Memoirs of Aaron Burr Part 124

The effect upon Burr of this blow may be imagined by those who have noticed his constant and unceasing anxiety for his grandson, Aaron Burr Alston. In his intercourse, however, with the world, and in his business pursuits, there was a prompt.i.tude and an apparent cheerfulness which seemed to indicate a tranquillity of mind. But not so in his lone and solitary hours. When in the society of a single friend, if an accidental reference was made to the event, the manly tear would be seen slowly stealing down his furrowed cheek, until, as if awakening from a slumber, he would suddenly check those emotions of the heart, and all would again become subdued, calm, dignified.

During this autumn (1812) Theodosia's health continued to be precarious. Deep-settled grief, in addition to her protracted disease, was rapidly wasting her away. She continued to correspond with her father; but at length, in November, it was determined that she should join him in New-York. A few short extracts of letters will unfold and close this melancholy tale.

FROM TIMOTHY GREEN.

Charleston, S. C., December 7, 1812.

I arrived here from New-York on the 28th ult., and on the 29th started for Columbia. Mr. Alston seemed rather hurt that you should conceive it necessary to send a person here, as he or one of his brothers would attend Mrs. Alston to New-York. I told him you had some opinion of my medical talents; that you had learned your daughter was in a low state of health, and required unusual attention, and medical attention on her voyage; that I had torn myself from my family to perform this service for my friend. He said that he was inclined to charter a vessel to take her on. I informed him that I should return to Charleston, where I should remain a day or two, and then proceed to Georgetown (S. C.) and wait his arrival.

Georgetown, S. C., December 22, 1812.

I have engaged a pa.s.sage to New-York for your daughter in a pilot-boat that has been out privateering, but has come in here, and is refitting merely to get to New-York. My only fears are that Governor Alston may think the mode of conveyance too undignified, and object to it; but Mrs. Alston is fully bent on going. You must not be surprised to see her very low, feeble, and emaciated. Her complaint is an almost incessant nervous fever. We shall sail in about eight days.

TIMOTHY GREEN.

FROM JOSEPH ALSTON TO THEODOSIA.

Columbia, S. C., January 15, 1813.

Another mail, and still no letter! I hear, too, rumours of a gale off Cape Hatteras the beginning of the month! The state of my mind is dreadful. Let no man, wretched as he may be, presume to think himself beyond the reach of another blow. I shall count the hours till noon to-morrow. If I do not hear then, there will be no hope till Tuesday.

To feelings like mine, what an interval! May G.o.d grant me one word from you to-morrow. Adieu. All that I have left of heart is yours. All my prayers are for your safety and well-being.

January 19, 1813.

Forebodings! wretched, heart-rending forebodings distract my mind. I may no longer have a wife; and yet my impatient restlessness addresses her a letter. To-morrow will be three weeks since our separation, and not yet one line. Gracious G.o.d! for what am I reserved?

JOSEPH ALSTON.

FROM JOSEPH ALSTON TO COL. BURR.

Columbia, January 19, 1813.

To-morrow will be three weeks since, in obedience to your wishes, Theodosia left me. It is three weeks, and not yet one line from her.

My mind is tortured. I wrote you on the 29th ult., the day before Theo. sailed, that on the next day she would embark in the privateer _Patriot_, a pilot-boat-built schooner, commanded by Captain Overstocks, with an old New-York pilot as sailing-master. The vessel had dismissed her crew, and was returning home with her guns under deck. Her reputed swiftness in sailing inspired such confidence of a voyage of not more than five or six days, that the three weeks without a letter fill me with an unhappiness--a wretchedness I can neither describe nor conquer. Gracious G.o.d! Is my wife, too, taken from me? I do not know why I write, but I feel that I am miserable.

Charleston, January 31, 1813.

A call of business to this place for a few days occasioned your letter of the 20th not to be received till this morning. Not a moment is lost in replying to it. Yet wherefore? You ask of me to relieve your suspense. Alas! it was to you I looked for similar relief. I have written you twice since my letter of December 29. I can add nothing to the information then given. I parted with our Theo. near the bar about noon on Thursday, the last of December. The wind was moderate and fair. She was in the pilot-boat-built schooner Patriot, Captain Overstocks, with an experienced New-York pilot, c.o.o.n, as sailing-master. This vessel, the same which had been sent by government last summer in pursuit of Commodore Rodgers's squadron, had been selected as one which, from her reputed excellence and swiftness in sailing, would ensure a pa.s.sage of not more than five or six days.

From that moment I have heard nothing of the schooner nor my wife. I have been the prey of feelings which you only can imagine. When I turned from the grave of my boy I deemed myself no longer vulnerable.

Misfortune had no more a blow for me. I was wrong. It is true, I no longer feel, I never shall feel as I was wont; but I have been taught that there was still one being in whom I was inexpressibly interested.

I have in vain endeavoured to build upon the hope of long pa.s.sage.

Thirty days are decisive. My wife is _either captured or lost_. What a destiny is mine! and I live under it, engage in business, appear to the world as though all was tranquil, easy. 'Tis so, but it cannot endure. A short time since, and the idea of capture would have been the source of painful, terrible apprehension; it now furnishes me the only ray of comfort, or rather of hope, that I have. Each mail is antic.i.p.ated with impatient, yet fearful and appalling anxiety. Should you hear aught relative to the object of this our common solicitude, do not, I pray, forget me.

JOSEPH ALSTON.

FROM JOSEPH ALSTON.

February 25, 1813.

Your letter of the 10th, my friend, is received. This a.s.surance of my fate was not wanting. Authentic accounts from Bermuda and Na.s.sau, as late as January 30, connected with your letter from New-York of the 28th, had already forced upon me the dreadful conviction that we had no more to hope. Without this victim, too, the desolation would not have been complete. My boy--my wife--gone, both! This, then, is the end of all the hopes we had formed. You may well observe that you feel severed from the human race. She was the last tie that bound us to the species. What have we left? In surviving the 30th of June [1] I thought I could meet all other afflictions with ease, yet I have staggered under this in a manner that I am glad had not a witness.

Your letter of January 28 was not received till February 9. The Oaks, for some months visited only at intervals, when the feelings the world thought gone by were not to be controlled, was the asylum I sought. It was there, in the chamber of my wife, where every thing was disposed as usual; with the clothes, the books, the play-things of my boy around me, that I sustained this second shock, doubled in a manner that I could not account for. My son seemed to have been reanimated, to have been restored to me, and to have just perished again with his mother. It was the loss of both pressing upon me at the same moment.

Should it be my misfortune to live a Century, the 30th of June and the 10th of February are so impressed upon my mind that they will always seem to have just pa.s.sed. I visited the grave of my boy. The little plans we had all three formed rushed upon my memory. Where now was the boy? The mother I cherished with so much pride? I felt like the very spirit of desolation. If it had not been for a kind of stupefaction and confusion of mind which followed, G.o.d knows how I should have borne it. Oh, my friend, if there be such a thing as the sublime of misery, it is for us that it has been reserved.

You are the only person in the world with whom I can commune on this subject; for you are the only person whose feelings can have any community with mine. You knew those we loved. With you, therefore, it will be no weakness to feel their loss. Here, none knew them; none valued them as they deserved. The talents of my boy, his rare elevation of character, his already extensive reputation for so early an age, made his death regretted by the pride of my family; but, though certain of the loss of my not less admirable wife, they seem to consider it like the loss of an ordinary woman. Alas! they know nothing of my heart. They never have known any thing of it. Yet, after all, he is a poor actor who cannot sustain his little hour upon the stage, be his part what it may. But the man who has been deemed worthy of the heart of _Theodosia Burr_, and who has felt what it was to be blessed with such a woman's, will never forget his elevation.

JOSEPH ALSTON.

This distressing correspondence between Colonel Burr and Governor Alston was continued during the year 1813; but the unfortunate Theodosia was never again heard of, except in idle rumours and exaggerated tales of her capture and murder by pirates. These reports, it is believed, were without foundation. The schooner on board which she had taken pa.s.sage probably foundered, and every soul perished in a heavy gale which was experienced along our whole coast a few days after her departure from Georgetown.

Colonel Burr, on his return to the United States, mingled but little in society. He only knew those who first recognised him. In the ordinary conflicts of the political parties of the day he seemed to feel but little interest, and rarely interfered. From them he sought neither honour nor emolument. He pursued his profession, however, with great ardour and some success; but was continually embarra.s.sed, and sometimes experienced great difficulty from the pressure of his old debts. The following extract will afford some general idea of his situation.

TO JOSEPH ALSTON.

New-York, October 16, 1815.

I have found it so difficult to answer that part of your letter which regards myself and my concerns, that it has been deferred, though often in my mind. At some other time I may give you, in detail, a sketch of the sad period which has elapsed since my return. For the present, it will suffice to say that my business affords me a decent support. If I had not been interrupted in the career which I began, I should, before this, have paid all my debts and been at ease.

My old creditors (princ.i.p.ally the holders of the Mexican debts) came upon me last winter with vindictive fury. I was held to bail in large sums, and saw no probability of keeping out of prison for six months.

This danger is still menacing, but not quite so imminent. I shall neither borrow nor receive from any one, not even from you. I have determined not to begin to pay unless I see a prospect of paying all.

A. BURR.

When any great political question agitated the country, such as a presidential election, Mr. Burr seemed to feel it his duty to express his opinion to those whom he supposed confided in his discernment or his patriotism. On these occasions he spake with great freedom and boldness. Many of his letters exhibit all that sagacity and talent for which he was so pre-eminently distinguished. It has been seen by the extract from Blennerha.s.sett's private journal, that he did not complain in 1807 of any act done by General Andrew Jackson. The following will show that he remained under the influence of similar feelings in 1815.

TO GOVERNOR JOSEPH ALSTON.

New-York, November 20, 1815.

A congressional caucus will, in the course of the ensuing month, nominate James Monroe for President of the United States, and will call on all good republicans to support the nomination.

Whether we consider the measure itself, the character and talents of the man, or the state whence he comes, this nomination is equally exceptionable and odious.