by H. W. Brands
32
Her reference to illness is what he notices. Her low-grade infection persists, sapping her strength. Her doctors in South Carolina puzzle over her condition; the physicians she has visited in New York on her trips there have prescribed treatment that produces temporary relief but no cure.
Burr seeks help in England. “I have taken the best medical advice which can be had in this city, and no part of the world affords so good,” he writes to Joseph Alston. The most distinguished practitioner on conditions like Theo’s—a Dr. Lettsome—says she must come to Britain. “He unites with me in the opinion that the only chance of saving her is a sea voyage, and a total and immediate change of climate and of habit,” Burr tells Alston. “He advises a voyage to England. Something may undoubtedly be hoped from the voyage; much from the climate, to which no part of the United States can bear any comparison; and still more, perhaps, from the enlightened and experienced medical aid which is found here. Dr. Lettsome has performed wonderful cures in analogous cases; the accounts of some of which I have read, and there is, I believe, no man in Europe who inspires so much confidence in female complaints.” Theo will find equal care in no other place. “He promises to unite parental interest and tenderness with his medical skill. I propose to unite with him Dr. Bailey, a man of genius, of profound learning, and of vigorous and intuitive mind. With such aid, and under my direction and control, we may justly hope for all that human means can effect.”
Burr explains to Alston that he has arranged everything his wife will need for the trip. “I have provided for her reception at every port at which she may probably land, and on her arrival here she will be assured of every friendly attention from the mother of Sir George Prevost, and from two other ladies whom I have named to her. In case of any accident to me, she will find a father in that venerable sage and philosopher Jeremy Bentham, of whose literary works you have so often heard me speak with enthusiastic admiration. He is, indeed, the most perfect model that I have seen or imagined of moral and intellectual excellence.” Little Aaron, of course, will accompany his mother and receive similarly superlative attention. “The boy will be educated with the children of General Bentham, brother of the other, and who are incomparably the best educated children I have ever seen, as regards both their talents and their acquirements.”
Burr understands that Alston requires convincing. To send his wife and son across the ocean is no trivial thing. “If there can arise in your mind objections not already removed, they must be, first, the season of the year; second, pecuniary means,” Burr continues. He addresses these objections in turn. “It is true that the season does not promise a pleasant passage, but then, which is more important, it ensures a short one. The dangers of the sea are nothing. The packets are such stanch ships and so well found, that for the last five-and-twenty years there is but a single example of one being lost, and that by an accident which will not probably occur in fifty centuries.”
“As to money,” Burr goes on, “I have transferred over to Theodosia the small sum which had been destined for my own expenses (say four or five hundred guineas); this will pay her passage and expenses to this place, and maintain her in the way I propose she shall live for four or five months.” By then her cure should be complete.
Burr explains that he has done all he can. “I have now discharged my duty,” he tells Alston. “It remains for you to fulfill yours.”
He makes his case to Theo. “In advising you to come here, I have endeavoured to take a view of everything connected with the subject,” he says. “You will, nevertheless, act your discretion. But it is my belief that there is no other chance of your recovery, and I have a strong persuasion that before you were here two months you would be well. It will be a dull day to me on which I shall hear that you are not coming. Yet I repeat that it is you who must finally decide.”
In fact, it is events that decide the matter. “The embargo is not yet raised, nor is there any probability that it will,” she replies. War with Britain, the bête noire of the Republicans, looms. Theo risks being stranded in Europe. “I have been seriously told that it would not be in my power to return home by water, because our coasts would soon be lined with English cruisers.… A voyage to join you at any season, and through any danger, would be a most delightful party of pleasure to me; but it is now impracticable.”
She knows he will be disappointed, so she adds a heartening note: “Console yourself with the most unanswerable objection to this voyage—my health is better. Relief has not yet been obtained, but my strength, spirits and appearance I have very much regained, and I trust that nature will soon effect the rest.” Yet she can’t resist chiding him: “You should not have tantalized me with this proposed voyage. It is quite out of my reach.”
33
The news that she won’t be coming discourages him. So does the lack of response to his western schemes. The British government, on the verge of war with the United States over the seizure of American vessels and other real and perceived insults, will countenance nothing that threatens Spain, an ally. Nor does it want to give the American government, about to be headed by James Madison as Jefferson’s successor, cause for war until Britain is fully ready. The British government warns off Burr’s potential collaborators, leaving him bereft. “In my state of nullity I wish to be forgotten till I can rise to view in a shape worthy of the hopes of my friends,” he writes morosely in January 1809.
He diverts himself with a journey to Scotland. “The time passed at Edinburgh was a continued round of dissipation, dinners, suppers, balls, routs,” he records in a journal he will share with Theo. “Edinburgh is the most hospitable and social place I have been. They meet to amuse and be amused, and they succeed. The Scotch women dance much better than the English, if I may be allowed to judge from the samples which I have seen of the latter. It is in the reel (the Scotch reel) that the lassies are seen to best advantage; their animation and activity exceeding anything that you can imagine—a reel after supper. They bound, spring, twirl, raise their hands, snap the fingers—yet with grace.”
He returns to England only to be told he must leave again. “My presence in this country was thought embarrassing to his majesty’s government,” he writes. He contests the deportation order by the novel strategy, for a Revolutionary War veteran and a former vice president of the United States, of claiming to be a British subject. He points out that the British crown denies the right of alienation; once a British subject, the government holds, always a British subject. He was born a British subject, he observes, and therefore still is a British subject, or ought to be by London’s lights. The argument draws smiles from those who hear it but no assent from the responsible ministries. A foreign alien, he must go.
But go where? Few countries to which the British are willing to send him are willing to allow him entry. “The government would agree to no place but Heligoland, a barren island about sixty miles from the coast of Denmark, now in possession of Great Britain,” he writes Theo. At the last minute, fortune, in the shape of the Swedish minister, steps in and grants him a passport to Sweden.
He finds the Swedes to be a striking people, with curious ways. The women are stunning; he writes appreciatively of finding himself amid “a galaxy of Swedish beauty,” and adds: “I have nowhere seen a greater proportion than at Stockholm.” The people are as honest as the Scandinavian summer days are long. “It is impossible not to love and admire the character of this people,” he tells Theo. “Honesty is not a virtue here; it is a mere habit. Coming from England, where no vigilance can secure you against fraud and theft, it is like passing to another planet to travel in this, where you sleep in security without a latch to your door; where you may send your trunk, without a lock, to any distance, without hazard, though driven by a child, often a little girl, at all hours of night, in their little open chairs. This circumstance, the beauty of their roads, being everywhere like that from New York to Harlem, and the kindness and cheerful good-humour with which you are everywhere receiv
ed, render travelling very pleasant in this country. It is also the cheapest in the world. A horse and chair, with driver, costs less than three cents per English mile, and no toll.”
Yet the Swedes’ openness can be disconcerting. “Do remind me to give you a dissertation on locking doors,” he writes Theo. “Every person, of every sex and grade, comes in without knocking. Plump into your bedroom. They do not seem at all embarrassed, nor think of apologizing at finding you in bed, or dressing, or doing no matter what, but go right on and tell their story as if all were right. If the door be locked and the key outside (they use altogether spring-locks here), no matter; they unlock the door, and in they come. It is vain to desire them to knock; they do not comprehend you, and, if they do, pay no manner of attention to it. It took me six weeks to teach my old Anna not to come in without knocking; and, finally, it was only by appearing to get into a most violent passion, and threatening to blow out her brains, which she had not the least doubt I would do without ceremony. I engage she is the only servant in all Sweden who ever knocks. Notwithstanding all my caution, I have been almost every day disturbed in this way, and once last week was surprised in the most awkward situation imaginable. So, madam, when you come to Svenska, remember to lock the door and to take the key inside.”
He boasts of Theo to his hosts. “Good God!” replies one distinguished interlocutor, a portrait painter to whom he has shown Theo’s image. “Pardon the freedom, but can any man on earth be worthy of that woman? I know how to estimate her. Such a union of delicacy, dignity, sweetness and genius I never saw.… Is she happy?” Burr adds: “He almost shed tears.”
He grumbles at not hearing from her, or anyone else. “Called at the post office. No letters. No doubt my letters are stopped by the British government. ’Tis impossible that every human being can have forgotten me for four months; for my female friends, I would swear. But what remedy? Me voici.”
He contracts a fever. “On getting home at eight, found all my maladies exceedingly increased,” he tells Theo. “A very quick pulse, agitation of nerves, and burning hot, though the weather is quite cold, and I had drank very little wine.” He medicates himself. “Ordered hot water and warm drink, but no relief; though lay in bed, exceedingly restless. Took thirteen drops of laudanum, the greatest dose I ever took; and, finding sleep quite out of the question, got up, dressed and read a long, dull comedie.… About two a.m. a little relieved. Went to bed; slept about four hours and got up well. There prevails in this city a malignant fever, which has carried off persons in two and three days. Having been often in the quarter most infected with this disease, no doubt I had caught it, and I have given you this detail to show how very slightly any such disease can affect me. I disclosed to no one that I was sick. A sick man is a very contemptible animal.”
When a letter from Theo finally arrives, he devours every word. “My boy continues devotedly attached to you,” she says. “His education advances. He reads and speaks French with facility. Reads English well, and begins with Latin this day.” She exudes love and admiration for her distant father. “I witness your extraordinary fortitude with new wonder at every new misfortune. Often, after reflecting on this subject, you appear to me so superior, so elevated above all other men; I contemplate you with such a strange mixture of humility, admiration, reverence, love and pride, that very little superstition would be necessary to make me worship you as a superior being: such enthusiasm does your character excite in me. When I afterward revert to myself, how insignificant do my best qualities appear. My vanity would be greater if I had not been placed so near you; and yet my pride is our relationship. I had rather not live than not be the daughter of such a man.”
34
He ventures to France in the spring of 1810, on the premise that if the British won’t support his project, perhaps their mortal enemies will. But Napoleon and his ministers decide that with Britain and the United States on the brink of war, France should do nothing to upset the American government and divert American enmity from Britain. Burr finds himself stranded in Paris with neither prospects nor income. At first he economizes for the sake of Theo and Aaron. “I never spend a livre that I do not calculate what pretty thing it might have bought for you and Gampillo,” he writes Theo, employing one of his pet names for his grandson (and alternatively for himself). “Hence my economy.” Gradually, though, economy is required for his own sake. He makes light of it. “Did not take my coffee blanc this evening, having no coal; so consoled myself with milk punch. My uncle Stephen lived on milk punch, and, at the age of eighty-six, mounted by the stirrup a very gay horse, and galloped off with me twelve miles without stopping, and was, I thought, less fatigued than I.” A few weeks later: “I allow myself sugar; but, madame, I have dismissed my barber, which is a saving of at least fifteen livres per month.” By October he denies himself heat. “The mornings are already so cold that I shudder at the thoughts of getting out of bed.” He consumes whatever costs least. “Ate a pound of grapes”—it being the harvest season. For a time he rationalizes his one luxury: “Though a man may be a little the poorer for drinking good wine, yet he is, under its influence, much more able to bear poverty.” But then even this has to go, and he is reduced to the cheapest vin de table, with predictable results: “It made me sick and stupid.” The weather grows chillier and so does he. “Home; very cold, and no fire.” He nears naked destitution. “My boots are at the shoemaker’s to be soled. They are done, and I cannot redeem them.” His usual bonhomie begins to flag. “My affairs are quite stagnant, and I have no other prospect but that of starving in Paris.”
He tries to leave France, but the French government won’t let him depart. “Fair promises and civil words have been received, but nothing more,” he tells Theo. He learns that a land scheme in which he has invested comes close to fruition but will finally mature only with his presence in Holland. “If I now had a passport to go to Amsterdam, I would clear for myself ten thousand dollars in a fortnight.” But the passport remains beyond his reach. “Verily, I shall starve.”
He borrows money to pay for food he has already eaten and finds himself as hungry as ever. His penury distracts him, and his distraction nearly lands him in jail. “Rain, snow, and hard wind.… Deliberating on the state of my finances, found that this sans sous state was not only inconvenient but dangerous; for instance this morning I hit a glass window with my umbrella, and had nearly forced it through one of those large panes. In such a case you have only to pay, and there’s an end of it; but, had I broken the pane and not been able to pay for it, I must, infallibly, have been taken before a commissaire de police to abide his judgment.” He resorts to extreme measures. “Casting about for ways and means, not one occurred to me but that of robbing poor little Gampy. I opened his little treasure of coins and medals to see what could be spared, and finally seized one Danish dollar (thaler) of Charles VII and two Swedish thalers of Gustav IV. With these I went off to a changeur, who gave me five francs five sous each.” The wolf remains outside the door, but barely. “Yesterday was cold, and today colder,” he writes on the last day of 1810. “Quite winter. The gutters all froze hard. Put on my flannel waistcoat this morning, as I wear no surtout, for a great many philosophical reasons; principally because I have not got one.”
He scrounges an offer of work. “I am about to undertake the translation from English into French of two octavo volumes for one hundred louis,” he reports to Theo. “It will take me three months hard work. Better than to starve. But the most curious part of the story is that the book in question contains a quantity of abuse and libels on A. Burr.”
35
Theo receives his letters belatedly and imperfectly. He switches ciphers to frustrate American agents and authorities but neglects, in his now-constant struggle to find enough to eat, to send her the new key. “I have worked, and wept, and torn the paper,” she replies, “and thrown myself down in despair, and rose full of some new thought, and tried again to fail again, till my heart is worn out with a constant re
newal of the same scene. Still, however, all your last letters remained unciphered. I continue to make some new attempt now almost daily, but in vain.… I beseech you, resume the old cipher, or in that send me the new key.”
She writes on his behalf to his former friends. “I venture to address you on a subject which it is almost dangerous to mention, and which, in itself, affords me no claim on your attention,” she explains to Albert Gallatin, who as Treasury secretary knows the mind of the Madison administration. “I venture to inquire whether you suppose that my father’s return to this country would be productive of ill consequences to him, or draw on him farther prosecution from any branch of the government.” She asks Gallatin to consider her position and her father’s. “Recollect what are my incitements. Recollect that I have seen my father dashed from the high rank he held in the minds of his countrymen, imprisoned and forced into exile. Must he ever remain thus excommunicated from the participation of domestic enjoyments and the privileges of a citizen, aloof from his accustomed sphere and singled out as a mark for the shafts of calumny? Why should he be thus proscribed and held up in execration? What benefit to the country can possibly accrue from the continuation of this system? Surely it must be evident to the worst enemies of my father that no man situated as he will be could obtain any undue influence, even supposing him desirous of it.”
