57 

suasive, and he had a charm of manner 
which captivated men and women. Yet 
there was perceptible in it, to persons 
of discernment, that tinge of insincerity 
which lurked in his character. John 
Quincy Adams notes in his diary that 
"Mr. Burr is a man of very insinuating 
manners and address." 

Burr's fundamental defect seems to 
have been a lack of conscience. He 
possessed the sense of honor, but only 
in the slightest degree that of right and 
wrong. Yet it was impossible not to 
like a man so kind, so loyal, so magnan- 
imous as Burr ; and his perfect self- 
confidence and self-possession gave him 
an extraordinary power over others. 
"It is the man of aplomb," says Emer- 
son, "who carries the day." Such a 
man was Burr. It does not appear that 
he ever felt shame, much less remorse or 
repentance, for any deed of his life. 
With him, to think and to act were al- 
most the same thing. He never hesi- 



58 AAEON BURR 

tated over the future or regretted the 
past; and, when all the world — a few 
friends excepted — reviled him, he went 
on his way with perfect serenity. There 
is something superb, one might almost 
say sublime, in such self-reliance ; but it 
would probably be impossible in a good 
man. There was no Christian humility 
or Christian self-distrust in Aaron Burr. 
This descendant of Puritan saints was as 
true a pagan as ever walked the streets 
of Athens or of Rome. Intellectual 
rather than moral excellence excited 
his admiration ; and he valued people 
and was drawn toward them almost en- 
tirely according to their intelligence and 
cultivation. In fact, Burr's whole con- 
ception of human life was distorted by 
the exaggerated part which he assigned 
to education and talent as compared 
with conduct and character. 

Burr's character was essentially mas- 
culine ; but his intellect, so far as the 
two can be separated, was of a feminine 



AAROK BURR 59 

cast. In politics, in law, in life gen- 
erally, he was always concerned with the 
concrete, the particular, the practical. 
He had no interest in the abstract or in 
general principles, and very little im- 
agination or originality. His creative 
faculty was as slight as his critical fac- 
ulty was large. It was his forte not to 
open a discussion, but to close it. To 
the material of a discussion, Burr, gen- 
erally speaking, could contribute little. 
But, when all the principles applicable 
to the matter in hand, whether it were 
political or legal, had been advanced, 
when all the arguments pro and con had 
been stated, Burr had a masterly power 
of summing them up, and deducing from 
them the inevitable conclusions. It is a 
notable fact that he took no part what- 
ever in the discussions in the Federalist 
and elsewhere which preceded the adop- 
tion of the Constitution. It is not even 
known whether he sided with the Fed- 
eralists or with the Republicans. And 



60 AAEON BURR 

yet the two parties were contending, 
with many modifications and disguises 
and half unconsciously, for principles 
the most radically opposed, — the one 
for self-government, for government by 
the many, the other for government by 
the few, the one for local freedom, 
the other for centralization. These are 
the fundamental principles of human 
government, but they had no interest 
for Burr. The fact is significant both of 
his moral and intellectual deficiencies. 

Burr was often pitted against Hamil- 
ton in the courts, and they divided be- 
tween them the most important law 
business of the State. A contemporary, 
General Erastus Root, thus compared 
them: u As a lawyer and as a scholar, 
Burr was not inferior to Hamilton. His 
reasoning powers were at least equal. 
Their modes of argument were very dif- 
ferent. Hamilton was very diffuse and 
wordy. His words were so well chosen, 
and his sentences so finely formed into a 



AAEON BUEK 61 

swelling current, that the hearer would 
be captivated. The listener would ad- 
mire, if he was not convinced. Burr's 
arguments were generally methodized 
and compact. I used to say of them, 
when they were rivals at the bar, that 
Burr would say as much in half an hour 
as Hamilton in two hours. Burr was 
terse and convincing, while Hamilton 
was flowing and rapturous. They were 
much the greatest men in this State, and 
perhaps the greatest men in the United 
States." 

Theodosia, Burr's only legitimate 
child, was born in 1783 ; and hlsHfannly 
life*~was ideal. March 22, 1784, his 
wife writes to him : ' i My Aaron had 
scarce quitted the door when I regretted 
my passiveness. Why did I consent to 
his departure? Can interest repay the 
sacrifice? Can aught on earth compen- 
sate for his presence I . . . Every breath 
of wind whistled Aaron. Every noise 
at the door was mingled with hope of 



62 AAROX BUKR 

thy return and fear of thy perseverance, 
when Brown arrived with the word — 
embarked, the wind high, the water 
rough. Heaven protect my Aaron ; 
preserve him, restore him to his adoring 
mistress ! ' ' . . . 

And yet this woman was not all senti- 
ment. Burr consulted her in his busi- 
ness affairs, and she assisted to manage 
them in his absence. In the same year 
he writes to her from Albany: "Mr. 
Watts this instant acquainted me that he 
is just setting off for Xew York. I run 
from court to waft you a memorandum 
of affection. ... I read your memoran- 
dum ten times a day, and observed it as 
religiously as ever a monk did his devo- 
tion. Yesterday I burnt it. To me it 
seemed like sacrilege." 

The following are extracts from later 
letters : — 

"I have been to twenty places to find 
something to please you, but can see 



AARON BURR 63 

nothing that answers my wishes. You 
will therefore, I fear, only receive your 
affectionate j^ j^rr " 

... "I feel impatient and almost angry 
that I have received no letter from you, 
though I really do not know of any 
opportunity by which you could have 
written." 

1 1 This morning came your kind, your 
affectionate, your truly welcome letter 
of Monday evening. Nothing in my 
absence is so nattering to me as your 
health and cheerfulness. . . . Gloom, 
however dressed, however caused, is in- 
compatible with friendship. It is the 
secret, the malignant foe of sentiment 
and love." . . . 

"The girls must give me a history of 
their time from morning to night ; the 
boys, anything which interests them, — 
which, of course, will interest me. Kiss 
for me those who love me." 

(The " girls" were Theodosia, and 



64 AABOK BUKR 

Natalie, a girl about the age of Theo- 
dosia, whom Burr and his wife had 
adopted. The "boys" were Mrs. Burr's 
sons by her former husband, who were 
always treated by Burr as his own chil- 
dren. ) 

"I have lived these three days on the 
letters I expected this evening, and be- 
hold the stage without a line ! I have 
been through the rain and dark and 
mud, hunting up every passenger to 
catechize them for letters, and can scarce 
yet believe that I am so totally for- 
gotten. ' ' 

From Mrs. Burr : — 

" Tell me, Aaron, why do I grow every 
day more tenacious of thy regard? Is it 
because each revolving day proves thee 
more deserving? " 

Prom Aaron Burr : — 

1 ' Continue and multiply your letters 
to me. They are all my solace. The 



AABOX BUEE 65 

last six are constantly within my reach. 
I read them once a day at least. Write 
me of all I have requested, and a hun- 
dred things which I have not. You 
best know how to please and interest 
your affectionate ^ Burr " 

These persons, be it remembered, had 
been eight or nine years married when 
the above letters were written. Mrs. 
Burr, after a long and painful illness, 
died in the spring of 1794 ; and thence- 
forward Theodosia, the younger, served 
as her father's friend and confidant. 

Traditions of Theodosia' s beauty and 
intelligence still survive. Her father, 
to whom from her earliest years she was 
passionately attached, took the greatest 
pains with her education, especially 
endeavoring to make her brave, patient, 
and industrious. Burr has been de- 
scribed as a voluptuary ; and so he was, 
within limits, but he was much more a 
Stoic. His activity was incessant j and 



66 AAEON BUKR 

he delighted in the endurance of cold 
and heat, of labor and fatigue. Pride 
and self-reliance were the principles 
which he inculcated. Some years after 
his death, one of his numerous proteges 
was asked what in particular he had 
derived from Burr. "He made me 
iron," was the reply. 

After the marriage of Natalie, Theo- 
dosia's companion, Burr wrote to the 
latter : "I have had three letters from 
Natalie. She is to travel from Nantz to 
Paris (about two hundred and forty-five 
miles) with her maid and postilion only: 
an enterprise which no woman in France 
under forty hath executed without ship- 
wreck during the last hundred years. 
Yet Natalie will do it without injury 
and without suspicion. I have taught 
her to rely on herself, and I rely on her 
pride. ' ' 

How much was expected from Theo- 
dosia in the way of study may be gleaned 
from the following plan of a journal 



AAEON BUEE 67 

which, her father sent to her in 1793, 
when she was in her eleventh year : 
u Learned 230 lines, which finished 
Horace. Heigh-ho for Terence and the 
Greek Grammar to-morrow. Practised 
two hours, — less thirty-five minutes, 
which I begged off. Hewlet (drawing- 
master) did not come. Began Gibbon 
last evening. I find he requires as much 
study and attention as Horace. So I 
shall not rank the reading of him among 
amusements. Skated an hour. Fell 
twenty times, and find the advantage 
of a hard head." 

A year later Burr writes : — 

"I really think, my dear Theo, that 
you will be very soon beyond all ver- 
bal criticism, and that my whole atten- 
tion will be presently directed to the 
improvement of your style." 

A month later : — 

"I have received my dear Theo's two 
little, very little, French letters. The 
last left you tormented with headache 



68 AABOE" BURR 

and toothache, too much for one poor 
little girl to suffer at one time. . . . You 
must fight them as well as you can till I 
come, and then I will engage to keep 
them at bay." 

In another letter : — 

"In case you should dine in company 
with Mrs. Penn, I will apprise you of 
one circumstance, by a trifling attention 
to which you may elevate yourself in 
her esteem. She is a great advocate 
for a very plain, rather abstemious diet 
in children. Be careful, therefore, to 
eat of but one dish (that a plain roast 
or boiled) ; little or no gravy or butter, 
and very sparingly of dessert or fruit ; 
not more than half a glass of wine ; and, 
if more of anything to eat or drink is 
offered, decline it. If they ask for a 
reason, papa thinks it not good for me, 
is the best that can be given." 

This letter, so suggestive of Burr's 
favorite author, Lord Chesterfield, has 
been much and justly criticised. The 



AAEON BUEE 69 

following passage, however, from a suc- 
ceeding letter is equally characteristic of 
Burr : — 

u Eeceive with calmness every reproof, 
whether made kindly or unkindly, 
whether just or unjust. Consider within 
yourself whether there is cause for it. 
If it has been groundless and unjust, 
nevertheless bear it with composure and 
even with complacency. . . . We must 
learn to bear these things ; and let me 
tell you that you will always feel much 
better, much happier, for having borne 
with serenity the spleen of any one than 
if you had returned spleen for spleen." 

In another letter : — 

u Avoid, forever avoid, a smile or 
sneer of contempt. Never even mimic 
them. A frown of sullenness or discon- 
tent is but one degree less hateful." 

In 1800, Theodosia being then seven- 
teen, Burr wrote to her : — 

"You reflect, and that is a security 
for your conduct, , . . Many are sur- 



70 AAROX BURR 

prised that I could repose in you so 
great a trust as that of yourself ; but I 
knew that you were equal to it, and I am 
not deceived.' ' 

A year later Theodosia was married 
to Joseph Alston, of South Carolina, a 
youth of twenty- two, well born, well 
educated, rich, and of high character. 
Mr. Madison, who met him shortly be- 
fore his marriage, reported: "He ap- 
pears to be intelligent, sound in his 
principles, and polished in his manner." 

The marriage was in all respects suit- 
able, and it proved to be happy until 
Theodosia and her little family were 
overwhelmed by that evil fortune which, 
during the latter half of Burr's career, 
seems to have pursued him and all who 
belonged to him. 



V. 

Although, as has been said, Burr 
was never a strict party man, his politi- 
cal principles, so far as he had any, 
were those of the "Whigs, Eepublicans or 
Anti- Federalists, as they were variously 
called. Burr's kindly disposition and 
his practical turn of mind both tended 
to make him act with the more liberal 
and less conservative party. He advo- 
cated the speedy abolition of slavery in 
the State of New York, and he was in 
favor of opening to the public the de- 
liberations of the United States Senate. 
Burr became a member of that body in 
1791, when he was but thirty-five years 
old, being elected in place of General 
Philip Schuyler, Hamilton's father-in- 
law, who was the Federal candidate. 

In the early days of the republic the 
State of New York oscillated between 
the two parties, as it has oscillated in 
more recent years between the Demo- 



72 AAEON BUEE 

cratic and Bepublican (Federal) par- 
ties ; and the city of New York had the 
same leaning toward Democracy then 
which it has now. In 1791, however, 
the Federalists had a majority in the As- 
sembly ; and Burr's election was attrib- 
uted to his personal popularity. General 
Hamilton was an honorable man, but 
aristocratic and unpopular. Hamilton, 
now Secretary of the Treasury, took a 
keen interest in the contest. It was, 
indeed, the first battle in that long 
political struggle between Burr and 
Hamilton, which continued until their 
final encounter on the heights of Wee- 
hawken. 

In 1792 an election was to be had for 
the governorship of New York, an office 
then deemed of more dignity than a seat 
in the United States Senate. Burr was 
discussed by each party as a possible 
candidate, — a fact which shows both his 
great popularity in the State and also 
his want of political convictions. Hamil- 



AAROK BTJEE 73 

ton prevented Burr's nomination by the 
Federalists, and DeWitt Clinton was 
nominated and elected by their oppo- 
nents. 

In the same year Burr was spoken of 
as a candidate for the Yice-Presidency ; 
and again Hamilton vehemently opposed 
his nomination, describing him as fol- 
lows in a letter to Bufus King : — 

" Embarrassed, as I understand, in his 
circumstances, with an extravagant fam- 
ily, bold, enterprising, and intriguing, I 
am mistaken if it be not his object to 
play the game of confusion ; and I feel it 
to be a religious duty to oppose his 
career." Burr, however, made no move 
at this time ; and he received but a single 
vote for the office of Vice-President. 

In 1794, Washington, having deter- 
mined to recall Gouverneur Morris from 
his post as minister to France, let it be 
known that he would appoint to that 
place any person who might be selected 
by the Republicans in Congress. A cau- 



74 AAEON BUER 

cus was thereupon held, and, as the re- 
sult, Burr's name was presented to 
Washington ; and it was much urged 
upon him by Madison, Monroe, and 
other leaders of the party. Washington, 
however, refused to comply with their 
request, stating that it had been the rule 
of his public life never to appoint to 
office any man of whose integrity he 
had doubts. That Hamilton, in whom 
Washington so much confided, was, in 
part at least, responsible for this deci- 
sion, was no doubt the belief of Burr and 
his friends. 

Burr served his term in the Senate, 
and acquired the reputation of an ex- 
tremely persuasive orator. In 1797 he 
was a candidate for re-election ; but he 
was defeated by his former opponent, 
General Philip Schuyler. This reascend- 
ency of the Federal party was due, in 
part at least, to the excesses of the 
French Revolution. At that time this 
country was morally dependent upon 



AAEON BUEE 75 

Europe to an extent which it is now 
difficult to realize. On the one hand, 
the ideas which underlay the French 
Eevolution aroused the utmost enthusi- 
asm among American Eepublicans. A 
distinguished clergyman declared of the 
patriotic courtesans of Paris that u he 
could have hugged the wicked sluts, — 
they pleased him ! ' ' On the other hand, 
the insane barbarities of the French 
Eevolutionists created a reaction in fa- 
vor of the Federalists, and against 
those democratic ideas which had been 
broached, but which had not yet been 
put in practice. 

Hamilton was honestly determined 
that the "crazy hulk of a constitution, " 
as he called it, should have a fair trial ; 
but neither he nor the other leading 
Federalists had any faith in the people 
or any confidence in republican institu- 
tions. Their ideal was a constitutional 
monarchy. The mildest term which 
Hamilton applied to Jefferson was "con- 



76 AAKCW BUKK 

temptible hypocrite" ; and it was a 
serious question in the minds of other 
leading Federalists whether Jefferson's 
political principles or the utter want of 
principle, political or otherwise, charged 
against Burr, would be the more danger- 
ous in a President of the United States. 
Bayard, of Delaware, a very moderate 
man, wrote to Hamilton, u There would 
be really cause to fear that the govern- 
ment would not survive the course of 
moral and political experiments to which 
it would be subjected in the hands of Mr. 
Jefferson." How oddly does this read 
when one remembers that the real pros- 
perity of this country began with Jeffer- 
son's administration, and that his party 
remained in power for twenty- four years ! 
Jefferson himself was hardly less preju- 
diced. He remarked in a private letter 
that the Federalists would join any 
" enemy, foreign or domestic, who could 
rid them of this hateful republic for any 
other government in exchange." Botii 



AAEON BUER 77 

parties were contending for fundamental 
principles ; and hence the extreme bitter- 
ness of feeling, hence the misapprehen- 
sion of character and of motive, the ani- 
mosities, the false accusations, and the 
duels of that intense and stirring period. 
It was the dying struggle of feudalism 
in this country^*" 

In 1797 Burr, having been defeated 
by the Federalists, as just stated, began 
with characteristic promptitude to re- 
build the Eepublican party j and, as a 
first step, he procured his own election 
to the State legislature. General Schuy- 
ler wrote to Hamilton at the time : 
"Mr. Burr, we are informed, will be a 
candidate for a seat in the Assembly. 
His views it is not difficult to appre- 
ciate. They alarm me ; and, if he pre- 
vails, I apprehend a total change of 
polities in the next Assembly, attended 
with other disagreeable consequences. " 
The total change and the disagreeable 
consequences came in due time, but not 



78 AAEON BURR 

quite so soon as General Schuyler appre- 
hended. In the years 1797 and 1798 
Burr though apparently absorbed in law 
and in land speculations, was quietly 
and secretly laying the foundations of 
future political success. 

In 1799 he was again a member of the 
Assembly. At this time there were but 
two banks in the city of New York, 
both controlled by the Federalists ; and 
so unfairly were these banks conducted 
that the ordinary commercial favors 
granted to merchants of the Federal 
party were withheld from those who 
were avowed Republicans. Burr and 
his friends were determined to establish 
a Republican bank ; and, with this ob- 
ject in view, they asked the Assembly to 
charter a new company, — the Manhattan 
Company, — with a capital of $2,000,000, 
"for the purpose of supplying the city 
of New York with pure water. ' ' In the 
charter was a clause providing that the 
" surplus capital might be employed in 



AAKOK BtfBR 79 

any way not inconsistent with the laws 
and Constitution of the United States or 
of the State of New York." Objection 
was made to this clause ; and Burr, it is 
said, when questioned as to the object 
of the charter, did not deny that a bank 
was contemplated. But he did not so 
state on the floor of the House, and per- 
haps a majority of the Assembly were 
ignorant of the real object of the bill. 
At all events, the bill passed j the 
bank was established under Eepublican 
auspices ; and Burr derived a good deal 
of odium from the transaction. 

In the same year Burr was accused 
of dishonorable conduct in respect 
to the Holland Land Company, and he 
fought a duel with one of his accusers. 
This charge appears to have been en- 
tirely unfounded, but Burr took no 
pains to refute it. In allusion to this 
affair, Mr. Davis, his biographer, re- 
marks : "It was his practice to let his 
actions speak for themselves, and to let 



80 AAROX BURR 

the world construe them as they pleased. 
This was a great error, and was the 
source in after life of much trouble and 
suffering to him ; yet he would not de- 
part from it." 

Mr. Davis here refers especially to the 
events of 1800 and of 1801, when a new 
President was to be chosen. John 
Adams and Jefferson were the candi- 
dates ; and it was agreed on all sides 
that Jefferson could not be elected unless 
the State of New York should cast a 
Republican vote, and that the result 
in the State would depend upon the 
vote of the city. But at the preced- 
ing State election the thirteen Assem- 
blymen chosen from the city of New 
York had all been Federalists, and 
they were elected by a large majority. 
In the face of these discouraging facts, 
Burr stood almost alone in declaring 
that the city and State of New York 
could be carried by the Republicans ; 
and he set out to accomplish the task. 



AAEON BTTBB 81 

The situation was a difficult and peculiar 
one. The Bepublican party in New York 
was composed of three factions, — the 
faction of the Clintons, a strong, vigorous 
family of Scotch origin, with whom Burr 
had frequently come in collision ; that 
of the Livingstons, a rich and powerful 
family, renegade Federalists, with a tra- 
ditional hostility to the Clintons ; and, 
finally, the Burrites. These last were 
chiefly young, high-spirited men, de- 
votedly attached to their leader, and so 
welded together that they survived as a 
party in the State for years after Burr 
himself had disappeared from the politi- 
cal scene, — the " tenth legion' 7 Theo- 
dosia, the younger, called them. 

It was hard to reconcile these conflict- 
ing elements, but Burr's tact and perti- 
nacity succeeded. At that time the 
Presidential electors in New York were 
chosen by the Assembly ; and Burr's 
first step was to procure as nominees for 
the Assembly persons of such reputation 



82 AAEO^T BURR 

and weight that their mere names would 
add strength to the ticket. His list in- 
cluded George Clinton, former governor 
and leader of the Clinton faction, Brock- 
hoist Livingston, head of the Livingston 
family, Horatio Gates, the popular Revo- 
lutionary general, and John Swartwout, 
an ardent Burrite. The first three flatly 
refused to permit the use of their names ; 
and it was only by the utmost exercise 
of Burr's powers of persuasion that they 
were finally induced, if not to accept, at 
least to refrain from declining the nomi- 
nation. They expected to be defeated, 
they had no liking for Jefferson, and 
they were jealous of one another. Clin- 
ton even reserved the right, which he 
subsequently exercised, of declaring that 
he had been nominated without his con- 
sent. A ticket of great strength was 
thus constructed ; and, inasmuch as the 
candidates stood out in marked contrast 
to the ordinary persons whose names 
figured upon the Federal ticket, the 



AAROK BURR 83 

campaign started off with a kind of 
boom for the Republicans. 

Burr and Hamilton were now again 
pitted against each other, one directing 
the Republican and the other the Fed- 
eral campaign. The polls were kept 
open for three days, and both leaders 
were present. Frequently they met and 
argued the questions at stake in the pres- 
ence of great crowds of people. ' ( Their 
deportment towards each other," relates 
Mr. Davis, "was such as comported 
with the dignity of two of the most 
accomplished and courtly gentlemen of 
the age in which they lived. " The 
Republicans prevailed, and Burr re- 
ceived as his just reward the nomina- 
tion for Yice-President. The candidates 
were Adams and Pinckney for the Fed- 
eralists, Jefferson and Burr for the 
Republicans. At that time the candi- 
dates were voted for separately, as if 
they were all nominees for the office of 
President - } and the electoral vote resulted 



84 AARON BURR 

as follows : Jefferson, 73 ; Burr, 73 ; 
Adanis, 65 ; Pinckney, 64 , Jay, 1. 

There was, consequently, a tie between 
Jefferson and Burr ; and the election was 
thrown into the House of Representa- 
tives. In that House the Federalists 
were in a minority. They could not, 
therefore, elect Adams ; but it was possi- 
ble for them to make Burr President 
instead of Jefferson, and at first a 
majority of them were inclined to do 
this. "They now/' wrote Gouverneur 
Morris to Hamilton, u seriously and 
generally, after much advisement, pre- 
fer that gentleman [Burr] to Mr. Jeffer- 
son. They consider the candidates as 
equal in worth or (if you like the other 
mode of expression best) as equally void 
of it : with this difference, that Burr's 
defects do not arise from want of energy 
and vigor. They believe that to cour- 
age he joins generosity, and cannot be 
branded with the charge of ingratitude ; 
but they consider Mr. Jefferson as in- 



AAEON BURE 85 

fected with all the cold-blooded vices, 
and as particularly dangerous from the 
false principles of government which he 
has imbibed. " 

Hamilton, however, protested vigor- 
ously against the selection of Burr ; and 
he wrote numerous letters upon the sub- 
ject to Morris, Bayard, Sedgwick, and 
others. 

In these letters he declared that Burr, 
"as true a Catiline as ever met in mid- 
night conclave, " would endeavor, if 
elected, to overturn the government ; 
that he was " bankrupt beyond redemp- 
tion, ' ' and that he would seek to retrieve 
his fortune through war and disorder. 
" Daring and energy must be allowed 
him ; but he is far more cunning than 
wise, far more dexterous than able." 

That Hamilton had an insight of 
Burr's character is proved by the fol- 
lowing statement which was amply justi- 
fied by Burr's subsequent career. "The 
truth is," he wrote in one letter, "that 



86 AARON BURR 

Burr is a man of a very subtile imagina- 
tion, and a mind of this make is rarely 
free from ingenious whimsies. . . . With 
great apparent coldness, he is the most 
sanguine man in the world. He thinks 
everything possible to adventure and 
perseverance. ' ' 

Did Burr himself intrigue with the 
Federalists in order that he, instead of 
Jefferson, might be elected President? 
His enemies accused him of doing so, and 
the belief that this accusation was true 
became so general as to ruin Burr's polit- 
ical career ; and yet the evidence is almost 
all the other way. But, it is said, if 
Burr was innocent, why was the charge 
against him so vigorously made and so 
commonly believed? The answer is 
that there was an obvious conspiracy be- 
tween the Clintonians and the Living- 
stons to destroy Burr politically. George 
Clinton had been Burr's rival in the con- 
test for the nomination as Vice-President, 
as well as on many former occasions ; and 



AAKO^/*BTJEKj 87 

Burr had excited the jealousy of both the 
Cliuton and Livingston factions. The 
fruits of this conspiracy were the scurril- 
ous attacks of Oheetham and others upon 
Burr ; the expulsion of Burr and his 
friend, John Swartwout, from the direc- 
torship of the Manhattan Bank, which 
followed shortly ; and the total exclusion 
of Burr's followers from subordinate po- 
sitions within the gift of Clinton, who 
was elected governor that year. This 
explains the violence with which the 
charges were made. And they were read- 
ily believed, — first, because Burr had ac- 
quired a reputation for mystery and 
intrigue ; and, secondly, because, in ac- 
cordance with his lifelong habit, he 
made no attempt to confute or silence 
his calumniators. 

There is no evidence beyond the bare 
assertion of his enemies that Burr sought 
election by the Federalists, and there is 
direct evidence to the contrary. The 
person who put an end to the deadlock 



88 AAEON BUKR 

in Congress, and procured the election of 
Jefferson, was Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, 
Hamilton's intimate friend and a lead- 
ing Federalist. Mr. Bayard has left an 
account of the transaction. He says that 
at a very early stage in the proceedings 
he contrived to lay hold of all the doubt- 
ful votes, and was thus in a position to 
turn the scale toward Burr or toward 
Jefferson. He was inclined, despite 
Hamilton's protestations, to vote for 
Burr ; but first he wished to procure as- 
surance as to Burr's policy upon three 
points, namely : (1) The support of the 
public credit; (2) The maintenance of 
the naval system ; (3) The retention of 
subordinate public officers. He there- 
fore put himself in communication with 
those persons who were reputed to be 
Burr's agents ; but, finding that they dis- 
claimed any knowledge of his intentions 
or any authority to represent him, Mr. 
Bayard applied to General Samuel Smith, 
a friend of Jefferson. General Smith 



AAEON BUEE 89 

sounded Mr. Jefferson upon the three 
points just mentioned. His report was 
satisfactory ; and Mr. Bayard, the very 
next morning after receiving it, cast his 
own vote for Jefferson, and caused the 
votes which he controlled to be cast 
likewise, and thus ended the contest, 
which at one time threatened to pro- 
duce a civil war. 

After the election Mr. Bayard wrote 
to Hamilton saying that Burr could 
have been elected had he taken any 
steps to that end j and in a letter written 
by another member of Congress, Mr. 
Cooper, while the balloting was still in 
progress, there is the following state- 
ment : "All stand firm. Jefferson, 
eight j Burr, six-; divided, two. Had 
Burr done anything for himself, he 
would long ere this have been Presi- 
dent." 

Further evidence might be adduced, 
were it required, including Burr's own 
written declaration at the beginning of 



90 AAROX BURR 

the contest, to show that Burr, with all 
his faults, was innocent of the charge 
which destroyed his reputation with the 
American people. 



VI. 

As the end of Burr's term in the Vice- 
President's chair approached, it became 
apparent that he could not secure a 
renomination, so completely had his 
reputation been undermined by his 
enemies. He applied to Mr. Jefferson 
for an appointment as foreign minister, 
and was refused. In this situation, Burr 
and his friends determined upon an 
appeal to the people of New York. In 
1804 the ' l regular ' ' Republican nominee 
for governor in that State was Morgan 
Lewis, a connection of the Clintons. 
Burr ran as an independent candidate. 
The Federal party was now so shattered 
that it had no candidate of its own, and 
the question was whether the Federalists 
should vote for Lewis or Burr. Burr, 
as being much less a partisan, would 
have been their natural choice ; but 
Hamilton once again threw the weight 
of his great influence against him. 



92 AAKOX BURR 

" Hamilton," wrote Burr, Feb. 16, 1804, 
"is intriguing for any candidate who 
can have a chance of success against 
A. B. He would doubtless become the 
advocate even of De Witt Clinton if he 
should be the opponent." Burr was 
defeated, he receiving twenty-eight thou- 
sand votes, and Lewis thirty- five thou- 
sand. 

For nearly twenty years Burr and 
Hamilton had been engaged in a politi- 
cal duel, and during all that time Ham- 
ilton had been unsparing in his condem- 
nation of Burr's character and motives. 
It is surprising — and it shows how far 
gentlemanly courtesy and self-restraint 
will go — that the two men had always 
remained on good terms. In the last 
year of his life Hamilton wrote to a 
friend : "If there is a man in the world 
I ought to hate, it is Jefferson ; with 
Burr I have always been personally 
well." In the year 1800, in one of 
those very denunciatory letters to his 



AAEON BUKB 93 

friend Bayard, from which extracts have 
already been quoted, Hamilton remarked 
that he had " dined with Burr lately/ 7 
meaning, apparently, that he had dined 
at Burr's own table. Already there had 
been several duels between Burr's ad- 
herents and his enemies, — one in par- 
ticular between De Witt Clinton and 
John Swartwout, in which Swartwout, 
after being twice wounded, demanded 
that the duel should still go on ; and it 
would have done so, had not the sur- 
geons interfered. Burr had been taunted 
with his tame submission to Hamilton's 
invectives. It was an age of duelling, 
and both Burr and Hamilton were 
military men. 

There is a story that Burr and his 
henchmen decided, in cold blood, that 
Hamilton must be killed for political 
reasons ; but there is no proof of it, and 
it is not in accordance with Burr's char- 
acter. No man was more careless or for- 
giving of injuries, none, perhaps, so un- 



94 AARON BURR 

forgiving of insults. Pride was the pre- 
dominant trait in his character. It is 
certain that Burr had already once, if 
not twice, required an explanation of 
Hamilton. Burr so stated after the 
duel, and Hamilton himself wrote at 
this time that he "was not conscious 
that any charges which are in circula- 
tion, to the prejudice of Colonel Burr, 
have originated with him, except one, 
which may have been so considered, and 
which has long since been fully ex- 
plained between Colonel Burr and him- 
self." 

During the recent campaign there 
had been published a letter written by 
Dr. C. D. Cooper, containing the follow- 
ing paragraphs : u General Hamilton and 
Judge Kent have declared, in substance, 
that they looked upon Mr. Burr to be a 
dangerous man, and one who ought not 
to be trusted with the reins of gov- 
ernment. ... I could detail to you a still 
more despicable opinion which General 






AAEON BTJER 95 

Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr." 
This letter was no cause for a duel, but 
it furnished a sufficient occasion for the 
cause which had preceded it; and on 
June 18, 1804, Burr sent to Hamilton 
the following note : — 

"Sir, — I send for your perusal a letter 
signed Charles D. Cooper, which, though 
apparently published some time ago, 
has but very recently come to my knowl- 
edge. Mr. Yan Ness, who does me the 
favor to deliver this, will point out to 
you that clause of the letter to which 
I particularly request your attention. 
You must perceive, sir, the necessity of 
a prompt and unqualified acknowledg- 
ment or denial of the use of any expres- 
sion which would warrant the assertion 
of Mr. Cooper. I have the honor to be 

your obedient servant, 

A. Burr." 

This note was carried by "William P. 
Yan Ness, an acute lawyer, an instru- 



96 AAEON BUBB 

inent of Burr, who is described as " add- 
ing to the sleek glossiness and still 
tread, the deadly ferocity and power of 
the tiger. ' ' 

Hamilton in his answer, a long, ar- 
gumentative document, declined to give 
such a reply as Burr required. "'Tis 
evident," he wrote, "that the phrase 
* still more despicable ' admits of infinite 
shades, from very light to very dark. 
How am I to judge of the degree in- 
tended f" He also stated that, if any 
specific remark were attributed to him, 
he would acknowledge or deny it ; and he 
concluded : "I trust, on more reflection, 
you will see the matter in the same light 
with me. If not, I can only regret the 
circumstance, and must abide the con- 
sequences. " 

This last remark might perhaps have 
been omitted, but in all other respects 
Hamilton's attitude throughout the whole 
correspondence was as conciliatory as his 
self-respect would permit. 



AAROtf BURR 97 

Burr, conscious of the long provoca- 
tion which he had received, treated this 
letter as an attempt at evasion. "I re- 
gret to find in it," he wrote, u nothing 
of that sincerity and delicacy which 
you profess to value. . . . Your letter 
has furnished me with new reasons for 
requiring a definite reply." Hamilton, 
having read this note, stated to Yan 
Ness that it was not such as he had 
hoped to receive ; that, if it were not 
withdrawn, he could make no reply ; and 
that Mr. Burr must pursue such course as 
he deemed proper. He added that, if 
Burr had asked him to state exactly what 
he had said to Dr. Cooper, he would have 
answered frankly, and that he believed 
the remark would have been found not 
to exceed the proper limits of political 
controversy. 

Upon the Saturday afternoon follow- 
ing, Hamilton, having gone to his coun- 
try-seat near the city, received a note 
from Yan Ness, inquiring when and 



98 AARON BURR 

where he would receive a further com- 
muuicatioD from Burr. At Hamilton's 
request, his town house was appointed as 
the place and the succeeding Monday as 
the time ; and Hamilton spent the inter- 
vening day in the country with his wife 
and seven children. On the Monday, 
Van Ness delivered orally a message 
based upon certain notes written out by 
Burr. 

These notes put Burr's case in a 
stronger and truer light. "A. Burr," 
they began, "far from conceiving that 
rivalship authorizes a latitude not other- 
wise justifiable, always feels greater del- 
icacy in such cases, and would think it 
meanness to speak of a rival but in terms 
of respect, to do justice to his merits, to 
be silent of his foibles. Such has inva- 
riably been his conduct toward Jay, 
Adams, and Hamilton, the only three 
who can be supposed to have stood in 
that relation to him. He has too much 
reason to believe that in regard to 



AAEON BURR 99 

Mr. Hamilton there has been no reci- 
procity. For several years his name has 
been lent to the support of base slanders, 
which he has never had the generosity, 
the magnanimity, or the candor to con- 
tradict or disavow. Burr forbears to par- 
ticularize, as it would only tend to pro- 
duce new irritations ; but, having made 
great sacrifices for the sake of harmony, 
having exercised forbearance until it ap- 
proached to humiliation, he has seen no 
effect produced by such conduct, but a 
repetition of injury. . . . He is incapable 
of revenge, still less is he capable of imi- 
tating the conduct of Mr. Hamilton, by 
committing secret depredations on his 
fame and character. But these things 
must have an end." 

Hamilton now called in the services of 
his friend Mr. Pendleton, and some fur- 
ther communications passed between the 
parties. Burr required a general dis- 
avowal of any intention by Hamilton, in 
any conversation, "to convey expres- 



100 AAEON BURR 

sions derogatory to the honor of Mr. 

Burr." 

This general statement, Hamilton, of 
course, was unable to make ; and on 
Wednesday, June 27, Van Ness delivered 
to Pendleton the challenge. It was ar- 
ranged that the meeting should not occur 
until July 11, in order that Hamilton 
might have time to finish a law-suit in 
which he was engaged, and also to ar- 
range his private affairs. He seems to 
have assumed from the first that the duel 
would be fatal to him. Cheetham — 
Burr's scurrilous traducer, a tool of the 
Clintons — declared after the duel that 
Burr spent these intervening days in 
practising at a mark in his garden ; and 
the slander has been repeated by one his- 
torian after another. There is no proof 
of the charge, — it was denied by Burr's 
friends at the time, — and there is no 
more reason to believe it than to believe 
that other accusation, made by the same 
man on the same occasion ; namely, that 



AAEOK BUBB 101 

Burr went to the field wearing a suit of 
silk underclothes, which, he had heard, 
would be efficacious to stop a bullet. 

The night before the duel was spent by 
Burr and Hamilton in arranging their 
private papers, and in writing what 
each thought might be his last words. 
Hamilton made a will, and left a long 
statement as to his conduct and motives 
in his transactions with Burr. In this 
pathetic document the frankness, the 
generosity, and the weak points of his 
character are alike apparent. His fair- 
ness to Burr is notable. He admitted 
that his " animadversions " had " borne 
very hard" upon Burr; and he ex- 
pressed a hope that Burr' s future career 
would show that Hamilton's estimate of 
his character had been erroneous. 

He stated that he had resolved to 
throw away his first and possibly his 
second fire. Finally, Hamilton declared 
that he was opposed in principle to 
duelling, but that, nevertheless, he would 



102 AAEON BUEE 

meet Burr, because, should he decline to 
do so, his future political usefulness 
would be destroyed. In other words, 
he would do a certain evil, in order that 
a possible good might be obtained. 
This was the fatal principle, more than 
once acted upon, which marred Hamil- 
ton's otherwise honorable career. 

Burr wrote a long letter to Theodosia, 
requesting that she would burn all of his 
letters which might injure any one ; 
that, in case of his death, tokens of his 
remembrance should be given to his 
stepsons, to Natalie, and others, and 
that provision should be made for his 
slaves and servants. The letter con- 
cluded with these words : — 

"You have completely satisfied all 
that my heart and affections had hoped 
or even wished. With a little more per- 
severance, determination, and industry, 
you will obtain all that my ambition 
or vanity had fondly imagined. Let 
your son have occasion to be proud 
that he had a mother. Adieu, Adieu." 



AAEON BTJEE 103 

To her husband also lie wrote a long 
and characteristic letter, especially en- 
treating him to "stimulate and aid 
Theodosia in the cultivation of her 
mind." He added a characteristic post- 
script : "If you can pardon and indulge 
a folly, I would suggest that Madame 

, too well known under the name 

of Leonora, has claims on my recollec- 
tion. She is now with her husband at 
St. Jago of Cuba." 

Not a shadow of a misgiving crossed 
Burr's mind, before or after the duel, 
that his conduct was in any sense deserv- 
ing of blame. Nor was it, according to 
the code which then prevailed ; and he 
knew no other. The code must be both 
Burr's and Hamilton's justification ; and 
how strongly it was intrenched in public 
opinion appears from the following pas- 
sage in the diary of Gouverneur Morris, 
written two days after the duel : "Clark- 
son said to me on Thursday, 'If we 
were truly brave, we should not accept 






104 AAEON BURR 

a challenge ; but we are all cowards. ' 
There is no braver man living than 
Clarkson, and yet I doubt whether he 
would so far brave the public opinion as 
to refuse a challenge." Late at night, 
Burr threw himself upon a couch in his 
library ; and when his faithful friend, 
John Swartwout, entered the house at 
daybreak, he found him quietly sleeping. 

Under the heights of Weekawken, and 
accessible only at low tide, there was a 
grassy ledge or shelf, which had. been the 
scene of many encounters. Here on 
July 11, 1804, in all the peaceful beauty 
and freshness of early morning in mid- 
summer, Burr and Hamilton met. The 
preliminaries were soon arranged. As 
Pendleton, Hamilton's second, gave him 
his pistol, he asked, " Will you have the 
hair-spring set?" " Not this time," was 
the reply. 

When the word was given, Burr fired. 
Hamilton started forward, with a con- 
vulsive movement, reeled, involuntarily 



AAEON BUEE 105 

discharging his pistol, and fell headlong 
upon the ground.* 

Burr sprang toward him with an ex- 
pression of pain upon his face ; but Yan 
Ness seized him by the arm, and hurried 
him down the bank to the boat. Ham- 
ilton, being lifted up, revived for a mo- 
ment, and gasped, "This is a mortal 
wound, doctor. w He then relapsed into 
unconsciousness, but was revived again 
by the fresh air of the river, as they 
brought him home. ' ' Pendleton knows, ' ' 
he said, endeavoring to turn toward his 
friend, "that I did not intend to fire 
at him." As the boat approached the 
shore, he said : "Let Mrs. Hamilton be 
sent for immediately. Let the event be 
gradually broken to her, but give her 
hopes." 

He lingered in great suffering until 
two o'clock in the afternoon of the fol- 
lowing day. 

* There is some evidence that Hamilton fired first. 
See especially a letter from Burr to Charles Biddle first 
published in 1885 in Mr. Biddle's autobiography. 



106 AARON BURR 

The excitement in the city was tre 
mendous, and the sorrow over Hamilton's 
death was almost exceeded by the indig- 
nation against Burr. The whole town 
took part in the funeral, amidst the 
booming of cannon and the tolling of 
bells, and listened to the eulogy pro- 
nounced by Gouverneur Morris. 

The death of Hamilton had something 
of the same effect in making duelling 
odious which the death of President 
Garfield had in making the spoils system 
odious. And yet, irrational as the duel 
now seems, it had, like every other hu- 
man institution of long standing, its good 
side. There is not only something heroic, 
but there is something which tends to 
foster an heroic type of character, in the 
willingness of a man like Hamilton to 
sacrifice his life, and what was far more 
dear to him, the interests of his wife, his 
children, and his friends to that im- 
ponderable, intangible, invisible thing, 
that " breath" which " flies from you to 
me, " — the sense of honor. 



VII. 

July 21, 1804, " Aaron Burr, Esquire, 
Vice-President of the United States, ' ' was 
indicted for murder j and on the same 
day, at evening, he, with John Swart- 
wout, entered a barge at Eichmond Hill, 
and under cover of the night was con- 
veyed down the river. At daybreak 
the boat grazed the lawn of Commodore 
Truxton's residence at Perth Amboy, in 
New Jersey j and the commodore, who 
was a friend of both Hamilton and Burr, 
received Burr kindly, and entertained 
him till horses could be procured to take 
him further. 

In a long letter published a few days 
later in the New York Evening Post, 
Commodore Truxton said : " During the 
time Colonel Burr was with me, but little 
was said of the duel. . . . He appeared to 
me to feel much more sorrow and regret 
than I have observed in any other person 
on the occasion, though I have seen many 



108 AAEON BUER 

who expressed unfeigned regret, and I 
was certain that they felt it. ' ' 

From New Jersey Burr went South, 
where, in general, he was very well re- 
ceived. In the mean time he had been 
indicted for murder in New Jersey also ; 
and he wrote to his daughter : ' ' You have 
doubtless heard that there has subsisted 
for some time a contention of a very sin- 
gular nature between the two States of 
New York and New Jersey. The sub- 
ject of dispute is, Which shall have the 
honor of hanging the Vice-President! \ 

Burr kept away from those two States, 
and in the following winter resumed his 
duties as Vice-President at Washington. 
On February 4 began the famous trial in 
the Senate of Judge Chase, of Maryland, 
which lasted a month, and was an occa- 
sion of much form and ceremony. Burr 
won great praise by his conduct of the 
trial. "He presided," it was said in a 
contemporary account, "with the dig- 
nity and impartiality of an angel, but 



AAK(OT BTJEE 109 

with the rigor of a demon." The day 
after the trial ended, his term being 
about to expire, Burr took leave of the 
Senate ; and perhaps nothing in the ca- 
reer of this remarkable man is more sig- 
nificant of his power than the impression 
which he produced upon that occasion. 
Most of those who heard his short ad- 
dress were his political opponents, not 
a few were his personal enemies, and yet 
the effect of it was prodigious. Many 
were in tears when he concluded, and 
one senator who was asked on the fol- 
lowing day, how long the Yice-President 
spoke, replied that "he could form no 
idea, it might have been an hour, and it 
might have been but a moment : when 
he came to his senses, he seemed to have 
awakened as from a kind of trance." 
Burr himself, remarking upon a news- 
paper report of the proceedings, wrote 
to Theodosia : — 

"It is true that I made a talk, as was 
decent and proper, to the Senate on leav- 



110 AAEON BURR 

ing thein formally. There was notlii ng 
written or prepared, except that it had 
been some days on my mind to say some- 
thing. It was the solemnity, the anxiety, 
the expectation, and the interest which I 
saw strongly painted in the countenances 
of the auditors that inspired whatever 
was said. I neither shed tears nor as- 
sumed tenderness, but tears did flow 
abundantly. The story in this news- 
paper is rather awkwardly and pom- 
pously told. ' ' 

March 4, 1805, two days after Burr's 
leave-taking in the Senate, Jefferson en- 
tered upon his second term as President ; 
and George Clinton, Burr's chief politi- 
cal opponent, was sworn in as his succes- 
sor. Burr was now an exile from New 
York. His estate, Richmond Hill, had 
been sold at a sacrifice to pay his debts ; 
and he was without money or occupa- 
tion, but as serene and self-confident as 
ever. He turned toward the West. 

In the West the Republican party pre- 



AAEON BUEE ill 

dominated, and freer notions of duelling 
prevailed there than those which were 
beginning to obtain at the East. For 
these reasons Burr was received with 
great honor. He left Philadelphia on 
horseback April 10, 1805, and reached 
Pittsburg in nineteen days. Thence he 
floated down the Ohio in a sort of 
house-boat, stopping a few miles below 
Marietta (Ohio), at the island of Blenner- 
hassett, which was owned and occupied 
by an eccentric Irishman of that name. 
Burr fascinated both Blennerhassett and 
his wife, and they shared in his subse- 
quent enterprises. At Nashville, Burr 
was entertained by General Jackson, 
whom he described as "one of those 
frank, ardent souls that I love to meet." 
At Fort Massac, on the Cumberland, 
he met General James Wilkinson, then 
in command of our Western forces. 
Wilkinson was an old friend of Burr j 
they had been companions in the expe- 
dition to Quebec, and they had corre- 



112 AAEOX BUER 

sponded at intervals ever since. The 
general provided Burr with a barge 
manned by soldiers, and gave him letters 
to the chief citizens of New Orleans. i 1 1 
hear so many pleasant things of Or- 
leans/' Burr wrote to Theodosia, "that 
I should certainly (if one-half of them 
are verified on inspection) settle down 
there, were it not for Theodosia and her 
boy ; but they will control my fate. 1 '' Upon 
his return from 'New Orleans, where he 
was entertained like a prince, Burr again 
met Wilkinson, who said afterward that 
"Burr seemed to be revolving some 
great project, the nature of which he did 
not disclose." It is significant, how- 
ever, that during the following winter, 
which Burr spent in Philadelphia, ma- 
turing his plans, Wilkinson received 
from Burr six letters in cipher. 

In the spring Burr evidently had 
thoughts of relinquishing his Western 
designs, for he applied again to Jefferson 
for a foreign appointment. The Presi- 



AAEOK BUEE 113 

dent refused it on the ground that he 
had forfeited the confidence of the pub- 
lic. Burr took the refusal with his ac- 
customed good nature, dined with the 
President once more, and in the follow- 
ing July sent forward Samuel, brother 
of John Swartwout, with letters in cipher 
to General Wilkinson. Burr was so 
cautious in communicating his designs, 
and especially in putting them upon 
paper, that it is difficult to say exactly 
what they were. It is certain that he 
intended to establish a colony j for he 
had purchased a tract of land compris- 
ing 400,000 acres, far to the south-west, 
beyond the Mississippi, on the banks of 
the Washita, a tributary of the Eed 
Eiver. $5, 000 had been paid down, the 
total price being but $40,000. It is 
estimated that Burr raised, all together, 
about $50,000, most of this sum being 
contributed by deluded relatives. In a 
letter Jefferson speaks of Mr. Alston's 
having indorsed Burr's notes to a large 



114 AAEON BUBB 

amount. It is certain also that Burr 
intended to take advantage of the West- 
ern hostility to the Spaniards to drive 
them out of Mexico and to establish an 
hereditary empire there, with himself 
on the throne and Theodosia's boy as 
the heir apparent. It is possible that he 
expected to include Louisiana and some 
of the Western States in his new domin- 
ions. Mr. Henry Adams cites a letter 
written by the British minister at Wash- 
ington to the Foreign Office at London, 
in which he states that Burr, whose 
term as Yice-President was then about 
to expire, had offered his services to the 
British government, " particularly in 
endeavoring to effect a separation of the 
western part of the United States from 
that which lies between the Atlantic 
and the mountains.' ' 

It must be remembered in extenuation 
that a division between East and West 
was then considered probable and expe- 
dient by many leading persons. 



AAEO¥ BUBK 115 

Burr's schemes justified Hamilton's 
analysis, — that he was "the most san- 
guine man in the world/' and that "he 
believed all things possible to daring 
and energy" j but they were not quite 
so mad as they now seem. The coun- 
try was at that time on the verge of 
war with Spain, and Burr only expected 
to anticipate matters a little. Wilkin- 
son, being in command on the border, 
had it in his power to precipitate a war ; 
and this apparently is what Burr ex- 
pected him to do. Among the papers 
which Samuel Swartwout carried to Wil- 
kinson from Burr was the following let- 
ter to Wilkinson from Burr's associate, 
Mr. Dayton, of New Jersey : 

"Dear Sir, — It is now well ascertained 
that you are to be displaced in next ses- 
sion. Jefferson will affect to yield re- 
luctantly to the public sentiment, but 
yield he will. Prepare yourself, there- 
fore, for it. You are not a man to de- 



116 AAEON BUEE 

spair . . . when such projects offer in 
another quarter. Are you ready ? Are 
your associates ready? Wealth and 
glory, Louisiana and Mexico ! M 

Wilkinson has left three huge volumes 
of memoirs, which show him to have 
been a vain, shallow, bragging, egotisti- 
cal man j and, if he ever intended to be- 
come a conspirator with Burr, he must 
have changed his mind, for upon the 
receipt of Burr's communications he 
sent a message to the President inform- 
ing him of Burr's designs. Wilkinson 
then patched up a hasty agreement with 
the Spaniards, fortified New Orleans, 
proclaimed martial law, and posed as 
the savior of his country. Burr, never a 
good judge of character, had mistaken 
his man. He made other similar mis- 
takes ; for he sought assistance in his il- 
legal, and perhaps traitorous, schemes 
from several high officers of the army 
and navy, Commodore Truxton and 



AAEON BURE 117 

General Eaton in particular, who had 
grievances against the government. 

Meanwhile, ignorant of Wilkinson's 
course, Burr was travelling slowly down 
the Ohio, giving out that his expedition 
had received the secret approval of the 
government, and collecting recruits at 
every stopping-place. Boats and sup- 
plies were purchased and contracted for j 
and Mr. Alston, Theodosia, Blennerhas- 
sett and his wife, were all busy with 
preparations. The whole Western coun- 
try was now full of rumors as to Burr's 
intentions j and at Frankfort, in Ken- 
tucky, the district attorney procured 
his arrest on the charge of conspiring to 
injure a foreign power with which the 
United States were at peace. A long 
and exciting trial followed, in which the 
accused was defended by Henry Clay, 
and Burr himself made an eloquent ad- 
dress to the court. The result was a tri- 
umphal acquittal, which the people of 
Frankfort celebrated by a grand ball. 



118 AAEON BURE 

From Frankfort, Burr went back to 
Nashville, and thence, with about sixty 
men, dropped down the river to Bayou 
Pierre, thirty miles above Natchez. But 
by this time the President's proclama- 
tion against Burr had reached the scene. 
There was another arrest, followed by 
another trial, at which Burr's eloquence 
procured a second acquittal. But the 
game was now plainly lost. Further 
legal proceedings were set on foot ; and 
Burr, abandoning his companions, dis- 
guised himself as a boatman, crossed to 
the eastern side of the Mississippi, and 
disappeared in the wilderness. 

A few weeks later, on a cold evening 
in February, two young lawyers, one of 
whom was named Perkins, were playing 
backgammon in a cabin of the village 
of Wakefield, in Washington County, 
Alabama. About ten o'clock they 
heard the tramp of horses ; and, going 
to the door, they found two travellers on 
horseback, one of whom, from his dis- 



AAEO^ BURR 119 

tinguished appearance and commanding 
air, Perkins immediately concluded to 
be Burr. The travellers inquired the 
way to the house of one Colonel Hinson, 
about seven miles distant $ and, when 
they had gone, Perkins proposed to his 
companion that they should follow and 
endeavor to arrest them. The other re- 
fused ; and Perkins thereupon sought out 
a neighboring deputy sheriff, who accom- 
panied him to Hinson' s house, which 
they reached shortly before midnight. 
It was agreed that Perkins should remain 
hidden in the woods while the sheriff 
should reconnoitre and discover, if pos- 
sible, whether the suspected traveller 
was really Burr, returning to Perkins so 
soon as he had ascertained the fact. 

The sheriff found the strangers about 
sitting down to supper before a cheerful 
fire. He joined them; and, although he 
soon discovered the identity of Burr, he 
became so infatuated with Burr's engag- 
ing manners and pleasant conversation 



120 AAEON BURR 

that lie resolved to have no hand in ar- 
resting him, whatever his crimes might 
be. This resolve he conld not, of course, 
communicate to Perkins ; and so, when 
Burr had gone to bed, the sheriff 
stretched himself before the fire, and 
calmly went to sleep, leaving Perkins to 
shiver in the woods. The latter, how- 
ever, after waiting an hour, conjectured 
what had happened, and immediately set 
out, travelled all night, and at daybreak 
reached Fort Stoddart, on the Alabama 
River, commanded by Captain, afterward 
Major-general, Gaines. By nine o'clock 
the next morning the captain, with a 
file of troopers, had met Burr on the 
highway, and arrested him in the name 
of the United States. 

The captain determined to send his 
prisoner through the wilderness to Wash- 
ington, and in two weeks a start was 
made. The guard consisted of nine 
troopers, commanded by Perkins, and 
strictly enjoined to hold no conversation 



AAEON BUKK 121 

with Burr, lest they should be overcome 
by his blandishments. The journey was 
a hard one. It was made in the spring, 
when the water was high, and the travel- 
lers were often obliged to swim their 
horses across rivers and swollen streams. 
Swamps and quicksands presented even 
greater dangers, and hostile Indians 
were always hovering about their path. 
Through all these perils and difficulties 
the indomitable Perkins pushed on at 
the extraordinary rate of forty miles a 
day. Burr, it need scarcely be said, was 
never sick nor sorry ; and on March 26 
the party arrived at Eichmond, Virginia, 
that place having been designated by 
the government. Then followed a re- 
markable trial, presided over by Mar- 
shall, chief justice of the Supreme Court, 
Jefferson himself continually advising 
the prosecuting attorney by letters from 
Washington, and showing an indecent 
eagerness for the conviction of the pris- 
oner. The trial became a political affair, 



122 AAEON BURR 

the Federalists supporting Burr by way 
of annoying the administration. Burr 
was treated with great consideration, be- 
ing provided with luxurious quarters, 
and having his friends about him. Gen- 
eral Jackson was in Richmond ; and he 
made a street speech, defending Burr, 
and denouncing the hostility of the gov- 
ernment. Burr sent for Theodosia and 
her husband, writing to her, in different 
letters, as follows : — 

" I beg and expect of you that you 
will conduct yourself as becomes my 
daughter, and that you manifest no signs 
of weakness or alarm. . . . Remember, 
no agitation, no complaints, no fears or 
anxieties on the road, or I renounce 
thee. . . . 

"I may be immured in dungeons, 
chained, murdered in legal form ; but I 
cannot be humiliated or disgraced. If 
absent, you will suffer great solicitude. 
In my presence you will feel none. ' ' 

The trial lasted for weeks, and the 



AAEON BUER 123 

ablest lawyers in the United States took 
part in it; but Burr himself was his 
own chief defender. "He appeared in 
court," relates Mr. Parton, " attired 
with scrupulous neatness, in black, with 
powdered hair and queue. His manner 
was dignity itself, — composed, polite, 
confident, impressive. He had the air 
of a man at perfect peace with himself, 
and simply intent upon the business of 
the scene. It was observed that he never 
laughed at the jokes of the counsel. His 
speeches were short, concise, exact. 
They were uttered with such impressive 
distinctness that there are men now liv- 
ing who, after the lapse of fifty years, 
can repeat phrases and sentences which 
they heard fall from his lips during the 
trial." According to our laws the jury 
in a criminal case must return a verdict 
of u guilty" or "not guilty," no quali- 
fied form being permissible. But in 
Burr's case the jury brought in a kind 
of Scotch verdict, as follows : — 



124 AAEON BURR 

"We, of the jury, say that Aaron Burr 
is not proved to be guilty under the in- 
dictment by any evidence submitted to 
us. We therefore find him not guilty. ' ' 

Burr protested against the form of 
this verdict, but, as some of the jury re- 
fused to change it, it was accepted, and 
the ordinary form of "not guilty' y was 
entered on the record. Upon the con- 
clusion of this trial for treason, another 
trial for misdemeanor was immediately 
begun ; and it ended with a verdict 
of acquittal upon a technicality. Six 
months were consumed in the two pro- 
ceedings. In the autumn Burr was en- 
tertained at Baltimore by Luther Martin, 
one of his counsel. How he spent the 
winter is not known j but he had now 
determined to seek support in Europe 
for his designs against Mexico. In June, 
1808, after a most painful parting with 
Theodosia, who came on to New York 
to bid him good-by, and sat up with 
him the whole night before his depart- 



AAEON BUKK 125 

ure, Aaron Burr, former Yice-President 
of the United States, once the rival of 
Hamilton at the bar and of Jefferson in 
politics, was secretly conveyed on board 
a packet ship, and under an assumed 
name, like an escaping felon, sailed for 
England. 



VIII. 

A few days before Burr arrived in 
London, in July, 1808, Joseph Bona- 
parte entered Madrid as king of Spain. 
This event was fatal to Burr's design of 
obtaining assistance from England in 
wresting Mexico from the Spanish, for 
England immediately took the part of 
the dethroned Spanish king. Neverthe- 
less, with characteristic promptitude, 
Burr presented his letters at the foreign 
office on the very day of his arrival ; 
and he had interviews subsequently with 
many official persons, but without re- 
sult. The English ministry looked upon 
him with suspicion, and were even in- 
clined to forbid his residence in London. 
Burr, however, with his usual audacity, 
declared that he was born a British sub- 
ject, which was, of course, true, and 
that he still remained such, notwith- 
standing that little affair of the Revolu- 
tion, and consequently could not be ban- 



AAROK BURB 127 

ished from Great Britain. This prepos- 
terous claim was gravely referred to the 
law officers of the crown, and mean- 
while Burr was hospitably received by 
the most interesting people in the capi- 
tal. He had the entree of Holland 
House, was entertained by the Earl of 
Bridgewater, met Lamb, knew Godwin 
intimately, and lived in the closest inter- 
course with Jeremy Bentham, whom he 
almost persuaded to take up his resi- 
dence on the table-lands of Mexico. 

Burr wrote to Theodosia by every 
mail; and during the whole period of 
his exile he kept a diary addressed to 
her, and intended for her eyes alone. 
His profound affection for Theodosia 
and her child is apparent in his letters, 
from which the following extracts are 
taken : — 

"Some obscure hints in one of your 
letters have saddened my heart. From 
son pere I have merited neither suspicion 
nor reserve. . . . Have you forgotten the 



128 AARON BURR 

mad project of going to England! the 
anxiety and misery it cost ns for some 
days ! I should have thanked the man 
who had thus treated my child. In- 
deed, my dear Theodosia, such things 
sink into my soul. They seem to invade 
the very sanctuary of happiness. . . . 
Dear little Gampy, — tell me a great deal 
about him, or I shall not value your 
letters. Indeed, I will return them un- 
opened. Is not that good Irish t . . . If 
you had one particle of invention or 
genius, you would have taught A. B. A. 
his a, b, c, long before this. God mend 
you. His fibbing is an inheritance, 
which pride, an inheritance, will cure. 
His mother went through that process. 
. . . The letter of A. B. A. at the foot 
of yours was far the more interesting. I 
have studied every pot-hook and tram- 
mel of his first literary performance to 
see what rays of genius could be dis- 
covered. . . . My letters to others are 
always ready for the foreign mail ; but 



AAECOT BUEE 129 

toward you a desire to say something at 
the last moment, a reluctance resem- 
bling that of parting, — but all this you 
know and feel." 

After a stay of six months in London, 
Burr went northward by coach. He 
stopped at Oxford long enough to de- 
fend the philosophy of Bentham in one of 
the University Common-rooms, and then 
pushed on to Edinburgh, where he was 
received with the most nattering atten- 
tions by the grandees and celebrities 
of the place, including Walter Scott, 
Jeffrey, and the Duchess of Gordon. 
Burr was visited by some gleams of hope 
at this time. Cobbett, who knew him in 
the United States, had a plan for bring- 
ing him into the British Parliament ; and 
in February he was summoned back to 
London, where he had several interviews 
upon the subject of Mexico with Lord 
Melville, but it all came to nothing. 
During his second residence in London 
Burr began to feel a pressure of poverty, 



130 AAROK BURR 

from which he was never afterward free 
while he remained abroad. Certain 
payments due from persons in the 
United States upon which he depended 
were not made ; and, while Burr was 
staying with Bentham in London, he 
anticipated an arrest for debt. To his 
credit, be it recorded, he refrained from 
borrowing money of his venerable friend, 
but instead moved to an obscure lodging, 
and changed his name. "The benevo- 
lent heart of Jeremy Bentham, " he 
wrote in the diary, " shall never be 
saddened by the spectacle of Gamp's 
arrest. ' ' 

Shortly after this, and perhaps owing 
in part to his change of name, his papers 
were seized by emissaries of the foreign 
office ; and he was placed in custody of 
a messenger, who took him to his own 
house. In this disagreeable situation 
Burr comforted himself with his usual 
philosophic serenity, reading such books 
as he found in the house, playing whist 



AAEON BUBB 131 

with the messenger and his wife till 
11 p.m., and then engaging in a game 
of chess which lasted, as the diary re- 
lates, "till the poor fellow [the messen- 
ger] was almost crazed." 

After a few days' detention, Burr was 
released upon condition that he should 
leave England, transportation being 
offered him to any country which he 
might select. He chose Sweden, and 
proceeded to Stockholm, where he at 
once became a favorite in the highest 
society of the place. "An officer of 
rank," he sets down in his diary, 
"remarked to me that I spoke French 
much better than English, and inquired 
which of the European languages the 
native language of the Americans most 
resembled." Burr liked the Swedes, 
finding them more congenial than the 
English. He went to a concert at Stock- 
holm. "Every countenance was af- 
fected by those emotions to which the 
music was adapted. In England you 



132 AAEON BUEK 

see no expression painted on the visage 
at a concert. All is sombre and grim. 
They cry Bravo ! Bravissimo ! with the 
same countenance that they G — d damn 
their servants and their government." 

Wherever Burr went, he carried with 
him an oil painting of Theodosia ; and at 
Stockholm he had it retouched by Breda, 
a celebrated artist. In the diary he 
writes: "To Breda's, where passed an 
hour looking at your picture. I was 
exceedingly struck and alarmed to see it 
pale and faded. Why was not this per- 
ceived before! Perhaps it may arise 
from being placed among his portraits, 
which are very high-colored. Yet the 
impression that it is faded is fixed on my 
mind, and has almost made me supersti- 
tious." Some weeks later he notes in 
the diary : ' ' Yesterday opened your 
picture. It is in perfect order. Since 
opening it at Stockholm, I have carried 
it the whole way (200 miles) on my lap. 
Indeed, madam, you gened me not a 



AAEON BUKK 133 

little. You are now hung up in my 
room, so that I can talk with you." 
And again, after packing up for another 
journey: "Done. Even the picture all 
packed. I bade you bon soir a dozen 
times before I shut you up in that dark 
case. I can never do it without regret. 
It seems as if I were burying you alive." 

At the end of October, 1809, Burr left 
Sweden, crossing in an open boat to 
Elsinore on the coast of Denmark. At 
Gottingen he became intimate with Prof. 
Heeren. At Weimar he met Goethe, 
dined with the ducal family, and, falling 
in love with a lady of the court circle, 
tore himself away abruptly. 

His hopes were revived by news that 
the emperor had given his assent to the 
independence of Mexico. February 16, 
1810, he arrived in Paris, and made 
every effort to obtain an interview with 
Napoleon or with some person in his 
confidence. He waited upon various 
kings and dukes, wrote letters and me- 



134 AAEON BURR 

niorials, but all to no purpose ; and, 
after a month of these fruitless endeav- 
ors, he applied for a passport, in order 
that he might return to the United 
States. The passport was refused, the 
refusal being probably due to General 
Armstrong, an adherent of Jefferson, 
who was then the American minister 
at Paris. Burr was now in a desperate 
situation. "This matter is rather 
grave, ' ' he notes in the diary. ' l Win- 
ter approaches. No prospect of hav- 
ing leave to quit the empire, and still 
less of any means of living in it. ... I 
should be glad of a good fire, but see 
no prospect." 

The story of his continually frustrated 
attempts to procure the passport gives 
one the painful impression of a night- 
mare. Once it was granted, made out, 
but lost in transmission ; and Burr spent 
five weeks in a vain attempt to trace it 
through the mazes of French bureau- 
cracy. Through all this weary period, 



AAEON BUBB 135 

though in straits for money, homesick, 
and most eager to escape from his im- 
prisonment in France, he preserved his 
equanimity, and amused himself as much 
as he could. The nearest approach in 
his diary to melancholy or downhearted- 
ness is found in the following para- 
graph : u At 10 to the club to read 
newspapers and hear the news, which I 
find is of some consequence to me, if, in- 
deed, anything be of any consequence." 
At last, in July, 1811, the passport was 
procured by the kind intervention of 
the Duke of Bassano and Baron Denon. 
During this time Burr existed chiefly, 
if not entirely, on money borrowed from 
various people, especially from the Duke 
of Bassano, who lent him a considera- 
ble sum. Burr left directions in his 
will for its repayment, but he did not 
leave the necessary funds. Mr. Edward 
Griswold, of New York, also befriended 
him with a loan of money. Shortly be- 
fore leaving Paris, he received the fol- 



136 AAEOX BUKR 

lowing letter from Theodosia, the first 
for nearly a year, so irregular were the 
mails : "I have written a second time to 
the gentlemen who promised me the sup- 
ply of funds ; but there is little to be 
hoped from him. . . . His conduct is a 
serious addition to all the accumulated 
difficulties which already pour in upon 
us, and which would absolutely over- 
whelm any other being than yourself. 
Indeed, I witness your extraordinary 
fortitude with new wonder at every new 
misfortune. Often, after reflecting on this 
subject, you appear to me so superior, 
so elevated above all other men, I con- 
template you with such a strange mixt- 
ure of humility, admiration, reverence, 
love, and pride that very little super- 
stition would be necessary to make me 
worship you as a superior being. Such 
enthusiasm does your character excite in 
me. When I afterward revert to my- 
self, how insignificant do my best qual- 
ities appear ! My vanity would be 



AARON BURR 137 

greater if I had not been placed so near 
'yon ; and yet my pride is onr relation- 
ship. I had rather not live than not be 
the daughter of such a man. ' ' 

October 1, 1811, Burr sailed on the 
American ship Vigilant, bound for home ; 
but within a few hours the ship was 
captured by a British frigate, and 
taken to Yarmouth. Burr went up to 
London; and then followed another 
wretched period of six months, during 
which he endeavored to procure, first, 
the means to pay his passage home, — for 
he could not recover the money paid to 
the Vigilant, — and then an opportunity. 
Bentham and his other friends welcomed 
him, but he was in difficulties which 
would have weighed any other man to 
the ground. One day he records in the 
diary: "Have left in cash two half- 
pence, which is much better than one 
penny, because they jingle; and thus 
one may refresh one's self with the 
music." 



138 AAEON BURR 

Burr, though still buoyant, was now 
a little demoralized ; or it may be that 
the weaknesses of his character, though 
not really more pronounced, were more 
apparent at this time. He lay late in 
the morning. His room and his papers 
were always in disorder. He put off from 
day to day what was necessary to be 
done. When he had money, he gave it 
away or spent it foolishly. The follow- 
ing is a characteristic entry in the 
diary: "Bought a pair of pantaloons, 
which I did not want, 20s. My 10 
pounds is reduced to 60s., and thus I 
progress." He was full of schemes for 
raising money, — by improving the steam- 
engine, by the sale of a new process for 
constructing false teeth, by speculation 
in the shares of the Holland Land Com- 
pany, by making vinegar out of wood; 
but none of these succeeded. At last he 
sold some of the books and trinkets in- 
tended for Theodosia and her boy, bor- 
rowed twenty pounds of his friend, 






AAEON BUEE 139 

Mr. Beeve, at the foreign office, and in 
March, 1812, paid his passage money in 
the ship Aurora, bound for Boston from 
Gravesend. 

Noon was the time of sailing ; but 
Burr, owing to a series of accidents and 
mistakes, did not reach Gravesend until 
the vessel was five hours on her way 
down the river. He hired two men to 
row him, drawing upon a friend in 
London to pay them ; and at sunset, the 
weather being cold and blustering, they 
started in a small skiff to overtake the 
ship. It was a question whether they 
would succeed in doing so ; and, if they 
failed, Burr would be left in England 
without a penny and with every re- 
source exhausted. And yet, even in this 
perilous situation, he calmly lay down 
in the bottom of the boat, covered him- 
self with the great- coats of the men, and 
slept soundly until midnight, when he 
awoke to find that they had overhauled 
the Aurora twenty-seven miles from 
Gravesend. 



140 AAEON BURR 

The worst misfortunes of Burr's life 
were yet in store for him. About six 
weeks after his return to New York he 
received a letter from Theodosia in 
South Carolina, saying that her boy was 
dead. He was eleven years old, and had 
already given proof of such courage and 
talents as might have been expected from 
his ancestry. Theodosia' s health was 
completely shattered by the event ; and 
some months later, her husband being 
then governor of the State, and unable 
to leave it, she embarked for New York 
on the schooner Patriot, attended by her 
maid and by a doctor whom Burr had sent. 
The Patriot was never heard of after- 
ward, and was supposed to have foun- 
dered in a gale off Cape Hatteras. The 
agony of apprehension, and at last of 
certainty, endured by the husband and 
father is apparent in the letters which 
they exchanged. Mr. Alston never re- 
covered from the blow, and died a few 
years later. Some months after the loss 



AAEON BUEE 141 

of Theodosia, in writing to a friend, 
whose child had died, Burr said: "Ever 
since the event which separated me from 
mankind, I have been able neither to 
give nor to receive consolation. ' r 

Of Burr's remaining years the tale is 
soon told. He hung out a modest tin 
sign in the city of New York, and at 
the age of fifty-six began life again as a 
lawyer. His old friend, Colonel Troup, 
who had now retired, lent him a law 
library; and many of his former adher- 
ents called upon him, and gave him 
business. He appears to have had a 
considerable practice, especially at first; 
but his practice appears also to have 
been of a rather obscure kind, and not 
such as brought him much into court. 
It is probable that no one cared to em- 
ploy as his advocate before a jury a 
lawyer held in such evil repute as Burr. 
He was cut right and left by former 
acquaintances, subjected to a thousand 
rebuffs, and held in such general odium 



142 AAEON BURB 

that life would have been intolerable to 
a man of less courage and serenity. 
And yet, as regards the chief causes of 
this odium, — namely, his alleged treach- 
ery to the Eepublican party and his due] 
with Hamilton, — it was undeserved. 

We have the following description of 
his appearance in the year 1823 : "His 
head was well shaped. His forehead was 
high, protruding, but narrow directly 
over the eyes, and widening immediately 
back. His feet and hands were peculia rl y 
small, the nose rather large, with open, 
expanding nostrils, and the ears so small 
as almost to be a deformity. His face 
bore in repose a sad and melancholy air. 
He wore his hair — which, till quite late 
in life, was long and thick, excepting in 
the front of the head — massed up on 
the top, held by a small shell comb, the 
whole head profusely powdered. His 
usual dress was a single blue-breasted 
coat, with standing collar, a buff vest, 
and dark trousers. In winter he wore a 
fur cap and buckskin mittens." 



AAEON BUEE 143 

In his old age, Burr married a rich 
widow, named Jumel, somewhat against 
her inclination, taking the fortress almost 
by storm, and lived happily with her 
until a coolness arose between them from 
the fact that Burr had muddled away 
in speculation so much of her fortune 
as he could lay hands upon. Neverthe- 
less, though they separated, his wife re- 
tained a kindly friendship for him. 

This second marriage took place when 
Burr was seventy ; and in the same year 
he became the father of an illegitimate 
child, to whom he left a legacy. In the 
same year, also, we find him writing 
from Albany to his partner : u Arrived 
this evening between six and seven 
o'clock, having been forty-five hours in 
the stage without intermission, except to 
eat a hearty meal. Stages in very bad 
order. . . . The night was uncomfor- 
table ; the curtains torn and flying all 
about, so that we had plenty of fresh 
air. . . . Came neither fatigued nor 



144 AAKOX BUEB 

sleepy." But even Aaron Burr could 
not live forever. In 1833, being then 
seventy-seven, he suffered a slight shod; 
of paralysis, from which he recovered 
sufficiently to resume his business. A 
few months later, however, he had another 
shock, and lay ill and helpless at his 
office, which was also his home. In this 
predicament he was visited by an old 
friend, a Scotchwoman, whose father, an 
officer in the British army, had been 
intimate with Burr. This lady, having 
lost her property, was then keeping a 
boarding-house in what was once the 
residence of Governor John Jay ; and 
thither she caused Burr to be brought. 
Here, with his books, pictures, and relies 
about him, and kindly cared for, Bun 
spent the next two years. 

In the summer of 1836 the Jay house 
was to be torn down, and Burr's friends 
removed him upon a litter to Port Rich- 
mond in Staten Island. As the summer 
advanced, his strength declined, though 



AAEON BTJBB 145 

his mind remained as clear as ever. He 
was visited frequently by a clergyman, 
who read to him and prayed for him. 
On the last day of Burr's life this cler- 
gyman questioned the old colonel as to 
what belief he had in a future state and 
in the forgiveness of his own sins. "Mr. 
Burr answered," he relates, " with deep 
and evident emotion, ' On that subject I 
am coy.' " This characteristic sentence 
was the last that he uttered. He died 
at two o'clock in the afternoon of Sep- 
tember 14, 1836, being then eighty years 
and seven months old. In accordance with 
his own request, he was buried in Prince- 
ton, at the feet of those godly men, his 
father and grandfather, the two presi- 
dents of the college, who lie there, side 
by side. 

One who reads Burr's life can hardly 
help asking the question, Did he believe 
in himself, or was he consciously and 
intentionally a bad man ? The true an- 
swer would seem to be that Burr re- 



146 AAEON BURK 

garded himself as, ou the whole, an 
exemplary character. A man who is 
deficient in moral sense cannot of course 
be aware of the deficiency ; for, if he were 
so, the deficiency would cease to exist. 
Moreover, Burr's worst trait was his ten- 
dency to deceive ; and it is notorious that 
one who habitually deceives others is 
always, in the end, his own chief victim. 
The practice is destructive to self-knowl- 
edge. It must be admitted that Burr 
was a profligate and, probably, a traitor. 
It must be admitted that he was dis- 
honest and insincere, that he can be de- 
fended from the charge of lying only by 
confessing that he was guilty of misrep- 
resentations which bear a family resem- 
blance to lies, that he spent and gave 
away other people's money as lavishly 
as he did his own. 

These are grave faults ; but on the 
other side must be considered Burr's 
courage and fortitude, his generosity, his 
magnanimity, and, above all, his capao- 



AAEON BUEE 147 

ity for family affection. ~No heartless 
villain, such as Burr has been repre- 
sented, could have won and retained the 
love of such a wife and of such a daugh- 
ter as Burr had. When all the other 
witnesses have been heard, let the two 
Theodosias be summoned, and especially 
that daughter who showed toward him 
an affectionate veneration unsurpassed 
by any recorded in history or romance. 
Such an advocate as Theodosia the 
younger must avail in some degree, even 
though the culprit were brought before 
the bar of Heaven itself. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. Burr Bibliography. By n. B. 
Tompkins. (Brooklyn, K.Y. : Histori- 
cal Printing Club, 1892.) Complete 
and beautifully printed. 

II. Life and Times of Aaron Burr. 
By J. Par ton. (1858.) This is by far 
the fullest and best account of Aaron 
Burr. There is an acute but perhaps 
too severe review of it in the first vol- 
ume of the Atlantic Monthly. 

III. Memoirs of Aaron Burr. By 
Matthew L. Davis. (1837.) Almost 
all that is valuable in this book is incor- 
porated in Mr. Barton's book. 

IV. Private Journal of Aaron 
Burr during his Residence in 
Europe. (1838.) This journal is of 
great interest to the student of Burr's 
character. 

V. Life of Aaron Burr. By Samuel 
L. Knapp. (1835.) 



BIBLIOGEAPHY 149 

VI. Life of Aaron Burr. By Charles 
Burr Todd. (Pamphlet. New York, 
1879: S. W. Green, 16 Jacob Street.) 
Good and readable. 

VII. History of the United States. 
By Henry Adams. This contains a 
thorough and lucid account of Burr's 
Western schemes. 

VIII. The Attempts made to sepa- 
rate the West from the American 
Union. By the Bt. Bev. C. F. Bobert- 
son, D.D., LL.D. (Pamphlet. St. Louis, 
1885: Missouri Historical Society. ) This 
pamphlet contains a bibliography of its 
subject. 

IX. Beminiscences of J. A. Hamil- 
ton. (New York, 1869 : Scribner & Co. ) 
The author was a son of Alexander Ham- 
ilton. 

X. Memoirs of my own Times. By 
Gen. James Wilkinson. (1816. ) 



150 BIBLIOGKAPHY 

XL Autobiography of Charles Bid- 
dle. (Philadelphia, 1883: E. Claxton 
& Co.) The Appendix contains several 
interesting letters from Burr and Wilk- 
inson, not before printed. 

XII. The Trial of Colonel Aaron 
Burr. (In Eichniond, May, 1807; 
Washington, 1807.) 

XIII. Another Account. By J. J. 
Coombs. (Washington, 1864: W. H. & 
C. H. Morrison. ) 

XIV. Messages of President Jeffer- 
son RELATING TO THE BURR CONSPIR- 
ACY. American State Papers. Vol. I. 

XV. Life of George Ticknok. (Bos- 
ton, 1876: James E. Osgood & Co.) 
See Vol. I. p. 261; Vol. II. pp. 35, 113, 
292. 



The BEACON BIOGRAPHIES. 

M. A. DeWOLFE HOWE, Editor. 



The aim of this series is to furnish brief, read- 
able, and authentic accounts of the lives of those 
Americans whose personalities have impressed 
themselves most deeply on the character and 
history of their country. On account of the 
length of the more formal lives, often running 
into large volumes, the average busy man and 
woman have not the time or hardly the inclina- 
tion to acquaint themselves with American bi- 
ography. In the present series everything that 
such a reader would ordinarily care to know is 
given by writers of special competence, who 
possess in full measure the best contemporary 
point of view. Each volume is equipped with 
a frontispiece portrait, a calendar of important 
dates, and a brief bibliography for further read- 
ing. Finally, the volumes are printed in a form 
convenient for reading and for carrying handily 
in the pocket. 

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. 

(Limited) 
Paternoster House, Charing Cross Road, London 

[over.] 



The BEACON BIOGRAPHIES. 



The following volumes are the first issued: — 

John Brown, by Joseph Edgar Chamberlin. 
Phillips Brooks, by the Editor. 
Aaron Burr, by Henry Childs Merwin. 
Frederick Douglass, by Charles W. Chesnutt. 
David Glasgow Farragut, by James Barnes. 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, by Mrs. James T. Fields. 
Robert E. Lee, by W. P. Trent. 

James Russell Lowell, by Edward Everett Hale, Jr. 
Thomas Paine, by Ellery Sedgwick. 
Daniel Webster, by Norman Hapgood. 

The following are among those in preparation: — 

John James Audubon, by John Burroughs. 
Edwin Booth, by Charles Townsend Copeland. 

James Fenimore Cooper, by W. B. Shubrick Clymer. 
Benjamin Franklin, by Lindsay Swift. 
Sam Houston, by Sarah Barnwell Elliott. 



KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. 
( Limited ) 



THE BEACON BIOGRAPHIES 



EDITED BY 



4. 



y 



M. A. DeWOLFE HOWE 



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AARON BURR 

BY 

HENRY CHILDS MERWIN 



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