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 BURR.

BURR.

kQled. As the news spread, it carried a wave of emotion over the states and roused every- where sensations strangely mixed. In New York the CUnton interest, guided by James Cheetham, editor of the American Citizen, seized the mo- ment to destroy Burr's influence forever. Cheet- ham atf ected to tliink the duel a murder, and pro- cured Burr's indictment, which drove him from the state. Charges were invented to support this theory and were even accepted as history. In the south and west, on the other hand, the duel was considered a simple affair of honor, in which Burr appeared to better advantage than his opponent. Burr spent some time with his daughter, who was happily and prosperously married to Mr. Joseph Allston, and was living at her husband's estate in South Carolina, but later he returned to Washington and resumed his duties as vice-president. His re.solution and fortitude stood him in good stead ; the loss of his prestige and popularity did not affect him as it would have done a weaker man, and his active mind had already formulated new courses of action. Failing in his effort to procure from the administration an office suitable to his talents, at the expiration of his presidential term in 1805, he made a journey through the southwest, in the course of which he developed what seems to have been a scheme of empire dependent partly on conquest and partly on the secession of the southwest from the Union. Just before setting out on this journey, he wrote to his son-in-law: " In Xew York I am to be disfranchised, and in New Jersey hanged. Having substantial objec- tions to both. I shall not for the present hazard either, but shall seek another country." "With forty thousand dollars, which Blennerhassett put into his hands for that purpose, he bought four liundred thousand acres of Red River land, with a somewhat doubtful title, as a rendezvous and base of operations, and then proceeded to secure co-operators. He did this so successfully that many men of prominence at Washington, as well as in the southwest, became implicated in the enterprise to a greater or less extent. As nearly as can be judged in the lack of positive knowledge, this was the scheme: Burr was to become ruler of Louisiana under British protec- tion, in which capacity he would give validitj- to the disputed land-title; the western states were to secede from the Union, and join the new government; Spanish possessions to the south- ward were to be conquered ; then the enfeebled Union of the seaboard states would fall to pieces. Burr would get an empire, and Blennerhassett fabulous wealth in return for his forty thousand dollar investment. But before this elaborate programme could be carried out, the American people became so suspicious and alarmed that

President Jefferson ordered Burr's arrest. He was indicted for high treason. His trial, which lasted from March 27 to Sept. 7, 1806, is one of the most remarkable events in American historv. Chief Justice Marshall presided. Wirt, Rodney and Hay took part in the prosecution, and Luther Martin and Edmund Randolph in the defence. The presence and devotion of his daughter, then in the full height of her beauty and intellectual power, awakened much sympathy and interest, and doubtless had an influence in procuring his release. The jury brought in the following carefully worded verdict : " We of the jury say that Aaron Burr is not proved to be guilty under the indictment by a.\ij evidence submitted to us. We, therefore, find him not guilty." Later Burr and the principal conspirators were tried for misdemeanor n fitting out an expedition against Mexico, but were acquitted on technical grounds. Burr went to Europe in 1808, hoping to obtain there the means of making an attack upon Mexico. It was a bootless mission, however, and after four years of disappointment and jirivation he returned to New York, dLsguised and poverty- stricken, to meet the severest blow fortune had yet dealt to him. A few faithful friends had scarcely welcomed him to their midst, when the death of Theodosia's only child was announced to him ; the faithful and grief -stricken daughter hastening to greet her idolized father perished a few months later in a storm off Cape Hatteras. Burr, who attained only moderate success in his practice in New York, after twenty-three years married, in his seventy -eightli year, Madame Jumel, a French woman, a widow of means, but later he separated from her. Burr was the most fascinating and brilliant man of his time. Perhaps no better summary of his character has been made than that of Thomas Jefferson, who called liim " a great man in little things, a small man in great things." He is remembered chiefly for liis adventures and misfortunes. (See Life and Times of Aaron Burr, by James Parton ; Life of Burr by M. L. Davis ; Burr's Eu- 7-opean Diary and The Report of the Trial fur Treason.) He died at Staten Island, N. Y., Sep. 14, 1S86.

BURR, Enoch Fitch, lecturer, was born at Green's Farms, Conn., Oct. 21, 1818; a member of the same family as Aaron Burr. He was fitted for college, and was graduated class orator at Yale in 1839. The next three years he .spent in post-graduate stiulies, including theology, science, higlier mathematics and phj'sical as- tronomy. In 1850 he became pastor of a Congre- gational church in Lyme, Conn. He received the degree of LL.D. from London, and in 1868 the degree of D.D. from Amherst college, and he was chosen lecturer on the scientific evidences