"Small is it that thou canst trample the earth with its injuries under thy feet, as old Greek Zeno trained thee; thou canst love the earth while it injures thee, and even because it injures thee; for this a greater than Zeno was needed, and he, too, was sent. Knowst thou that 'Worship of Sorrow?' The temple thereof, opened some eighteen centuries ago, now lies in ruins, overgrown with jungle, the habitation of doleful creatures. Nevertheless, venture forward; in a low crypt, arched out of falling fragments, thou findest the altar still there, and its sacred lamp perennially burning."—Sartor Resartus.
"I will tell you, scholar, I have heard a grave divine say that God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart."—Izaak Walton.
Among the strongest of the fresh feelings excited by foreign travel—those fresh feelings which are an actual re-enforcement of life—is that of welcome surprise at the sympathy the traveller is able to yield, as well as privileged to receive. We are all apt to lose faith in the general resemblance between human beings when we have remained too long amid one set of circumstances; all of us nearly as weakly as the schoolgirl who thinks that the girl of another school cannot comprehend her feelings; or the statesman who is surprised that the lower classes appear sometimes to understand their own interests; or the moralist who starts back from the antique page where he meets the reflection of his own convictions; or the clergyman who has one kind of truth for his study and another for his pulpit. Intellectual sympathy comes to the traveller in a distant land like a benignant rebuke of his narrowness; and when he meets with moral beauty which is a realization of his deep and secret dreams, he finds how true it is that there is no nationality in the moral creation, and that, wherever grass grows and the sun shines, truth springs up out of the earth and righteousness looks down from heaven. Those who bring home a deep, grateful, influential conviction of this have become possessed of the best results of travel; those who are not more assured than before of the essential sympathy of every human being they meet, will be little the worse for staying at home all the rest of their lives. I wasdelighted with an observation of a Boston merchant who had made several voyages to China. He dropped a remark by his own fireside on the narrowness which causes us to conclude, avowedly or silently, that, however well men may use the light they have, they must be very pitiable, very far behind us, unless they have our philosophy, our Christianity, our ways of knowing the God who is the Father of us all, and the Nature which is the home of us all. He said that his thoughts often wandered back with vivid pleasure to the long conversations he had enjoyed with some of his Chinese friends on the deepest themes of philosophy and the highest truths of religion, when he found them familiar with the convictions, the emotions, the hopes which, in religious New-England, are supposed to be derivable only from the Christianity of this region. His observation gave me intense pleasure at the time I heard it; and now, though I have no such outlandish friends as the Chinese appear to a narrow imagination, I can tell him, from a distance of three thousand miles, that his animating experience is shared by other minds.
The most extensive agreement that I have ever known to exist between three minds is between two friends of mine in America and myself, Dr. F. being German, Mrs. F. American, and I English, by birth, education, and (at least in one of the three) prejudice. Before any of the three met, all had become as fixed as they were ever likely to be in habits of thought and feeling; and yet our differences were so slight, our agreements so extensive, that our intercourse was like a perpetual recognition rather than a gradual revelation. Perhaps a lively imagination may conceive something of the charm of imparting to one another glimpses of our early life. While our years were passing amid scenes and occupations as unlike as possible, our minds were converging through foreign regions of circumstance to a common centre of conviction. We have sat mutually listening for hours, day after day, week after week, to his account of early years spent in the range of a royal forester's domain, and of the political struggles of later years; to her history of a youthful life nourished by all kinds of American influences; and to mine, as unlike both theirs as each was to the other.
The same sort of experience is yielded by every chapter of human history which comes under the mind's eye in aforeign country. The indolence of the speculatist, however, generally prevents his making this use of any but the most extraordinary and eventful sections of this interminable history. Such contemplations rouse sympathy, extinguish nationality, and enlarge the spirit to admit new kindred by an irresistible assurance of the rightfulness of all claims of brotherhood. Every lovetale has this effect, for true love is the same all over the wide earth. Most tales of wo have the same influence, for the deepest woes spring from causes universally prevalent. But, above all, spectacles of moral beauty work miracles of reconciliation between foreign minds. The heart warms to every act of generosity, and the spirit sends out a fervent greeting to every true expression of magnanimity, whether it be meek intrepidity in doing or unconscious bravery in suffering.
Many such a heartwarming must the stranger experience in America, where the diversities of society are as great as over the European Continent, and where all virtues can find the right soil to thrive in. If there are in some regions broader exhibitions of vice—of licentiousness and violence—than can be seen where slavery is not, in other regions or amid different circumstances there are brighter revelations of virtue than are often seen out of a primitive state of society. One of these, one of many, may, I think, be spoken of without risk of hurting any feelings or betraying any confidence, though I must refrain from throwing such light and beauty over the story as the letters of the parties would afford. I was never so tempted to impart a correspondence; and it is not conceivable that any harm could arise from it beyond the mischief of violating the sacredness of private correspondence; but this is not to be thought of.
At Cincinnati I became acquainted with the Rev. E.P., whom I found to be beloved, fervently but rationally, by his flock, some of whom think him not a whit inferior, as a preacher, to Dr. Channing. He was from New-England; and, till he spoke, he might have been taken for one of the old Puritans risen from an early grave to walk the earth for a while. He was tall, gaunt, and severe-looking, with rather long black hair and very large black eyes. When he spoke all the severity vanished; his countenance and voice expressed gentleness, and his quiet fun showed that the inward man was no Puritan. His conversation was peculiar. His voice was somewhat hollow, and not quite manageable, andhe was wont to express himself with schoolboy abruptness and awkwardness of phrase, letting drop gems of truth and flowers of beauty without being in the least aware of the inequality of his conversation, or, perhaps, that he was conversing at all. Occasionally, when he had lighted on a subject on which he had bestowed much thought, all this inequality vanished, and his eloquence was of a very high order. He was a man who fixed the attention at once, and could not, after a single interview, be ever forgotten. The first time I saw him he told me that his wife and he had hoped to have made their house my home in Cincinnati, but that she and the child had been obliged to set out on their summer visit to her parents in New-England before my arrival. Whenever he spoke of his home it was in a tone of the most perfect cheerfulness; so that I should not have imagined that any anxieties harboured there but for the fervent though calm manner in which he observed in conversation one day, that outward evils are evils only as far as we think them so; and that our thinking them so may be wonderfully moderated by a full conviction of this. This was said in a tone which convinced me that it was not a fragment of preaching, but of meditation. I found that he had been about two years married to a pretty, lively, accomplished girl from New-England. Some of his friends were rather surprised at the match, for she had appeared hitherto only as a sprightly belle, amiable, but a little frivolous. It was not, however, that he was only proud of her beauty and accomplishments, or transiently in love; for his young wife had soon occasion to reveal a strength of mind only inferior to his own. Her sight began to fail; it failed more and more rapidly, till, after the birth of her child, she was obliged to surrender to others all the nicer cares of maternal management. Her accomplishments became suddenly useless. Her favourite drawing was first given up; then her needle was laid aside; then she could neither write nor read, nor bear a strong light. In her state of enforced idleness (the greatest trial of all to the spirits), her cheerfulness never failed. Her step was as light, her voice as gay as ever. She said it was because her husband was as happy as ever. He aided her in every conceivable way, by doing all that was possible of what she was prevented from doing, and by upholding her conviction that the mind is its own place;and he thus proved that he did not desire for her or for himself indolent submission, but cheerful acquiescence.
As summer came on, the child sickened in teething, and was sent with its mother to New-England, in order to escape the greatest heats. They had set out, under good guardianship, the week before I arrived at Cincinnati. Mr. P. could not leave his church for many weeks, but was to follow in August, so as to be in time to deliver a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Harvard commencement week. I fancied that I saw him meditating this poem more than once during our drives through the splendid scenery round Cincinnati. I was uneasy about his health, and expressed some apprehensions to one of his friends, who, however, made light of what I said. I thought that, made for strength as he looked, he had little of it. He seemed incessantly struggling against exhaustion, and I was confident that he often joined in conversation with his eyes alone, because he was unequal to the exertion of talking. I was quite sure of all this, and wondered how others could help seeing it too, on the day of the procession of the freeschools of Cincinnati, when he was appointed to address the children. His evident effort in the pulpit and exhaustion afterward made me fear that there were more trials in store for his young wife. During their separation she could neither write to him nor read his letters.
When, towards the end of August, I arrived at Cambridge for commencement, one of my first inquiries was for the P.s. He had joined his wife, his poem was ready, and they were in cheerful spirits, though both her sight and the child's health were rather worse than better. I did not see them among the assemblage on the great commencement day. On the morrow, when the Phi Beta Kappa Society had marched in to music, and the oration had been delivered, and we all looked eagerly for Mr. P. and his poem, a young clergyman appeared, with a roll of MS. in his hand, and with a faltering voice, and a countenance of repressed grief, told us that Mr. P. had been seized with a sudden and severe illness, and had requested from him, as an office of friendship, that he would read the poem which its author was prevented from delivering. The tidings ran in a mournful whisper through the assemblage that Mr. P. had broken a bloodvessel.
The poem was descriptive, with touches of human interest, many and strong. It related the passage of an emigrant family over the Alleghanies, and their settlement in the West. It was read with much modesty, truth, and grace. At one part the reader's voice failed him, at a brief description of the burial of an infant in the woods; it was too like a recent scene at which the reader had been present as chief mourner.
The P.s were next at a country-house within two miles of another where I was spending ten days. Mr. P. was shut up, and condemned to the trial which his wife was bearing so well, enforced idleness. His bodily weakness made him feel it more, and he found it difficult to bear. He had been unused to sickness, and the only failure I ever saw in him was in obedience to the necessities of his situation and the orders of his physician. He could not write a page of a letter, and reading fatigued his head; but he could not help trying to do what he had been accustomed to perform with ease; and no dexterity of his visiters could prevent his clapping on his hat, and being at the carriage door before them. I thought once that I had fairly shut him into his parlour, but he was holding my stirrup before I had done my farewell to his wife. I was commissioned to carry him grapes and peaches from a friend's hothouse; and I would fain have gone every day to read to him, but I found that he saw too many people, and I therefore went seldom. Nothing can be conceived more touching than the cheerfulness of his wife. Many would have inwardly called it cruel that she could now do almost nothing for her husband, or what she thought almost nothing. She could neither read to him, nor write for him the many passing thoughts, the many remembrances to absent friends, that it would have been a relief to his now restless mind to have had set down. But their common conviction completely sustained them both, and I never saw them otherwise than unaffectedly cheerful. The child was sometimes better and sometimes worse. I saw him but once, but I should have known him again among a thousand. The full, innocent gaze of his bright black eyes, the upright carriage, so striking in a well-tended infant, and the attitude of repose in which he contemplated from his mother's arms whatever went on about him, fixed the image of the child in my memory for ever. In another month I heard, at a distance, of the child's death. For afortnight before he had been quite blind, and had suffered grievously. In the common phrase, I was told that the parents supported themselves wonderfully.
As the cold weather approached, it became necessary for Mr. P. to remove southward. It was a weary journey over the Alleghanies into Ohio, but it had to be performed. Every arrangement of companionship, and about conveyance, resting-places, &c., was made to lessen the fatigue to the utmost; but we all dreaded it for him. The party was to touch at Providence, Rhode Island, where the steamboat would wait a quarter of an hour. I was in Providence, and, of course, went down to the boat to greet them. Mr. P. saw me from a distance, and ran ashore, and let down the steps of the carriage with an alacrity which filled me with joy and hope. He was not nearly so thin as when I last saw him, and his countenance was more radiant than ever. "I knew we should see you," said he, as he led me on board to his wife. She, too, was smiling. They were not in mourning. Like some other persons in America who disapprove of wearing mourning, they had the courage to break through the custom. It would, indeed, have been inconsistent with the conviction which was animating them all this time—the conviction that the whole disposal of us is wise, and right, and kind—to have made an external profession that anything that befell them was to be lamented. I could not but observe the contrast between their countenances and that of their maidservant, whose heart was doubtless aching at having to go back without the child. The mother's feelings were anything but deadened. The cheerfulness and the heart's mourning existed together. Tears trembled in her eyes, and her voice faltered more than once; but then came the bright smile again, and an intimation, given almost in a spirit of gayety, that it was easy to bear anything whilehewas always so strong in spirit and so happy.
This was the last I saw of them. Their travelling companions wrote cheerlessly of his want of strength, and of the suffering the long journey caused him. They were taken into the house of a kind friend at Cincinnati, where there was a room fitted up with green for the sake of Mrs. P.'s eyes, and every arrangement made in a similar spirit of consideration. But it would not do; there was yet to be no rest for the invalid. The excitement of being among his flock, while unable to do anything in their service, wasinjurious to him. He was sent down the river to New-Orleans, and his wife was not allowed to accompany him. The reasons were sufficient, but the separation at a time when he was nearly as anxious about her health as she about his was a dreadful trial. I heard of it, and wrote him a long letter to amuse him, desiring him not to exert himself to answer it. After a while, however, he did so, and I shall never part with that letter. He spoke briefly of himself and his affairs, but I saw the whole state of his mind in the little he did say. He found himself in no respect better; in many much worse. He often felt that he was going down the dark valley, and longed intensely for the voices of his home to cheer him on his way. But, still, his happiest conviction was the uppermost. He knew that all things were ordered well, and he had no cares. He wrote more copiously of other things: of his voyage down the great river, of the state of mind and manners amid the influences of slavery, which had converted his judgment and his sympathies to the abolition cause; and of the generous kindness of his people, the full extent of which he might never have known but for his present sickness. This letter left me little hope of his recovery; yet even here the spirit of cheerfulness, predominant through the whole, was irresistible, and it left me less anxious for them than before.
After this I wandered about for some months, out of reach of any of the P.'s connexions, and could only procure general accounts of his being better. Just before I sailed I received from Mr. P. a letter full of good news, as calmly cheerful in its tone as any written in the depths of his adversity. He had ascended the river with the first warmth of spring; was so much better as to be allowed to preach once on the Sunday, and to be about to undertake it twice; and was now writing beside the cradle of his newborn daughter, whose mother sent me word that they were all well and happy.
The power of a faith like theirs goes forth in various directions to work many wonders. It not only fortifies the minds of sufferers, but modifies the circumstances themselves from which they suffer, bracing the nerves in sickness, and equalizing the emotions in sorrow; it practically asserts the supremacy of the real over the apparent, and the high over the low; and, among other kindly operations, refreshes the spirit of the stranger with a revelation of true kindred in a foreign land: for this faith is the fundamental quality in the brotherhood of the race.
"Come on, sir; here's the place: stand still. How fearfulAnd dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!"
Shakspeare.
"Desperate nowAll farther course; yon beetling brow,In craggy nakedness sublime,What heart or foot shall dare to climb!"
Scott.
The shrewd Yankee driver of the "extra exclusive return stage," which contained four out of six of our travelling-party in Virginia, was jocose about the approach to the Natural Bridge. Mr. L. and I were on horseback, and the driver of the stage called after us when we were "going ahead," to warn us that we should get over the bridge without knowing it if we went first. We, of course, determined to avoid looking so foolish as we should do if we passed the Natural Bridge—the little spot deemed important enough to be put in capital letters in maps of the American Union—without knowing it. Heads were popped out of the stage window to shout the warning after us; and the jokes really seemed so extremely insulting, that we were disposed to push on, and get our sight of Jefferson's great wonder before our fellow-travellers came up. For five miles we kept out of sight of the stage; but at this point there was a parting of the roads, and we could see no possible means of learning which we were to follow. We were obliged to wait in the shade till the distant driver's whip pointed out the right-hand road to us. We were now not far from the object of our expectations. We agreed that we felt very quiet about it; that we were conscious of little of the veneration which the very idea of Niagara inspires. The intensity of force, combined with repose, is the charm of Niagara. No form of rock, however grand in itself or however beautifully surrounded, can produce anything like the same impression. Experience proved that we were right.
At a mile from the bridge the road turns off through a wood. While the stage rolled and jolted along the extremelybad road, Mr. L. and I went prying about the whole area of the wood, poking our horses' noses into every thicket and between any two pieces of rock, that we might be sure not to miss our object, the driver smiling after us whenever he could spare attention from his own not very easy task of getting his charge along. With all my attention I could see no precipice, and was concluding to follow the road without more vagaries, when Mr. L., who was a little in advance, waved his whip as he stood beside his horse, and said, "Here is the bridge!" I then perceived that we were nearly over it, the piled rocks on either hand forming a barrier which prevents a careless eye from perceiving the ravine which it spans. I turned to the side of the road, and rose in my stirrup to look over; but I found it would not do. I went on to the inn, deposited my horse, and returned on foot to the bridge.
With all my efforts I could not look down steadily into what seemed the bottomless abyss of foliage and shadow. From every point of the bridge I tried, and all in vain. I was heated and extremely hungry, and much vexed at my own weakness. The only way was to go down and look up; though where the bottom could be was past my imagining, the view from the top seeming to be of foliage below foliage for ever.
The way to the glen is through a field opposite the inn, and down a steep, rough, rocky path, which leads under the bridge and a few yards beyond it. I think the finest view of all is from this path, just before reaching the bridge. The irregular arch of rock, spanning a chasm of 160 feet in height, and from sixty to ninety in width, is exquisitely tinted with every shade of gray and brown; while trees encroach from the sides and overhang from the top, between which and the arch there is an additional depth of fifty-six feet. It was now early in July; the trees were in their brightest and thickest foliage; and the tall beeches under the arch contrasted their verdure with the gray rock, and received the gilding of the sunshine as it slanted into the ravine, glittering in the drip from the arch, and in the splashing and tumbling waters of Cedar Creek, which ran by our feet. Swallows were flying about under the arch. What others of their tribe can boast of such a home?
We crossed and recrossed the creek on stepping-stones, searching out every spot to which any tradition belonged.Under the arch, thirty feet from the water, the lower part of the letters G.W. may be seen carved in the rock. When Washington was a young man, he climbed up hither, to leave this record of his visit. There are other inscriptions of the same kind, and above them a board, on which are painted the names of two persons, who have thought it worth while thus to immortalize their feat of climbing highest. But their glory was but transient after all. They have been outstripped by a traveller whose achievement will probably never be rivalled, for he would not have accomplished it if he could by any means have declined the task. Never was a wonderful deed more involuntarily performed. There is no disparagement to the gentleman in saying this: it is only absolving him from the charge of foolhardiness.
This young man, named Blacklock, accompanied by two friends, visited the Natural Bridge, and, being seized with the ambition appropriate to the place, of writing his name highest, climbed the rock opposite to the part selected by Washington, and carved his initials. Others had perhaps seen what Mr. Blacklock overlooked, that it was a place easy to ascend, but from which it is impossible to come down. He was forty feet or more from the path; his footing was precarious; he was weary with holding on while carving his name, and his head began to swim when he saw the impossibility of getting down again. He called to his companions that his only chance was to climb up upon the bridge without hesitation or delay. They saw this, and with anguish agreed between themselves that the chance was a very bare one. They cheered him, and advised him to look neither up nor down. On he went, slanting upward from under the arch, creeping round a projection on which no foothold is visible from below, and then disappearing in a recess filled up with foliage. Long and long they waited, watching for motion, and listening for crashing among the trees. He must have been now 150 feet above them. At length their eyes were so strained that they could see no more, and they had almost lost all hope. There was little doubt that he had fallen while behind the trees, where his body would never be found. They went up to try the chance of looking for him from above. They found him lying insensible on the bridge. He could just remember reaching the top, when he immediately fainted. One would like to know whetherthe accident left him a coward in respect of climbing, or whether it strengthened his confidence in his nerves.
The guide showed us a small cedar, which projected from a shelf of the rock about two hundred feet above our heads, and along whose stem a young lady climbed several feet, so as to court destruction in a very vain and foolish manner. If the support had failed, as might reasonably have been expected, her immortality of reputation would not have been of an enviable kind.
We remained in the ravine till we were all exhausted with hunger, but we had to wait for dinner still another hour after arriving at the inn. By way of passing the time, one gentleman of our party fainted, and had to be laid along on the floor; which circumstance, I fancy, rather accelerated the announcement of our meal. The moment it was over I hastened to the bridge, and was pleased to find that, being no longer fatigued and hungry, I could look into the abyss with perfect ease. I lay down on the rocks, and studied the aspect of the ravine in its afternoon lights and shadows from five different points of view. While thus engaged I was called to see a handsome copper-headed snake, but it had gained its hole before I could reach the spot. We ladies so much preferred the view of the bridge from the glen to the view of the glen from the bridge, that we went down for another hour before departing. It looked most beautiful. The sunshine was slowly withdrawing from under the arch, and leaving us in the shadows of evening, while all was glowing like noon in the region to which we looked up from our lowly seats, the stepping-stones in the midst of the gushing creek.
The Natural Bridge is nearly in the centre of Virginia, and about half way between Fincastle and Lexington, which are about thirty-seven miles apart. The main central road of Virginia runs over the bridge, so that no excuse is left for travellers who neglect to visit this work, framed by the strong hand of Nature,
"By wondrous artPontifical, a ridge of pendant rockOver the vex'd abyss,"
vexed, not by the tumults of chaos, but by the screams of caverned birds, the battles of snakes with their prey, and the chafing of waters against opposing rocks.
"His extraordinary plans and expectations for himself might be of such a nature as to depend on other persons for their accomplishment, and might, therefore, be as extravagant as if other persons alone had been their object."—Foster'sEssays.
The romance of political adventure is generally found to flourish in the regions of despotism; and it seems a matter of course that there can be no room for conspiracy in a democratic republic, where each man is a member of the government, and means are provided for the expression of every kind of political opinion and desire. Yet the United States can exhibit a case of conspiracy and a political adventurer such as might rejoice the souls of the lovers of romance. Scattered notices of Colonel Aaron Burr and of his supposed schemes are before the English public, but no connected history which might be depended upon appeared during his life. He died last year, and has left no relations; so that no reason now exists why everything that can be learned about him should not be made known.
In 1795, Aaron Burr had attained to eminence at the New-York Bar. He was about the same age as Alexander Hamilton, who was born in 1757, and their professional reputation and practice were about equal. Hamilton was the leader of the federal party. He was, in countenance, eminently handsome, in manner engaging, in temper amiable and affectionate, in eloquence both persuasive and commanding; and his mind was so comprehensive, and his powers of application and execution so great, as to cause him to be considered by the federal party the greatest man their country has produced. Burr was of democratic politics; he had a fiercely ambitious temper, which he hid under a gentle and seductive manner. He was usually so quiet and sedate that he might have been thought indifferent but for the expression of his piercing black eyes. His face was otherwise plain, and his figure and gait were stooping and ungraceful. He assumed great authority of manner upon occasion. His speaking at the bar was brief and to the purpose. His most remarkable characteristic seems to have been his power of concealment. He not only carried on a conspiracy before the nation's eyeswhich they to this day cannot more or less understand, but lived long years with the tremendous secret in his breast, and has gone down to the grave without affording any solution of the mystery. It may be doubted whether, in all the long private conversations he had with individuals, he ever committed himself, otherwise than apparently, to anybody. He seems to have been understood by Hamilton, however, from the beginning, and Hamilton never concealed his opinion that Burr was an ambitious and dangerous man.
Jefferson put a generous trust in Burr, and for many years they were intimate correspondents. It is very touching to read, after all that has since happened, such letters as the following, written shortly after the two men had been rival candidates for the presidentship, at a time of unexampled party excitement:—
"To Colonel Burr.
"Washington, February 1, 1801.
"Dear Sir—It was to be expected that the enemy would endeavour to sow tares between us, that they might divide us and our friends. Every consideration satisfies me that you will be on your guard against this, as I assure you I am strongly. I hear of one stratagem so imposing and so base, that it is proper I should notice it to you. Mr. Munford, who is here, says he saw at New-York before he left it an original letter of mine to Judge Breckinridge, in which are sentiments highly injurious to you. He knows my handwriting, and did not doubt that to be genuine. I enclose you a copy, taken from a press copy of the only letter I ever wrote to Judge Breckinridge in my life: the press copy itself has been shown to several of our mutual friends here. Of consequence, the letter seen by Mr. Munford must be a forgery; and, if it contains a sentiment unfriendly or disrespectful to you, I affirm it solemnly to be a forgery, as also if it varies from the copy enclosed. With the common trash of slander I should not think of troubling you; but the forgery of one's handwriting is too imposing to be neglected. A mutual knowledge of each other furnishes us with the best test of the contrivances which will be practised by the enemies of both.
"Accept assurances of my high respect and esteem.
"Th. Jefferson."
In the presidential election of 1800 there were four candidates, Jefferson, Burr, John Adams, and Pinckney. The votes were for Jefferson 73, for Burr 73, for Adams 65, for Pinckney 64. The numbers for Jefferson and Burr being equal, the choice devolved upon the House of Representatives, which voted to attend to no other business till the election was settled, and not to adjourn till the decision was effected. For seven days and nights the ballotting went on, every member being present. Some who were ill or infirm were accommodated with beds and couches, and one sick member was allowed to be attended by his wife. Adams was, as president, on the spot, watching his impending political annihilation. Jefferson was at hand, daily presiding in the Senate. Burr was in the State of New-York, anxiously expecting tidings. The federal party were in despair at having to choose between two republicans (as the democratic party was at that day called). It is said that Hamilton was consulted by his party, and that his advice was to choose Jefferson rather than Burr: a piece of counsel which affected the everlasting destinies of the country, and cost the counsellor his life. At the end of the seven days Jefferson was elected president and Burr vice-president, which office Burr held for a single term, four years.
In the winter of 1804 Burr was proposed at Albany as a candidate for the office of Governor of the State of New-York. Hamilton, at a public meeting of his party, strongly opposed the nomination, declaring that he would never join in supporting such a candidate. About this time Dr. Chas. D. Cooper wrote a letter, in which he said "General Hamilton and——have declared in substance that they looked upon Mr. Burr as a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government." "I could detail to you a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr." This letter was published; and on the 18th of June, 1804, Burr sent a copy of it to Hamilton, with a demand that the expressions it contained should be acknowledged or denied. The correspondence which ensued is discreditable to both parties. To use the expression of a great man, "Hamilton went into it like a Capuchin." He knew that it was Burr's determination to fix a deadly quarrel upon him; he knew that Burr was an unworthy adversary; he disapproved of the practice of duelling, but he feared the imputation of want of courageif he refused to meet his foe. He therefore explained and corresponded with an amplitude and indecision which expose his reputation to more danger from harsh judges than a refusal to fight would have done. As for Burr, he was savage in his pursuit of his enemy. He enlarged his accusations and demands as he saw the irresolution of his victim; and I believe there is no doubt that, though he was a good shot before, he employed the interval of twenty days which elapsed before the duel took place in firing at a mark, making no secret of the purpose of his practising.
This interval was occasioned by Hamilton's refusal to go out till the Circuit Court, in the business of which he was engaged, should have closed its sittings. The Court rose on Friday, the 6th of July, and Burr received notice that General Hamilton would be ready at any time after the following Sunday.
On Wednesday morning, the 11th, the parties crossed the Hudson to the Jersey shore, arriving on the ground at seven o'clock. Burr was attended by Mr. Van Ness and a surgeon; Hamilton by Mr. Pendleton and Dr. Hosack. It was Hamilton's intention not to fire; but when his adversary's ball struck him on the right side, he raised himself involuntarily on his toes, and turned a little to the left, his pistol going off with the movement. He observed to his physician, "This is a mortal wound, doctor," and then became insensible. He revived, however, in the boat, in the course of removal home, and cautioned his attendants about the pistol, which he was not aware of having discharged. He lived in great agony till two o'clock of the following day.
He left a paper which contained his statement of reasons for meeting Burr, notwithstanding his conscientious disapproval of the practice of duelling, and his particular desire to avoid an encounter with such an adversary, and in such a cause as the present. In this paper he declares his resolution to reserve and throw away his first fire, and perhaps his second. His reasons for fighting are now, I believe, generally agreed to be unsatisfactory. As to the effect of his determination to spare his adversary, I never could learn that Colonel Burr expressed the slightest regret for the pertinacity with which he hunted such an enemy—merely a political foe—to death. Neither did he appear to feel the execration with which he was regarded in the region of which Hamilton had been the pride and ornament.
To avoid the legal consequences of his deed he wandered into the West, and remained so long in retreat that some passing wonder was excited as to what he could be doing there. He was ensnaring more victims.
In the Ohio river, a few miles below Marietta, there is a beautiful island, finely wooded, but now presenting a dismal picture of ruin. This island was purchased, about thirty-five years ago, by an Irish gentleman, named Herman Blennerhassett, whose name the island has since borne. This gentleman took his beautiful and attached wife to his new property, and their united tastes made it such an abode as was never before and has never since been seen in the United States. Shrubberies, conservatories, and gardens ornamented the island, and within doors there was a fine library, philosophical apparatus, and music-room. Burr seems to have been introduced to this family by some mutual friends at the East, and to have been received as a common acquaintance at first. The intimacy grew; and the oftener he went to Blennerhassett's Island, and the longer he stayed, the deeper was the gloom which overspread the unfortunate family. Blennerhassett himself seems to have withdrawn his interest from his children, his books, his pursuits, as Burr obtained influence over his mind, and poisoned it with some dishonest ambition. The wife's countenance grew sad and her manners constrained. It is not known how far she was made acquainted with what was passing between her husband and Burr.
The object of Burr's conspiracy remains as much a mystery as ever, while there is no doubt whatever of its existence. Some suppose that he intended to possess himself of Mexico, an enterprise less absurd than at first sight it appears. There was great hatred towards the Mexicans at that period, the period of agitation about the acquisition of Louisiana; thousands of citizens were ready to march down upon Mexico on any pretence; and it is certain that Burr was so amply provided with funds from some unknown quarter, that he had active adherents carrying on his business from the borders of Maine all down the course of the great Western rivers. Another supposition is, that he designed the plunder of New-Orleans in the event of a war with Spain. A more probable one is that he proposed to found a great Western Empire, with the aid of Spain, making himself its emperor, and drawing off the allegiance of allthe countries west of the Alleghanies; and, finally, that, as a cover to and final substitute for other designs, he meant to effect the colonization of the banks of the river Washita. Such are the various objects assigned as the end of Burr's movements: but all that is known is that he engaged a number of men in his service—supposed to be not less than a thousand—under an assurance that the service required of them was one approved by the government; that he endeavoured to persuade Latrobe, the architect, to engage five hundred more labourers on pretext of their working on the Ohio canal, in which it turned out that he had no interest; that a guard was mounted round Blennerhassett's Island; that boats, manned and furnished with arms, set forth from the island on the night of the 10th of December, 1806; that they were joined by Burr, with a re-enforcement, at the mouth of the Cumberland; and that they all proceeded down the Mississippi together.
The government had become aware of secret meetings between Burr, the Spanish Yruyo, and Dr. Bollman, one of the liberators of Lafayette; and the proper time was seized for putting forth proclamations which undeceived the people with regard to Burr's movements, and caused them to rise against him wherever he had been acting. Orders to capture him and his party, and, if necessary, to destroy his boats, were eagerly received. Burr did not venture to New-Orleans. He caused himself to be put ashore in the territory of Mississippi, and thence found his way, attended by only one person, to the banks of the Tombigbee, which he reached on the 19th of February, 1807. At eleven at night the wanderers passed a settlement called Washington Courthouse: Burr preceded his companion by some yards, and passed on quietly; but his companion inquired of a man standing at the door of a public house about the dwelling of a Major Hinson, and, on receiving his answer, joined Burr. The person inquired of went to Hinson's with the sheriff, and had his suspicions so confirmed, that he proceeded to Fort Stoddart, and brought back an officer and four soldiers, who took Burr into custody. He was lodged, a prisoner, at Richmond, Virginia, by the end of March.
Burr had previously been brought to trial in Kentucky, on an accusation of illegal secret practices in that state. He was defended and brought off by Mr. Clay and Colonel Allen, who were persuaded of his innocence, and refused afee. Mr. Clay was for long after his advocate in public and in private, and asked him, for friendly purposes, for a full declaration that he was innocent, which Burr gave unhesitatingly and explicitly, and the note is now among Jefferson's papers. When, some time subsequently, a letter of Burr's in cipher came to light, Mr. Clay found how he had been deceived; but his advocacy was, for the time, of great benefit to Burr.
On the 17th of August Burr was brought to trial at Richmond before Chief-justice Marshall. He was charged with having excited insurrection, rebellion, and war, on the 10th of December, 1806, at Blennerhassett's Island, in Virginia. Secondly, the same charge was repeated, with the addition of a traitorous intention of taking possession of the city of New-Orleans with force and arms. The evidence established everything but the precise charge. The presence of Burr in the island was proved, and his levies of men and provisions on the banks of the Ohio. The presence of armed men in the island and the expedition of the 10th of December were also proved, but not any meeting of these men with Burr. The proof of the overt act completely failed. He was then tried at the same court on an indictment for misdemeanour, and acquitted. He was then ordered to be committed to answer an indictment in the State of Ohio. He was admitted to bail, and it does not appear that the State of Ohio meddled with him at all.
Bollman was one of the witnesses on the side of the prosecution. His certificate of pardon was offered to him in court by the counsel for the prosecution. He refused to accept it, but was sworn, and his evidence received.
It is impossible to suppose any bias on the part of the court in favour of the prisoner. His acquittal seems to have arisen from unskilfulness in deducing the charges from the evidence, and to the trial having taken place before all the requisite evidence could be gathered from distant regions.
Blennerhassett and others were tried on the same charges as Burr; but what became of them I do not remember, farther than that Blennerhassett was utterly ruined and disgraced.
Burr repaired to England. His connexion with Bentham appears wholly unaccountable. The story is that he was in a bookseller's shop one day when Bentham entered, and fixed his observation; that he wrote a letter to Bentham assoon as he was gone, expressive of his high admiration of his works; that Bentham admitted him to an interview, invited him to stay with him, and urged the prolongation of his visit from time to time, till it ended in being a sojourn of two years. It is difficult to conceive how an agreeable intercourse could be kept up for so long a time between the single-minded philosopher and the crafty yet boastful, the vindictive yet smooth political adventurer.
In October, 1808, Jefferson wrote to a friend,
"Burr is in London, and is giving out to his friends that that government offers him two millions of dollars the moment he can raise an ensign of rebellion as big as a handkerchief. Some of his partisans will believe this because they wish it. But those who know him best will not believe it the more because he says it."[2]He returned to America in 1812, being sent away from England on account of his too frequent and very suspicious political correspondence with France.
He settled quietly at New-York, and resumed practice at the bar, which he continued as long as his health permitted. He owed such practice as he had to his high legal ability, and not to any improved opinion of his character. When Mr. Clay arrived in New-York from his English mission, he went the round of the public institutions, attended by the principal inhabitants. In one of the courts he met Burr, and, of course, after the affair of the cipher letter, cut him. Burr made his way to him, declared himself anxious to clear up every misapprehension, and requested to be allowed half an hour's private conversation. Mr. Clay readily agreed to this, and the hour was named. Burr failed to keep his appointment, and never afterward appeared in Mr. Clay's presence.
One pure light, one healthy affection, illumined and partially redeemed the life of the adventurer. He had an only child, a daughter, whom he loved with all the love of which he was capable, and which she fully deserved. She was early married to a Mr. Alston, and lived at Charleston. I believe she was about five-and-twenty when she fell into ill health, and the strong soul of her father was shaken with the terror of losing her. He spared no pains or expense to obtain the best opinions on her case from Europe; and theearnestness of his appeals to the physicians to whom he wrote full statements of her case are very moving. While awaiting a decision as to what measures should be taken for her restoration, it was decided that she must leave Charleston before the summer heats, and he summoned her to his home at New-York. To avoid fatigue, she went by sea with her child and the nurse. Her father had notice of her departure, and watched hour after hour for her arrival. The hours wore away, and days, and weeks, and years. The vessel never arrived, nor any tidings of her. She must have foundered, or, far worse, fallen into the hands of pirates. A pang went through the heart of every one for many years, as often as the thought recurred that Mrs. Alston and her child might be living in slavery to pirates in some place inaccessible to the inquiries of even her wretched father. When all had been done that could be devised, and every one had ceased to hope, Burr closed his lips upon the subject. No one of the few who were about him ever heard him mention his daughter.
While I was in America a foreign sailor died in a hospital, my memory fails me as to where it was. When near death, he made a confession which was believed to be true by all whom I heard speak on the subject. He confessed himself to have been a pirate, and to have served on board the vessel which captured that which was conveying Mrs. Alston. He declared that she was shut up below while the captain and crew were being murdered on deck. She was then brought up, and was present at the decision that it would not be safe to spare her life. She was ordered to walk the plank, with her child in her arms; and, finding all quiet remonstrance vain, she did it without hesitation or visible tremour. The recollection of it was too much for the pirate in his dying moments.
About a year before his death Colonel Burr sanctioned the publication of a so-called life of himself; a panegyric which leaves in the reader's mind the strongest conviction of the reality of his Western adventures, and of the justice of every important charge against him. He died last year; and it will probably be soon known with exactness whether he took care that his secrets should be buried with him, or whether he made arrangements for some light being at length thrown on his eventful and mysterious history.