Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/245

1805. government to accept his terms. If Pitt intended to plunder American commerce and to kidnap American citizens, he must be prepared to do more; and Burr might calculate on seeing the British Tories placed by their own acts in a position where they could not afford to neglect his offers.

Burr stayed a week in Washington; and although the object of his Western journey was so notorious that even the newspapers talked about it, his reception at the White House and at the departments was as cordial as usual. About Dec. 1, 1805, he returned to Philadelphia, where he began the effort to raise from new sources the money which till then he hoped to provide by drafts on the British treasury. The conspirators were driven to extraordinary shifts. Burr undertook the task of drawing men like Blennerhassett into his toils, and induced Dayton to try an experiment, resembling the plot of a comic opera rather than the seriousness of historical drama.

Dec. 5, 1805, as Miranda was leaving New York to entrap Madison, three days after Burr had returned to Philadelphia from his unsatisfactory interview with Merry, the Marquis of Casa Yrujo, as yet innocent of conspiracy, and even flattering himself upon having restored friendly relations with the Government, received a secret visit at his house in Philadelphia from Jonathan Dayton, whom he had known at Washington as the Federalist senator from New Jersey. Dayton, in a mysterious manner, gave him to understand that