ginia against Burr, that he was compelled to receive men of known hostility in selecting his jurors, and we venture to say that a more prejudiced jury never pronounced upon a prisoner at the bar. When some objection was made to a proposed candidate, he tauntingly observed, that a sufficient ground for his rejection might be found in his name, which was Hamilton. The remark was conceived in a spirit of illiberality and malice, and would never have escaped the lips of a man of any magnanimity or honor. No change of countenance betrayed the terrible recollection which must at that moment have rushed upon the mind of Burr;- he merely rejected the candidate, and proceeded to complete the impanelling. After much difficulty, it was finished. Sixty witnesses were examined, and the evidence was sifted on both sides with extraordinary diligence and acumen.

It was now midsummer, and the court suffered extremely from the heat of a Southern climate. Burr was a man of great physical strength, and, after studying and arranging his defence until near daylight, would snatch a few hours of repose, and appear at the bar fresh and vigorous, giving no indication of the midnight's toil. For the sake of expedition, he proposed that the court should sit for ten consecutive hours daily. The judge and prosecuting officers shrank from testing their powers of endurance with the iron frame and inflexible will of the accused, and after some discussion they compounded for seven. Yet Burr seems to have found time for other pursuits. Blennerhassett remarks in his journal: "The vivacity of Burr's wit and the exercise of his proper talents, now constantly solicited here in public and private exhibition, while they display his powers and address at the levee and the bar, must engross more time than he can spare from the demands of other gratifications, while they display him to the eager eyes of the multitude like a favorite gladiator measuring over the arena of his fame with firm step and manly grace, the pledges of easy victory."

At one stage of the proceedings, Burr rose and stated that he had no desire at the present exigency to derange the affairs of government by demanding the presence of its officers, but that papers known to be in the hands of Mr. Jefferson must

be forthcoming, or he should certainly issue process of attachment, to compel the attendance of the President himself. Such a concession on the part of Jefferson would have been the last resort. Every expedient would have been tried before he would have allowed himself to mount the witness stand and be stretched upon Burr's inquisitorial rack. That legal anatomist would have laid his subject on the dissecting-board, and, with keen scalpel and steady hand, every ingenious method of torture would have been applied, until Jefferson would have wished himself a heretic, in the more tender clutches of a Romish inquisitor. The prosecution was driven by the potent enginery of executive influence. When we remember the private relations existing between the two men, it is clear that Jefferson manifested an unbecoming zeal. The author of the immortal protest for the rights of nations stooped to an ignoble part. The conduct of Burr throughout the trial was commendable in the highest degree. His reputation was ruined, but his life was at stake, and he might yet save himself the final degradation of the gibbet. He abstained from all personality, and entreated his counsel to do likewise; he was respectful to the august tribunal before which he was arraigned; to his accusers he was even courtly, and his bearing was in all respects worthy of a better cause and a nobler man.

Generals Eaton and Jackson were present as witnesses, to the former of whom Burr had hinted at the dissolution of the Confederacy. Eaton left the grand jury in rage and tears, protesting that his evidence had been probed, sifted, and handled as though he were a villain. Wilkinson had also been summoned, and when he made his appearance in the court-room his bearing is said to have been dignified and commanding, whilst Burr's usually placid countenance manifested a haughty contempt upon being confronted with his perfidious accomplice. Wilkinson was sent in to the jury, where perjury was clearly proved against him. He had altered the celebrated hieroglyphic letter from Burr, deciphered it, and transmitted a translation to the jury, upon oath that it was an exact counterpart of the original. The forgery was detected, and the guilty man forced to make an acknowledgment of his shame.

It would be irrelevant for us to enter into the minute details of the trial in the limited space of a review article; but there was one brilliant episode in the imposing drama which is deserving of especial mention. The government had engaged the services of William Wirt, second to no lawyer of that time, in a State fruitful in splendid legal talents. A motion was made by the counsel of Burr to exclude certain evidence, upon the ground of Burr's absence from Blennerhassett's Island during the assemblage of the conspirators, thereby endeavoring to thrust Blennerhassett into the foreground as the principal. Upon this motion Wirt rose to speak. The skill of the accomplished rhetorician was made to embellish the learning of the fine jurist and the elegant scholar. The flowers of his exuberant fancy served to conceal the solid strength of his argument, and obstructed the march of his logical deductions. His diction was perhaps too ornate for the occasion, and he manifested an impassioned vehemence that strongly savored of personal hate, though such a feeling was altogether inconsistent with the high-toned magnanimity of Wirt. The secret of his unusual fire is to be found in his thorough conviction of Burr's guilt, and, as it was justly remarked of Burke, his reason was carried away and made redhot by the impulse of an ardent sensibility. In opening, he characterized the measure as a bold and original stroke in the noble science of defence, indicating the hand of a master, but highly dangerous to the administration of impartial justice, and sanctioned by no precedent in the annals of equity. Its legality was handled in his peculiar rapid and felicitous manner, but he was not fully himself until he approached the miserable attempt to shield the principal behind the mere instrument and accessory. In language of Isocratean elegance he depicted the island paradise of the unfortunate Irishman, and invested a wild spot in the Western backwoods with the sunset colorings of romance and poetry. Seldom had his audience listened to such a display of eloquence, and it would have been difficult for them to believe that the glowing pictures existed chiefly in the vivid imagination of the orator. All who listened to his oration, (for it possessed little compactness or unity as an argument,) bore witness

to the exquisite grace and the passionate volubility of its flow.

The motion was allowed by the Chief Justice, and the jury consulted upon the admitted evidence, and agreed upon the following verdict: "We, of the jury, say that Aaron Burr is not proved to be guilty under this indictment, by any evidence submitted to us. We therefore find him 'Not guilty."" Burr protested that it was an unusual and improper verdict. The judge allowed it to be recorded "Not guilty." The court then took up the indictment for misdemeanor. The prosecution, from the insufficiency of their evidence, moved a discharge of the jury, and the dismissal of the case; but Burr, now elated by success and confident of victory, insisted upon a verdict. The judge decided for the accused, and the jury, after a short consultation, pronounced a concise and unqualified verdict of " Not guilty."

Burr left the court-room an acquitted and a ruined man. The collateral evidence, decided to be inadmissible to the jury until the overt act of treason was proved by at least two responsible witnesses, was quite sufficient to prove him guilty of high misdemeanor. The verdict on the charge of treason clearly showed that they were satisfied of his criminality, but could not convict him under their instructions. Under the English constitution, where meditated treason is a capital crime, Burr would have suffered the highest penalty of the law. He was ordered to give bail for his attendance in Ohio to answer to the charge of misdemeanor, which he did; but the case was never brought up for trial. +

The miserable man, completely ostracized in his native country, sought an asylum in Europe; but the mark of Cain was on him, and he found himself an outcast and an alien in the land of his forefathers. After wandering four years over Western Europe, he applied for passports to return; but they were refused by the United States officials, one of whom had assisted in the prosecution at Richmond. Burr submitted to the outrage with characteristic equanimity, and some time afterwards found means to return without their sanction.

When he arrived in New York, he was unnoticed. He commenced practising law; but with little success, for public

confidence in him was destroyed, and men shrank from contact with him as from a leper. Henry Clay, his former advocate, had now become convinced of his guilt, and refused his proffered hand in the Supreme Court. He earned a bare subsistence by his profession. Even at this time, for his private life no terms of censure can be too strong. It was that of a heartless and profligate libertine.

It is pleasing to turn from so repulsive a picture, and contemplate the noble youth of 1776, flushed with collegiate honors, the hero of Quebec, greeted upon his return with the unanimous "All hail!" of his admiring countrymen, and like a vigorous athlete, with sinewy limbs and elastic tread, entering the arena of life in which he gave the fairest promise to enact a glorious, an immortal part.

At this time he lost his daughter, an only child, who had married Mr. Allston, and removed with him to South Carolina. She is said to have been a remarkable woman, possessing, in addition to the strong practical sense of her father, that bewitching grace and gentleness which is the peculiar gift of her sex. Upon her father's return from Europe, she embarked for New York on the Patriot, which was never heard from after leaving Charleston, and is supposed to have been lost in a storm, or possibly captured by the pirates which at that time infested the South Atlantic main. All the ordinary consolations of age were denied to Burr. He had no family in which he could seek for happiness and a refuge from public disgrace; the men of his own generation had nearly passed away, covered with honors and grateful remembrance; and he was to survive them, clouded in ignominy and shame. At last, in 1836, he died, and for years there was over his ashes not an epitaph, which is accorded to the obscure, not even a tombstone, which is the privilege of the stranger.

When we consider the fundamental and recognized political axiom, that the best government is that which secures the largest amount of happiness to a people, it becomes a point of reasonable conjecture whether the success of Burr's enterprise would not have materially benefited Mexico, though there can be little doubt that his government would have been that of an autocrat, a military despotism. His administra

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