CH. III.]

among the latter. The attack was made by about twelve hundred men; while the place was supposed to be defended by three or four thousand. One or two attempts were made by the Tripolitans to regain possession, but they were easily repulsed, and, on one occasion, with some loss. The deposed pasha remained in possession of the town, and his authority was partially recognized in the province."

Commodore Barron declined assisting Eaton with further supplies and reinforcements, alleging that, as Hamet was in possession of the second province of the regency, "if he had the influence that he pretended to, he ought to be able to effect his object by means of the ordinary co-operation of the squadron." Next month, Barron, who was in very ill health, gave up the command to Commodore Rodgers; and negotiations for peace were commenced in earnest, Mr. Lear having arrived off Tripoli, for that purpose, in the Essex. After the usual intrigues, delays, and prevarications, a treaty was signed on the 3d of June. By it, no tribute was to be paid in future, but $60,000 were given by America, for the ransom of the prisoners remaining, after exchanging the Tripolitans in her power, man for man.

In several weighty respects it is not easy to approve of the terms of this peace with Tripoli, and under all the circumstances, it seems almost certain that better terms might have been obtained. How far Mr. Lear was compelled by his instructions we are unable to state; but the treaty was approved and ratified. Hamet, who was cast off

59

with as little ceremony as he had been taken up, obtained only the liberation of his wife and children by Yussuf; and both he, and especially Mr. Eaton, considered themselves unhandsomely used and much injured by the treaty.* While, however, as Mr. Cooper says, many condemned it as unwise, all rejoiced that it was the means of restoring so many brave men to their country It is no more than liberal, moreover, to believe, that the situation of these unfortunate officers and men had a deep influence in inducing the government to forego abstract considerations, with a view to their relief."+

1805.

There being a prospect of speedy war with Tunis, which regency did not as yet understand the force and energy of the Americans, Commodore Rodgers, on the 1st of August, anchored in Tunis Bay, prepared to enforce, if necessary, the rights of his country. Literally, under the muzzles of his guns, Rodgers carried on a spirited negotiation, and his highness, the bey, soon found that the state of things was marvellously changed within a few years. His bravado now was ridiculous and contemptible; and affairs were promptly settled to the satisfaction of one of the parties at least. The bey having expressed a wish to send an ambassador to the United States, Decatur,

*Hamet afterwards came to the United States with a few of his followers, and applied to Congress for pecuniary relief. Some $2,400 were voted for this purpose, which only partially satisfied the exiled pasha. The legislature of Massachusetts granted to General Eaton ten thousand acres of land, as an expression of their high estimate of his heroism and patriotic ser vices in behalf of his country's interests.

+ Cooper's "Naval History,” vol. i., pp. 261–66.

in September, sailed with an officer on such a mission, who was in due time landed in Washington. We may mention here, that though the Tunisian ambassador ventured to ask for the formerly-paid tribute, it was explicitly refused; and the bey, wiser by experience, deemed it inexpedient to take any hostile steps in consequence. A small squadron was kept up in the Mediterranean, in order to warn the Barbary powers against the venturing to renew their attacks upon American

commerce.

Turning our attention to home affairs, we find, according to the biographer of Mr. Jefferson, that the administration at this date was at "the meridian of its popularity, and an unexampled quiet

reigned over the land." The 1804. federal party seemed to have become virtually extinct, and the republicans carried every thing before them. This peaceful state of things, however, was delusive to a large extent, and "even then causes were at work which greatly agitated the last years of his administration, both in its domestic and foreign relations."

In preparing for the presidential contest, now near at hand, the members of Congress met in caucus, and agreed, as a matter of course, upon Thomas Jefferson for re-election. Aaron Burr, disliked and distrusted by those whom he had served so efficiently, had lost the confidence of the republican party, and they dropped him without scruple. George Clinton, governor of New York, an undoubted republican, and one who had always gone with Jefferson, was the man whom the majority of this

caucus fixed upon as the candidate of the party. Breckenridge, Lincoln, Langdon, Granger, and M'Clay, were the others voted for, but by minorities. varying from twenty in number to but one, and therefore indicating personal partialities rather than political confidence.

Burr, finding himself totally rejected by the republicans, as far as the vicepresidency was concerned, and being in such a condition that he could not well afford to be out of public office altogether, determined to become a candidate for governor of New York, the post which Clinton was about to vacate; on the other hand, the dominant party in the state had set up first Chancellor Lansing, who declined the contest almost as soon as he had accepted it; and then in his place Morgan Lewis, a man of very respectable qualifications, who was supported by the great families, and willing to be their representative.

The proceedings during this election were of a more than usually acrimonious character. Lewis was supported by the great mass of the democratic party, Burr by a section of that party, consisting chiefly of the younger and more ardent, or less scrupulous members of it. Many of the federalists also sided with Burr, just as on former occasions. Thus both parties were split; for Hamilton, and those who looked up to him as their political leader, opposed them with the utmost ardor. Hamilton, indeed, could do no otherwise, knowing Burr so well as he did, and so heartily distrusting him, (see vol. ii., p. 514.) The most atrocious libels were

CH. III.]

daily circulated by the press; and every means resorted to that animosity and party spirit could devise, to destroy the credit of the candidates by those opposed to them. Burr failed in this attempt to provide a haven for himself, when he should be driven from the chair of the Senate; and knowing well by whose instrumentality mainly it had been accomplished, he resolved to soothe his furious disappointment, by shedding the life-blood of the man whom he feared and hated beyond the power of any language adequately to

express.

1804.

When such a man as Aaron Burr was, wanted a pretext for a certain course, it was not difficult to find one. Accordingly, he made choice of a libellous publication, such as the press had teemed with during the fierce political contest, and in June, engaged the services of his intimate friend, Judge Van Ness, to aid him in carrying out his fell design. It appears that Dr. Charles D. Cooper wrote a letter to a public journal some time previously, in which he stated, that Hamilton had characterized Burr as "a dangerous man," and one "not to be trusted with the reins of government," adding moreover, that he could "detail a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr." On the 17th of June, Burr sent a letter to Hamilton demanding

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tion of being held responsible for the inferences which persons might feel disposed to draw from his language and conduct, and expressed himself ready to avow or disavow promptly any precise or definite opinion which it might be charged that he had uttered of any gentleman. It was not such an answer, we think, as Hamilton ought to have sent to such a person as Aaron Burr, for he must have known at the very outset, that Burr was only seeking an occasion of quarrel with him, which might be pushed to a deadly encounter. It would have been far better to have said openly, what was true and well known, that he did look upon Burr as a dangerous, unscrupulous man, unfitted to be trusted with the affairs of state, and unworthy the confidence of the people, and then to have left the result to any legal process which Burr might see fit to invoke. But Hamilton did not do this, and his murderous opponent quickly saw his advantage in the matter. He immediately dispatched a curt, unceremonious note, insisting upon "a definite reply" to his demand. Van Ness pressed the subject upon Hamilton, who declined replying to this note, and left Burr to pursue the course he judged proper. This was just what he wished. He now had an opportunity to gratify his ardent longing for revenge.

On the 25th of June, the challenge was ready, and Van Ness called upon Hamilton to deliver it. Sincerely anxious to avoid this result, Hamilton attempted further negotiation through Judge Pendleton, his friend for the ocsion; but it was all in vain. Burr had

1804.

determined to kill him, if possible, and so he urged on matters in the most offensive and insulting manner. Some delay occurred, because Hamilton wished to discharge certain duties to his clients, and also to arrange his affairs in view of what he seemed to have. a prevision must be the fatal termination of the encounter. He prepared his will, and wrote out his views as to this expected meeting, declaring himself as abhorring the shocking practice of duelling, yet, strangely insisting that he must violate his sacred principles of right and duty, and meet Burr, in order to be murdered. Fatal inconsistency! Unhappy yielding to the base and barbarous notions of honor too prevalent then and since! Hamilton's will, and the documents above referred to, are painfully interesting and instructive; and how strange it seems, that with his clear, piercing intellect, and with his sincere desire to be a Christian, and live and die as a Christian should live and die, he should have been so blinded as to consent for a moment to violate the laws of God as well as of man, by going to be shot at by Aaron Burr! Had Washington lived, we may well believe that he would not have found it difficult to convince Hamilton, that he needed not to commit an act so unworthy of him in order to establish his claims to the possession of courage and truth and uprightness. But Washington, who, when once he was tried in this way, treated the challenge with the scorn and contempt it deserved, had now gone to his rest; and Hamilton was unable to draw back from the doom impending over him.

On Wednesday, the 11th of July, the parties met at seven o'clock in the morning, at Weehawken, on the Jersey shore, opposite New York. The preliminaries being arranged, Burr and Ham ilton were placed at ten paces distant, the one perfectly accomplished in the use of the duellist's pistol, the other hardly at all so, and already determined in his own mind not

to fire.

1804.

Burr, eager for blood, discharged his pistol the instant the word was given; Hamilton, mortally wounded, aimlessly drew the trigger of his pistol, and fell heavily on his face. Burr, uninjured, and his companion in crime, Van Ness, immediately departed; and Dr. Hosack, Pendleton, and the boatmen who had conveyed Hamilton to the field of death, bore him back again to lie in agony untold-for his wife and seven children shared in that mortal stroke-till the next day, in his friend Bayard's house, and then to die. The consolations of religion were administered to him by Dr. Mason and Bishop Moore, and at two o'clock in the afternoon of Thursday, the 12th of July, he passed away to his final account. On Saturday, he was buried with military honors, by the Society of the Cincinnati, and attended to the grave by a vast concourse of mourners. Gouverneur Morris delivered an impressive funeral oration, from a stage erected in front of Trinity Church; and the eloquence of the pulpit, the bar, and the press, throughout the country, were expended in fitting orations, discourses, and eulogiums. Since the death of Washington, no blow so severe as this had fallen upon our country, and not