Memoirs of Aaron Burr, vol 2 | Page 4

June, 18O8; arrives in London on the 16th of July; makes various unsuccessful efforts to induce the British ministry to aid him in his enterprise against South America; receives great attention from Jeremy Bentham; continues his correspondence with Bentham after his return to the United States; visits Edinburgh; experiences great courtesy; introduced to M'Kenzie and Walter Scott; returns to London; the ministers become suspicious of him; his papers are seized, and his person taken into custody for two days, when he is released, but ordered to quit the kingdom; leaves England in a packet for Gottenburgh; travels through Sweden, Germany, &c.; Bourrienne's (French minister at Hamburgh) account of Burr, and Burr's account of Bourrienne; arrives in Paris on the 16th of February, 1810; endeavours to induce Napoleon to aid him in his contemplated expedition, but is unsuccessful; asks a passport to leave France, and is refused; presents a spirited memorial to the emperor on the subject; Russell, charg�� d'affaires, and M'Rae, United States consul at Paris, refuse him the ordinary protection or passport of an American citizen; in July, 1811, obtains permission from the emperor to leave France; sails from Amsterdam on the 20th of September; is captured next day by an English frigate, and carried into Yarmouth; remains in England from the 9th of October, 1811, until the 6th of March, 1812; arrives in New-York, via Boston, on the 8th of June, after an absence of four years

CHAPTER XXI.
Colonel Burr, on his return to New-York in 1811, resumes the practice of law; prejudices against him; kindness of Colonel Troup; letter from Joseph Alston to Burr, announcing the death of Aaron Burr Alston; effect upon Burr; Theodosia's health precarious; Timothy Greene despatched to bring her to New-York; letter from Greene; letter from Greene, stating that he is to sail for New-York in a few days, on board a schooner with Theodosia; letter from Alston to Theodosia, expressing apprehensions for her safety; from Alston to Burr on the same subject; from Alston to Burr, abandoning all hope of his wife's safety; Theodosia supposed to have perished in a gale of wind early in January, 1813; from Burr to Alston in relation to his private affairs; Burr expresses his opinions on great, but not on minor political questions; letter from Burr to Alston, denouncing the nomination of Monroe for president, and recommending General Jackson; Alston replies, concurring in sentiment with Burr, but ill health prevents his acting; Alston's death; letter from William A. Alston to Burr, explanatory of his late brother's will so far as Burr is interested; from Theodosia to her husband, at a moment when she supposes that death is approaching; Burr's continued zeal in favour of the South American States; letter from General Toledo to Colonel Burr in 1816, soliciting him to take command of the Mexican forces; Burr commissioned by the Republic of Venezuela in 1819; Burr's pursuits after his return from Europe; superintends the education of the Misses Eden; his pecuniary situation; state of his health; paralytic; manner of receiving strangers; restive and impatient at the close of his life; death; conveyed to Princeton for interment; an account of his funeral; proceedings of the Cliosophic Society

MEMOIRS OF AARON BURR.

CHAPTER I.
Colonel Burr's study of the law [1] has been already briefly noticed. He brought to that study a classic education as complete as could, at that time, be acquired in our country; and to this was added a knowledge of the world, perhaps nowhere better taught than in the camp, as well as a firmness and hardihood of character which military life usually confers, and which is indispensable to the success of the forensic lawyer. He was connected in the family circle with _two[2] eminent jurists, who were at hand to stimulate his young ambition, and to pour, in an almost perpetual stream, legal knowledge into his mind, by conversation and by epistolary correspondence. The time he spent in his studies preparatory to his admission would be considered short at the present day; but (to use the language of another) "it is to be recollected that at that time there were no voluminous treatises upon the mere routine of practice to be committed to memory, without adding a single legal principle or useful idea to the mind, and which only teach the law student, as has been said of the art of the rhetorician, 'how to name his tools.' Burr, fortunately for his future professional eminence, was not destined to graze upon this barren moor. He spent his clerkship in reading and abstracting, with pen in hand, Coke and the elementary writers, instead of Sellon and Tidd; and learnt law as a science, and not as a mechanical art."
On the other hand, it has been said "that Colonel Burr was not a deep-read lawyer; that he showed himself