d retired students like Jeremy Bentham. The former, a few
years before his death, related to an American gentleman, that Burr, on
his arrival in Paris, in 1810, sent to him and requested an interview.
The French statesman could not well refuse to receive an American of
such distinction, with whom he was personally acquainted, and by whom
he had formerly been hospitably entertained, and told the gentleman
who brought the message,--"Say to Col. Burr, that I will receive him
to-morrow; but tell him also, that Gen. Hamilton's likeness always hangs
over my mantel." Burr did not call upon him. Talleyrand directed that
after his death the miniature should be sent to Hamilton's descendants,
with some newspaper scraps relating to him, which he had thrust into the
lining. When Burr was in England, he became intimate with Bentham. The
latter, in his "Memoirs and Correspondence," makes a brief allusion to
the acquaintance, in which the following passage occurs: "Burr gave me
an account of his duel with Hamilton. He was sure of being able to kill
him: _so I thought it little better than a murder_."

Previously to his retirement from the Vice-Presidency, in March, 1805,
Burr had formed the design of seeking a home in the Southwest. Little
more than a year before, Louisiana had been annexed, and then offered
a wide field to an ambitious man. Encouraged by some acquaintances, he
projected various political and financial speculations. In April, he
repaired to Pittsburg, and started upon a journey down the Ohio and
the Mississippi. On the way, curiosity led him to the house of Herman
Blennerhassett, and he thus accidentally made the acquaintance of a
man whose name has become historic by its association with his own.
Blennerhassett was an Irishman by birth; he had inherited a considerable
fortune, and was a man of education. Beguiled by the belief that in
the retirement of the American forests he would find the solitude most
congenial to the pursuit of his favorite studies, he purchased an island
in the Ohio River near the mouth of the Little Kanawha. He expended most
of his property in building a house and adorning his grounds. The house
was a plain wooden structure; and the shrubbery, in its best estate,
could hardly have excited the envy of Shenstone. Men of strong character
are not dependent upon certain conditions of climate and quiet for the
ability to accomplish their purposes. But Blennerhassett was not a man
of strong character;