“Is not that a hard thing to say, madame?”
“Very well, but it is the truth. So then, to make short work of it, no ordinary advice will I give you; but an extraordinary reason, that may perhaps turn your mind another way. I know not--there are none so blind as those who will not see.”
“First, madame, permit me to ask Mr. St. Ange, in your presence, if he thinks I require either ordinary or extraordinary arguments against the course I have marked out for myself.”
Madame moved her head in assent, and then Leonard, in a few sentences, told Achille of his proposed study with Mr. Burr, and asked him frankly “if he considered Mr. Burr’s duelling experience inimical to business relations with him?”
And Achille answered promptly: “If Mr. Burr had not fought Mr. Hamilton I should consider your engagement with him disastrous, both to your social and business reputation. Mr. Hamilton had slandered Mr. Burr in public and in private, and even while Mr. Burr supposed him to be his friend he had disseminated the unguarded sallies of his host while a guest at his dinner table. As I understand the subject, Mr. Burr had no alternative between two inexorable facts--to fight, which might mean physical death; not to fight, which would certainly mean social and political death. Mr. Burr had, I think, a too great patience. I would have appealed to the sword to stop the tongue long before Mr. Burr did.”
Leonard was delighted and grateful, and said so, and Achille added: “We must remember that Cheetham, who edited Hamilton’s newspaper, asked the public through that organ: ‘Is the Vice-President sunk so low as to submit to be insulted by General Hamilton?’ It seems to me then that Cheetham really sent the challenge to Mr. Burr, and that the Vice-President had no honourable alternative. He had to fight or be eternally branded a poltroon, a dastardly coward!” And he uttered these shameful words with such passionate scorn that they seemed to disturb the air like wildfire.
“About duelling there may be two opinions,” said Madame, “but when treason is the question, what then?”
“But that question was settled by Mr. Burr’s trial, madame,” answered Leonard. “The law and the testimony, the judge, and the jury decided that Mr. Burr was not guilty of treason. Should we go behind that settlement?”
“The people have gone behind it, and will do so.”
“I doubt that as a final result,” said Leonard. “Many are of Mr. Vanderlyn’s opinion, that the natural boundaries of the United States are the Atlantic and Pacific, and that all foreign authority must be got rid of within that territory. If Aaron Burr did not succeed, he thought others would.”
“But Aaron Burr would have set up a monarchy for himself.”
“That is not conceivable, madame. I said so to Mr. Vanderlyn, and he laughed at the idea. He said, ‘Burr had remarkable military genius, and that his object was to atone for his political failure by some great military feat, but whatever the feat he contemplated, it would have been in the end for his country.’ Vanderlyn put aside all evidence to the contrary, because given by men who had been at first confederate with Burr, and then betrayed him. What reliance could be placed on anything such men said? I believe,” said Leonard, with confident fervour, “that Mr. Burr will outlive the memory of his faults and attain yet the success his great abilities deserve.”
“_He will not!_” said madame. “The hatred of the living a man may fight, and hope to conquer, but the vengeance of the dead, who then can escape that? Sooner or later it drives ‘the one followed’ to destroy himself. This trouble began twelve years gone by. Hamilton and Burr called it to themselves, that night they tricked justice, slandered the innocent, and let the guilty go free. Snuff the candles, Achille, the room is full of shadows; more light give us, and I will tell you when, and how, the doom of both men was called to them.”
There was a few minutes’ delay, during which the silence was unbroken, and then madame continued:
“It was in the year of God eighteen hundred, in the month of March, and we had come near to the spring. Mr. Hamilton was then of all the lawyers in New York the most famous, and it was one of the sights of the city to see him going to court with his papers and books. In that month came the trial of Levi Weekes for the murder of the beautiful Gulielma Sands, and Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Burr were united in the defence of Weekes. Very well indeed I knew Elma Sands, for she lived with her uncle and aunt Ring, who were tenants of mine for many years. At the time of her murder they lived in Greenwich Street, near Franklin; and Weekes boarded with them. He was a brother of Ezra Weekes, who kept the famous City Hotel, and with his brother he could have boarded. But not so, with the Rings he stayed, because of Elma, and every one said they were promised to each other, and when the spring came were to be married. Well, then, this dreadful thing happened--Elma Sands went out with Levi Weekes one Sunday in December, 1799, and never again was she seen by any one. Distracted were her uncle and aunt, and everywhere, far and near, Elma was sought. It was no good. What I could do, I did, for I had watched the orphan girl grow from her childhood to her womanhood, and so sorry also was I for the uncle and aunt, who slept not, nor yet rested, and whose terrible suspense was ended in five weeks, by the finding of Elma’s body in a well eighty feet deep. Then the city went wild about her murder; for the appearance of the body left no room for doubt as to what poor Elma’s fate had been; and every one felt quite sure that Levi Weekes was the criminal.” Here madame paused and appeared to be much affected, and Achille, without a word, pushed a glass of water closer to her, and having drank of it, she continued:
“It was Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Burr that defended the prisoner; the prosecutor was Cadwallader D. Colden, and Chief Justice Lansing was the judge. On both sides there were great lawyers, and the trial was long and wearisome; but never were Elias Ring and his wife absent from it, no, not for one hour. So the end came at last. It was a stormy night in April that it came, and very late, and the court room was but dimly lighted, for some of the candles had burned themselves away, and had not been renewed, and the people had been listening to Hamilton’s speech, and thinking of nothing else. A great speech it was; my son Judge Bloommaert told me it was wonderful; and though every one was worn out, none left the building.
“Then Aaron Burr arose. Some facts he set forth in such a way as to throw all suspicion on the chief witness against Weekes; and while people were amazed at the charge, and no time had been given to examine it, or deny it, he lifted two candles from the table and flashed them in the face of the man he had accused; and as he did this thing he cried out in a voice like doom: ‘_Gentlemen, behold the murderer!_’ Shocked and terrified was the man, and like a foolish one he rushed from the room; and this cry of Aaron Burr’s the weary, excited jury took for the truth, and so then, Levi Weekes was declared ‘not guilty.’ Stupefied were all present, and before they could recover themselves from their astonishment Catherine Ring stood up. She was a Quakeress and to speak in public accustomed, and so, lifting her face and hands to heaven she refused the verdict; and gave the case ‘_to the justice of God and the vengeance of the Dead!_’
“I say plainly, every one was thrilled with awe and terror. Her voice was low and even, but straight to every heart it went; and those furthest away heard it clear and fateful as those close at her side. Mr. Hamilton began to put up his papers, but she stepped close to his side and said: ‘Alexander Hamilton, if there be justice in heaven, heaven will see that thee dies a bloody death; and thy helper shall help thee to it!’ At these words Burr rose, and looked at her with a smile, and she continued, ‘Take thy time, Aaron Burr. Thee need not hurry; thee will long for death, long before death will have thee. Nay, but thee shall be a dead man long before thee can hide thyself in the grave. And all that we have suffered in that long month of not knowing, thee shall suffer many times over. Dost thee think God had no witness in this room? Go thy way, Alexander Hamilton! Go thy way, Aaron Burr! There is _one that follows after_!’ She turned then to Judge Lansing, but he had left the bench. Then she touched her husband’s arm, and said: ‘Come, Elias, the unrighteous judge cannot escape the righteous one. Some day he will go out, and be heard of no more forever.’[2]
“And here is the wonderful thing--all the time she was dooming these three great men not one soul moved or spoke. The entire audience sat or stood silent and motionless; and when out of the court-room they went, it was as if they were leaving a church. And Elias and Catherine Ring passed through them, and though they had the pity and respect of all there, no one spoke to them, and no one stayed them. For every word of doom Catherine Ring had uttered had been heard; and her inspired face spoke to the crowd; Elias walking at her side praying aloud as he walked.