French lines, until he reached the heights above the cove, without interruption, and to the amazement of his adversary deployed his whole army on the plains of Abraham. His attack on Quebec, from that moment, was a battle on the open plains, for Montcalm, as if maddened by the success of his adversary in eluding his vigilance, with the despair of a lion at bay, scorned merely to defend his works. The event would scarcely have been different had the French remained within their lines, for the works on Cape Diamond, unlike the impregnable fortress which now surmounts it, were then scarcely worth mentioning, and continued so in 1775. As far as we can decipher Mr. Davis's ill-digested and obscure account of the attack, Burr's counsel was to assault the works on the cape, just as Wolfe meant to do had not the French given him battle outside the lines. This, we are satisfied, though we give military opinions with great diffidence, from personal examination of the ground and conference with competent technical judges, would, with fair allowances for accidents, have been completely successful. It would have been highly interesting to have had the testimony and comment of so competent a military critic as Burr on this celebrated attempt. We have no room to devote to Mr. Davis's equally meagre narrative of the affairs of Long Island and Monmouth.

Before leaving the account of Colonel Burr's military life, we have a word of graver censure to bestow on a portion of Mr. Davis's book. We have already stated, that this memoir was not designed as a panegyric. We almost wish it had been, for we could have pardoned much more to the partial affection of engrossing friendship than we can to careless and almost contemptuous indifference. Historical truth, too, would have been less apt to suffer. So far, however, is Mr. Davis from making his book too eulogistic, that he tells us more than once that the subject of his story was licentious and profligate in the extreme, gross in his appetites, and ungovernable in his passions, and, what is more to our purpose just now, expressly admits that his prejudices and malignant antipathies survived to the latest hour of his life, unmitigated and unsubdued. On one point we think that Mr. Davis has done gross injustice, and though we are inclined to believe that it has mainly arisen from the awkward, unworkmanlike manner in which he puts his materials together, and from his singular intellectual inaptitude for the task he has undertaken, it is on that account but little less reprehensible. The injustice we refer to is injustice-palpable injustice-to General Washington.

We have already stated, what was indeed known long before this volume was published, that between Washington and Burr there was a deep-rooted antipathy, which was not confined to the

breast of either, but was heartily reciprocated. Of its tone and degree we have no other means of judging than such as the different characters of the men afford. On the part of Washington it may be assumed to have been the stern resentment of a just man, whose feelings had been wounded, and whose judgment sanctioned the impulse. With such a man as Burr, and in the absence of all other source of light, it is no want of charity to say, that it must have been a far less exalted feeling, revenge for imaginary wrong, or selfish resentment for deserved rebuke, corroding the heart it tenanted, and uniting with all the other ingredients of a soul morally diseased. Washington's treatment of Burr was perfectly consonant with this estimate of his feelings. Whenever an opportunity offered of testifying respect for his military qualifications, he cheerfully and unreservedly did so. Immediately after the battle of Monmouth, he despatched Burr on a confidential and hazardous tour of observation on Sir Henry Clinton's movements on the North river, and in July, 1778, employed him to superintend the measures of vigilance and precaution against the tories and loyalists. In October of the same year Burr applied to the commander in chief for a furlough without pay, Washington granted the furlough, but refused to suspend the pay, on the ground of the palpable injustice of such a course to an officer of so much merit. When Burr resigned his commission in 1779, General Washington testified his esteem of his military merits in the following letter:

"MIDDLEBROOK, 3d April, 1779.

"Sir, I have to acknowledge your favour of the 10th ultimo. Perfectly satisfied that no consideration, save a desire to re-establish your health, could induce you to leave the service, I cannot therefore withhold my consent. But, in giving permission to your retiring from the army, I am not only to regret the loss of a good officer, but the cause which makes his resignation necessary. When it is convenient to transmit the settlement of your public accounts, it will receive my final acceptance.

-p. 168.

"I am, &c.,

GEORGE WASHINGTON."

But beyond the line of approval of his military qualifications he never departed, nor did time bring any abatement of Washington's distrust of his integrity and moral principle. As late as 1792, when Burr was a senator of the United States, his biographer records the following incident :—

"During the winter of 1791-2, being Colonel Burr's first session in the senate of the United States, he spent much of his leisure time in the state department. For several sessions after the organization of the federal government, all the business of the senate was transacted with closed doors. At that period the correspondence of existing ministers

was kept secret, even from the senators. With every thing connected with the foreign affairs of the country, Colonel Burr was exceedingly anxious to make himself intimately acquainted. He considered it necessary to the faithful and useful performance of his duty as a senator. He obtained permission from Mr. Jefferson, then secretary of state, to have access to the records of the department before the hour for opening the office arrived. He employed one of the messengers to make a fire at five o'clock in the morning, and occasionally an intelligent and confidential clerk to assist him in searching for papers. Here he was engaged until near ten o'clock every day. It was his constant practice to have his breakfast sent to him. He continued this employment the greater part of the session, making notes on, or extracts from, the records of the department, until he was interrupted by a peremptory order from the president (Washington) prohibiting his farther examination.

"Wishing some information that he had not obtained in relation to a surrender of the western posts by the British, he addressed a note to the secretary of state, asking permission to make that particular examination; to which he received the following answer :

666

Thomas Jefferson presents his respectful compliments to Colonel Burr, and is sorry to inform him it has been concluded to be improper to communicate the correspondence of existing ministers. He hopes this will, with Colonel Burr, be his sufficient apology.'"

p. 331.

But again, Mr. Davis repeats a still more striking instance in 1794 :

"About this period the democratic party were highly incensed against the president for continuing Gouverneur Morris as a minister to the French republic. The executive provisory council had requested his recall. He was considered a monarchist, and hostile to the revolution. Many of the opposition senators had spoken with great freedom of the policy of General Washington in this particular. These remarks having been communicated to the president, he expressed, informally, a willingness to recall Mr. Morris, and to nominate a member of the opposition, if they would designate a suitable person. In consequence of this suggestion, the democratic members of the senate, and some of the most distinguished members of the house, had a conference, and resolved on recommending Colonel Burr. Mr. Madison, Mr. Monroe, and another member of congress whose name is not recollected, were delegated to wait on the president and communicate the wishes of the party.

"General Washington paused for a few moments, and then remarked, that he had made it a rule of life never to recommend or nominate any person for a high and responsible situation in whose integrity he had not confidence; that, wanting confidence in Colonel Burr, he could not nominate him; but that it would give him great pleasure to meet their wishes if they would designate an individual in whom he could confide. The committee returned and reported the result of their conference. The senators adhered unanimously to their first nomination, and the same delegates waited on the president and reiterated the adherence of their friends to Colonel Burr. Whereupon General Washington, with some warmth, remarked that his decision was irrevocable; but immediately added, 'I will nominate you, Mr. Madison, or you, Mr. Monroe.' The former replied that he had long since made up his mind never to leave his country, and respectfully declined the offer. They retired, and reported the result of their second interview. The democratic gentlemen were not less inflexible, and instructed their delegates to say to the president that they would make no other recommendation. On the third

visit they were received by Mr. Randolph, secretary of state, to whom they made the communication, but who considered it indecorous, knowing the president's feelings, to repeat the message. pp. 408, 409.

No other selection being made by the opposing senators, on the 27th May, 1794, General Washington nominated Mr. Monroe as minister to the French republic.

That Colonel Burr's antipathy to Washington was not diminished by these overt acts of dislike was most naturalthat it was a malignant and undiscriminating feeling we may infer from the character of the man, as well as from his biographer's admissions. Now what we condemn in Mr. Davis is, that he has not given us the real cause of this mutual hostility, which he must have known, for it is scarcely conceivable that Burr, in the repeated conversations he had with Mr. Davis on this very subject, should overlook its origin; or that, not knowing it, he should refer to it in such a way as to derogate from the character of that party to the quarrel, who, in the absence of evidence, least deserved the imputation. It is well known, that during the short period that Burr was in the family of the commander in chief, in New York, in the spring of 1776, the seeds of this dislike were sown. Burr resigned, or was compelled to leave precipitately, the post which his friends thought it so desirable to obtain for him, and from the period that Washington knew him, as he soon learned to know every one of his family, he never trusted him. We will not deprive Colonel Burr's memory of the benefit of the converse of this truth, that from the moment he knew Washington familiarly he hated him. One is as true as the other, and the public will not, we suspect, be at a loss to determine where the fault lay. Not so Mr. Davis. After candidly admitting a catalogue of moral blemishes in his hero, he most inconsistently places him in this quarrel on a level with Washington, and then passes judgment, or rather gives a kind of unfair special verdict, which, as a settlement of the question, does justice to neither. But let him speak for himself; in his preface he tells us Burr's "prejudices against General Washington were immovable. They were formed in the summer of 1776, while he resided at head quarters, and they were confirmed unchangeably by the injustice which he had experienced at the hands of the commander in chief, immediately after the battle of Long Island," &c. At page 167 he again refers to it, "Burr was more than respected by his brother officers, and idolised by the troops. As a man and a citizen he was exceedingly disliked by General Washington. Causes unnecessary to examine at this late period of time, had created between these gentlemen feelings of hostility that were unconquerable, and were never softened or mollified." This is not all. Mr. Davis, taking

courage in the dark, gives us very distinct intimations that Burr was a victim of injustice on the part of Washington. At page 83 he says, "There is no doubt that the short residence of Major Burr with General Washington laid the foundation for those prejudices which, at a future time, ripened into hostile feelings on both sides." At page 78 he tells us that, "In the spring of 1776, the army moved from Montreal to the mouth of the Sorel. Major Burr yet remained with it. While at Montreal he became disgusted with General Arnold on account of his meanness and other bad qualities," &c. On the very next page is related the invitation given him by Washington to join his family. "This invitation," says Mr. Davis, "he accepted, and Burr occasionally rode out with the general, but very soon became restless and dissatisfied. He wrote to the president of congress, who had been an intimate friend of the father, that he was disgusted, and inclined to retire from service. Neither is this collocation of Arnold and Washington, as objects of Burr's disgust, the limit of Mr. Davis's inuendo, for at the close of the volume, after narrating the circumstances connected with the president's refusal to appoint Mr. Burr minister to France, he adds this very unnecessary comment:-"This incident demonstrates, on the one hand, the strong and unchangeable prejudices of General Washington against Colonel Burr ; and, on the other, the firm and unbounded confidence reposed in him by the democracy of those days."

Now, what we condemn in all this is the wantonness of the insinuation, that a man so proverbially and severely just as General Washington could be influenced by irrational prejudice, and be guilty of gratuitous injustice to such a man as Burr. In fact, the perplexity and obscurity which Mr. Davis hangs around this single incident in his history is such, that, to account for it, we must attribute it either to perfect stupidity or disingenuousness. Burr never told him that he was ignorant of the cause of Washington's animosity, and, if he had, no one would have believed it; and Mr. Davis either never asked him the question, or else, thinking it better to deal in conjecture and inuendo, has deemed it expedient to suppress the answer. This is a fair inference from his own assertion in the preface, which we have already quoted: "I never," says he, "asked Colonel Burr a question on any subject, or in relation to any man or measure, that he did not promptly and willingly answer. On his part there was no desire of concealment; nor did he ever express to me a wish to suppress an account of any act of his whole life."

Those who have studied the character of Washington, as illustrated by his most familiar correspondence, know that one of its strongest and most beautiful traits was the grateful appre