Complete Works. Hamilton AlexanderЧитать онлайн книгу.
At the end of eleven days Burr was spirited away by his intimate and faithful friend, John Swartout, and embarked Saturday night, July 21, in a barge. After an all-nighes row they reached the house of Commodore Truxton at Perth Amboy. Here he stayed until the following Monday, when he again pushed southward, reaching Philadelphia, finding refuge at the house of A. J. Dallas, another old friend who, it will be remembered, was so prominent in welcoming Genet.
When he heard of the finding of the coroner's jury, it was on August 2, and he knew that warrants had been issued for his arrest and that of Pendleton and Van Ness.
Fearing extradition he left Philadelphia and, accompanied by Samuel Swartout and a faithful slave, he fled to St. Simon's Island on the Georgia coast, where Major Pierce Butler had an estate. His stay at Philadelphia, it is reported, was enlivened by a pleasant renewal of a flirtation with one Céleste, who was an old flame, and it was only because fearful of apprehension that he reluctantly sought a more secure hiding-place. After a visit paid to his daughter Theodosia, in South Carolina, which was undertaken after great exposure and hardship, he having travelled four hundred miles in an open boat, and feeling sure that the excitement had blown over, he proceeded to Washington to preside over the Senate, but stopped en route at Petersburg, Va., where he received an "ovation," a public dinner being tendered him by the "Republicans." Burr was cheered and toasted, and made much of. When he reached Washington he found that both New York and New Jersey had issued indictments against him, but he was not prosecuted, as political and personal influence was brought to bear. About this time the case of a certain Judge Chace, who was to be tried by the Senate for malfeasance in office, came up for trial. Burr, as the Vice-President, took charge of the proceedings, and his attitude was such as to cause a certain newspaper to say that "he directed the trial with the dignity and impartiality of an angel and the vigor of a devil." The issue of the duel was forgotten, and there was a reaction in his favor, but he could never regain his position. It was shortly after this that he resigned public office, first delivering an emotional and fetching speech, which caused his hearers to melt into tears. Probably at no time in his career was he so eloquent. Ruin succeeded his extravagant and blasted life. Richmond Hill was pressed for sale, and brought twenty-five thousand dollars, which was insufficient to pay his debts, and as he was liable to arrest at any time, and as his practice had gone and he was without earning power he was obliged to flee. It was then that he sought Louisiana, soon becoming involved in new trouble. The history of his subsequent life both in America and abroad need not be dwelt upon. He always spoke lightly of the duel, and seemed to be without concern or remorse. He was bitter, and keenly felt the censure of others, and in his diary1 on October 24, 1808, when in Hamburg said:
"I find that among the great number of Americans here and there, all are hostile to A. B. -- all -- what a lot of rascals they must be to make war on one whom they do not know; on one who never did harm or wished harm to a human being. Yet they, perhaps ought not to be blamed, for they are influenced by what they hear. I learn further that A. B. is announced in the Paris papers in a manner in no way auspicious."
Many anecdotes are told of him, illustrating not only his casual feeling in regard to serious things, but what I have just mentioned. It is said that in a letter written when yellow fever was rife in New York, he cynically observed: "We die reasonably fast. Mrs. Jones died last night; but then Mrs. Smith had twins this morning; so the account is even."
Upon one occasion he referred to "my friend Hamilton, whom I shot." Upon another, a foreigner asked, in Burr's hearing, if Hamilton was a gentleman. Burr resented the question and replied with hauteur, Sir, I met him." Upon another he is said to have visited the duelling ground with a friend, and in the words of the latter, "He justified all he had done; nay, applauded it."
This and other statements of the kind are, possibly, exaggerations, or even lies, for vituperation and misrepresentation were active at the time. For over one hundred years few historians have been found who were willing to accord to Burr a single virtue; yet, in spite of certain grave defects of character, there is, after all, much that appeals to the just and fair-minded critic. No one who is conversant with the history of his middle and old age, can help admiring those traits of generosity and a certain tenderness that are shown, especially in his letters to his daughter Theodosia and some others. Doubtless, in a way, he greatly liked Hamilton, so long as the latter did not cross his political path, for in early years they were much together, and Burr was a frequent visitor at Hamilton's house, and upon more than one occasion was the messenger between husband and wife. They had a great deal in sympathy, the same sense of humor, and capacity for witty retort; and the ability to appreciate the amiable weaknesses of others. If such existed, it is a pity that none of their correspondence has been preserved, for it would be the best index of the feeling underneath that might have existed at some time.
While these good traits did not compensate for a great deal that was absolutely vicious, it it not right to invariably speak of Burr as a monster -- even if his moral sense was in many ways defective or even deficient. There is something in the misery of the man during his exile that is very touching, and his life abroad, where he was an Ishmaelite, was filled with bitterness which he endured, meanwhile showing a stubborn courage. His diary is a strange mixture of accounts of dissipation and references to his daughter which betray that, at heart, there was one tender point in his nature. The pages devoted to the account of his wretched and uncomfortable trip to Boston in a slow and dreary packet, after pawning the little gifts for Theodosia and escaping the land sharks with just enough to reach America, throw light upon the character of a man who, no matter what he had done, was proud and self-reliant in his adversity. Oliver1 is most charitable, and in speaking of Burr says: "Two things about him passed the bounds of acting -- his generosity and his affection. He had at all times many creditors, and it cannot be said of him that he was depressed by the weight of his obligations. Strictly he was an immoral citizen, because he flouted the sanctity of contract and gave away upon an impulse what was already hypothecated to others. But at least he did not spend upon himself. . . . He gave because he could not resist appeals, because he could not help giving. . . . His charity was of the heart, spontaneous, promiscuous, and usually misdirected. . . . In his old age the habit amounted to a mania. He fancied himself rich, and gave still more recklessly -- a more amiable and a less common trait in septuagenarians than to fancy themselves poor and hoard. . . . Lovers of Hamilton and of a settled order -- Federalist partisans and outraged Democrats -- have drawn the picture of Burr which is accepted in history books. It is only natural that the shadows have been overblackened."
Burr died in 1836, and his body lies near that of his father and grandfather at Princeton. Hamilton was buried in the churchyard of old Trinity, within a few hundred yards of the site of the first house he occupied when he came to New York, and of Federal Hall, while the graves of Elizabeth Hamilton and himself are really located in the very commercial centre of the United States. Every one who hurries up the great street that extends from the venerable church to the East River can, if he chooses, always see the humble monument which covers all that is left of the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.
After the growth of more than a century, our country, with all its present greatness, calmly weighs the part played by those early patriots who brought it into life. The individual influence of the "Makers of America" is every day showing itself, and as our institutions become more