by Gore Vidal
Halleck has a silly grin, the result of an under-slung jaw; but glittering, watchful, intelligent eyes. “Tell me exactly what it was like to taste a love-app … a tomato. How does it really taste?”
“An acid flavour,” I said. “You must stew it first. Then put a good deal of sugar on it. Or syrup.”
Halleck shuddered. “Not I! On second thought I shall forgo the experiment. After all, I have a young man of genius who will eat my love-apples for me in the pages of the Evening Post.” Again the foolish but amiable grin. “I wish I could propose you for membership in our club. It is called the Ugly Club, and celebrates ugliness in all things—including tomatoes—but I’m afraid you lack the first qualification for membership. But come see me anyway. Any time.”
Then he proceeded to the dining-room at the back while I went into the tap-room where I found Sam Swartwout standing at the circular bar which is supposed to be typical of English taverns. He was surrounded by a number of men, all playing the toady to him because not only is he the President’s friend, but as collector of the port of New York he is the most important federal officer in the state.
“Come and sit down, Charlie!” Swartwout threw a heavy arm about my shoulder. “No girl to bring me?”
“No, Sir. She—the one who was to come—didn’t … couldn’t come.”
“Good! We’ll have time for company later even if I’m not what I was, though I’m still better than the rest!” He steered me to a table and sat me down in a chair like a doll.
“Terrapin!” he shouted to a waiter who brought it to us in the time it would take most New York waiters to tell me that it was not possible to get terrapin in New York on any day except Midsummer’s Eve. I hate terrapin but ate as he commanded, drank as he commanded; felt duller and duller. He, on the other hand, is enlivened by drink.
I tried to get him to talk of the past, but like the Colonel (and Mr. Davis) he thinks only of the future. Obviously the business of history is for the young alone. “Texas! That’s the place. That’s where you ought to go. Get out of New York. Away from soft, weak city-folk!” With a forkful of terrapin he indicated his cronies at the bar. (I must write a piece about the degenerative effect of city life on our vigorous American stock.)
“It was the Colonel, bless him, who got me onto Texas.”
“His own Texas schemes were hardly a success …”
“Ahead of the times! That should be on his tombstone. Aaron Burr always saw the future first. Yet never profitted by it. But he improves. That German settler scheme was only a couple of years premature. Now, in a matter of months”—the hoarse voice dropped beneath that of the men at the bar—“Texas is going to break away from Mexico and the President is involved.”
As he talked, I was suddenly transported back to a time when men like Burr plotted for empires. But then Swartwout is as much a relic of that era as Burr or Jackson. Swartwout is now involved in something called the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company. The attorney for the company is a former governor of Tennessee—a protégé of Jackson named Houston who broke with his wife, resigned the governorship, went to live among Indians (and took to drink). Now he is in Texas where he is plotting, so Swartwout says, to liberate that province from Mexico with the secret connivance of Jackson. “And that’s what they talked about, Colonel Burr and the President, when they met here for the first time since the treason trial thirty years ago.”
Inadvertently, I started doing shorthand with my fork on the scarred table; hope I am getting it all straight now, three hours later—with a headache, and much else on my mind.
Jackson’s last visit to New York was June 12, 1833. A fortnight later Colonel Burr married Madame Jumel. I now understand why he needed Madame’s money to forward his Texas schemes: President Jackson had told him things that others did not know.
“Ah, it was a sweet business, getting the Colonel into the President’s suite at the American Hotel. I had to get the manager—old Boardman—to take us in the back way and up the servants’ stairs.”
Without being told, a waiter set in front of us a huge platter of pork ringlets and sauerkraut. Both Swartwout and I ate as though starving—or Dutch, which we are.
“Well, it was touch-and-go in the corridor where the people wanting jobs was crowded but, finally, I got the Colonel into a bedroom on the same floor, and a secretary was told that someone special was there for the President, and a minute later Old Hickory himself came limping in. ‘By the Eternal, Colonel Burr, I never thought to see you again on this earth—or in Heaven.’
“The Colonel was tickled by that. ‘Well, Mr. President, if you get to Heaven it will only be in answer to my daily prayers.’
“The President laughed so hard he had to sit down … very shaky … he was—is—not long for this world, poor old man. ‘Now,’ he says, ‘I want to talk to you about Texas.’
“ ‘The way we used to talk,’ says Colonel Burr, ‘in the old days?’
“Well, General Jackson curled that short mean upper lip of his back like a horse. ‘Damnit, Colonel, you almost lost me the election, you and your rascalities!’
“But the Colonel was cool as could be. ‘Lucky thing,’ he says, ‘that your opponent Mr. Clay was also a friend of mine.’
“ ‘Yes, Sir, that shut ’em up. By the Eternal, I won’t rest easy until I have shot Henry Clay and hanged John C. Calhoun!’ Then the President turns to me. ‘Sam, you go in the other room and have a glass of Madeira. But only one while I talk to the man I still admire the most in all the union.’ So I wait in the next room for maybe a half-hour. Then I’m called back in and the President has tears in his eyes. He says good-bye to the Colonel who says ‘Farewell’ to him. When we were out on the street, I asked the Colonel what they’d talked about but all he’d say was ‘Texas.’ ”
As Swartwout ordered us an entire goose, Gulian C. Verplanck walked by our table. Bowed briefly to Swartwout, and moved on. I don’t suppose he remembers meeting me. Swartwout told me that Verplanck was married to the daughter of Fenno who edited the Gazetteer of the United States for Hamilton. They do stick together, our rulers.
Swartwout can think of nothing but Texas and the money that is to be made there. He told me how not long ago Jackson sent Houston into the territory to reconnoitre. “Because Sam Houston’s got the same itch to be an emperor Colonel Burr had but I doubt if Old Hickory will let him get that far. The President wants Texas for the United States. And a lot more. Oh, he’s sly, old Jackson. Here everybody’s trying to get him to annex Texas, and he won’t lift a finger. Keeps saying how he’s got to abide by his treaty with Mexico. And he will. But do you know why? It’s a precious plot, let me tell you. ‘Sam,’ he says to me one day, ‘Texas is going to be independent in a year or two.’ ‘With our help?’ Well, he lets that one pass. ‘But I don’t want ’em in the union right away.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Well, suppose they was independent from Mexico. Suppose they was just another harmless little republic. And suppose they had trouble figuring out where their western boundary was because in that part of the world it could be anywheres. Now suppose this harmless little republic says their land goes all the way to the Pacific. Why not? And suppose they lay claim to the Californias and maybe to the fishing rights of the northwest and maybe to a harbour or two in the Pacific. Why, the Mexicans would just laugh, wouldn’t they? And they’d tell that harmless little Texas republic to go to Hell because there’s nothing a handful of Texans can do about kicking the Mexicans out of California.’ ”
A waiter offered Swartwout a section of venison pie. “With the compliments of the cook, Sir.”
“Thank him. Thank him.” Swartwout divided the section and with greasy fingers we ate the pie which tasted of cinnamon. Mouth full, Swartwout revealed Jackson’s plot. A harmless little republic of Texas would lay claim to the Pacific Coast of our continent. After a decent interval, that republic would join the United States which would then claim all of Spanish California, “Giving us more territory than Jefferson ever did, that
treacherous bastard! Oh, if I was your age, your age!” Apparently everyone wants to be my age except me.
Finally, unable to eat or drink more, Swartwout sat back in his chair and wanted to know exactly what I was doing “with this thing you’re writing about the Colonel.”
“Just that. His life.”
“I hear it’s really going to be a life of Matty Van Buren.”
I said nothing; waited.
Slowly one large red hand dried the full red lips of goose-fat; then the hand was in its turn dried on the top of the table which began to shine. “You know, Matty Van tried to stop me from being collector of the port. He’s a damned bad little fellow, and don’t you forget it. But the real thing is,” he looked thoughtful; belched softly, “we don’t want the Colonel hurt, now do we?”
I shook my head, somewhat surprised at Swartwout’s delicacy: he seems all push and bluster and false friendliness. “Well, now I think there’s a way round a problem which must be bothering you, too.” I tried to look impassive the way the Colonel does. But from the sudden heat in the tips of my ears I knew that they were now all afire and pink as a rabbit’s.
Swartwout belched again, and tucked his heavy chin swag inside the tall starched collar. “I got a fair idea of what Reginald Gower is paying you. And I know somebody who will give you twice as much.”
“But I’ve … I’ve made an agreement.”
“Break it.”
“I’ve taken money.”
“Pay it back.”
“But what’s the point? The Colonel’s involvement will be the same.”
“Not if what you’ve written is taken and put inside of a book which someone else is writing.”
“But we’re still exactly where we were. The Colonel will think that I wrote someone else’s book.”
“He might if this was just another pamphlet written by Mr. Anonymous. But this is going to be a great big book by a very famous man whose very famous name will be all over the front, and nobody will ever connect you with him.”
“Who?”
“I’ll arrange for you to meet him.” Although a man without secrets (as opposed to a man of many conspiracies), Swartwout enjoyed mystifying me. “He’s coming to town soon, with his publisher. He’s from Philadelphia—the publisher, that is.”
At this point cronies joined the table and I knew it was time to go. Before I did, at my host’s request, I wrote out for him Mrs. Townsend’s address.
“Haven’t seen that charming creature since … well, since she set up house.”
I thanked Swartwout, and departed. Passing Verplanck’s table, I recognised a number of writers and bookish lawyers. I wished that I had been of their company.
When I got home I found Helen vomitting. When she stopped, she told me that she was going to have a baby.
It is now four in the morning, and I cannot sleep. I sit and write and rewrite these notes, and stare at the dress dummy (progress has been made on one puffed sleeve), and wonder what is to become of Helen—me—the child.
Two
EARLY THIS MORNING it snowed, and Broadway is now covered with a thick white powder. Sleighs crowd the streets. Everyone is red-faced. My ears burn all the time when I am inside; freeze when I’m out.
Shortly after noon, I arrived at the Colonel’s boarding-house where I found Jane McManus sitting beside the Colonel and holding his hand. Unembarrassed, she rose. “I must go, Colonel.”
“As you like, dear girl.” Odd to think that anyone could find this plump woman a girl, dear or otherwise. She promised to visit him soon again, and left.
“Poor child is still much shaken by Madame’s raid on our happy nest.”
The Colonel looks to be in good form, though he complains of the cold in a room so hot that my ears felt scorched. When I told him that I had dined with Swartwout, he indicated a thick folder of papers in the table beside his sofa. “Sam enters our story now. He was an attractive young man—like all the Swartwouts. Good-hearted to a fault …”
I was surprised at my own alertness, considering that I did not sleep at all last night. Unlike Helen who slept like a child and awakened this morning so sunny and pleased with everything that I did not have the heart to say a word to her about the trouble we are in. Yet she has not once mentioned marriage. I don’t begin to understand her. I suppose that is why I gave her, impulsively, the only thing I have of value, Vanderlyn’s miniature of my mother on a gold chain. She was thrilled; and put it around her neck.
Memoirs of Aaron Burr–Nineteen
IN THE FIRST WEEK of August 1806, I set out for the west expecting never to return. I had made arrangements with several hundred ardent young men from the best of American families to rendezvous with me the first of November at Marietta on the Ohio River.
Wilkinson had promised me a war with Spain as soon as I gave him the word. Before leaving Philadelphia, I sent Wilkinson that word in a ciphered letter to be delivered by Sam Swartwout and Peter Ogden, Dayton’s nephew and the son of my old friend and comrade at Quebec.
Since this letter was the principal evidence brought against me at my trial for treason, I ought now to produce it. But the original is long-since lost or destroyed by Wilkinson who then proceeded to fashion quite a different document in order to incriminate me and exonerate himself. He took my letter and added a number of his own windy phrases. Fortunately for me, he bungled the job. He tried but failed to erase my first sentence, “Your letter, postmarked 13th May, is received.” This was a serious error because at first he pretended that he knew nothing of the “plot” until my letter. Despite his alterations, the letter established two things damaging to him: we shared a cipher, and he had written to me three months earlier.
What did I actually write Wilkinson? I told him that our recruits would rendezvous November 1 on the Mississippi. On November 15 we would descend the river in light boats. At the Spanish outpost of Baton Rouge we would decide whether to seize it or to pass on. If possible, I would have liked to take Baton Rouge simply to hearten Jackson and my other supporters who could not bear the thought of the Dons so insolently lodged on their river.
I also reported that my agents (those three Jesuits at New Orleans) had assured me that the people of the country to which we were going would rally to me if I swore to defend their religion (an oath I had already taken in the presence of the Bishop of New Orleans). I said that Wilkinson would be second-in-command only to me, that he could draw on me for money, that the business would be accomplished in three weeks. I assured him that we had British naval protection—which was not true. I ended by saying that further instructions would be given him by Sam Swartwout whom I presented (somewhat insincerely) as a dazzled admirer of the Washington of the West.
Those further instructions were very simple: create an incident on the Sabine River. This should have been an easy thing to do because the previous year the Spanish had crossed the Sabine and occupied Bayou Pierre and Nona, two outposts on American soil. This insolence drove even Jefferson to action. In February of 1806, he directed the War Department to remove the Spanish troops. But Wilkinson ignored the Secretary of War, and the Spanish remained where they were. I assumed Wilkinson was waiting to coordinate his movements with mine.
In June, the President directly ordered Wilkinson to leave St. Louis and take personal command of our forces on the Sabine and drive out the Spanish. Yet at the time of my letter (late July), Wilkinson had not stirred from St. Louis, and everyone at Washington was of the opinion that Jefferson would soon remove his dilatory commander.
I told Dayton to write Wilkinson to warn him that he would soon be replaced. I thought that this would stir our commander to action; he would now have no choice but to seek a new world. Instead, I fear, Dayton’s warning convinced Wilkinson that he must do something to restore himself to Jefferson’s favour. That something was to betray me.
This, then, was the background to my letter. Needless to say, I did not mention Mexico by name nor did I propose that Wilkinson provoke a
war with Spain. I assumed that this would happen as soon as he obeyed the orders of his other commander-in-chief.
In my letter I said what I believed to be true: that in three weeks the place to which we were going would be ours. At my trial the prosecution sought to interpret this to mean New Orleans not Mexico. Considering the support I had in that city (and with the aid, as I then thought, of the commanding general of the American army), New Orleans would have been ours not in three weeks but in three hours. My letter referred only to Mexico.
By the middle of August, I was at Pittsburgh. It was here that I made the error of dining with Colonel George Morgan, a vain foolish man whose intelligence had not improved with age. I had come to his house not to see him but to recruit his three lively sons. In the course of dinner, I made a number of cheerful remarks about Jefferson, indicating a lack of admiration for that chieftain—but no animus. When the Colonel complained of the deterioration of the American army and the encroachment of the Dons, I said, “But that is Mr. Jefferson’s policy. Why, he has so weakened our military establishment that you and I with two hundred men could toss President and Congress into the Potomac.” Never joke with an old and addled man; particularly one who has for many years been trying to get the government to assign to him a disputed tract of Indiana land. Inspired by righteous greed, Colonel Morgan decided to warn a number of local worthies of my dark plan for drowning Mr. Jefferson. He also wrote my intended victim in the most emphatic, if incoherent terms.
Shortly after my arrival at Pittsburgh, I received a letter from Wilkinson (who had not yet got mine). After a good deal of the usual bombast, he declared “I am ready.” All things conspired, it seemed, for our success.
I took it as a good omen that Theodosia’s health (injured by the Carolina weather) had so improved that she was able to join us on the Ohio River.
At Blennerhassett’s Island I finally met the legendary islander himself. Near-sighted to the point of blindness, a formidable talker, an inadequate listener, a constant dreamer, this splendid eccentric was positively deranged at the thought of obtaining at least the marquisate of Vera Cruz, not to mention my embassy to London where he intended to pay off ancient scores. I soothed him; fed the flame.