friend gave him the money. Like the Duke de Bassano, he was perhaps anxious to be rid at any price of the ex-Vice President of the United States.

"And now," Colonel Burr recorded, "I repose, smoking my pipe and contemplating the certainty of escaping from this Country. As to my reception in my own country, so far as depends on the government, if I may judge from the conduct of their agents in every part of Europe, I ought to expect all the efforts of the most implacable malice. This, however, does not give me a moment's uneasiness. I feel myself able to meet and repel them. My private debts are a subject of some little solicitude; but a confidence in my own industry and resources does not permit me to despond, not even to doubt. If there is nothing better to be done, I shall set about making money in every lawful and honorable way. But again, as to political persecution. The incapacity for every purpose of our present rulers, and their total want of energy and firmness, is such that it is impossible that such feeble and corrupt materials can long hold together, or maintain themseves in power or influence. Already there are symptoms of rapid and approaching decay and dissolution."

And as for his Mexican schemes-whether or not he knew that in 1810 revolts against the Spanish rule had broken out in several provinces, including West Florida and Mexico, which the Spaniards ascribed to his influence, and that, already in 1808, General Wilkinson himself had written to Mr. Jefferson that "the scenes which are now passing inspire the liveliest hopes that the emancipation of Mexico and

South America is not distant"-for his own part, Colonel Burr was telling Mr. Bentham that "there is a possibility . that I may mingle person

ally in the affairs of Spanish America. . . . It is also probable that I may be capable of rendering [Miranda] or his countrymen service in the United States, whither I am now about to return, and certainly I should do it with pleasure and zeal."

He did not understand yet that the management of such enterprises had passed forever out of his hands.

6

On March 26, accompanied by Mr. Reeves-the courtesy was to cost the latter another three guineas for a boatman-Colonel Burr drove to Gravesend. The Aurora had sailed with the tide. But they found a wherry, and after a twenty-seven mile journey down the river, in a cold southwesterly wind, the Colonel was finally put aboard his ship. "I shake the dust off my feet," he wrote. "Adieu, John Bull. Insula inhospitabilis, as it was truly called eighteen hundred years ago."

And the Captain-"our two captains, Potter and Nicholls"-feared that there would be war between England and America, but "I have no such apprehensions. I believe that our present administration will not declare war. If the British should hang or roast every American they can catch, and seize all their property, no war would be declared by the United States under present rulers." The war talk was all to influence elections, "but J. Madison and Co. began this game too soon, and I doubt whether

all the tricks they can play off will keep up the farce till the month of May. I treat their war prattle as I should that of a bevy of boarding house misses who should talk of making war; show them a bayonet or a sword, and they run and hide. Now at some future day we will read this over, and see whether I know those folks."

But this time Mr. Jefferson's passion for peace had made war inevitable, and if J. Madison and Co. were to run, it was to be from the battlefield of Bladensburg.

The Aurora sailed, and off the Isle of Wight a boarding party from a British sloop wanted to insist that Mr. "Adolphus Arnot" must be a Frenchman, but permission was finally given to proceed. And now that he had left England once and for all, the Colonel would have liked to put in again, in order to purchase some bread, and lemons, and tobacco-for he had only a handful of segars and there was no tobacco to be had aboard-but the Captains would not consent to it. Captain Potter gave his passenger two ounces, however-"being all he had; an effort of generosity of which I should not have been capable towards an indifferent person"-and they were off across the Western Ocean.

They made an uneventful voyage of it, although for a while it was rough, and Colonel Burr was ill, and "the tossing was so great we didn't attempt to put anything on the table, but eat off the floor." And the steward was "a dirty, negligent, morose rascal as I ever met," until the Captain "beat [him] till he was quite disfigured; also made him strip off his waistcoat, and beat him with a rope's end till

he howled most piteously and promised reformation." Colonel Burr himself was "not known or suspected on board, save by Captain Potter, in confidence. Mr. Arnot is a grave, silent, strange sort of animal.” Mr. Arnot was also letting his whiskers grow.

And on May 4, 1812, they were in sight of Boston Light.

CHAPTER V

SANCTUARY

I

COLONEL BURR remained quietly aboard the Aurora that first night, and the next day, trusting to his whiskers and a wig, he stepped ashore and found lodging in the boardinghouse kept on Cornhill Square by Mrs. Goodrich, a sea captain's widow. The door never opened "but I expect to hear the comer exclaim out Colonel Burr;" but nothing happened, he had not been recognized, the newspapers did not announce his arrival. He notified Samuel Swartwout in New York, and faced the problem of redeeming his baggage from the Custom House.

"Now here occurred a dilemma," he wrote. "Dearborn, the Collector (son of the General) knows me as well as you do, having seen me hundreds of times. . . . For me to go direct to him . . . and demand a permit in the name of Arnot seemed to be an experiment that promised little success, and, in case of discovery, might expose me to serious inconveniences, as the family of Dearborn have been extremely vindictive against me. . On the other