Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/287

1806. and the enlistment of recruits,—all of which was promptly undertaken by Jackson, but required more time than could be spared by Burr.

Meanwhile Burr's affairs were going ill in the State of Ohio. Blennerhassett's foolish "Querist," and the more foolish conversation of both Blennerhassett and Burr, combined with the assaults of the "Western World," drew so much attention to the armaments at the island that Mrs. Blennerhassett, left alone while her husband was with Allston and Burr in Kentucky, became alarmed, and thought it necessary to send them a warning. October 20 she wrote to Burr that he could not return with safety. Thinking the note too important to be trusted to the post, and ignorant of Burr's address, she sent her gardener, Peter Taylor, on horseback, through Chillicothe, to Cincinnati, with orders to ask Senator Smith for the address. Taylor reached Cincinnati October 23, after three days of travel, and went, according to his mistress's orders, directly to Senator Smith's house, which was in the same building with his store,—for Smith was a storekeeper and army contractor. The senator was already too deeply compromised with Burr, and his courage had begun to fail. At first he denied knowledge of Burr or Blennerhassett. In Taylor's words, "He allowed he knew nothing of either of them; that I must be mistaken; this was not the place. I said, 'No; this was the right place,—Mr. John Smith, storekeeper, Cincinnati.'" In the end, Smith took him upstairs, and gave him, with every injunction