The rivals: a tale of the times of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton ..

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Chapter I

"A world lay moveless on wide ocean's breast — In sleep profound reposed the mighty West — An age of ages lonely, wild, immense, The giant wonder of Omnipotence.

From sacred hills no fragrant incense rose ; Vast, dreary deserts lowered on trackless snows. And silence reigned, save when the savage yell Waked shuddering echo from her viewless cell."

In the year 1486, a stranger appeared at the splendid court of Ferdinand and Isabella. His garb was that of one whose circumstances did not admit of any display, but his bearing was as lofty as that of the proudest grandee of Spain. Heroes themselves, and tracing back their descent from a long line of heroic ancestors, the nobles of Spain were at that day the haughtiest in Europe ; yet the poor sailor moved among them unawed and unabashed. His patent of nobility was conferred by the Sovereign of sovereigns. Genius stood by at his birth, and crowned the infant in his cradle for immortality. The deep enthusiasm of his character; the vast knowledge he had accumulated ; and, above all, the unmistakable sincerity of his zeal for the church, captivated the pious queen, whose prejudices were soon enlisted in behalf of the Genoese, and whose clear judgment readily comprehended the possibility of success in the mighty undertaking to which he had come to nrge the sovereigns of Aragon and Castile. The king

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turned a colder ear to liis pleading. Granada was still held by the Moors, and the stars of the Orescent still floated above the palace of the Alhambra. Anxious as the queen was to aid in carrying out the conceptions of the great navigator, she could find no sufficient answer to the arguments of her politic husband, who insisted that the safety of their united kingdoms imperatively demanded the reconquest of Granada, and that the most acceptable service they could render to God would be to drive the followers of a false religion from the land they had obtained by violence and desecrated by idolatry. Years went by. The conquest of the Moors had been achieved, and the Prophet was no longer worshiped in Granada. The long contest, however, had exhausted the treasury, and the cautious Ferdinand found in the poverty of the exchequer a new answer to the solicitations of his queen. At length, the high-hearted Isabella, fully alive to the glory of so grand an enterprise, proposed to pledge her jewels to raise the requisite amount. From the mortification of this step she was saved by the generosity of one of her subjects. Santangel advanced the money, and on the 3d day of August, 1492, three little vessels set sail from the insignificant port of Palos, upon a voyage whose stupendous results are even yet undeveloped. On the night of the eleventh of October, land was discovered, and on the twelfth, Christopher Columbus set foot upon an unknown world that had for ages slumbered between the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific.

The brilliant success of the Genoese stimulated other nations, and adventurer after adventurer crossed the seas in search of undiscovered lands. The continent of North America was repeatedly visited by the English, but no permanent settlement was attempted until the year 160t when a colony was established at Jamestown. The next Bettlement was at Plymouth in 1G20, by a band of pilgrims, numbering one hundred and one. Between these emigrants and the Spanish conquerors further south there was a wide difference of character, and a stOl wider difference in the objects sought to be attained. The Spaniard made his way by fire and sword. Impelled by the love of gold, he set his armed heel on the naked breasts of millions; desolated provinces, and annihilated empires without pity or remorse. The English, on the other hand, came as tillers of the soil. Actuated by a sincere and fervent piety, they sought a home where persecution for opinion's sake was unknown, and where they might bend the knee to God, unshackled by these legal restraints, which, to them, seemed little less than blasphemy. In the heart, as well as upon the lips of every one, there abided a holy zeal for the religion they had embraced, and for which they abandoned the comforts and luxuries of civilized life for a dreary abode in the dark wilderness of the West. Night and morning their orisons ascended to Him who holds the winds in the hollow of his hand. Night and morning they repeated the solemn anthem, —

"Be Thou our guard and guide I Forth from the spoiler's synagogue we go, That we may worship where the torrents flow,

And where the whirlwinds ride.''

Peaceful in their inclinations — avaricious neither of gold nor extended dominion, there was yet among them a readiness to repel violence by violence, and a contemptuous disregard of danger in every form, that soon impressed upon their savage neighbors the advantage of cultivating the most friendly relations. Their descendants, born in the wilderness, inherited the virtues of their sires, and acquired from their pursuits a deeper aversion to restraint. Accustomed to liberty, the slightest pressure of a yoke was intolerable, and they instinctively grasped their rifles at the bare mention of an illegal exaction. Such was the origin, and such the character of the men from whom the materials of this story have be.en drawn.

Gradually they grew in numbers and in wealth. Art and science brought their gifts to lay upon the altar of the infant empire, and along the whole belt of the Atlantic coast the dreary forest was metamorphosed into a smiling garden. Hitherto neglected by the mother country, the colonies now became a subject of earnest debate in the Cabinet and Parliament of Britain. The interest thus manifested would have been commendable if it had been based upon a parental solicitude for these young communities, instead of a sordid calculation of pounds, shillings, and pence. The amount of taxation they were able to bear, and the form in which these taxes should be imposed, were the subjects of inquiry. As early as 1'755 a resolution passed the British Parliament, asserting the right to lay stamp-duties in America. The right thus asserted was permitted to slumber until 1765, when it was for the first time embodied in a law. The repeal of this statute in the following year, and its re-enactment during the year afterwards, exhibit a degree of vacillation that must be attributed to a consciousness of wrong. Year after year the disputes between Britain and her colonies became more acrimonious, until the month of April, Iff 5, when the battles of Lexington and Concord put an end to all hope of a peaceful accommodation.

Chapter II

"Amid the ancient forests of a land, Wild, gloomy, vast, magnificently grand."

At the period to wMcli we have brought the reader, there was a slender and delicate boy residing in the family of his brother-in-law, in the town of Litchfield, Connecticut, almost wholly unknown beyond the circle of his immediate friends and relatives, and scarcely appreciated at his just value even by them. Left an orphan while he was yet in his nurse's arms, he became the inheritor of a considerable estate, and the baneful privilege of regulating his conduct according to the bent of his own inclinations. At the early age of sixteen, he graduated at Princeton College, in his native State, and soon afterwards devoted himself to the study of history — particularly those portions which detailed the achievements of the great military commanders who had from time to time played their busy parts upon the theater of the world. Even at that day he foresaw that a period was at hand when his country would need all the knowledge thus acquired, and shaped his studies in accordance with the dictates of patriotism. Too young to take any part in the discussions to which the alarming enactments of the British Parliament gave rise, he yet made himself familiar with all the points of the controversy, and his resolution to peril life and fortune in the cause of the colonists was the result of a deliberate conviction that justice was on their side. The battle of Lexington, followed in less than two months by that of Bunker's Hill, hurried him away to Cambridge, where the

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American army was then encamped. Possessing all the theoretical knowledge necessary to make an accomplished soldier, he was wholly without experience, and the high idea he had formed of the order and discipline essential in an army were grievously shocked by the license of the raw militia, upon whom the colonies chiefly depended to carry them successfully through a bloody contest with the mightiest empire of Europe. "What such troops can accomplish when animated by an ardent love of liberty is even yet a mystery to the mere tactician ; and it is not to be wondered at, that, at a time when regular armies alone decided the fate of nations, a youth like Aaron Burr should have indulged in gloomy forebodings, when forced to witness the idleness, confusion, and dissipation that pervaded every rank of the early Continental troops. Their courage, their energy, and their patriotism he knew to be unquestionable ; but, reasoning from the result of military operations in former times, his heart sickened at the conviction that these high qualities might serve no other purpose than to give a bloodier character to the struggle. So great was his mental disquietude at the total want of subordination and training among the men, that shortly after his arrival in camp he was stretched upon a sick bed, and for the first time in his life suffered for the want of those physical comforts that wealth is generally able to purchase for the invalid.

The career of the soldier is a hard one at best. The. daily drillings, long marches, incessant fatigue duties, and often hunger and thirst, are but a portion of the evils he has to encounter. When the body sinks, as it sometimes must, under these heavy assaults, he is thrown into a hospital, surrounded by a hundred groaning comrades, as if to add to his sufferings, by compelling him to witness the agonies of his friends. When an army is in the field these hospitals are nothing more than large tents, where the men are placed upon beds of blankets, in long rows, through which the surgeon passes once or twice a day, making hasty prescriptions as he goes, that the hospital steward administers or not according to his own convenience. There was enough in this beginning to have damped the ardor of a less enthusiastic patriot; but so far from any wavering in the cause in which he had embarked. Burr seemed only to gather a fresher determination to endure all, and peril all for his country. In a few days he exhibited to his astonished comrades one of those remarkable instances of the mastery of mind over matter — of the mental over the physical man, which sometimes astonishes the disciple of JEsculapius. Tossing on a feverish bed, he overheard a conversation between two of&cers of his acquaintance, from which he gathered the fact that Benedict Arnold was preparing an expedition for the invasion of Canada and the capture of Quebec. The news acted like healing medicine on his debilitated frame, and, rising from his bed, he announced his purpose to join the expedition. Remonstrances were in vain. The commands, and then the entreaties of his uncle and guardian, were alike in vain. All the kindly arguments of friends and relations were answered in a spirit equally kind ; but his determination was unshaken.

"You are not well enough to leave your room," urged his physician.

"I will be to-morrow," was the reply.

He did leave it. By a mere effort of will he shook off disease as a loose garment, and, enfeebled and emaciated as he was, went forth to brave hardships and dangers from which the stoutest frame and the boldest heart might have shrunk without disgrace.

In the early days of the French Revolution, when courier after courier was arriving at Paris with the news of some fortress taken by the enemy or some battle lost, instead of yielding to despondency, the National Assembly resolved "that the armies of France shall win victories." The nations of Europe laughed at the seeming folly of the resolution, but their smiles were soon changed to tears. The soldiery read it at first with astonishment, and then with enthusiasm. They, too, resolved to win victories, and from that day triumph after triumph gilded the banners of France until a whole continent trembled at her frown. So in individual life, more than half our battles for existence are won by courage and determination alone. Many more victims have been destroyed by fear, or rather weakness, than by all the diseases, combined, to which the human system is subject. There is an Eastern story which represents a countryman meeting the Evil Spirit and entering into conversation with him : —

"Where are you going?" asked the countryman.

"I am going to the city," was the reply, "to destroy ten thousand of its inhabitants."

Six months afterwards they again met. The countryman reproached him, saying : —

"Thou lying Spirit, thou didst say thou wert going to the city to destroy ten thousand of its inhabitants, whereas thou didst slay sixty thousand."

" Not so, my friend," was the reply. " I killed my ten thousand only. Fear destroyed the remainder."

The fable was founded upon a deep knowledge of the wonderful organization of man. Hundreds, to whom medical science brought no relief, have risen from the brink of the grave simply because they were determined not to die. Aaron Burr, who had never been blessed with robust health, and who was then suffering from the effects of recent fever, took his place by the side of the rough frontier men, to whom hardship had been a familar companion from in-

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fancy, and the strongest among them was equaled In iron endurance by the stripling boy.

On the twentieth of September, Arnold's command sailed from Newburyport to the mouth of the Kennebec, where they found a number of light batteaux prepared to aid their ascent of the stream. River and forest were alike nnknowB to the desperate adventurers. The hum of commerce had never been heard upon the waters of the one, nor the footprints of civilized man pressed the rich mold that had been gathering for centuries beneath the dark shadows of the other. Stretching far away to the St. Lawrence were thicket and brake ; the stunted undergrowth, and the lofty tree, presented their rough barriers to the advance of the troops, and exacted a heavy toll in toil and suffering from the worn and wearied soldiery. Onward, still onward, through snow and ice; through the dense shadows that the noonday sun had never brightened, that patriot band pressed upon their desperate errand. After a time the natural difficulties of a march through the piercing sleet and the pathless forest were increased by another and a mightier foe. Gaunt hunger brought its troops of gnawing demons, to wither the strength and crush the spirit that danger and fatigue had failed to conquer. Boat after boat, containing the provisions and ammunition of the little army, was lost among the unknown rapids and dangerous obstructions of the stream. Hitherto the men had marched along the bank, drawing occasional supplies from the boats, but they had now reached a point where it was necessary to strike into the forest ; and, as they were destitute of a transportation train, the little provision that was left was abandoned. The presence of so large a body frightened the game to more distant haunts. The cold and the snow had driven the feathered tribe to their sheltered nests, and silence, deep and dread, brooded 0T<;r the

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gloomy wilderness. A few dogs had accompanied their masters on the expedition. A few reptiles were discovered on the march. This was their loathsome food, and when it was exhausted, other expedients were resorted to. Amid all these trials, the boy-volunteer, who had been raised in the lap of luxury, accustomed to the most delicate fare and to pillows of the softest down, bore up with a degree of cheerful firmness which was long afterwards the subject of wondering comment among his surviving comrades.

"Come," he said on one occasion to Matthias Ogden, afterwards a colonel in the revolutionary army, "come. Mat, to my camp-fire to-night and partake of my supper." Supposing that he had really something to eat, Ogden gladly accepted the invitation, and, at the appointed time, was punctual in his attendance. He found Burr engaged in boiling something in an old tin bucket, over a huge wood fire, which, on inspection, turned out to be the top of one of his boots. "Let us eat," he remarked, in a cheerful tone, when he judged the cooking process had been sufficiently prolonged to extract whatever of substance the tough leather contained. "We have both partaken of more savory suppers, but no French cook will ever invent a seasoning for his soup to equal the relish that starvation gives to this filthy slop."

On another, occasion, while trudging along by the side of a sturdy backwoodsman, cheering and encouraging the men, who were drooping under the weight of privations whose termination they could not see, he observed the eyes of the soldier following his movements with wondering astonishment.

"How does it happen, Mr. Burr," at length he said, "that you are the most cheerful man among us, when a few days ago I would have sworn that ten such striplings as you are would have perished if called upon to endure one-half I can undergo 7"

"You would have been right, Crosby, in one respect at least. If we were required to dig trenches, throw up breast-works, or perform any other duty demanding the exercise of physical strength, I should sink from exhaustion before you would begin to feel the effects of fatigue. From early boyhood I accustomed myself to long and tiresome walks, and believing that it would facilitate the acquisition of knowledge, I adopted and rigidly adhered to the rule of living on the smallest possible quantity of food ; so that the ills we are now suffering are precisely those I am best fitted to bear. Let me add, too, that there is a great deal in a firm resolution to drive away every approach to despondency. Try it. I am sure the happiest effects will follow."

"I have tried it," was the reply, "and it does not ease the pangs of hunger."

That night Crosby complained of great drowsiness, and, as soon as the fire was lighted, stretched himself on his blanket before the cheerful blaze. There was nothing to eat, and Burr soon followed his example. Sleep, the sweet sleep which is almost always the reward of toil and temperance, fell upon him. No fearful dream disturbed his repose. No nightmare warned him that man's most dreaded foe was crouching by his side. The morning reveille roused him from his long repose, and he shuddered to find his arm encircling a lifeless corpse. The strong man had passed away. The sinewy frame had withered at the touch of hunger ; and his boy-comrade, dragging the cold body a little ways off, spread his blanket over it, heaped upon that a mound of snow and ice, and left him to his cold and lonely sleep in the gloomy woods.

Thus day after day rolled off, until, at the end of a little more than seven weeks, the gaunt and famine-stricken remnant of that gallant troop caught sight of the battlements

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of Quebec. They had performed a march unparalleled in the annals of the world. One-half of their number had perished by the way, and the hollow cheeks and sunken eyes of the remainder told a terrible tale of suffering no pen is adequate to record.

In sight of Quebec, Arnold made a careful inspection of his command, and even that daring leader, who rushed to battle as the tiger rushes to its bloody banquet, was forced to abandon the idea of an immediate assault upon the enemy's works with the spectral forms about him. To communicate with General Montgomery, and obtain his co-operation, was the only course. It would be honor enough for that remnant of an army, originally only eleven hundred strong, to maintain its position until succor arrived. I

To open a communication with Montgomery, it was necessary that the agent selected for that purpose should traverse one hundred and twenty miles of a territory peopled by foes whose vigilance was aroused, and whose fears were excited to the utmost by the appearance of a hostile army from a wilderness hitherto deemed impassable. Aaron Burr was selected by his commander as the one best fitted for the task. Heretofore he had given unmistakable evidence of courage, firmness, and endurance. Now he was called upon for the exercise of higher qualities — selfcomposure, tact, skill, and sagacity ; these, and these alone, could avail him. Disguising himself in the coarse robes of , a Catholic priest, he went directly to a convent of the order of St. Francis, and, knocking at the gates, demanded admittance and shelter from the peltings of the pitiless storm that was raging without. The shades of night had fallen upon the earth ; the air was filled with flakes of snow ; and this, together with the cowl drawn closely about his head, effectually concealed his features from the prying gaze of the servitors who answered his summons at the gate. Whatever may be said of the Catholic clergy in other respects, it is certain that the duties of hospitality are among the last they have ever been known to neglect. The doors of their religious houses, in all ages and in all countries, have been open to the weary and heavy laden. Nowhere and at no time have hunger and suffering appealed to them in vain. The young priest, as he was supposed to be, was ushered to the private room of the Superior, and all the convent could supply of refreshments was ordered for his use, before a question was asked as to his name, his business, or his destination. After the grateTul meal was concluded, and the attendants had left the apartment, the Superior for the first time manifested a desire to learn something more of his guest than that he was a tired and a hungry man.

"You are very young, sir," he said, in a tone of inquiry, "to have taken holy orders."

"It is a secret I purpose to confide to your keeping; and I do so the more cheerfully from having been taught long ago that he who trusts to the honor of a Catholic priest is as safe as if his words were only breathed to the mountain rock."

His gaze rested upon the features of the monk so intensely, while speaking, that it seemed as if he had power to unvail the very thoughts within his bosom. The good father felt the influence of that glance that in after years, on the battle-field, at the bar, and in the fierce partisan conflicts that followed the Revolution, never failed to awe an enemy or to cheer a friend. Large, dark, and lustrous, there was no passion that eye could not express, no mood it could not subdue. When he chose, it was soft and melting as that of the cooing dove. When angry passions stirred his soul, it flashed with a lightning glare, before which the boldest quailed. No secret was safe; no cunning was proof against its magical power. Men's minds were to him an open book, wherein he read whatever he wished to learn ; and craft and hypocrisy, with all their manifold arts, tried in vain to bewilder or deceive him. The priest instinctively drew the hood over his face, for none of us like to find that another is becoming too familiar with our secret thoughts.

"Ton have," he answered, "been taught aright, my son. All human errors, nay, all human crimes, save only that of sacrUege, may find a safe depository in the humblest servant of our holy church. Yet I do not understand how, this can be of any present interest to you. Your looks belie you greatly, if you have sinned so deeply as to doubt of forgiveness."

"My crime, father, is not against divine, but against human law. I am a soldier, not a priest. A traitor to the English crown, and a sworn foe to its government. It rests with you to determine how soon I may become a victim to its tyranny. If you aid me, I hope to accomplish a great mission. If you refuse, that mission may be terminated by a halter."

The Superior was a Frenchman, and therefore a hereditary enemy to England. He was a Catholic, and therefore felt bound to wage an eternal war agaiist the power that had dealt such terrible blows at his church. He was a man, and the genuine enthusiasm which sparkled in every feature of Burr's face won its way to his heart, and from that hour the young adventurer had a friend ho misfortune could drive from his side. Resting his head upon his hand, it was several minutes before the monk made any response to the frank communication he had received.

"I will serve you," at length he said, "to the extent of my ability. But to render that service effectual, you must trust me fully. Half confidences are almost always danger-

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ous, and tbe parties to them not unfrequently find thcm- Belves unintentionally playing at cross purposes."

" Such is my own judgment, father ; and if you will give me your attention for one half-hour, you shall know all."

Burr then rapidly recounted, the causes which led to the American Revolution ; described the scene at Lexington, and the battle of Bunker Hill. In words of fire he related the daring scheme that Arnold had formed of penetrating the wilderness, and storming the heights of Quebec, at a season of the year when the extreme cold would prevent any reinforcements from reaching the garrison. The dangers and miseries over which the American force had thus far triumphed were concisely stated, and he ended by informing his astonished auditor that he was charged with a verbal message to Montgomery, without whose co-operation success was impossible and all that had been accomplished would be worse than profitless.

It was a scene worthy the pencil of one of the great Italian masters. The venerable priest, his form bent and his locks whitened by the frosts of seventy winters, leaning his elbows upon the table and listening in rapt attention to the boy orator and soldier, while he gave voice to a people's wrongs, and proclaimed their unalterable purpose to conquer, or perish in the attempt. The varied play of his features gave evidence of the mingled feelings which were struggling within him. The film of age passed from his eye, and when the narrative ended, he struck his hand upon the table with uncanonical energy and exclaimed, —

"You will conquer, my son I Such men are ever victors. A people animated by the love of liberty, and endowed with the courage and energy you have already exhibited, require little training to become invincible. The colonies are lost to Britain."

" I rejoice, father, to hear you speak so hopefully of our cause. To the over-wise and the fearful it looks dark enough. Do I trespass on forbidden ground by inquiring if you have always been a priest ?"

" No. In my youth I bore arms in a cause less holy than yours. The wild excitement of battle, the gloom of defeat, and the fierce joy of victory, have been experienced in turn ; and none of them are entirely forgotten, though years of penitence and prayer have done much to blot out their footprints. But it avails not to recur to such things now. By morning I will find a messenger who shall bear your tidings to General Montgomery."

" Pardon me, reverend sir, I must be that messenger myself"

" You ! Why if you could elude the British scouts, who will be sure to be on the watch to intercept any communication between the two American commanders, you could not bear the fatigue and exposure that must be undergone ; and if you attempt it, your slight frame will wither before half the distance is accomplished."

"Ton forget that I have just traversed five times that distance through an unpeopled wilderness, and may well consider the journey before me as a pleasure trip in comparison. Remember, too, that my honor as a soldier is involved. I have no right to transfer to another a duty assigned to me. Whether he failed or succeeded, men would call me coward, if they did not name me traitor. It was not for such a purpose that I sought your convent. Only give me the information you possess of the country, the woods, and the people, and I shall go on my way with a light heart and a grateful memory of your kindness."

Father Pierre made no immediate answer. He was absorbed in thought. His lips moved, but no sound escaped them. The furrows on his brow deepened, and it was evident that his eye took in no object distinctly. His reverie lasted so long that Burr began to be doubtful and impatient. He felt greatly relieved when at last the old man said, —