CHAPTER Wilkinson was departing about this time to take possession of his government of Louisiana, and he invited 1805. Burr to embark with him at Pittsburg, and to descend the river in his company. The vessels then chiefly employed in descending voyages were arks-chest-like boats, square at the ends, which admitted of being fitted up with every comfort for a small number of passengers, and which floated down with the current. As Burr's own boat was first ready, he declined to wait for Wilkinson, and proceeded alone. He soon overtook Lyon, descending the river on his way home, and in his company floated down to Marietta. Lyon proceeded on his voyage, but Burr stopped at Blennerhasset's Island, nearly opposite Marietta, and there he acquired a most zealous, devoted, and enthusiastic partisan. This was Herman Blennerhasset, an Irishman, possessing by inherit ance a considerable fortune, a man of education and refinement, who had retired from Europe under the influ ence of certain politico-romantic notions, common in Great Britain toward the close of the eighteenth century—the same in which Southey and Coleridge had deeply shared. Retiring to the frontier settlements, Blennerhasset had invested a considerable part of his fortune in erecting, near Marietta, on an island in the Ohio, which soon became known by his name, an elegant mansion, surrounded by gardens and conservatories-furnished in a style as yet unknown beyond the mountains, and provided with a large and valuable library—a little Eden of civilization in the midst of the wilderness. As if to give completeness to this romantic picture, Blennerhasset had a wife no less enthusiastic and accomplished than himself; and she, even more, if possible, than her husband, appears to have been captivated by the arts of Burr, whose success with the fair sex was the very thing on which he most XIX. prided himself. Blennerhasset had some interest in a CHAPTER mercantile firm at Marietta, but appears to have had no great business capacity, and but little knowledge of 1805. the world. His excitable imagination was at once set on fire by the grand and splendid projects which Burr unfolded. Perhaps, too, the insufficiency of his income for the style of life he had adopted, no less than the promptings of his own ambition and that of his wife, made him ready to risk what he had in the hope of princely returns. After considerable delay at this agreeable spot, Burr resumed his voyage, and at the fall of the Ohio (Louisville) again overtook Lyon, who had been detained there by business, and by whom he was told that his delay in pressing forward had ruined his chance of being elected from Tennessee. Nevertheless, he accompanied Lyon to his home at Eddyville, up the Cumberland River, whence he proceeded on horseback to Nashville. There he was honored with a public reception, very cordial and enthu- May 28. siastic. After remaining a few days, he returned to Eddyville in a boat furnished by General Andrew Jackson, a resident in the neighborhood, who had formerly known. Burr while they were both members of Congress, and who had received him with great hospitality. Nothing had been said at Nashville as to his being a candidate for Congress; but he still urged Lyon to write on the subject to a gentleman there, from whom he had received great attentions-probably Jackson-at the same time observing that he might be a delegate from the Orleans Territory, but that he should prefer to enter Congress as a full member. Having resumed his voyage in his own boat, Burr met Wilkinson, then on his way to St. Louis, at Fort Massac, on the Ohio, nearly opposite the mouth of the Cum CHAPTER berland. Some of the troops at Fort Massac had been ordered to New Orleans, and, by Wilkinson's influence, 1805. Burr was provided with a barge belonging to one of the officers, and manned with a crew of soldiers, and in this good style he set off for that city. Wilkinson also furnished him with letters of introduction; among others, one to Daniel Clark, an old resident of that Territory, Irish by birth, with whom, and formerly with his uncle of the same name, to whose property the younger Clark had succeeded, Wilkinson had been acquainted ever since his early trading speculations from Kentucky, prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution. June 25. Burr found the Territory of Orleans in a state of great excitement, such as might well furnish encouragement to his projects. Governor Claiborne was exceedingly unpopular with a part of the inhabitants, of whom Clark was a leader. The introduction of the English forms of law proceedings, and the very slight participation in the administration of affairs allowed to the inhabitants -for as yet the legislators as well as the governor were all appointed by the president—had occasioned great discontents. Among the French Creoles and the old settlers of British birth, attachment to the American connection was not likely to be a very strong sentiment; while even the new American immigrants were divided and distracted by very bitter feuds. After a short stay at New Orleans, Burr reascended to Natchez in the Mississippi Territory, whence he traveled by land, along the road or bridle-path, through the Indian Territory, four hundred and fifty miles to Nashville, where he was again entertained for a week by Aug. 6. General Jackson, "once a lawyer," so he remarked in the journal which he kept for the entertainment of his daughter, "afterward a judge, and now a planter-a man XIX. of intelligence, and one of those prompt, frank, ardent CHAPTER souls whom I love to meet." Having been again complimented with a public dinner at Nashville, he proceed- 1805. ed to Kentucky, and after spending a few weeks there, departed by land, through the Indiana Territory, on his way to St. Louis, where he took up his residence with a relation of his, who had been appointed, at his special request, the secretary of the new Louisiana Territory. It was upon meeting him at St. Louis that Burr's altered and mysterious manner, and the unexplained hints which he threw out of a splendid enterprise, first excited in Wilkinson's mind, according to his own account, definite suspicions as to Burr's designs. He spoke, indeed, of this enterprise as favored by the government; but he spoke, at the same time, of the government itself as imbecile, and of the people of the West as ready for revolt. So much was Wilkinson impressed, that he wrote to his friend Smith, the Secretary of the Navy, that Burr was about something, whether internal or external he could not discover, and advising to keep a strict watch upon him; at least Wilkinson's aid-de-camp afterward testified that such a letter was copied by him, and, as he believed, dispatched through the post-office, though Smith did not recollect having received it. Burr presently left St. Louis, carrying with him a let- Sept. 14. ter from Wilkinson to Harrison, governor of the Indiana Territory, strongly urging the use of his influence to get Burr chosen a delegate to Congress from that territory —a letter written, as Wilkinson alleged, under the confirmed impression that nothing but the being put into some legitimate career would save Burr from very dangerous courses. From the Indiana Territory Burr continued his route eastward, stopping at Cincinnati, Chilicothe, and Marietta, whence, toward the end of the year, XIX. CHAPTER he returned to Philadelphia. lowing spring and summer, he 1806 phia and partly in Washington. That winter, and the folspent partly in Philadel While in Philadelphia, he resided in a small house in an obscure street, where he was visited by many persons, apparently on business, all of whom he received with a certain air of precaution. and mystery, and no two of whom did he see at the same time. At Washington, during that winter, Burr sought and obtained frequent intercourse with Eaton, who had then lately returned from the Mediterranean, in no very good humor with the government. He told Eaton that he had already organized a secret expedition against the Spanish provinces of Mexico, in which he asked him to join; and Eaton, under the impression, as he said, that the expedition was secretly countenanced by government -to which the state of Spanish relations and the Miranda expedition, then on foot, might well give color-gave him encouragement that he would. Burr then proceeded to further confidences, such as excited suspicions in Eaton's mind as to the real character of his intended enterprise. He seemed anxious to increase to the utmost Eaton's irritation against the government, which he accused of want of character, want of gratitude, and want of justice. Wishing, according to his own account, to draw Burr out, Eaton encouraged him to go on, till finally he developed a project for revolutionizing the Western country, separating it from the Union, and establishing a monarchy (it was just at this time that Bonaparte was making kings of all his family), of which he was to be sovereign; New Orleans to be his capital; and his dominion to be further extended by a force organized on the Mississippi, so as to include a part or the whole of Mexico. He assured Eaton that Wilkinson was a party |