An American Patrician, or The Story of Aaron Burr

“Think of his family, sir! Think of his wife and his seven children!”

“Sir, it is he who should have thought of them. You should have gone to him when he was maligning me. What? You know how this man has slandered me! He has spoken to you as he has to hundreds of others!” The good doctor looks guiltily uneasy. “And now I am asked to sit down with the scorn he has heaped upon me, because he has a family! Does it not occur to you, sir, that I, too, have a family? But with this difference: Should he fall, there will be eight to share the loss among them. If I fall, the blow descends on but one pair of loving shoulders, and those the slender shoulders of a girl.”

There is no hope: The good doctor goes his disappointed way.

The fighting grounds are a flat, grassy shelf of rock, under the heights of Weehawken. The morning is bright, with the July sun coming up over the bay. Hamilton, pale, like a man going open-eyed to death, takes his barge at the landing near the Grange. The good Dr. Hosack and his friend Pendleton are with him. The barge is pulled across to the grassy shelf, under the somber Weehawken heights.

The good doctor remains by the barge, while Hamilton, with friend Pendleton, ascends the rocky, shelving, shingly twenty feet to the place of meeting. They find Aaron and Van Ness awaiting them. Aaron touches his hat stiffly, and walks to the far end of the narrow grassy shelf.

Seconds Pendleton and Van Ness toss a dollar piece. Pendleton wins word and choice of position.

Ten paces are stepped off. Second Pendleton places his man at the up-the-river end of the six-foot grassy shelf. Aaron, pistol in hand, is given the other end. The word is to be:

“Present! – one – two – three – stop!” As the two stand in position, Aaron is confident, deadly, implacable; Hamilton looks the man already lost.

Seconds Pendleton and Van Ness retire out of range.

“Gentlemen, are you ready?”.

“Ready!” says Aaron.

“Ready!” says Hamilton.

There is a pause, heavy with death. Then comes:

“Present! – ”

There is a flash and a roar! – a double flash, a double roar! The smoke curls, the rocks echo! Hamilton, with a stifled moan, reels, clutches at nothing, and pitches forward on his face – shot through and through. The Hamilton lead, wild and high, cuts a twig above Aaron’s head.

Aaron takes a step toward his slain foe, and looks long and deep, like a man drinking. Van Ness comes up; Aaron tosses him the pistol, as folk toss aside a tool when the work is done – well done. Then he walks down to his barge, and shoves away for Richmond Hill, whose green peaceful cedars are smiling just across the river.

“It was worth the price, Van Ness,” says Aaron. “The taste of that immortal vengeance will never perish on my lips, nor its fragrance die out in my heart.”

CHAPTER XVII – AARON I, EMPEROR OF MEXICO

AARON sits placidly serene at Richmond Hill. Over his wine and his cigar, he reduces those dreams of empire to ink and paper. He maps out his design as architects draw plans and specifications for a house. His friends call – Van Ness, the stubborn Swart-wout, the Irvings, Peter and Washington.

Outside the serene four walls of Richmond Hill there goes up a prodigious hubbub of mourning – demonstrative if not deeply sincere. Hamilton, broken as a pillar of politics, was still a pillar of fashion. Was he not a Schuyler by adoption? Had he not a holding in Trinity? Therefore, come folk of powdered hair and silken hose, who deem it an opportunity to prove themselves of the town’s Vere de Veres. There dwells fashionable advantage in tear-shedding at the going out of an illustrious name. Such tear-shedding provides the noble inference that the illustrious one was “of us.” Alive to this, those of would-be fashion lapse into sackcloth and profound ashes, the sackcloth silk and the ashes ashes of roses. Also they arrange a public funeral at Trinity, and ask Gouverneur Morris, the local Mark Antony, to deliver an oration.

To the delicate sobbing of super-fashionable ones is added the pretended grief of Aaron’s Clintonian foes. They think to use the death of Hamilton for Aaron’s political destruction.

At no time does Aaron, serene with his wine and his cigar and his empire-planning, interpose by word or act to stem the current of real or spurious feeling. He heeds it no more, dwells on it no more than on the ebbing or flowing of the tides, muttering about the lawn’s shaven borders in front of Richmond Hill.

The duel is eleven days old. Aaron, accompanied by the faithful, stubborn Swartwout, takes barge for Perth Amboy. The stubborn, faithful one says “Good-by!” and returns; Aaron is received by his friend Commodore Truxton. With Truxton he talks “empire” all night. He counts on English ships, he says; being promised in secret by British Minister Merry in Washington. Truxton shall command that fleet.

Having set the sea-going Truxton to hoping, Aaron pushes on for Philadelphia. He meets a beautiful girl whom he calls “Celeste,” and to whom he does not speak of conquest or of empire. He remains a week in Philadelphia where, by word of Clinton’s scandalized American Citizen: “He walks openly about the streets!”

Then to St. Simon’s off the Georgia coast, guest of honor among polite Southern circles; and, from St. Simon’s across to South Carolina and the noble Alston mansion, to be welcomed by the lustrous Theo. Thus the summer wears into fall, full of honor and ease and love.

With the first light flurry of snow, Aaron, gavel in hand, calls the grave togaed ones to order. It is to be his last session; with the going out of Congress, his Vice-Presidential term will have its end. During those three Washington months which ensue, he dines with the President, goes among friends and enemies as of yore, and never is brow arched or glance averted. Instead, there is marked regard for him; folk compete to do him honor. On the last Senate day he delivers his address of farewell, and men pronounce it a marvel of dignity, wisdom, and polish. So he steps down from American official life; but not from American interest.

Aaron, throughout this last Washington winter, presses his plans of empire. He attaches to them scores of his Bucktail followers – the Swartwouts, Dr. Erick Bollman, the Ogdens, Marinus Willet, General Du Puyster. Among those of Congress who lend their ears and give their words are Mathew Lyon, and Senators Dayton and Smith.. These are weary of civilization and the peace that rusts. Their hearts are eager for conquest, and a clash with the rough, wilderness conditions of the West beyond the Mississippi.

It is evening; Aaron sits in his rooms at the Indian Queen. Outside the rain is falling; Pennsylvania Avenue wallows a world of mire. Slave Peter intrudes his black face to announce:

“Gen’man comin’-up, sah!”

Peter, the privileged, would introduce Guy of Warwick, or the great Dun Cow, with as little ceremony.

As Peter withdraws, a burly figure fills the doorway.

“Come in, General,” says Aaron.

General Wilkinson is among Aaron’s older acquaintances. They were together at Quebec. They were fellow cabalists against Washington in an hour of Valley Forge. Now they are hand to hilt for Mexico, and that throne-building upon which Aaron has fixed his heart. Also, Wilkinson is in present command of the military forces of the United States in the Southwest, with headquarters at Natchez and New Orleans; and, because of that army control, he is the keystone to the arch of Aaron’s plans.

The broad Wilkinson face glows at Aaron’s genial “Come in.” Its owner takes advantage of the invitation to draw a chair near the log fire, which the wet March night makes comfortable. Then he pours himself a glass of whisky.

Wilkinson is worth considering. He is paunchy, gross, noisy, vain, bragging, shallow, with a red, sweat-distilling face, and a nose that tells of the bottle. He wears to-night the uniform of his rank. His coat exhibits an exuberance of epaulette and an extravagance of gold braid that speak of tastes for coarse glitter. His iron-gray hair, shining with bear’s grease, matches his fifty years. In conversation he becomes a composite of Rabelais and Munchausen. As for holding wine or stronger liquor, he rivals the Great Tun of Heidelberg.

The stubborn Swartwout doesn’t like him. On a late occasion he expresses that dislike.

“To be frank, Chief,” observes the blunt Bucktail, who, because of Aaron’s headship of the Tammany organization, always addresses him as “Chief” – “to be frank, I believe your friend Wilkinson to be as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.”

“You are right, sir,” says Aaron; “he is both dishonest and treacherous. It was he who uncovered our plans to unhorse Washington, by ‘blabbing’ them, as Conway called it, to Lord Stirling. Yes; dishonest and treacherous is Wilkinson.”

“Why, then, do you trust him?”

“Why do I trust him?” repeats Aaron. “For several sufficient reasons. He has been in and out of Mexico, and is as familiar with the country as I am with Richmond Hill. He is cheek and jowl with the Bishop of New Orleans; and I hope to attach the church to my enterprise. Most of all, he commands the United States forces in the Southwest. Moreover, I count his dishonesty and genius for double dealing as virtues. They should become of importance in my enterprise.

“As how?” demands the mystified Buck-tail.

“As follows: Mexico is rich in gold; I argue that his dishonest avarice will take him loyally with me, hand and glove, in the hope of loot. His treacherous talents should come finely into play in certain diplomacies that must be entered upon with Mexican officials, who will favor me. Likewise he should find them exercise in dealings with the war department here in Washington; for you can see, sir, that, in his dual rôles of filibusterer and military commander of the Southwest for this government, he is certain to be often in collision with himself.”

The stubborn Bucktail says no more, being too well drilled in deference to Aaron’s will and word. It is clear, however, that his distrust of the whisky-faced Wilkinson has not been put to sleep.

Wilkinson, as he swigs his whisky by Aaron’s fire, sits in happy ignorance of the distrustful Bucktail’s views. Confident as to his own high importance, he plunges freely into Aaron’s plans.

“Five hundred,” says Aaron, “full five hundred are agreed to go; and I have lists of five thousand stout young fellows besides, who should crowd round our standard at the whistle of the fife. The move now is to purchase eight hundred thousand acres on the Washita, as a base from which to operate and a pretext for bringing our people together. My excuse for recruiting them, you understand, will be that they are to settle on those eight hundred thousand Washita acres.”

“Eight hundred thousand acres!” This, between sips of whisky: “That should take a fortune! Where do you think to find the money?”

“It will come from New York, from Connecticut, from New Jersey, from everywhere – but most of it from my son-in-law, Alston, who is to mortgage his plantation and crops. He is worth a round million.”

“How do you succeed with the English?” asks Wilkinson, taking a new direction.

“It is as good as done. Merry, the British Minister, was with me yesterday. He has sent Colonel Williamson of his legation to London, to return by way of Jamaica and bring the English fleet to New Orleans. Truxton is to be given temporary command, and sail against Vera Cruz, where you and I must meet him with an army. When we have reduced Vera Cruz, and secured a port, we shall march upon the city of Mexico.”

Wilkinson helps himself to another glass.

Then he rubs his encarmined nose with a ruminative forefinger.

“Well,” he observes, “it will be a great venture! In New Orleans I’ll make you acquainted with Daniel Clark, an Englishman, who has the riches and almost the wisdom of Solomon. He’ll embrace the enterprise; once he does he’ll back it with his dollars. Clark himself is strong in ships; with his merchant fleet and his warehouses, he should keep us in provisions in Vera Cruz.”

“That is well bethought,” cries Aaron, eyes a-sparkle.

“Clark’s relations with the bishop are likewise close,” adds Wilkinson.

Taking a pull at the whisky, he runs off in a fresh direction.

“Give me your scheme in detail. We are not, I trust, to waste time with a claptrap democracy, nor engage in the popular tomfoolery of a republic?”

“The government, imperial in form, shall be styled the ‘Empire of Mexico.’ I shall be crowned Emperor Aaron I, and the crown made hereditary in the male line; which last will create my grandson, Aaron Burr Alston, heir presumptive.”

“And I?” interjects Wilkinson, his features doubly aglow with alcohol and interest. “What are to be my rank and powers?”

“You will be generalissimo of the army.”

“Second only to you?”

“Second only to me. Here; I’ve drawn an outline of the civil fabric we’re to set up. The government, as I’ve said, is to be imperial, myself emperor. There is to be a nobility of grandees, titles hereditary, who will sit as a parliament. The noble programme is this: Aaron I, emperor; Wilkinson, generalissimo of the forces; Alston, chief of the grandees and secretary of state; Theo, chief lady of the court and princess mother of the heir presumptive; Aaron Burr Alston, heir presumptive; Truxton, lord high admiral of the fleet. There will be ambassadors, ministers, consuls, and the usual furniture of government. The grandees should be limited to one hundred, and chosen from those whom we bring with us. There may be minor noble grades, drawn from ones powerful and friendly among the natives.”

Aaron and Wilkinson of the carnelian nose sit far into the watches of the night, discussing the great design. As the carnelianed one takes his leave, he says:

“We are fully agreed, I find. To-morrow I start for Natchez; you are to follow in two weeks, you say?”

“Yes,” responds Aaron. “There should be months of travel ahead, before my arrangements are perfected. I must meet Adair in Kentucky, Smith in Ohio, Harrison in Indiana, Jackson in Tennessee; besides visit New Orleans, and arrange about those eight hundred thousand Washita acres. In my running about, I shall see you many times, and confer with you as questions come up.”

“I shall meet you at Fort Massac on the Ohio. Don’t forget two several matters: The enterprise will lick up gold like fire. Also, that in the civil as well as the military control of the empire, I’m to be second to no one save yourself.”

“I shall forget nothing. Speaking of money, I sell Richmond Hill to-morrow for twenty-five thousand dollars. The deeds are drawn and signed.”

“Oh, we shall find money enough,” returns Wilkinson contentedly. “Only it’s well never to lose sight of the fact that we’re going to need it. Clark, as I say, will plunge in for something handsome – something that should call for six figures in its measure. As to my rank of generalissimo, second only to yourself, it is all I could ask. Popularly,” concludes Wilkinson, preparing to take his leave – “popularly, I shall be known as ‘Wilkinson the Deliverer.’ Coming, as I shall, at the head of those gallant conquering armies which are to relieve the groaning Mexicans from the yoke of Spain, I think it a natural and an appropriate title – ‘Wilkinson the Deliverer!’”

“Not only an appropriate title,” observes the courtly Aaron, who remembers his generalissimo’s recent loyalty to the whisky bottle, “but admirably adapted to fill the trump of fame.”

The door closes on the broad back of the coming “Deliverer.” As Aaron again bends over his “Empire,” he hears that personage’s footsteps, uncertain by virtue of much drink, and proudly martial at the glorious prospect before him, go shuffling down the corridor of the Indian Queen.

“Bah!” mutters Aaron; “Jack Swartwout was right. It is both dangerous and disgusting to build a great design on the trustless foundation of this conceited, treacherous sot. And yet, such is the irony of my situation, I am unable to do otherwise. At that, I shall manage him. Oh, if Jefferson were only of the right viking sort! But, no; a creature of abstractions, bookshelves and alcoves! – a closet philosopher in whose veins runs no drop of red aggressive fighting blood! – he would as soon think of treason as of conquest, and, indeed, might readily fall into the error of imagining they spell the same thing. Besides, he hates me for that presidential tie of four years ago. The plain offspring of his own unpopularity, he none the less leaves it on my doorstep as the natural child of my intrigues. No! I must watch Jefferson, not trust him. His judgment is ever valet to his hatreds. He would call the most innocent act a crime, prove white black, for the privilege of making Aaron Burr an outlaw.”

CHAPTER XVIII – THE TREASON OF WILKINSON

NOW begin days crowded on new faces and new scenes. Aaron ascends the Potomac, and crosses the mountains to Pittsburg. He buys a cabined flatboat and floats down to Marietta. They tell him of Blennerhassett, romantic, eccentric, living on an island below. He visits the island; the lord of the isle is absent, but his spouse, broad, thick, genial, not beautiful, welcomes him and bids him come again.

Aaron goes to Cincinnati, and confers with Senator Smith; to Louisville, where he meets General Adair; then cross country to Nashville to find General Jackson – his friend of a Senate day when he, Aaron, served colleague to the kiln-dried Rufus King.

Everywhere Aaron is the honored guest at barbecue and banquet. Processions march; balls are given to his glory. There are roasting of oxen, drinking of corn whisky, rosining of bows and scraping of catgut; and all after the hearty fashion of the West, when once it gets a hero in its clutches.

To Adair and Smith and the lean Jackson, Aaron lays out his purpose of Southwestern conquest. These stark worthies go with him heart and soul. Each hates the Spaniard with a Saxon’s hate; each is a Francis Drake at bottom. Their hot concern in what he is upon, fairly overruns the verbal pace of Aaron in its telling. Only, he is half-secret, and does not make clear those elements of throne and crown and scepter. It will leave them less over which to hesitate, he thinks; for he perceives that he deals with folk who are congenital republicans.

The lean Jackson, even more heartily than do the others, enters into Aaron’s plans. He declares that the best blood of Tennessee shall follow him. In the long talks they have at the Hermitage, Aaron implants in Jackson a Southwestern impulse which, in its deeds, will find victorious culmination thirty years later at San Jacinto. In that day, Jackson himself will occupy the chair now held by Jefferson.

Being no prophet, but only a restless, strong, ambitious man, Aaron does not foresee that day of Jackson in the White House, San Jacinto, and Sam Houston – the latter just now a lad of thirteen, and hidden away in his ancestral woods. Full of hope, Aaron goes diligently forward with his sowing, the harvest whereof those others are to reap. He lays the bedplates of an empire truly; but not his empire – not the empire of Aaron I, with Aaron II to follow him. He will be tottering on the grave’s edge in a day of San Jacinto; and yet his age-chilled heart will warm at the news of it, and know it for his work.

Aaron leaves Jackson, drifts down the Cumberland to the Ohio, and meets Wilkinson, who – nose as red, with whisky-fuddled soul – is as much in ardent arms as ever. Wilkinson cannot greet him too warmly. The only change perceivable in our corn-soaked warrior is a doubt as to whether, instead of “Wilkinson the Deliverer,” he might not better fill the wondering measure of futurity as “Washington of the West.” Both titles are full of majesty – a thing important to a taste streaked of rum – but the latter possesses the more alliterative roll. The red-nosed Wilkinson says finally that he will keep the question of title in abeyance, committing himself to neither, with a possibility of adopting both.

Aaron regains his cabined flatboat, and follows the current eight hundred miles to Natchez. Later he drifts away to New Orleans. The latter city is a bubbling community of nine thousand souls – American, Spanish, French. It runs as socially wild over Aaron as did those ruder, up-the-river regions; although, proving its civilization, it scrapes a more delicate fiddle and declines the greasy barbecue enormities of a whole roast ox.

The Englishman Clark strikes hands with Aaron for the coming empire. It is agreed that, with rank next to son-in-law Alston’s, Clark shall be of the grandees. Also, Aaron makes the acquaintance of the Bishop of New Orleans, and the pair dispatch three Jesuit brothers to Mexico to spy out the land. For the Spanish rule, as rapacious as tyrannous, has not fostered the Church, but robbed it. Under Aaron I, the Church shall not only be protected, but become the national Church.

Leaving New Orleans, Aaron returns by an old Indian trace to Nashville, keeping during the journey a sharp lookout for banditti who rob and kill along the trail. Coming safe, he is welcomed by the lean Jackson, whom he sets building bateaux for conveying the Tennessee contingent to the coming work.

Leaving Jackson busy with saw and adz and auger over flatboats, Aaron heads north for the island dwelling of Blennerhassett. In the fortnight he spends with that muddled exile, he wins him – life and fortune. Blennerhassett is weak, forceless, a creature of dreams. Under spell of the dominating Aaron, he sees with the eyes, speaks with the mouth, feels with the heart of that strong ambitious one. Blennerhassett will be a grandee. As such he must go to England, ambassador for the Empire of Mexico, bearing the letters of Aaron I. He takes joy in picturing himself at the court of St. James, and hears with the ear of anticipation the exclamatory admiration of his Irish friends.

“Ay! they’ll change their tune!” cries Blennerhassett, as he considers his greatness to come. “It should open their Irish eyes, for sure, when they meet me as ‘Don Blennerhassett, grandee of the Mexican Empire, Ambassador to St. James by favor of his Imperial Majesty, Aaron I.’ It’ll cause my surly kinfolk to sing out of the other corners of their mouths; for I cannot remember that they’ve been over-respectful to me in the past.”

Aaron recrosses the mountains, and descends the Potomac to Washington. He dines with Jefferson, and relates his adventures, but hides his plans. No whisper of empire and emperors at the great democrat’s table! Aaron is not so horn-mad as all that.

While Aaron is in Washington, the stubborn Swartwout comes over. As the fruits of the conference between him and his chief, the stubborn one returns, and sends his brother Samuel, young Ogden, and Dr. Bollman to Blennerhassett. Also, the lustrous Theo and little Aaron Burr Alston join Aaron; for the princess mother of the heir presumptive, as well as the sucking emperor himself, is to go with Aaron when he again heads for the West. There will be no return – the lustrous Theo and the heir presumptive are to accompany the expedition of conquest. Son-in-law Alston, who will be chief of the grandees and secretary of state, promises to follow later. Just now he is trying to negotiate a loan on his plantations; and making slow work of it, because of Jefferson’s interference with the exportation of rice.

Madam Blennerhassett welcomes the princess mother with wide arms, and kisses the heir presumptive. Aaron decides to make the island a present headquarters. Leaving the lustrous Theo and the heir presumptive to Madam Blennerhassett, he indulges in swift, darting journeys, west and north and south. He arranges for fifteen bateaux, each to carry one hundred men, at Marietta. He crosses to Nashville to talk with Jackson, and note the progress of that lean filibusterer with the Cumberland flotilla. What he sees so pleases him that he leaves four thousand dollars – a royal sum! – with the lean Jackson, to meet initial charges in outfitting the Tennessee wing of the great enterprise.

Aaron goes to Chillicothe and talks to the Governor of Ohio. Returning, he drops over to the little huddle of huts called Cannonsburg. There he forms the acquaintance of an honest, uncouth personage named Morgan, who is eaten up of patriotism and suspicion. Morgan listens to Aaron, and decides that he is a firebrand of treason about to set the Ohio valley in a blaze. He writes these flaming fears to Jefferson – as suspicious as any Morgan!