e's throw from the site of
the once-glorious house of Richmond Hill.]

The year after the duel he evolved his monstrous and hare-brained plan
of establishing a Southern Republic with New Orleans as Capital and
himself as President. Mexico was in it too. In fact, President
Jefferson himself wrote of the project: "He wanted to overthrow
Congress, corrupt the navy, take the throne of Montezuma and seize New
Orleans.... It is the most extraordinary since the days of Don
Quixote!..."

General Wetmore loyally declares the scheme to have been "a
justifiable enterprise for the conquest of one of the provinces of
Southern America." But no one in the whole world really knows all
about it. The sum of the matter is that he was tried for treason, and
that, though he was acquitted, he was henceforward completely dead
politically. Through all, Theo stood by him, and her husband too. They
went to prison with him, and shared all his humiliation and
disappointment. Affection? Blind, confident adoration? Never was man
born who could win it more completely!

But America as a whole did not care for him any more. Dr. Hosack
loaned him money, and, after his acquittal, he set sail for England,
and let Richmond Hill be sold to John Jacob Astor by his creditors. It
brought only $25,000, which was a small sum compared to what he owed,
so he had another object in staying on the other side of the water: a
quite lively chance of the Debtors' Prison!

Apropos of this, there is one rather human little tale which is
comforting to read, dropped down, as it is, in the middle of so wildly
brilliant a career, so colossally disastrous a destiny.

While Burr was living at Richmond Hill, he was often obliged to take
coach journeys to outside points. One day he was on his way home from
Albany and stopped at a roadhouse at Kingston. While he was eating and
drinking and the horses were being changed, he saw a drawing which
interested him. He asked to see more by the same artist, for he had a
keen appreciation of skill in all lines.

This and the other sketches shown him were the work of a young fellow
called John Vanderlyn, who shortly was summoned to meet the great
Burr. The lad was apprenticed to a wagon-maker, and had absolutely no
prospects nor any hope of cultivating his undoubted talent. Like any
other boy young and poor and in a position so humble as to offer no
opportunity of improvement, he was even afraid of change, and seemed
unwilling to take