Fallen Founder

by Nancy Isenberg

  In Philadelphia, Burr may have gone into hiding, mainly from his creditors. His caution was prudent; his movements were watched closely. Certain newspapers published rumors that he had already initiated a “renovated enterprise under the auspices of a foreign government.” Meanwhile, his relationship with Blennerhassett soured. By the end of November, Blennerhassett informed his wife, “I have broken with Aaron Burr on a writ,” joining the long list of creditors suing the former vice president.4

  Blennerhassett’s anger did not let up. Four years later, he tried to blackmail Joseph Alston, threatening to write a tell-all book if the South Carolinian refused to cover Burr’s obligations. Taking his family to Mississippi Territory, he faced more financial mishaps when his new cotton plantation failed in 1814. He moved to Canada, then to England, only to die in obscurity in 1831. But the Irishman was not the tragic pawn, as Wirt had portrayed him in the Richmond courtroom. Like many others of his generation who had acquired and lost fortunes, he was a romantic, a dreamer, and a frontier entrepreneur. These were the traits that had drawn him to Burr’s expedition in the first place. Yet the two adventurers never saw each other again once they parted ways in 1807.5

  To handle his civil suits, Burr retained the young lawyer Nicholas Biddle. He was the son of his old friend Charles Biddle, and a graduate of Princeton, who had just returned from France, where he was serving as the private secretary to John Armstrong, the U.S. minister. At twenty-one, Biddle was just beginning his distinguished career as a man of letters (he would shortly begin editing the Lewis and Clark journals) and would go on to establish himself as leader of the financial community. In fact, as president of the Bank of United States from 1823 to 1836, Nicholas Biddle would be the second most powerful man in the country after the president. Despite the scandalous repercussions of the conspiracy and treason trial, Charles Biddle and his family had never distanced themselves from Burr. Burr was considered part of their family, having done everything in his power (when he had power) to promote the careers of Biddle’s sons. It was Biddle’s enduring network of personal friendships that now kept Burr out of debtor’s prison.6

  Burr continued to plan his trip to England. His first order of business was to reestablish contact with Charles Williamson, his Scottish agent. In November, he supplied David Meade Randolph, a Federalist he had befriended in Richmond, with a letter of introduction to Williamson. At the same time, he made arrangements for Samuel Swartwout to head to Great Britain before him, and act as his confidential agent. (Though there is no evidence that Williamson and Burr corresponded during Burr’s second trip out west, it seems apparent that Williamson kept abreast of Burr’s activities.) In April 1807, when Williamson learned of Burr’s arrest and trial, he concluded that the filibuster failed because Burr had abandoned his original plans to satisfy an Anglo-American effort to open up Mexico to commerce they could jointly control. Williamson must have believed that Burr had opted instead to work counter to London’s interests.7

  But before long, he learned that Wilkinson had deceived Burr and that Wilkinson had been bribed by the Spanish. Thus Burr did not have to be perceived as an enemy of Great Britain. Actually, Williamson did not know where Burr stood, but in writing to the Lord Justice Clerk, another enthusiastic supporter of filibusters, he assured that Burr would “extricate himself from the present embarrassment.” Given Burr’s “pride and ambition,” he felt certain that the former vice president would rise above his difficulties.8

  So, in spite of the unfavorable reports he had heard, Williamson remained eager to assist Burr in reviving his filibuster. Williamson was there to greet Swartwout when the young associate appeared on his London doorstep in February 1808. Swartwout convinced him that Burr still commanded a following back in America, and that conditions were ripe for action. Both Swartwout and David Randolph told Williamson that many Americans feared a French invasion of Florida and New Orleans. Williamson used this intelligence to press his own plans for an Anglo-American expedition into the Spanish colonies, insisting that England must strike first, before the French swallowed up New Spain. This is how Williamson smoothed the way for Burr’s approach to the British Ministry, well before his friend set foot in England.9

  In January 1808, Burr faced his last legal entanglement arising from his western expedition when he and Blennerhassett were indicted in the United States District Court at Chillicothe, Ohio. Marshall had left open the possibility that the two men could be tried again in Ohio for the misdemeanor crime of planning an invasion of the Spanish colonies. Though the indictment did not hold up, and charges were never pressed, President Jefferson still held out hope. Writing to Senator Edward Tiffin of Ohio, he imagined Burr bent on revenge, selling his talents to any country at war with the United States. The president predicted: “If we have war with Spain, he will become a Spanish General. If with England, he will go to Canada and be employed there. Internal convulsion may be attempted if no game more hopeful offers.” Amid mounting criticism of General Wilkinson—a court-martial was now underway—the president felt more than ever compelled to justify his pursuit of Burr.10

  In April, Burr traveled to New York City. He took the precaution of using an assumed name, a practice he would continue even after his arrival in England. Theodosia came to New York to see her father once more before his voyage. He requested that she assist him with a ruse meant to misdirect any who might be watching him. Her job was to place a notice in the papers that her father had been spotted on his way overland to Canada. Then, on June 9, using the name “H. G. Edwards,” Burr boarded the Clarissa Ann, a packet headed to Nova Scotia, and thence to England. At least one of the thirty-six passengers knew him: Alexander Charles Williamson, the son of his Scottish agent. Their voyage together could hardly have been a coincidence.11

  The ship made a brief stop in Halifax, where Burr collected letters of introduction from Sir George Prevost. Sir George was the youngest son of General Augustine Prevost, with whom Burr had developed a close relationship in the 1780s. As a relative of his late wife, Prevost was more than willing to open doors for Burr in England. He gave Burr a letter to be presented to local British officials, to permit “H. G. Edwards” to proceed without delay to London.12

  The Clarissa Ann docked at Falmouth on July 13, and three days later Burr was in London. Secretary of State Madison was soon apprised of his arrival, when the American minister informed him that the object of Burr’s visit (as far as he had heard) was to gain British support for a renewed assault on Spanish America. Madison may not have even have told President Jefferson of this report, knowing of the president’s exaggerated concern that Burr might lead a foreign army into a war with the United States.13

  “WE WILL REFORM”

  Burr desperately needed as many influential friends as he could win over, who could pull strings to protect him, and help him get around the restrictions he faced as an alien. Charles Williamson, his chief advocate, was not in England at this time. He had been sent to Jamaica on a diplomatic mission. “Your absence is extremely distressing and embarrassing,” Burr wrote to his friend in July, admitting that “it is a contingency against which I had made no provision.” He befriended John Reeves of the British Alien Office, the department concerned with supervising foreign residents. When Burr made his formal declaration to Reeves, as all aliens were required to do, he made the point of dropping the names of some powerful men. “I am known personally to Lord Mulgrave and Mr. Canning, to whom the motives of my visit have been declared. Those reasons have long been known to Lord Melville.” Mulgrave was the first lord of the admiralty, Canning the foreign secretary; Burr had met both men during his first week in London.14

  The political landscape had dramatically changed in England over the past few months. In March, Napoleon had invaded Spain, forcing Charles IV of Spain and his son to abdicate. By June, the French emperor had extended his nation’s hold over Spain as his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, assumed the throne. Burr admitted to Willi
amson that the “new state of things defeats, for the present, the speculations we had proposed, yet it opens new views.” By this he probably meant that the British saw Spain as a French puppet, and so London might support independence movements in Spain’s American colonies. Indeed, Williamson was in Jamaica in order to encourage the British governor that he should open channels of communication with the Cuban government, convincing it to resist Napoleon at all costs. And Williamson imagined that Burr would have a role to play in unfolding events. He suggested that the New Yorker might advise the British cabinet of “what means would most certainly prevent the French in the present crisis from having command of the Floridas and Mexico.” Flattering his friend, Williamson told Burr, “No man can give so valuable information as yourself.”15

  But the moment soon passed. In July, the British government issued a proclamation of peace with the Spanish insurgency because it saw the emergence of Spanish Juntas organizing against Napoleonic rule. As the chief ally of the Spanish Juntas, London was obliged to reverse its course, and resisted the temptation to back any existing scheme to liberate Latin America.16

  If Burr had little success impressing British officials, he did not give up hope. He collected his maps, continued to make his social rounds, and eventually nestled under the wing of his most important new friend, Jeremy Bentham. By August, he was lodging at Bentham’s London residence, known as “the Bird Cage,” and making regular trips to his country estate. Bentham was one of the most innovative English philosophers of his day, and a political radical. Rather than practice law, he became its foremost critic, rejecting abstract understandings in favor of tested principles. He was, like Burr, a rationalist.17

  Burr was already well versed in Bentham’s writings when, in 1803, he read Pierre-Etienne-Louis Dumont’s French translation, Traités de législation civilé et pénale. Dumont was Swiss and a friend of Albert Gallatin’s, which may explain how Burr learned of Bentham in the first place. And Bentham, in fact, knew of Burr’s interest in his work long before they met. An English bookseller had informed him. Burr was Bentham’s first American champion. The English philosopher returned the compliment, adjudging that Burr was “better qualified to pursue my ideas, as well as better disposed for it than any man I have yet met with, or ever expect to meet with.”18

  To say that Burr was enthralled with Bentham is not an exaggeration. He sent Theodosia a bust of the reformer, and convinced her to make a project of translating into French some of his unpublished work. Once, when Bentham left Burr alone in the Bird Cage for a period of weeks, Burr went so far as to climb into his host’s dingy attic and retrieve a number of manuscripts. Writing to Bentham, he described himself as a “coalheaver,” returning downstairs from the chaotic mass of cobwebs and dirt with his precious find. The two men routinely discussed a wide range of social issues, from prison reform and poor relief to international law and democracy. Bentham was a feminist, as Burr was. He defended women’s right to suffrage and divorce, recognizing that women as well as men had an equal claim to happiness. Infanticide and homosexuality were also topics of conversation. When the translator Dumont finally met Burr, he remarked that he was just like Bentham, “always in such a hurry!”19

  No two men could have been better intellectually suited for one another. Bentham was the principal architect of Utilitarianism, which advanced the doctrine that government should serve the “greatest happiness of the greatest number.” As an uncompromising rationalist, he firmly believed that all institutions, laws, or policies had to be based on objective standards. Government legislation and moral principles should be defined scientifically, empirically, rather than by such vague concepts as “natural rights.” Bentham unsparingly attacked Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence as a hodgepodge of “rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.” He believed that human behavior, like the laws of physics, could best be explained by two universal conditions: the forces of pleasure and pain. Calculating human needs, then, was the key to measuring genuine political interests.20

  These ideas appealed to Burr because they substantiated his own intellectual odyssey. As a boy at Princeton, he had become a convert to the Scottish Utilitarian thought of John Witherspoon, absorbing, too, the legal reform ideals of Cesare Beccaria, who loomed large in Bentham’s pantheon. In 1791, as attorney general of New York, Burr had proposed his own Utilitarian reform of criminal law. His attraction to the educational psychology of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Mary Wollstonecraft also made him susceptible to Bentham.21

  At their core, Enlightenment philosophes like Rousseau and Wollstonecraft were behaviorists, believing that social conditions shaped human behavior. For Bentham, as for Burr, government should be organized around the usefulness of its policies, and legislators should strive to act as scientists, discussing laws dispassionately and rising above partisan rancor. So, in many ways, Burr had already practiced Bentham’s ideas. His management of the election of 1800 is a perfect example; at a crucial moment, he orchestrated political victory—not by abusing his opponents or manipulating human passions but by focusing on election strategy as problem solving. Bentham’s philosophy made perfect sense to Burr.

  But Burr also appears to have influenced Bentham. In 1809, when his friendship with Burr had just blossomed, the English philosopher wrote his “Plan for Parliamentary Reform,” calling for universal suffrage, secret ballots, and equal electoral districts. He also made a convincing case for the irrationality of denying women the right to vote. It cannot be absolutely said that Burr alone had convinced him, but it is certainly significant that Bentham’s rallying cry took shape at this time: that English reformers should “look to America” in building their own democracy.22

  Burr was also drawn to Bentham’s radical plan of penitentiary reform, called “the Panopticon.” It was a new style of prison that kept all the inmates under constant surveillance; a central observation tower was placed in the middle of a circular-shaped institution, in which guards watched the prisoners in their cells through transparent walls. The Panopticon grew out of the Enlightenment fantasy that human beings could be remade, and the prison rebuilt as a social laboratory. Bentham saw it as a more humane solution than the current British practice of sending criminals to a penal colony in Australia.23

  Burr wrote to Theodosia that he was “charmed” with the Panopticon, and urged her to press her husband to present the design to the South Carolina legislature, knowing that the state was planning to build a penitentiary. He confidently assured Bentham that “the Panopticon shall be known in America.” Burr’s curiosity about the Panopticon was sparked by the same impulse that had earlier drawn him to the Cayuga Bridge project. Recall that he had overseen the building of military fortifications for New York Harbor. That South Carolina would take this bold step was wishful thinking. His daughter understood southerners much better than her father. “I have not the least expectation that the plan will be adopted,” she wrote to him. “In South Carolina there is less enterprise, less public spirit, than in any other state; and that, Heaven knows, reduces it low enough.” South Carolina was not New York.24

  Burr was also animated by a project that combined Bentham’s reform ideas with his own plans for Latin American liberation. He saw an opportunity to introduce democratic forms of government in Spain because the Juntas had rejected monarchy and Bonapartism. Burr wanted to get Bentham’s writings into the hands of the marqués de Yrujo, who was now in London and a supporter of the Juntas. He hoped that Yrujo would be willing to distribute Bentham’s writings on legislative reform. In a memorandum Burr prepared, he offered an overview of ancient and modern assemblies, highlighting Bentham’s legislative reforms. He insisted that Spain should look to America, not Europe, for its best democratic model. But this utopian reform plan failed, too. Yrujo was no liberal or revolutionary. Burr wrote to Bentham that the “horrors of innovation” scared the Spaniard, and anything “tainted with democratic infection” was “odious and alarming” to
him.25

  In September, Burr enthusiastically declared to Bentham, “by the help of God, and of you, we will reform,” but by October his optimism was waning. He learned that Charles Williamson had died of yellow fever as his ship sailed from Cuba to England. And though he had rekindled an acquaintance with Anthony Merry, Merry could do little for him now. Burr’s disappointments mounted when he learned that his daughter was gravely ill.26

  Theodosia had suffered a growing list of medical ailments since the birth of her son in 1802. In a letter to Dr. William Eustis, she summarized her condition: a partially prolapsed uterus and irregular menstrual periods, accompanied by “offensive” discharges and painful cramps. She had developed rheumatism, and believed that her womb was “obstructed.” But what troubled her most were the mental afflictions. Night and day, she suffered “hysteric fits,” saw flashing lights, heard strange noises, all of which made it impossible for her to think, let alone read a book or carry on an intelligent conversation. There seems little doubt that she was suffering from a severe uterine infection and the same physical ailments that had plagued her mother.27

  Burr was convinced that she must come to England. He had consulted with an English expert on “female complaints,” who offered a cure. But Theodosia was not well enough to make a winter voyage, and refused to travel. She attempted to reassure her father that she was able to tough it out. But Burr was not fooled.28