[787] McCaleb, viii-ix, 20-23.
[788] Merry to Harrowby (No. 15), "most secret," March 29, 1805, as quoted in Adams: U.S. ii, 403.
[789] Adams: U.S. ii, 394.
[790] Davis, ii, 381; also Parton: Burr, 412.
[791] Henry Adams, in his researches in the British and Spanish archives, discovered and for the first time made public, in 1890, the dispatches of the British, Spanish, and French Ministers to their Governments. (See Adams: U.S. iii, chaps. xiii and xiv.)
[792] Professor Walter Flavius McCaleb has exploded the myth as to Burr's treasonable purposes, which hitherto has been accepted as history. His book, the Aaron Burr Conspiracy, may be said to be the last word on the subject. The lines which Professor McCaleb has therein so firmly established have been followed in this chapter.
[793] Pitt died and Burr did not get any money from the British. (See Davis, ii, 381.)
[794] "Burr's intrigue with Merry and Casa Yrujo was but a consummate piece of imposture." (McCaleb, viii.)
[795] Up to this time Dayton had had an honorable career. He had been a gallant officer of the Revolution; a member of the New Jersey Legislature for several years and finally Speaker of the House; a delegate to the Constitutional Convention; a Representative in Congress for four terms, during the last two of which he was chosen Speaker of that body; and finally Senator of the United States. He came of a distinguished family, was a graduate of Princeton, and a man of high standing politically and socially.
[796] See Cox in Am. Hist. Rev. xix, 801; also in Southwestern Hist. Quarterly, xvii, 174.