Page:The amorous intrigues and adventures of Aaron Burr.pdf/6

 private tutor was engaged for Aaron and his sister, Judge Reeve occupying that station for a considerable time.

When ten years old, Aaron ran away from his guardian, and went to New York for the purpose of going a sea voyage. He engaged himself on board a vessel as cabin-boy. He was pursued by Mr. Edwards, who found him on board; but the young hero was determined not to be taken until he had made terms of peace with his guardian, and ran up the rigging to the top-gallant-mast head, where he remained till he had received a promise that he should not be molested, if he returned home.

In the year 1769, Burr entered Princetown College, where he soon distanced all competitors, and gave ample proofs of an o'ermastering intellect. He was sixteen years of age when he graduated, and received the highest academic honors that the faculty could bestow.

No doubt the pure life led by Burr, under the tutelage of the good and virtuous, contributed much to preserve his intellectual faculties in all their force, and as he was never led into any improper habits, he retained his vigor till he was old enough to go into society, and form attachments for such of the fair sex as pleased his taste.

From the best authority to which we have recourse, we believe that Burr never gratified the sexual passion till he was seventeen years of age.

There was, in the neighborhood of Bethlehem, Connecticut, a girl of eighteen years, named Adelaide King.

Burr, who appears to have had some concern to the subject of religion about the time he left college, and some months afterwards, called upon Rev. Dr. Bellamy, who lived at Bethlehem. This was in the autumn of 1773, and there he first saw Adelaide King.

Adelaide had not had the advantage of a strict or a genteel education. Her father was a man of taste, but he paid little attention to his family, and the mother and child may be said to have run wild, and to have paid little attention to appearances. Perhaps it was for that very reason that Adelaide drew the attention of Aaron Burr. Her total want of affection, united to extreme beauty, both of form and feature, and the most soft and feminine manners, combined with the brusque style of the "Nose" school, interested him exceedingly.

There was some thing so original in a beautiful, tender-hearted girl, expressing brilliant sentiments in the unadorned and unaffected manner of the lower orders, with the occasional use of a slang phrase in musical tones, and coming from the sweetest lips that were ever formed, that Burr listened to the conversation as if it had been the tone of an angel's lyre.

Careless of her dress, she was yet cleanly, and appeared to Burr more engaging in her village bonnet and checked apron, tripping on