Part 7

As the cold weather approached, it became necessary for Mr. P. to remove southward. It was a weary journey over the Alleghanies into Ohio, but it had to be performed. Every arrangement of companionship, and about conveyance, resting-places, &c., was made to lessen the fatigue to the utmost; but we all dreaded it for him. The party was to touch at Providence, Rhode Island, where the steamboat would wait a quarter of an hour. I was in Providence, and, of course, went down to the boat to greet them. Mr. P. saw me from a distance, and ran ashore, and let down the steps of the carriage with an alacrity which filled me with joy and hope. He was not nearly so thin as when I last saw him, and his countenance was more radiant than ever. "I knew we should see you," said he, as he led me on board to his wife. She, too, was smiling. They were not in mourning. Like some other persons in America who disapprove of wearing mourning, they had the courage to break through the custom. It would, indeed, have been inconsistent with the conviction which was animating them all this time--the conviction that the whole disposal of us is wise, and right, and kind--to have made an external profession that anything that befell them was to be lamented. I could not but observe the contrast between their countenances and that of their maidservant, whose heart was doubtless aching at having to go back without the child. The mother's feelings were anything but deadened. The cheerfulness and the heart's mourning existed together. Tears trembled in her eyes, and her voice faltered more than once; but then came the bright smile again, and an intimation, given almost in a spirit of gayety, that it was easy to bear anything while _he_ was always so strong in spirit and so happy.

This was the last I saw of them. Their travelling companions wrote cheerlessly of his want of strength, and of the suffering the long journey caused him. They were taken into the house of a kind friend at Cincinnati, where there was a room fitted up with green for the sake of Mrs. P.'s eyes, and every arrangement made in a similar spirit of consideration. But it would not do; there was yet to be no rest for the invalid. The excitement of being among his flock, while unable to do anything in their service, was injurious to him. He was sent down the river to New-Orleans, and his wife was not allowed to accompany him. The reasons were sufficient, but the separation at a time when he was nearly as anxious about her health as she about his was a dreadful trial. I heard of it, and wrote him a long letter to amuse him, desiring him not to exert himself to answer it. After a while, however, he did so, and I shall never part with that letter. He spoke briefly of himself and his affairs, but I saw the whole state of his mind in the little he did say. He found himself in no respect better; in many much worse. He often felt that he was going down the dark valley, and longed intensely for the voices of his home to cheer him on his way. But, still, his happiest conviction was the uppermost. He knew that all things were ordered well, and he had no cares. He wrote more copiously of other things: of his voyage down the great river, of the state of mind and manners amid the influences of slavery, which had converted his judgment and his sympathies to the abolition cause; and of the generous kindness of his people, the full extent of which he might never have known but for his present sickness. This letter left me little hope of his recovery; yet even here the spirit of cheerfulness, predominant through the whole, was irresistible, and it left me less anxious for them than before.

After this I wandered about for some months, out of reach of any of the P.'s connexions, and could only procure general accounts of his being better. Just before I sailed I received from Mr. P. a letter full of good news, as calmly cheerful in its tone as any written in the depths of his adversity. He had ascended the river with the first warmth of spring; was so much better as to be allowed to preach once on the Sunday, and to be about to undertake it twice; and was now writing beside the cradle of his newborn daughter, whose mother sent me word that they were all well and happy.

The power of a faith like theirs goes forth in various directions to work many wonders. It not only fortifies the minds of sufferers, but modifies the circumstances themselves from which they suffer, bracing the nerves in sickness, and equalizing the emotions in sorrow; it practically asserts the supremacy of the real over the apparent, and the high over the low; and, among other kindly operations, refreshes the spirit of the stranger with a revelation of true kindred in a foreign land: for this faith is the fundamental quality in the brotherhood of the race.

THE NATURAL BRIDGE.

"Come on, sir; here's the place: stand still. How fearful And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!"

SHAKSPEARE.

"Desperate now All farther course; yon beetling brow, In craggy nakedness sublime, What heart or foot shall dare to climb!"

SCOTT.

The shrewd Yankee driver of the "extra exclusive return stage," which contained four out of six of our travelling-party in Virginia, was jocose about the approach to the Natural Bridge. Mr. L. and I were on horseback, and the driver of the stage called after us when we were "going ahead," to warn us that we should get over the bridge without knowing it if we went first. We, of course, determined to avoid looking so foolish as we should do if we passed the Natural Bridge--the little spot deemed important enough to be put in capital letters in maps of the American Union--without knowing it. Heads were popped out of the stage window to shout the warning after us; and the jokes really seemed so extremely insulting, that we were disposed to push on, and get our sight of Jefferson's great wonder before our fellow-travellers came up. For five miles we kept out of sight of the stage; but at this point there was a parting of the roads, and we could see no possible means of learning which we were to follow. We were obliged to wait in the shade till the distant driver's whip pointed out the right-hand road to us. We were now not far from the object of our expectations. We agreed that we felt very quiet about it; that we were conscious of little of the veneration which the very idea of Niagara inspires. The intensity of force, combined with repose, is the charm of Niagara. No form of rock, however grand in itself or however beautifully surrounded, can produce anything like the same impression. Experience proved that we were right.

At a mile from the bridge the road turns off through a wood. While the stage rolled and jolted along the extremely bad road, Mr. L. and I went prying about the whole area of the wood, poking our horses' noses into every thicket and between any two pieces of rock, that we might be sure not to miss our object, the driver smiling after us whenever he could spare attention from his own not very easy task of getting his charge along. With all my attention I could see no precipice, and was concluding to follow the road without more vagaries, when Mr. L., who was a little in advance, waved his whip as he stood beside his horse, and said, "Here is the bridge!" I then perceived that we were nearly over it, the piled rocks on either hand forming a barrier which prevents a careless eye from perceiving the ravine which it spans. I turned to the side of the road, and rose in my stirrup to look over; but I found it would not do. I went on to the inn, deposited my horse, and returned on foot to the bridge.

With all my efforts I could not look down steadily into what seemed the bottomless abyss of foliage and shadow. From every point of the bridge I tried, and all in vain. I was heated and extremely hungry, and much vexed at my own weakness. The only way was to go down and look up; though where the bottom could be was past my imagining, the view from the top seeming to be of foliage below foliage for ever.

The way to the glen is through a field opposite the inn, and down a steep, rough, rocky path, which leads under the bridge and a few yards beyond it. I think the finest view of all is from this path, just before reaching the bridge. The irregular arch of rock, spanning a chasm of 160 feet in height, and from sixty to ninety in width, is exquisitely tinted with every shade of gray and brown; while trees encroach from the sides and overhang from the top, between which and the arch there is an additional depth of fifty-six feet. It was now early in July; the trees were in their brightest and thickest foliage; and the tall beeches under the arch contrasted their verdure with the gray rock, and received the gilding of the sunshine as it slanted into the ravine, glittering in the drip from the arch, and in the splashing and tumbling waters of Cedar Creek, which ran by our feet. Swallows were flying about under the arch. What others of their tribe can boast of such a home?

We crossed and recrossed the creek on stepping-stones, searching out every spot to which any tradition belonged. Under the arch, thirty feet from the water, the lower part of the letters G. W. may be seen carved in the rock. When Washington was a young man, he climbed up hither, to leave this record of his visit. There are other inscriptions of the same kind, and above them a board, on which are painted the names of two persons, who have thought it worth while thus to immortalize their feat of climbing highest. But their glory was but transient after all. They have been outstripped by a traveller whose achievement will probably never be rivalled, for he would not have accomplished it if he could by any means have declined the task. Never was a wonderful deed more involuntarily performed. There is no disparagement to the gentleman in saying this: it is only absolving him from the charge of foolhardiness.

This young man, named Blacklock, accompanied by two friends, visited the Natural Bridge, and, being seized with the ambition appropriate to the place, of writing his name highest, climbed the rock opposite to the part selected by Washington, and carved his initials. Others had perhaps seen what Mr. Blacklock overlooked, that it was a place easy to ascend, but from which it is impossible to come down. He was forty feet or more from the path; his footing was precarious; he was weary with holding on while carving his name, and his head began to swim when he saw the impossibility of getting down again. He called to his companions that his only chance was to climb up upon the bridge without hesitation or delay. They saw this, and with anguish agreed between themselves that the chance was a very bare one. They cheered him, and advised him to look neither up nor down. On he went, slanting upward from under the arch, creeping round a projection on which no foothold is visible from below, and then disappearing in a recess filled up with foliage. Long and long they waited, watching for motion, and listening for crashing among the trees. He must have been now 150 feet above them. At length their eyes were so strained that they could see no more, and they had almost lost all hope. There was little doubt that he had fallen while behind the trees, where his body would never be found. They went up to try the chance of looking for him from above. They found him lying insensible on the bridge. He could just remember reaching the top, when he immediately fainted. One would like to know whether the accident left him a coward in respect of climbing, or whether it strengthened his confidence in his nerves.

The guide showed us a small cedar, which projected from a shelf of the rock about two hundred feet above our heads, and along whose stem a young lady climbed several feet, so as to court destruction in a very vain and foolish manner. If the support had failed, as might reasonably have been expected, her immortality of reputation would not have been of an enviable kind.

We remained in the ravine till we were all exhausted with hunger, but we had to wait for dinner still another hour after arriving at the inn. By way of passing the time, one gentleman of our party fainted, and had to be laid along on the floor; which circumstance, I fancy, rather accelerated the announcement of our meal. The moment it was over I hastened to the bridge, and was pleased to find that, being no longer fatigued and hungry, I could look into the abyss with perfect ease. I lay down on the rocks, and studied the aspect of the ravine in its afternoon lights and shadows from five different points of view. While thus engaged I was called to see a handsome copper-headed snake, but it had gained its hole before I could reach the spot. We ladies so much preferred the view of the bridge from the glen to the view of the glen from the bridge, that we went down for another hour before departing. It looked most beautiful. The sunshine was slowly withdrawing from under the arch, and leaving us in the shadows of evening, while all was glowing like noon in the region to which we looked up from our lowly seats, the stepping-stones in the midst of the gushing creek.

The Natural Bridge is nearly in the centre of Virginia, and about half way between Fincastle and Lexington, which are about thirty-seven miles apart. The main central road of Virginia runs over the bridge, so that no excuse is left for travellers who neglect to visit this work, framed by the strong hand of Nature,

"By wondrous art Pontifical, a ridge of pendant rock Over the vex'd abyss,"

vexed, not by the tumults of chaos, but by the screams of caverned birds, the battles of snakes with their prey, and the chafing of waters against opposing rocks.

COLONEL BURR.

"His extraordinary plans and expectations for himself might be of such a nature as to depend on other persons for their accomplishment, and might, therefore, be as extravagant as if other persons alone had been their object."

--FOSTER'S _Essays_.

The romance of political adventure is generally found to flourish in the regions of despotism; and it seems a matter of course that there can be no room for conspiracy in a democratic republic, where each man is a member of the government, and means are provided for the expression of every kind of political opinion and desire. Yet the United States can exhibit a case of conspiracy and a political adventurer such as might rejoice the souls of the lovers of romance. Scattered notices of Colonel Aaron Burr and of his supposed schemes are before the English public, but no connected history which might be depended upon appeared during his life. He died last year, and has left no relations; so that no reason now exists why everything that can be learned about him should not be made known.

In 1795, Aaron Burr had attained to eminence at the New-York Bar. He was about the same age as Alexander Hamilton, who was born in 1757, and their professional reputation and practice were about equal. Hamilton was the leader of the federal party. He was, in countenance, eminently handsome, in manner engaging, in temper amiable and affectionate, in eloquence both persuasive and commanding; and his mind was so comprehensive, and his powers of application and execution so great, as to cause him to be considered by the federal party the greatest man their country has produced. Burr was of democratic politics; he had a fiercely ambitious temper, which he hid under a gentle and seductive manner. He was usually so quiet and sedate that he might have been thought indifferent but for the expression of his piercing black eyes. His face was otherwise plain, and his figure and gait were stooping and ungraceful. He assumed great authority of manner upon occasion. His speaking at the bar was brief and to the purpose. His most remarkable characteristic seems to have been his power of concealment. He not only carried on a conspiracy before the nation's eyes which they to this day cannot more or less understand, but lived long years with the tremendous secret in his breast, and has gone down to the grave without affording any solution of the mystery. It may be doubted whether, in all the long private conversations he had with individuals, he ever committed himself, otherwise than apparently, to anybody. He seems to have been understood by Hamilton, however, from the beginning, and Hamilton never concealed his opinion that Burr was an ambitious and dangerous man.

Jefferson put a generous trust in Burr, and for many years they were intimate correspondents. It is very touching to read, after all that has since happened, such letters as the following, written shortly after the two men had been rival candidates for the presidentship, at a time of unexampled party excitement:--

"TO COLONEL BURR.

"Washington, February 1, 1801.

"Dear Sir--It was to be expected that the enemy would endeavour to sow tares between us, that they might divide us and our friends. Every consideration satisfies me that you will be on your guard against this, as I assure you I am strongly. I hear of one stratagem so imposing and so base, that it is proper I should notice it to you. Mr. Munford, who is here, says he saw at New-York before he left it an original letter of mine to Judge Breckinridge, in which are sentiments highly injurious to you. He knows my handwriting, and did not doubt that to be genuine. I enclose you a copy, taken from a press copy of the only letter I ever wrote to Judge Breckinridge in my life: the press copy itself has been shown to several of our mutual friends here. Of consequence, the letter seen by Mr. Munford must be a forgery; and, if it contains a sentiment unfriendly or disrespectful to you, I affirm it solemnly to be a forgery, as also if it varies from the copy enclosed. With the common trash of slander I should not think of troubling you; but the forgery of one's handwriting is too imposing to be neglected. A mutual knowledge of each other furnishes us with the best test of the contrivances which will be practised by the enemies of both.

"Accept assurances of my high respect and esteem.

"TH. JEFFERSON."

In the presidential election of 1800 there were four candidates, Jefferson, Burr, John Adams, and Pinckney. The votes were for Jefferson 73, for Burr 73, for Adams 65, for Pinckney 64. The numbers for Jefferson and Burr being equal, the choice devolved upon the House of Representatives, which voted to attend to no other business till the election was settled, and not to adjourn till the decision was effected. For seven days and nights the ballotting went on, every member being present. Some who were ill or infirm were accommodated with beds and couches, and one sick member was allowed to be attended by his wife. Adams was, as president, on the spot, watching his impending political annihilation. Jefferson was at hand, daily presiding in the Senate. Burr was in the State of New-York, anxiously expecting tidings. The federal party were in despair at having to choose between two republicans (as the democratic party was at that day called). It is said that Hamilton was consulted by his party, and that his advice was to choose Jefferson rather than Burr: a piece of counsel which affected the everlasting destinies of the country, and cost the counsellor his life. At the end of the seven days Jefferson was elected president and Burr vice-president, which office Burr held for a single term, four years.

In the winter of 1804 Burr was proposed at Albany as a candidate for the office of Governor of the State of New-York. Hamilton, at a public meeting of his party, strongly opposed the nomination, declaring that he would never join in supporting such a candidate. About this time Dr. Chas. D. Cooper wrote a letter, in which he said "General Hamilton and ---- have declared in substance that they looked upon Mr. Burr as a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government." "I could detail to you a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr." This letter was published; and on the 18th of June, 1804, Burr sent a copy of it to Hamilton, with a demand that the expressions it contained should be acknowledged or denied. The correspondence which ensued is discreditable to both parties. To use the expression of a great man, "Hamilton went into it like a Capuchin." He knew that it was Burr's determination to fix a deadly quarrel upon him; he knew that Burr was an unworthy adversary; he disapproved of the practice of duelling, but he feared the imputation of want of courage if he refused to meet his foe. He therefore explained and corresponded with an amplitude and indecision which expose his reputation to more danger from harsh judges than a refusal to fight would have done. As for Burr, he was savage in his pursuit of his enemy. He enlarged his accusations and demands as he saw the irresolution of his victim; and I believe there is no doubt that, though he was a good shot before, he employed the interval of twenty days which elapsed before the duel took place in firing at a mark, making no secret of the purpose of his practising.

This interval was occasioned by Hamilton's refusal to go out till the Circuit Court, in the business of which he was engaged, should have closed its sittings. The Court rose on Friday, the 6th of July, and Burr received notice that General Hamilton would be ready at any time after the following Sunday.

On Wednesday morning, the 11th, the parties crossed the Hudson to the Jersey shore, arriving on the ground at seven o'clock. Burr was attended by Mr. Van Ness and a surgeon; Hamilton by Mr. Pendleton and Dr. Hosack. It was Hamilton's intention not to fire; but when his adversary's ball struck him on the right side, he raised himself involuntarily on his toes, and turned a little to the left, his pistol going off with the movement. He observed to his physician, "This is a mortal wound, doctor," and then became insensible. He revived, however, in the boat, in the course of removal home, and cautioned his attendants about the pistol, which he was not aware of having discharged. He lived in great agony till two o'clock of the following day.

He left a paper which contained his statement of reasons for meeting Burr, notwithstanding his conscientious disapproval of the practice of duelling, and his particular desire to avoid an encounter with such an adversary, and in such a cause as the present. In this paper he declares his resolution to reserve and throw away his first fire, and perhaps his second. His reasons for fighting are now, I believe, generally agreed to be unsatisfactory. As to the effect of his determination to spare his adversary, I never could learn that Colonel Burr expressed the slightest regret for the pertinacity with which he hunted such an enemy--merely a political foe--to death. Neither did he appear to feel the execration with which he was regarded in the region of which Hamilton had been the pride and ornament.

To avoid the legal consequences of his deed he wandered into the West, and remained so long in retreat that some passing wonder was excited as to what he could be doing there. He was ensnaring more victims.