The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-10-07

adventure which, as he fondly dreamed.
was to raise him to the dizzy eminence
of emperor of Mexico"
In August he started again down the
Ohio, and purchased in the for south
west on branch Of the Red river a
tract Of four hundred thousand acres,
on which to plant colony, in the event
Of failure or delay in his more ambi-
tious plans. The price of this tract was
to be forty thousand dollars, on which
five thousand dollars was paid down,
1T is estimated" says a biographer,
! that Burr raised in all about fifty
thousand dollars, most of this sum be-
ing contributed by deluded relatives.
In letter Jefferson speaks of Mr.. Ais
toms having Endorsed Burr's notes to a
large amount. 1t Is certain also that
Burr intended to take advantage of the
western hostility to the Spaniards to
drive them out Of Mexico and to estab-
| fish an hereditary empire there, with
| himself on the throne and Theodosia's
! boy as the heir apparent. 1t Is possible
that he expected to include Louisiana
and some of the western states in his
new dominions. Henry Adams cites a
letter written by the British minister
at Washington to the foreign office at
London, in which he states that Burr,
whose term as vice 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 At
lantic and the mountains" This
points to reasonable designs formed at
an early period.
Burr found a confederate in Herman
Blennerhassett, an Englishman OF some
means, who lived on an island in the
Ohio river; and he tempered with Cen
eral Wilkinson, then governor of the
territory of Louisiana, who soon laid
bare to the president the whole scheme,
so far as he understood it or guessed at
it. Burr was arrested and acquitted in
November at Frankfort, KY, and again
in January, 1907, at Natchez, Miss
Believing now that his scheme had
been discovered and that he was liza
BILE to arrest for treason, he crossed to
the east bank of the Mississippi river
with single attendant on his way to
the gulf coast, where he hoped to en-
bark on a British vessel fer foreign
parts.
In February, 1907, Burr was again ar
rested in Alabama, and was carried
under guard to Richmond Va, where |
he arrived March 26, and was soon
brought to trial for high treason be-
fore a court over which Chief Justice |
Marshall presided. During the trial
the defendant acted with his usual |
GOODNESS and complete self possession. |
In writing to his daughter to join him,
he said: II may be immured in dun !
geons, chained, murdered in legal form |
but l cannot be Inundated or dis
graced." He was acquitted of treason, |
not withstanding the active influence
exerted against him by President JEFF
ferson. A trial for misdemeanor fol-
lowed, which also ended In acquitta |
the two trials lasting six months
From Richmond, Burr went to Balti-
more, and 'in June, 1908, after most
painful parting with Theodosia, who
came on to New York to bid him good
bye, this gifted but unhappy man, for
mer vice-president of the United States,
was secretly conveyed on board a ship,
and under an assumed name, like an
felon, sailed for England"
Over his wretched wanderings and
tedious detentions in England Scot
land, Sweden and France, amid dis
relieved by occasional
gle ans of social success, we may draw
the veil. Such experiences would have
broken less stoical heart. In June,
1872. exactly four years after he had
left New York he returned TO that CITY |
and there, with the assistance of for
mer friends, few indeed in number, he
entered upon precarious law practice.
To add to his cup of bitterness, he re-
ceived, in the year last named letter
the death of his bright lit
tie grandson at the age of eleven; and
a few months later the schooner Patri-