The National tribune., 1900-12-13

a man of Burr's cast of character, after
figuring at the heads of cayalcades, after
shining at balls and banquets, the OBJ
served of all observers, smiled upon by
ladies, toasted, cheered and followed by
men-h0w could he take small office at
Nashville or New Orleans, swing out a
little tin sign, and subside into an Ordi-
nary attorney and counsellor at law? A
really great man could have done so: but
Aaron Burr was not Il great man. Great
men are above ambitlon-tbeir heads are
not turned by flattery and praise. 1t
takes a Washington to refuse n throne,
and retire of his own accord from public
life to the peaceful pursuits of planter.
Small men can not do it. Napoleon can
not in this sense be called a great man.
His weakness for glory and power, like
Aaron Burr's, rushed him on to his own
ruin.
Burr was financially poor. There is no
position in life more embarrassing, or more
likely to be corrupting, than that of a
man who moves in conspicuous and costly
spheres without possessing the requisite
sum per annum! To be, a poor man is
nothing; it is the lot of nearly all men.
But a crownless king, penniless prince,
an ex-Vice President, without home or
country, employment or income, makes a
| pitiable object indeed. They are a dan
gerous class. 1t is such who plan Boulogne
expeditions, usurp thrones, start mad en-
terprises, and keep the world in a state of
unhealthy excitement. Aaron Burr was of
this mad class, and the maddest of them
all.
| He had come to hate his country for
what be regarded its prosecutions of him
self. He never stopped to think how
much better he Jared than others who had
taken human life. He did not seem to
realize that he had no more right to muir
der than the lOwliest in the land.
! paoonca ba nP
and New Jersey wished to enforce the laws
which were upheld and sustained by q
respectable majority of the people of the
United States, and mainly because he had
been defeated by Jefferson for President,
and Hamilton for Governor of New York,
he hated the United States and prophesied
their destruction.
| Gen. Wilkinson pOndered long on the
mysterious conduct of Burr the day he
left. He kept the interview secret he
said afterward that he thought at times
that Burr's language was too strong to be
wholly fgurative. The air castle was
painted too real; could he really mean a
dissolution of the Union?
| No one knew better than Wilkinson
| how slender the cord that bound Louis
lana to the Union. He claimed later that
he could not believe that Burr meant more
than a grand colonial scheme, which had
for its object the ultimate upbuilding OF
the great American Republic
Burr speaks in figures and writes in
cyphers," the General said. HE means
republic when he says empire"
That same day as the General was
walking about the fort, he observed an old
woman, wearing wide faring bonnet and
clothed in rags. One skinny hand carried
a stick to support her feeble, tottering
frame, Ind as she hobbled along, mum
bling some unintelligible words, she
looked as il she might be one of Mac
beth's witches. Her keen eyes rested on
the General. and as he walked off to the
river bank, she followed him, her tat
tered skirts dangling about; her stocking
less ankles above the coarse, rough shoes
were bare.
''Gineral, Ginerai," she called in her
feeble, harsh, rasping voice.
My good woman. what do you want
with me?" he asked.
BE ye Gineral Wilkinson
81 am"
-. Then it's much 1 have Z say t We,
Gineral"
who are you?'
''Tm Misses Brown, the good old woman
as come down the river in the last boat"
From where?
From the Ohio last"
From what place first"
From Jersey to the Ohio, from New
York to jersey"
well, what have you to say to me?,
She drew Closer and shading her mouth
with one skinny hand said
I'm a spy"
"a whatf'
"A spy on the trail O. serpent. have
follered him many and many a long day,
in York State, in the Jerseys, and through
the South, then down the Ohio, and will
let him go never" and she struck the
learth satagely with her walking staff,