The American Chronicle 1 - Burr (59 page)

COLONEL BURR WAS AMUSED when I told him that Mr. Bryant had once been a Burrite. “I shall now read him with a warmth which hitherto has been lacking.” The Colonel gave a place of honour to the
Evening Post
on the table beside his sofa. Then: “Pour me out some claret. I’ve a chill today.”

I poured us each a glass. The Colonel seems to be growing frailer in body but the mind is clear. At least today it was. Other days he is forgetful, puts words in the wrong order—to his own annoyance. “Old age is not to be encouraged, Charlie.”

“Should one die young?”

“No. Simply avoid ageing. There must be some way. I thought I had found it.”

“And what was that?”

“The love of women. But at a certain point not even their flesh can keep us from shrivelling up like old apples. Well!” He finished off the claret.

“What sort of government did you have in mind for Mexico?”

“Government?” He looked at me blankly. Shook his head. Appeared to think back. “That would have depended on what we found there.”

“Everyone thinks you meant to be emperor.”

“Oh, no! I was far too modest to want to appropriate the title of the great Napoleon. King would have been sufficient for my purposes.
Yo
el Rey
as the Spanish king begins his correspondence. Bleak but to the point. ‘I the King ...’ ”

“But to what end a king?”

“To make a civilisation on this God-forsaken continent!” Suddenly in the Colonel’s face I saw a glimpse of something I had not seen before, a
kind of fury and contempt that was usually masked by the exquisite irony, the serene good humour. “Between the dishonest canting of Jefferson and the poisonous egotism of Hamilton, this state has been no good from the beginning. Now it starts to change with old Jackson. For the better, I hope. But I can assure you that that early republic of ours was no place for a man who wanted to live in a good world, who wanted to make a true civilisation and to share it with a host of choice spirits, such as I meant to establish in Mexico. Unfortunately, I was not able to be a king—though I very nearly was a president—but in my way I have been lucky for I have always been able to indulge my true passion which is to teach others, to take pleasure in bringing out the best in men and women, to make them
alive
,
and though I did not achieve any sort of kingdom in this world, I have established small human dominions along my way, proved to the doubting that women had souls, and trained a hundred boys to make the best of their life, without complaint, or dishonour.”

For a long time after this uncharacteristic outburst (the result of swallowing too rapidly a large tumbler of claret) the Colonel was silent, staring at the coals in the stove’s grate. Then, without any preamble, he began the day’s work.

I GLADLY SURRENDERED myself to the governor of the Mississippi Territory on January 17, 1807. I say gladly because I knew that if I were to come under Wilkinson’s jurisdiction, I would not live long enough to have my day in court, or anywhere else. The governor of Mississippi was deeply embarrassed once he discovered that the army with which I was to seize New Orleans consisted of fewer than fifty men, and no weapons beyond what settlers of a new country would use for hunting.

“I apologize, Colonel Burr, but I fear we have been misled by the dictator of New Orleans.”

The Governor was polite to me and contemptuous of Wilkinson whom he referred to not only as the ‘dictator’ but as the ‘pensioner.’ Apparently everyone in the west knew that Jamie was in the pay of Spain—except me.

I rode to the town of Washington, the capital of the Mississippi Territory, and was bound over in $5,000 bail by one Judge Rodney whose claim to fame was that he had fathered Jefferson’s attorney-general and so knew his political loyalties rather better than he did his law.

Since the grand jury did not convene until February, I rejoined my poor army and navy. For the next few weeks my principal task was to avoid being kidnapped by Wilkinson’s agents. He knew that if I got to the east alive, his part in our “conspiracy” would come to light.

In due course the grand jury found me “not guilty of any crime or misdeameanour against the laws of the United States.” They also went out of their way to condemn both Wilkinson and Jefferson for recklessness with the law, and for putting in jeopardy the Constitution.

Judge Rodney was so deeply distressed by the jury’s findings that he refused to release me from bail. I daresay this case is unique in American legal history. A man found innocent by a grand jury is still guilty in the eyes of the judge. Meanwhile, Wilkinson had sent a certain Dr. Carmichael and two army lieutenants into the territory with instructions to kill me. I am happy to record that the governor of Mississippi was appalled when he learned of their mission, and successfully dissuaded Dr. Carmichael from his sanguinary task. The two military men, however, were faithful to their commander; they were also every bit as incompetent as their commander and I was able to evade them easily.

I sent word to the court that whenever I was needed I would present myself, preferably under guard; but that for the present I preferred to go into hiding since my life was in danger. My bail was promptly (and illegally) forfeited, and the Governor was persuaded to offer $2,000 to anyone who might capture the dangerous Aaron Burr.

This was the end of all my hopes. I met with my Little Band. I told them to go on, if they chose, to the Washita Lands. I then gave them my boats and everything else that I possessed. So it was that we parted.

A few days later my friends were all arrested; illegally, as usual. Fortunately all were soon freed, except for Blennerhassett and two others. I should note that to this day I receive letters from my one-time praetorian guard. Most of them settled in and around Natchez. Most still dream of what might have been.

With a guide, I vanished into the vast piney Mississippi forest. My disguise was shapeless pantaloons and a coat made from a blanket; on my head was a wide-brimmed soft hat to disguise as much as possible my perhaps familiar features. I also wore a leather strap across one shoulder from which hung a tin cup on the left and a scalping knife on the right. I must confess that at this point there were a good many scalps I would have liked to detach from their owners’ pates, beginning with Jamie Wilkinson’s.

I have never in my life seen so much rain as fell that February in the endless Mississippi forest. Our clothes were never dry. Even when the rain for a moment stopped, we managed to get wet again as we forded swollen, muddy streams in which we soon grew accustomed to the snakes that swam alongside us like so many sticks of wood come slimily alive.

On the night of February 18, reasonably lost but travelling in the right direction (toward Pensacola in Spanish Florida where I hoped to set sail for England), we came to a clearing in the woods that turned out to be the fateful village of Wakefield (I have never since been able to read Goldsmith!).

I knocked on the door of the nearest cabin and asked for the house of an old friend of mine. The young man to whom I spoke later declared that despite my shabby clothes and muffled face, the extraordinary lustre and beauty of my eyes convinced him that there on his own door-step was the diabolic Aaron Burr while practically in his pocket was $2,000 worth of reward money. I suspect it was not the glory of my obsidian orbs but the incongruity of a pair of New York boots that gave me away. After all, westerners looked first at a man’s rifle, then at his boots. Eyes are the last feature to be noticed.

We went to the house of my friend who was away from home. But his wife kindly made us welcome, and bade us sleep in the kitchen. Within the hour, the sheriff arrived, having been warned by the young man that the traitor Burr was in town. After a brief discussion, the sheriff decided that to arrest the potential conqueror of Mexico was hardly in the public interest. He, too, hated the Dons. So the three of us spent the night comfortably in the kitchen.

The next morning the sheriff most amiably offered to show us the way out of his county. Unfortunately, the young man had meanwhile alerted the local army garrison. Two miles outside Wakefield, I was arrested and taken to Fort Stoddert.

The garrison was well-disposed toward me, and though I dreaded Wilkinson’s long arm, I knew that I had nothing to fear from those good-natured young men. In fact, their commander confessed to me that “one more week here, Colonel, and they’d have followed you to Mexico.”

I was sent on to Washington City, in the company of eight soldiers.

We travelled at the rate of forty miles a day, our tired horses slipping and stumbling in the slick red mud as huge black crows mocked us. My companions soon discovered that whatever the President thought of me, I was hardly a traitor in the eyes of the western people. After several rustic ovations, my escort thought it wise to avoid towns altogether, and so we slept each night in the cold wet woods.

En route we were advised that our destination had been changed from Washington City to Richmond, Virginia, where I was to be tried for treason. It had been decided that my alleged treacheries had taken place on Blennerhassett’s Island which was a part of Virginia. With this change of venue, Jefferson must have thought my fate already decided. What chance would Aaron Burr have on trial in the capital of the President’s own state?

On March 26, 1807, we arrived at the Golden Eagle Tavern in Richmond where I was locked up in a second-floor bedroom, filled with newspapers assembled by the thoughtful manager. I was most grateful to him as I studied what had been happening during the weeks that I was out of the world. I read with particular interest how, on January 16, John Randolph (who was no longer a friend to Jefferson) demanded that the President clarify for Congress his proclamation. Just
who
were the mysterious conspirators, he asked, and to what end did they conspire?

On January 22, Jefferson sent his answer to the Congress. He named Aaron Burr as “the principal actor, whose guilt is placed beyond question.” Categorically, Jefferson declared that I had wanted to sever the union at the Alleghenies but that when I had found the west impervious to my schemes, I had then decided to seize New Orleans, rob the local banks, and go on to Mexico. Jefferson was never a fanatic when it came to evidence. Although he mentioned various letters he had received testifying to my guilt, he did not say who had written them. He did praise by name General James Wilkinson (“with the honour of a soldier and the fidelity of a good citizen”) for having arrested a number of the conspirators.

I have since discovered that two days after Randolph’s question in the House (and four days before Jefferson’s response to Congress), Wilkinson’s version of my ciphered letter arrived on the President’s desk. This explains, I think, the recklessness of the message to Congress with its extraordinary assertion that I was guilty “beyond question.” Of all people, John Adams asserted the moral—not to mention legal—principle. “If Burr’s guilt is as clear as the noonday sun, the first Magistrate ought not to have pronounced it so before a Jury had tried him.”

But Jefferson was now in a state of delirium. The day after his message to Congress, he instructed his Senate whip, Giles of Virginia, to call a secret session of the Senate in order to suspend the constitutional right of
habeas corpus
.
This was aimed at keeping Swartwout and Dr. Bollman in government custody. Despite my friend Bayard’s eloquent speech against this monstrous perversion of the Constitution, the Senate obediently suspended
habeas corpus
.

The House of Representatives was not so craven. Right off, they refused to meet in closed session. Then Jefferson’s own son-in-law (who knew his wife’s father altogether too well) declared that “never under this government has personal liberty been held at the will of a single individual.” The House refused to suspend
habeas corpus
.
Nevertheless, Dr. Bollman and Swartwout were still in a military prison at Washington City and for the moment beyond the reach of the Constitution.

Now, most comically, noble democrat Jefferson and Spanish agent Wilkinson were confederates. Forgotten was Wilkinson’s disobedience. Ignored was Wilkinson’s military dictatorship at New Orleans. When the Governor of Louisiana protested Wilkinson’s actions to the President, the author of the Declaration of Independence responded with a remarkable letter of which I possess a copy (given me by Edward Livingston). “On great occasions,” announced the scourge of the Sedition Law, “every good officer must be ready to risk himself in going beyond the strict line of law, when the public preservation requires it.” Jefferson then acknowledged that the Administration’s political “opposition will try to make something of the infringement of liberty by the military arrest and deportation of citizens, but if it does not go beyond such offenders as Swartwout, Bollman, Burr, Blennerhassett, etc., they will be supported by the public approbation.” In other words, if public opinion is not unduly aroused one may safely set aside the Constitution and illegally arrest one’s enemies. Had this letter been published at the time, an excellent case might have been made for the impeachment and removal of a president who had broken that oath he had taken to defend and to protect the Constitution by conspiring to obstruct and pervert the course of justice.

On January 23, Dr. Bollman was taken from prison and escorted under heavy guard to the office of the Secretary of State. There he found Madison and, to his surprise, the President.

“I had never seen Mr. Jefferson before,” Dr. Bollman told me later, “and I was not prepared for this unusual man. He was extraordinarily nervous. He complained of headache, and kept pressing his eyes all through our interview. He never once looked at me. Mr. Madison did most of the questioning. Finally I said that I would tell them everything that I knew about your plans on condition that nothing of what I said would ever be used for any purpose other than their enlightenment.

“ ‘That is fair enough,’ said Mr. Jefferson. ‘I give you my word I will abide by that.’ Then the two of them, like a pair of court recorders, I swear, sat and took notes while I told them how you had intended to revolutionize Mexico.