THE TRIAL OF AARON BURR
At an early hour the crowd in the Hall of the House of Delegates was
very great, and as it drew toward the time when the principals in the
drama would appear, the press of the people and the heat of the August
day grew well-nigh intolerable. In the gallery were many women, and
their diaphanous gowns and the incessant flutter of their fans imparted
to this portion of the Hall a pale illusion of comfort. In the hall
below, men stood upon the window-sills, choked the entrances, crowded
the corridors without. Not only was there a throng where something might
be heard and seen, but the portico of the Capitol had its numbers, and
the green surrounding slopes a concourse avid of what news the birds
might bring. Within and without, the heat was extreme, even for August
in Tidewater Virginia; an atmosphere sultry and boding, tense with the
feeling of an approaching storm.
In the gallery, beside Unity and Mrs. Wickham, around her women of
Federalist families who were loath to believe any one guilty who was
prosecuted, or persecuted, by the present Government, and women of
Republican houses who asserted, while they waved their fans, that, being
guilty, Aaron Burr must be, should be, would be hanged! sat Jacqueline
Rand, and wondered somewhat at her weakness in coming there that day. It
had been, perhaps, in the last analysis, a painful curiosity, a vague
desire to see the place, the men, all the circumstance and environment,
with which her husband--she thanked God with every breath--had no
connection! He might have had here his part, she knew tremulously; it
might have been his role to stand here beside Aaron Burr, and, with a
passionately humble and grateful heart, she nursed the memory of that
winter night when he had sworn to her that from that hour he and this
enterprise should be strangers.
There had been days and weeks of preliminaries to the actual trial for
high treason, but she had not before been in this hall. All her delicacy
shrank from the thought of sitting here beside her husband, conscious of
his consciousness that she knew all that might have been, and saw in
fancy more prisoners at the bar than one. No man would like that. He had
come often to the Capitol during the days of skirmishing prior to the
general engagement; had he not done so, it would have been at once
remarked. She expressed no desire to accompany him, nor did he ever ask
her to do so. She was aware of the general surprise that he had no place
among the Government counsel. Whether or not such place had been offered
to him, pressed upon him, she did not know, but she thought it possible
that this was the case. If so, he had refused as was right. Acceptance,
she knew, would have been impossible.
All through these months there had been between them a silent pact, a
covenant to avoid all superfluous mention of the topic which met them on
every hand, from every mouth, in every letter or printed sheet. Rand was
much occupied with important cases, much in demand in various portions
of the state, much away from home. She was not a woman to demand as her
right entrance into every chamber of another's soul. Her own had its
hushed rooms, its reticences, its altars built to solitude; she was
aware that beyond, below, above the fair chamber where he entertained
her were other spaces in her husband's nature. Into some she looked as
through open door and clear windows, but others were closed to her, and
she was both too proud and too pure of thought to search for keys that
had not been offered her.
She knew that her husband had not meant to be absent from Richmond that
day. An unexpected turn in the case he was conducting had compelled his
presence in Williamsburgh, and on the other hand, in Richmond, the
labour of finding an impartial jury had been brought to a sudden end by
Burr's _coup de main_ in refusing to challenge and calmly accepting as
prejudiced a twelve as perhaps, in the United States of America, ever
decided whether a man should live or die. The move had hastened the day
when the Government was to begin its cannonade.
Lewis was yet in Williamsburgh. Had he been present in this hail,
watching events with his fellow lawyers, fellow politicians, fellow
countrymen, who knew nothing of one snowy night a year ago last
February, his wife, for both their sakes, would have remained away. As
it was, she had been persuaded. Unity would not for much have missed the
spectacle, friends had been pressing, and at last her own painful
interest prevailed. She was here now, and she sat as in a waking dream,
her hands idle, her eyes, wide and dark, steadily fixed upon the scene
below. She saw, leaning against a window, Ludwell Cary, and, the centre
of a cluster of men in hunting-shirts, Adam Gaudylock.
The Capitol clock struck twelve. As the last stroke died upon the
feverish air, the Chief Justice entered the Hall and took the Speaker's
chair. Beside him was Cyrus Griffin, the District Judge. Hay, the
District Attorney, with his associates William Wirt and Alexander McRae,
now appeared, and immediately afterward the imposing array of the
prisoner's counsel, a phalanx which included no less than four sometime
Attorneys-General and two subalterns of note. These took the seats
reserved for them; the marshal and his deputies pressed the people back,
and the jury entered and filled the jury box. Below and near them sat a
medley of witnesses--important folk, and folk whom only this trial made
important.
A loud murmur was now heard from without; the marshal's men, red and
perspiring, cleared a thread-like path, and the prisoner, accompanied by
his son-in-law, entered the Hall. He was dressed in black, with
carefully powdered hair. Quiet, cool, smiling, and collected, he was
brought to the bar, when, having taken his place, bowed to the judges,
and greeted his counsel, he turned slightly and surveyed with his
composed face and his extremely keen black eyes the throng that with
intentness looked on him in turn. It was by no means their first
encounter of eyes. The preliminaries of that famous trial had been many
and prolonged. From the prisoner's arrival in April under military
escort to the present moment, through the first arraignment at that bar,
the assembling of the Grand Jury, the tedious waiting for Wilkinson's
long-deferred arrival from New Orleans, the matter of the subpoena to
the President with which the country rang, the adjournment from June to
August, the victory gained by the defence in the exclusion of
Wilkinson's evidence, and the clamour of the two camps into which the
city was divided,--through all this had been manifest the prisoner's
deliberate purpose and attempt to make every fibre of a personality
ingratiating beyond that of most, tell in its own behalf. He had able
advocates, but none more able than Aaron Burr. His day and time was, on
the whole, a time astonishingly fluid and naïve, and he impressed it.
There was in this moment, therefore, no novelty of encounter between him
and the stare of the opposing throng. He was not seeing them, nor they
him, for the first time. Yet the situation had its high intensity. This
day was the beginning of the actual trial, and only the day which
brought the verdict could outweigh it in importance. This was the
lighting of the lamp that was to search out mysteries; this was the
bending of the bow; this was the first rung of the ladder which might
lead--where? As John Marshall's voice was heard from the bench and the
prisoner turned from his steadfast contemplation of the throng, a
psychic wave overflowed and lifted all the great assembly. This was
spectacle, this was drama! The oldest of all the first principles
stirred under the stimulus, and with savage naturalness sucked in the
sense of pageant.
The court was opened. Counsel on both sides brought forward and disposed
of a minor point or two, then, amid a silence so great that the
twittering of the martins outside the windows seemed importunate and
shrill, proclamation was made, the prisoner stood up, and the indictment
was read.
"_The grand inquest of the United States of America for the Virginia
District upon their oath do present that Aaron Burr, late of the city of
New York, and State of New York, attorney-at-law, being an inhabitant of
and residing within the United States, and under the protection of the
laws of the United States, and owing allegiance and fidelity to the same
United States, not having the fear of God before his eyes, nor weighing
the duty of his said allegiance, but being moved and seduced by the
instigation of the Devil, wickedly devising and intending the peace and
tranquillity of the said United States to disturb, and to stir, move,
and excite insurrection, rebellion, and war against the said United
States, on the tenth day of December, in the year of Christ one
thousand, eight hundred and six, at a certain place called and known by
the name of Blennerhassett's Island, in the county of Wood and District
of Virginia aforesaid, and within the jurisdiction of this court, with
force and arms, unlawfully, falsely, maliciously, and traitorously did
compass, imagine, and intend to raise and levy war, insurrection, and
rebellion against the said United States_--"
And so on through much thunderous repetition to the final,--
"_And the said Aaron Burr with the said persons as aforesaid
traitorously assembled and armed and arranged in manner aforesaid, most
wickedly, maliciously, and traitorously did ordain, prepare, and levy
war against the said United States, and further to fulfil and carry into
effect the said traitorous compassings, imaginings, and intentions of
him the said Aaron Burr, and to carry on the war thus levied as
aforesaid against the United States, the said Aaron Burr with the
multitude last mentioned, at the island aforesaid, in the said county of
Wood within the Virginia District aforesaid, and within the jurisdiction
of this court, did array themselves in a warlike manner, with guns and
other weapons, offensive and defensive, and did proceed from the said
island down the river Ohio in the county aforesaid, within the Virginia
District, and within the jurisdiction of this court, on the said
eleventh day of December, in the year one thousand, eight hundred and
six aforesaid, with the wicked and traitorous intention to descend the
said river and the river Mississippi, and by force and arms traitorously
to take possession of the city commonly called New Orleans, in the
territory of Orleans, belonging to the United States, contrary to the
duty of their said allegiance and fidelity, against the Constitution,
peace, and dignity of the United States and against the form of the Act
of Congress of the United States in such case made and provided_."
The clerk ceased to read. When the last sonorous word had died upon the
air, the audience yet sat or stood in silence, bent a little forward, in
the attitude of listeners. This lasted an appreciable moment, then the
tension snapped. Marshall moved slightly in his great chair, Judge
Griffin coughed, a rustling sound and a deep breath ran through the
Hall. The prisoner, who had faced with the most perfect composure the
indictment's long thunder, now slightly inclined his head to the Judges
and took his seat. His counsel, ostentatiously easy and smiling,
gathered about him, and the District Attorney rose to open for the
Government in a lengthy and able speech.
In the gallery, among the fluttering fans, Jacqueline asked herself if
her rising and quitting the place would disturb those about her. She was
in the very front, beside the gallery rail, there was a great crowd
behind, she must stay it out. She bit her lip, forced back emotion,
strove with resolution to conquer the too visionary aspect of all things
before her. It had been foolish, she knew now, to come. She had not
dreamed with what strong and feverish grasp such a scene could take
prisoner the imagination. She saw too plainly much that was not there;
she brought other figures into the Hall; abstractions and realities,
they thronged the place. The place itself widened until to her inner
sense it was as wide as her world and her life. Fontenoy was there and
the house on the Three-Notched Road; Roselands, and much besides. For
all the heat, and the fluttering of the fans, and the roll of
declamation from the District Attorney, who was now upon the definition
of treason, one night in February was there as well, the night that had
seen so much imperilled, the night that had seen, thank God! the cloud
go by. Of all the images that thronged upon her, creating a strange
tumult of the soul, darkening her eyes and driving the faint colour from
her cheek, the image of that evening was the most insistent. It was,
perhaps, aided by her fancy that in that cool survey of the Hall in
which the prisoner indulged himself, his eyes, keen and darting as a
snake's, had rested for a moment upon her face. She could have said
that there was in them a curious light of recognition, even a cool
amusement, a sarcasm,--the very memory of the look made for her a
trouble vague, but deep! Had he, too, given a thought to that evening,
to the man whom he did not secure, and to the woman with whom he had
talked of black lace and Spanish songs? She wondered. But why should
Colonel Burr be amused, and why sarcastic? She abandoned the enquiry and
listened to the heavy lumbering up of Government cannon. "Courts of
Great Britain--Foster's Crown Laws--Demaree and Purchase--Vaughan--Lord
George Gordon--Throgmorton--United States _vs._ Fries--Opinion of Judge
Chase--Of Judge Iredell--Overt Act--Overt Act proven--Arms, array and
treasonable purpose; here is bellum levatum if not bellum
percussum-Treason and traitors, not potential but actual--their
discovery and their punishment--"
On boomed the guns of the prosecution. Jacqueline listened, fascinated
for a time, but the words at last grew to hurt her so that, could she
have done so unobserved, she would have stopped her ears with her hands.
The feverish interest of the scene still held her in its grasp, but the
words were cruel and struck upon her heart. She could not free herself
from the brooding thought of how poignant, how burning, how deadly
poisonous they had been to her, had all things been different and she
forced to sit in this place hearing them launched against another than
Aaron Burr, there, there at that bar! She unlocked her hands, drew a
long and tremulous breath, and, leaning a little forward, tried not to
listen, and to lose herself in watching the throng below. Her eyes fell,
at once, upon Ludwell Cary.
He was standing where she had before marked him, beside a window almost
opposite, his arm upon the sill, his attention closely given to the
District Attorney, who was now eulogising that great patriot, General
James Wilkinson. Now, while Jacqueline looked, he turned his head. It
was as though she had called and he had been ready with his answer.
Painfully raised in feeling and driven out of habitual citadels, tense
and fevered, subtly touched by the storm in the air, she found in the
moment no sense of self-consciousness, no question and no movement of
aversion. She and Cary looked at each other long and fully, and with
something of an old understanding; on her part a softening of pardon for
the quarrel and the duel, on his a light and compassion that she could
not clearly understand. She knew that he read her thoughts, but if he,
too, was remembering that evening long ago in February, he must also
remember that Lewis Rand gave up, that snowy night, definitely and
forever, the fevered ambitions, the too-high imaginings, the conqueror's
thirst for power; gave them up, and turned from the charmer into the
path of right! There came into her heart a longing that Ludwell Cary
should see the matter truly. He should have done so that afternoon in
the cedar wood; where was the black mote that kept the vision out? She
was suddenly aware--and it came to her with a dizzying strangeness--that
there was in her own soul that reference of matters to the bar of Cary's
idea, thought, and judgment which, that day in the cedar wood, she had
told him existed in that of her husband. Were she and Lewis grown so
much alike? or had her own soul always recognised, deferred to, rested
upon, something in the inmost nature of the man into whose eyes she
looked across this thronged and fevered space--something of rare
equanimity, dispassionate yet tender, calm, high, impartial, and ideal?
She did not know; she had not thought of it before. Her eyes dilated.
Suddenly she saw the drawing-room at Fontenoy, green and gold and cool,
with the portraits on the wall,--Edmund Churchill, who fought with King
Charles; Henry his son, who fled to Virginia and founded the family
there; a second Edmund, aide-de-camp to Marlborough; two Governors of
Virginia and a President of the Council; the Lely and the Kneller--both
Churchill women; and the fair face and form of Grandaunt Jacqueline for
whom she was named. She smelled the roses in the bowls, and she saw
herself singing at her harp. It was a night in June, the night of the
great thunderstorm. Lewis Rand had come down from the blue room, and
Ludwell Cary entered from the darkness of the storm.
"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage."
Unity's hand touched her. "Jacqueline, are you tired? Would you like to
go away?"
The spell broke. Jacqueline was most tired, and she would very much have
liked to go away, but a glance at her cousin and at the lady with whom
they had come determined the question. That to both it was as good as a
play, colour and animation proclaimed, and Jacqueline had not the heart
to ring the curtain down. She shook her head and smiled. "We'll stay it
out."
Her companion leaned back, relieved, and she was left to herself again.
She knew that Cary's eyes were still upon her, but she would not turn
her own that way. She made herself look at the judges upon the bench,
the District Attorney, the opposing lawyers, even the prisoner. It was
the heat and the thunder in the air that made her so tense and yet so
tremulous. Every nerve to-day was like a harpstring tightly drawn where
every wandering air must touch it. All this would soon be over--then
home and quiet! The day was growing old; even now Mr. Hay was addressing
the jury with an impressiveness that announced the closing periods of a
speech. When he was done, would not the court adjourn until to-morrow?
It was said the trial might last two weeks. Mr. Hay sat down, but alas!
before the applause and stir had ceased, Mr. Wickham was upon his feet.
Mr. Wirt followed Mr. Wickham, and was followed in turn by Luther
Martin. The firing was heavy. Boom, boom! went the guns of the
Government, quick and withering came the fire from the defence. If
advantage of position was with the first, the last showed the higher
generalship. The duel was sharp, and it was followed by the spectators
with strained interest. The Chief Justice on the bench and the prisoner
at the bar, attentive though they both were, alone of almost all
concerned seemed to watch the struggle calmly. It drew toward late
afternoon. Luther Martin, still upon the Overt Act, after an ironic
compliment or two to the Government counsel, and a statement that George
Washington, the great and the good, might with a like innocency of
intents have found himself in a like position with Colonel Burr,
withdrew his guns for the night. The prosecution, after a glare of
indignation, announced that on the morrow it would begin examination of
witnesses; the Chief Justice said a few weighty words, and the court was
adjourned.
Out to the air, the grass and the trees, the gleam of the distant James,
and a tremendous and fantastic show of clouds, piled along the horizon
and flushed by the declining sun, streamed the crowd. Excited and
voluble, lavish of opinions that had been pent up for hours, and
drinking in greedily the fresher air, it made no haste to quit the
Capitol portico or the Capitol Square. There were friends and
acquaintances to greet, noted people to speak to, or to hear and see
others speak to, the lawyers to congratulate and the judges to bow
to--and last but not least, there was the prisoner to mark enter, with
the marshal, a plain coach and drive away to the house opposite the
Swan, to which he had been removed from his rooms in the Penitentiary.
The women who had observed the first day of the great trial from the
gallery made, of course, no such tarrying. They left the building and
the square at once, and the men of their families present saw them into
their carriages, or, if the distance home was not great, watched them
walk away in little groups with a servant or two behind them.
At the head of the Capitol steps Jacqueline and Unity found Fairfax Cary
awaiting them, and upon the grass below they were joined by Mr.
Washington Irving. Mrs. Wickham was with them, Mrs. Carrington, Mrs.
Ambler, and Miss Mayo. All the women lived within a short distance of
one another, and all, escorted by the two gentlemen, would walk the
little way across Capitol and Broad to Marshall Street. Unity was to
take supper with Mrs. Carrington and to spend the night with Mrs.
Ambler, and she would not go home first, unless--She looked at
Jacqueline. "Did the fireworks frighten you, honey? Would you rather
that I stayed with you?"
Jacqueline laughed. "The fireworks were alarming, weren't they, Mrs.
Wickham? No, no; go with Mrs. Carrington, Unity. To-night I'm going to
write to Deb and read a novel." They were now opposite the Chief
Justice's house, and as she spoke, she paused and made a slight curtsy
to the elder ladies. "Our ways part here."
"I will walk with you to your door," said Fairfax Cary.
She shook her head. "No, do not. I am almost there." Then, as his
intention still held, she continued in a lower voice, "I had rather be
alone. Obey me, please."
The small discussion ended in the group of ladies and their two escorts
giving Jacqueline Rand her way, and with laughing good-byes keeping to
their course down the street that was now bathed in the glow of sunset.
She watched them for a moment, then turned her face toward her own
house. The distance was short, and she traversed it lightly and rapidly,
glad to be alone, glad to feel upon her brow the sunset wind, and glad
at the prospect of her solitary evening. She was conscious of a strong
revulsion of feeling. The sights and the sounds of the past hours were
still in mind, but all the air had changed, and was no longer fevered
and boding. She had thought too much and made too much, she told
herself, of that vague and dark "It might have been." It was not; thank
God, it was not! And Lewis, there in Williamsburgh, walking now,
perhaps, down Duke of Gloucester Street, or sitting in the Apollo room
at the Raleigh,--would she have had Lewis read her mind that day?
Generous! had she been generous--or just? The colour flowed over her
face and throat. "Neither just nor generous!" she cried to herself, in a
passion of relief. "I'll go no more to that place!"
She reached her own gate, entered between the two box bushes, and
mounted the steps to the honeysuckle-covered porch. The door before her
was open, and the hall, wide and cool, with the tall clock and the long
sofa, the portraits on the wall and a great bowl of stock and
gillyflower, brought to her senses a blissful feeling of home, of
fixedness and peace.
Mammy Chloe came from the back of the house, and in her mistress's
chamber took from her her straw bonnet, gauze scarf, and filmy gloves,
then brought her slippers of morocco and a thin, flowered house-dress,
narrow and fine as an infant's robe.
"Has Joab gone to the post-office?" asked Jacqueline.
"Yaas'm. De Williamsbu'gh stage done come, fer I heah de horn more'n an
hour ago. Dar Joab now!"
Mammy Chloe put down the blue china ewer, left the room, and returned
with a letter in her hand. "Dar, now! Marse Lewis ain' neber gwine
fergit you! Ef de sun shine, or ef hit don' shine, heah come de letter
jes' de same!"
Jacqueline took the letter from her. "Yes, Mammy, yes," she said, with a
sweet and tremulous laugh. "He's a good master, isn't he?"
"Lawd knows I ain' neber had a better," assented Mammy Chloe. "He
powerful stric' to mek you min', is Marse Lewis, but he am' de kin' what
licks he lips ober de fac' dat you is a-mindin'! I ain' gwine say,
honey, an' I neber is gwine say, dat he's wuth what de Churchills is
wuth, but I's ready to survigerate dat he's got he own wuth. An' ef
hit's enough fer you, chile, hit's enough fer yo' ole mammy. Read yo'
letter while I puts on yo' slippers."
Jacqueline broke the seal and read:--
JACQUELINE:--I am kept here for an uncertain time--worse luck, dear
heart! Do not send what letters may have come for me, as I may
leave sooner than I think for, and so would pass them on the road.
Open any from the court in Winchester, where I have a case
pending--if the matter seems pressing, take a copy, and send copy
or original to me by to-morrow's stage. I am expecting a letter
from Washington--an important one, outlining the Embargo measures.
I looked for it before I left Richmond. If it has arrived, open it,
dear heart, and glance through it to see if there be any message or
enquiry which I should have at once. It is very hot, very dusty,
very tiresome in the court room. I will leave Tom Mocket here to
wind things up, and will get home as soon as I can. Then, as soon
as the hurly-burly's over, we'll go to Roselands for a little
while--to the calm, the peace, bright days and white nights! While
I write here in the Apollo, you are at church in Saint John's.
Shall I say, "Pray for me, sweet saint?" You'll do that without my
asking. So I'll say instead, "Think of me, dear wife, and love me
still."
Thine, LEWIS.
Jacqueline stood up in her faintly coloured gown, all rich light and
rose bloom. From her dressing-table she took her keys, and, opening her
mother's desk of rosewood and mother-of-pearl, lifted from it several
letters and the packet which Colonel Nicholas had given her the day
before. With these in her hands she left her chamber and went into the
drawing-room. "Bring the candles," she said over her shoulder to Mammy
Chloe. "It is growing too dark to see to read."