one of the letters of the ill-fated Blennerhassett, who arrived in New
York from Ireland in 1796, that the people were so busy there in
making new docks, filling in the swamps, and digging cellars for new
buildings, as to bring on an epidemic fever and ague that drove him
from the city to the Jersey shore. He mentions, also, that land in the
State doubled in value every two years, and that commercial
speculation was carried on with such avidity that it was more like
gambling than trade. It is he that relates the story of the
adventurer, who, on learning that the yellow-fever prevailed fearfully
in the West Indies, sent thither a cargo of coffins in nests, and,
that no room might be lost, filled the smallest with gingerbread. The
speculation, he assures us, was a capital hit; for the adventurer not
only sold his coffins very profitably, but loaded his vessel with
valuable woods, which yielded a great profit at New York. At that
time, also, the speculation in lots, corner lots, and lands near the
city, was prosecuted with all the recklessness which we have been in
the habit of supposing was peculiar to later times. New York was New
York even in the days of Burr and Hamilton.
As mistress of Richmond Hill, Theodosia entertained distinguished
company. Hamilton was her father's occasional guest. Burr preferred
the society of educated Frenchmen and Frenchwomen to any other, and he
entertained many distinguished exiles of the French Revolution.
Talleyrand, Volney, Jerome Bonaparte, and Louis Philippe were among
his guests. Colonel Stone mentions, in his Life of Brant, that
Theodosia, in her fourteenth year, in the absence of her father, gave
a dinner to that chieftain of the forest, which was attended by the
Bishop of New York, Dr. Hosack, Volney, and several other guests of
distinction, who greatly enjoyed the occasion. Burr was gratified to
hear with how much grace and good-nature his daughter acquitted
herself in the entertainment of her company. The chief himself was
exceedingly delighted, and spoke of the dinner with great animation
many years after.
We have one pleasant glimpse of Theodosia in these happy years, in a
trifling anecdote preserved by the biographer of Edward Livingston,
during whose mayoralty the present City Hall was begun. The mayor had
the pleasure, one bright day, of escorting the young lady on board a
French frigate lying in the harbor. "You must bring none of your
sparks on board, Theodosia," exclaimed the pun-loving magistrate; "for
they have a magazine here, and we shall all be blown up." Oblivion
here drops the curtain upon the gay party and the brilliant scene.
A suitor appeared for the hand of this fair and accomplished girl. It
was Joseph Alston of South Carolina, a gentleman of twenty-two,
possessor of large estates in rice plantations and slaves, and a man
of much spirit and talent. He valued his estates at two hundred
thousand pounds sterling. Their courtship was not a long one; for
though she, as became her sex, checked the impetuosity of his advances
and argued for delay, she was easily convinced by the reasons which he
adduced for haste. She reminded him that Aristotle was of opinion that
a man should not marry till he was thirty-six. "A fig for Aristotle,"
he replied; "let us regard the _ipse dixit_ of no man. It is only want
of fortune or want of discretion," he continued, "that could justify
such a postponement of married joys. But suppose," he added,
"(_merely for instance_,) a young man nearly two-and-twenty,
already of the _greatest_ discretion, with an ample fortune,
were to be passionately in love with a young lady almost
eighteen, equally discreet with himself, and who had a
'sincere friendship' for him, do you think it would be
necessary to make him wait till thirty? particularly where
the friends on both sides were pleased with the match."
She told him, also, that some of her friends who had visited
Charleston had described it as a city where the yellow-fever and the
"yells of whipped negroes, which assail your ears from every house,"
and the extreme heat, rendered life a mere purgatory. She had heard,
too, that in South Carolina the men were absorbed in hunting, gaming,
and racing; while the women, robbed of their society, had no pleasures
but to come together in large parties, sip tea, and look prim. The
ardent swain eloquently defended his native State:--
"What!" he exclaimed,
"is Charleston, the most delightfully situated city in
America, which, entirely open to the ocean, twice in every
twenty-four hours is cooled by the refreshing sea-breeze,
the Montpelier of the South, which annually affords an
asylum to the planter and the West Indian from every
disease, accused of heat and unhealthiness? But this is not
all, unfortunate citizens of Charleston; the scream, the
yell of the miserable unresisting African, bleeding under
the scourge of relentless power, affords music to your ears!
Ah! from what unfriendly cause does this arise? Has the God
of heaven, in anger, here changed the order of nature? In
every other region, without exception, in a similar degree
of latitude, the same sun which ripens the tamarind and the
anana, ameliorates the temper, and disposes it to gentleness
and kindness. In India and other countries, not very
different in climate from the southern parts of the United
States, the inhabitants are distinguished for a softness and
inoffensiveness of manners, degenerating almost to
effeminacy; it is here then, only, that we are exempt from
the general influence of climate: here only that, in spite
of it, we are cruel and ferocious! Poor Carolina!"
And with regard to the manners of the Carolinians he assured the young
lady that if there was one State in the Union which could justly claim
superiority to the rest, in social refinement and the art of elegant
living, it was South Carolina, where the division of the people into
the very poor and the very rich left to the latter class abundant
leisure for the pursuit of literature and the enjoyment of society.
"The possession of slaves," he owns,
"renders them proud, impatient of restraint, and gives them
a haughtiness of manner which, to those unaccustomed to
them, is disagreeable; but we find among them a high sense
of honor, a delicacy of sentiment, and a liberality of mind,
which we look for in vain in the more commercial citizens of
the Northern States. The genius of the Carolinian, like the
inhabitants of all southern countries, is quick, lively, and
acute; in steadiness and perseverance he is naturally
inferior to the native of the North; but this defect of
climate is often overcome by his ambition or necessity; and,
whenever this happens, he seldom fails to distinguish
himself. In his temper he is gay and fond of company, open,
generous, and unsuspicious; easily irritated, and quick to
resent even the appearance of insult; but his passion, like
the fire of the flint, is lighted up and extinguished in the
same moment."
Such discussions end only in one way. Theodosia yielded the points in
dispute. At Albany, on the 2d of February, 1801, while the country was
ringing with the names of Jefferson and Burr, and while the world
supposed that Burr was intriguing with all his might to defeat the
wishes of the people by securing his own election to the Presidency,
his daughter was married. The marriage was thus announced in the New
York _Commercial Advertiser_ of February 7:--
"MARRIED.---At Albany, on the 2d instant, by the Rev. Mr.
JOHNSON, JOSEPH ALSTON, of South Carolina, to THEODOSIA
BURR, only child of AARON BURR, Esq."
They were married at Albany, because Colonel Burr, being a member of
the Legislature, was residing at the capital of the State. One week
the happy pair passed at Albany. Then to New York; whence, after a few
days' stay, they began their long journey southward. Rejoined at
Baltimore by Colonel Burr, they travelled in company to Washington,
where, on the 4th of March, Theodosia witnessed the inauguration of
Mr. Jefferson, and the induction of her father into the
Vice-Presidency. Father and child parted a day or two after the
ceremony. The only solid consolation, he said in his first letter to
her, that he had for the loss of her dear companionship, was a belief
that she would be happy, and the certainty that they should often
meet. And, on his return to New York, he told her that he had
approached his home as he would "the sepulchre of all his friends."
"Dreary, solitary, comfortless. It was no longer _home_." Hence his
various schemes of a second marriage, to which Theodosia urged him. He
soon had the comfort of hearing that the reception of his daughter in
South Carolina was as cordial and affectionate as his heart could have
wished.
Theodosia now enjoyed three as happy years as ever fell to the lot of
a young wife. Tenderly cherished by her husband, whom she devotedly
loved, caressed by society, surrounded by affectionate and admiring
relations, provided bountifully with all the means of enjoyment,
living in the summer in the mountains of Carolina, or at the home of
her childhood, Richmond Hill, passing the winters in gay and luxurious
Charleston, honored for her own sake, for her father's, and her
husband's, the years glided rapidly by, and she seemed destined to
remain to the last Fortune's favorite child. One summer she and her
husband visited Niagara, and penetrated the domain of the chieftain
Brant, who gave them royal entertainment. Once she had the great
happiness of receiving her father under her own roof, and of seeing
the honors paid by the people of the State to the Vice-President.
Again she spent a summer at Richmond Hill and Saratoga, leaving her
husband for the first time. She told him on this occasion that every
_woman_ must prefer the society of the North to that of the South,
whatever she might say. "If she denies it, she is set down in my mind
as insincere and weakly prejudiced." But, like a fond and loyal wife,
she wrote, "Where you are, there is my country, and in you are centred
all my wishes."
She was a mother too. That engaging and promising boy, Aaron Burr
Alston, the delight of his parents and of his grandfather, was born in
the second year of the marriage. This event seemed to complete her
happiness. For a time, it is true, she paid dearly for it by the loss
of her former robust and joyous health. But the boy was worth the
price. "If I can see without prejudice," wrote Colonel Burr, "there
never was a finer boy"; and the mother's letters are full of those
sweet, trifling anecdotes which mothers love to relate of their
offspring. Her father still urged her to improve her mind, for her own
and her son's sake, telling her that all she could learn would
necessarily find its way to the mind of the boy. "Pray take in hand,"
he writes, "some book which requires attention and study. You will, I
fear, lose the habit of study, which would be a greater misfortune
than to lose your head." He praised, too, the ease, good-sense, and
sprightliness of her letters, and said truly that her style, at its
best, was not inferior to that of Madame de Sévigné.
Life is frequently styled a checkered scene. But it was the peculiar
lot of Theodosia to experience during the first twenty-one years of
her life nothing but prosperity and happiness, and during the
remainder of her existence nothing but misfortune and sorrow. Never
had her father's position seemed so strong and enviable as during his
tenure of the office of Vice-President; but never had it been in
reality so hollow and precarious. Holding property valued at two
hundred thousand dollars, he was so deeply in debt that nothing but
the sacrifice of his landed estate could save him from bankruptcy. At
the age of thirty he had permitted himself to be drawn from a
lucrative and always increasing professional business to the
fascinating but most costly pursuit of political honors. And now; when
he stood at a distance of only one step from the highest place, he was
pursued by a clamorous host of creditors, and compelled to resort to a
hundred expedients to maintain the expensive establishments supposed
to be necessary to a Vice-President's dignity. His political position
was as hollow as his social eminence. Mr. Jefferson was firmly
resolved that Aaron Burr should not be his successor; and the great
families of New York, whom Burr had united to win the victory over
Federalism, were now united to bar the further advancement of a man
whom they chose to regard as an interloper and a parvenu. If Burr's
private life had been stainless, if his fortune had been secure, if he
had been in his heart a Republican and a Democrat, if he had been a
man earnest in the people's cause, if even his talents had been as
superior as they were supposed to be, such a combination of powerful
families and political influence might have retarded, but could not
have prevented, his advancement; for he was still in the prime of his
prime, and the people naturally side with a man who is the architect
of his own fortunes.
On the 1st of July, 1804, Burr sat in the library of Richmond Hill
writing to Theodosia. The day was unseasonably cold, and a fire blazed
upon the hearth. The lord of the mansion was chilly and serious. An
hour before he had taken the step which made the duel with Hamilton
inevitable, though eleven days were to elapse before the actual
encounter. He was tempted to prepare the mind of his child for the
event, but he forebore. Probably his mind had been wandering into the
past, and recalling his boyhood; for he quoted a line of poetry which
he had been wont to use in those early days. "Some very wise man has
said," he wrote,
"'Oh, fools, who think it solitude to be alone!'
"This is but poetry. Let us, therefore, drop the subject, lest it lead
to another, on which I have imposed silence on myself." Then he
proceeds, in his usual gay and agreeable manner, again urging her to
go on in the pursuit of knowledge. His last thoughts before going to
the field were with her and for her. His last request to her husband
was that he should do all that in him lay to encourage her to improve
her mind.
The bloody deed was done. The next news Theodosia received from her
father was that he was a fugitive from the sudden abhorrence of his
fellow-citizens; that an indictment for murder was hanging over his
head; that his career in New York was, in all probability, over
forever; and that he was destined to be for a time a wanderer on the
earth. Her happy days were at an end. She never blamed her father for
this, or for any act of his; on the contrary, she accepted without
questioning his own version of the facts, and his own view of the
morality of what he had done. He had formed her mind and tutored her
conscience. He _was_ her conscience. But though she censured him not,
her days and nights were embittered by anxiety from this time to the
last day of her life. A few months later her father, black with
hundreds of miles of travel in an open canoe, reached her abode in
South Carolina, and spent some weeks there before appearing for the
last time in the chair of the Senate; for, ruined as he was in fortune
and good name, indicted for murder in New York and New Jersey, he was
still Vice-President of the United States, and he was resolved to
reappear upon the public scene, and do the duty which the Constitution
assigned him.
The Mexican scheme followed. Theodosia and her husband were both
involved in it. Mr. Alston advanced money for the project, which was
never repaid, and which, in his will, he forgave. His entire loss, in
consequence of his connection with that affair, may be reckoned at
about fifty thousand dollars. Theodosia entirely and warmly approved
the dazzling scheme. The throne of Mexico, she thought, was an object
worthy of her father's talents, and one which would repay him for the
loss of a brief tenure of the Presidency, and be a sufficient triumph
over the men who were supposed to have thwarted him. Her boy,
too,--would he not be heir-presumptive to a throne?
The recent publication of the "Blennerhassett Papers" appears to
dispel all that remained of the mystery which the secretive Burr chose
to leave around the object of his scheme. We can now say with almost
absolute certainty that Burr's objects were the following: The throne
of Mexico for himself and his heirs; the seizure and organization of
Texas as preliminary to the grand design. The purchase of lands on the
Washita was for the three-fold purpose of veiling the real object,
providing a rendezvous, and having the means of tempting and rewarding
those of the adventurers who were not in the secret. We can also now
discover the designed distribution of honors and places: Aaron L,
Emperor; Joseph Alston, Head of the Nobility and Chief Minister; Aaron
Burr Alston, heir to the throne; Theodosia, Chief Lady of the Court
and Empire; Wilkinson, General-in-Chief of the Army; Blennerhassett,
Embassador to the Court of St. James; Commodore Truxton (perhaps),
Admiral of the Navy. There is not an atom of new _evidence_ which
warrants the supposition that Burr had any design to sever the Western
States from the Union. If he himself had ever contemplated such an
event, it is almost unquestionable that his followers were ignorant of
it.
The scheme exploded. Theodosia and her husband had joined him at the
home of the Blennerhassetts, and they were near him when the
President's proclamation dashed the scheme to atoms, scattered the
band of adventurers, and sent Burr a prisoner to Richmond, charged
with high treason. Mr. Alston, in a public letter to the Governor of
South Carolina, solemnly declared that he was wholly ignorant of any
treasonable design on the part of his father-in-law, and repelled with
honest warmth the charge of his own complicity with a design so
manifestly absurd and hopeless as that of a dismemberment of the
Union. Theodosia, stunned with the unexpected blow, returned with her
husband to South Carolina, ignorant of her father's fate. He was
carried through that State on his way to the North, and there it was
that he made his well-known attempt to appeal to the civil authorities
and get deliverance from the guard of soldiers. From Richmond he wrote
her a hasty note, informing her of his arrest. She and her husband
joined him soon, and remained with him during his trial.
At Richmond, during the six months of the trial, Burr tasted the last
of the sweets of popularity. The party opposed to Mr. Jefferson made
his cause their own, and gathered round the fallen leader with
ostentatious sympathy and aid. Ladies sent him bouquets, wine, and
dainties for his table, and bestowed upon his daughter the most
affectionate and flattering attentions. Old friends from New York and
new friends from the West were there to cheer and help the prisoner.
Andrew Jackson was conspicuously his friend and defender, declaiming
in the streets upon the tyranny of the Administration and the perfidy
of Wilkinson, Burr's chief accuser. Washington Irving, then in the
dawn of his great renown, who had given the first efforts of his
youthful pen to Burr's newspaper, was present at the trial, full of
sympathy for a man whom he believed to be the victim of treachery and
political animosity. Doubtless he was not wanting in compassionate
homage to the young matron from South Carolina. Mr. Irving was then a
lawyer, and had been retained as one of Burr's counsel; not to render
service in the court-room, but in the expectation that his pen would
be employed in staying the torrent of public opinion that was setting
against his client. Whether or not he wrote in his behalf does not
appear. But his private letters, written at Richmond during the trial,
show plainly enough that, if his head was puzzled by the confused and
contradictory evidence, his heart and his imagination were on the side
of the prisoner.
Theodosia's presence at Richmond was of more value to her father than
the ablest of his counsel. Every one appears to have loved, admired,
and sympathized with her. "You can't think," wrote Mrs.
Blennerhassett, "with what joy and pride I read what Colonel Burr says
of his daughter. I never could love one of my own sex as I do her."
Blennerhassett himself was not less her friend. Luther Martin, Burr's
chief counsel, almost worshipped her. "I find," wrote Blennerhassett,
"that Luther Martin's idolatrous admiration of Mrs. Alston
is almost as excessive as my own, but far more beneficial to
his interest and injurious to his judgment, as it is the
medium of his blind attachment to her father, whose secrets
and views, past, present, or to come, he is and wishes to
remain ignorant of. Nor can he see a speck in the character
or conduct of Alston, for the best of all reasons with him,
namely, that Alston has such a wife."
It plainly appears, too, from the letters and journal of
Blennerhassett, that Alston did all in his power to promote the
acquittal and aid the fallen fortunes of Burr, and that he did so, not
because he believed in him, but because he loved his Theodosia.
Acquitted by the jury, but condemned at the bar of public opinion,
denounced by the press, abhorred by the Republican party, and still
pursued by his creditors, Burr, in the spring of 1805, lay concealed
at New York preparing for a secret flight to Europe. Again his devoted
child travelled northward to see him once more before he sailed. For
some weeks both were in the city, meeting only by night at the house
of some tried friend, but exchanging notes and letters from hour to
hour. One whole night they spent together, just before his departure.
To her he committed his papers, the accumulation of thirty busy years;
and it was she who was to collect the debts due him, and thus provide
for his maintenance in Europe.
Burr was gay and confident to the last, for he was strong in the
belief that the British Ministry would adopt his scheme and aid in
tearing Mexico from the grasp of Napoleon. Theodosia was sick and
sorrowful, but bore bravely up and won her father's commendation for
her fortitude. In one of the early days of June father and daughter
parted, to meet no more on earth.
The four years of Burr's fruitless exile were to Theodosia years of
misery. She could not collect the debts on which they had relied. The
embargo reduced the rice-planters to extreme embarrassment. Her
husband no longer sympathized with her in her yearning love for her
father, though loving her as tenderly as ever. Old friends in New York
cooled toward her. Her health was precarious. Months passed without
bringing a word from over the sea; and the letters that did reach her,
lively and jovial as they were, contained no good news. She saw her
father expelled from England, wandering aimless in Sweden and Germany,
almost a prisoner in Paris, reduced to live on potatoes and dry bread;
while his own countrymen showed no signs of relenting toward him. In
many a tender passage she praised his fortitude. "I witness," she
wrote, in a well-known letter,
"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
contemplate you with such a strange mixture of humility,
admiration, reverence, love, and pride, that very little
superstition 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 myself, how insignificant
do my best qualities appear! My vanity would be greater if I
had not been placed so near you; and yet my pride is our
relationship. I had rather not live than not be the daughter
of such a man."