cal 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 Kiver 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; neither was he an exception to this rule. He was, at the best, but an idle student; and his zeal for science never carried him beyond a little desultory study of Astronomy and Botany and some absurd experiments in Chemistry. His figure was awkward, his manners were ungracious, and he was so near-sighted that he used to take a servant hunting with him, to show him the game. His credulity and want of worldly knowledge exposed him to the practices of the shrewd frontiers-men among whom he lived. He soon became involved in debt, and at the time of Burr's visit his situation made him a ready volunteer for any enterprise which promised to repair his shattered fortunes. That the enterprise was impracticable, and that he was unfit for it, only made it more attractive to his imaginative and simple mind. The fancy of Wirt has thrown a deceptive romance around the career of Blennerhassett, yet there is enough of truth in the account of the misfortunes which Burr brought upon him and his amiable wife to justify the sympathy with which they have been regarded.
Soon after his arrival at New Orleans Burr seems to have formed bolder designs. From this time we find in his correspondence, and that of his friends, vague hints of some great undertaking. This proved to be a project for an expedition against Mexico, and the establishment there of an Empire which was to include the States west of the Alleghanies; subsidiary to this, and connected with it, was a plan for the colonization of a large tract of land upon the Washita.
It is difficult to believe that a design so absurd can have been entertained by a man of common sense; yet it is certain that it was seriously undertaken by Burr. His conduct in carrying it out furnishes the best measure of his talents and a signal exhibition of his folly and his vices. His high standing, his reputation as a soldier, attracted the vulgar, and brought him into intercourse with the most intelligent people of the Territory. The fascination of his manners, and the skill in the arts of intrigue which long discipline had given him, enabled him to sustain the impression which the prestige of his name everywhere produced. The details of his political conduct could not have been accurately known in a region so remote. The affair with Hamilton had not injured his reputation in communities where such affairs were common and often applauded. The circumstances of the time, to his superficial glance, seemed to be encouraging. A large portion of the country had lately passed under our flag;—many of the inhabitants spoke a foreign language, and retained foreign customs and predilections;—the American settlers were an adventurous race, and eager for an opportunity to indulge their martial spirit;—Mexico was uneasy under the Spanish yoke;—and some indications of a war between the United States and Spain held out a faint hope that the initiatory steps of his enterprise might be taken with the connivance of the gov-
