Next he sought the ear of Napoleon; but again he was flouted and insulted by the American diplomatic and consular representatives—he was, they said, "a fugitive from justice." His last sou gone, ragged and often hungry, he managed at last, by the aid of one John Reeves, to secure passage for Boston, where he landed May 4, 1812. Then he journeyed to New York, where he arrived June 30 in abject poverty and utterly ruined. But still his spirit did not give way.
Soon, however, fate struck him the only blow that, until now, ever had brought this iron man to his knees. His passionately beloved little grandson, Aaron Burr Alston, died in June. In December, another and heavier stroke fell. His daughter sailed from Charleston, South Carolina, to join and comfort her father and be comforted by him. Her ship was lost in a storm, and Theodosia the beautiful, the accomplished, the adored, was drowned. Then, at last, the heart of Aaron Burr was broken.
Of the many ridiculous stories told of Burr and his daughter, one was that her ship was captured by pirates and she, ordered to walk the plank, did so with her child in her arms "without hesitation or visible tremor." This absurdity was given credit and currency by Harriet Martineau. (See Martineau: Western Travels, ii, 291-92.) Theodosia's child had died six months before she sailed from Charleston to go to her father, and she embarked in a pilot boat, about which no pirate would have troubled himself.
The remainder of Burr's long life was given to the practice of his profession. His industry, legal learning, and ability, once more secured for him a good business. In 1824, Marshall ruled on an application to restore an attorney named Burr to the bar of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia from which he had been suspended for unprofessional conduct. (Ex parte Burr, 9 Wheaton, 529-31.) It has often been erroneously supposed that this applicant was Aaron Burr: he was, however, one Levi Burr, a local practitioner, and not related to Aaron Burr.
It is characteristic of Burr that he remembered the great lawyer who voluntarily had hastened to defend him at Richmond, and Luther Martin—aged, infirm, and almost deranged—was taken to the home of Aaron Burr and tenderly cared for until he died. Burr's marriage, at the age of seventy-eight, to Madame Jumel was, on his part, inexplicable; it was the only regrettable but not unworthy incident of the latter years of his life. (See Shelton: Jumel Mansion, 170-74.)
Burr's New York friends were loyal to him to his very last day. His political genius never grew dim. He early suggested and helped to bring about the nomination of Andrew Jackson for the Presidency. Thus did he pay the debt of gratitude for the loyalty with which the rugged Tennesseean had championed his cause against public opinion and Administration alike.
During the summer of 1836 his last illness came upon him. When his physician said that he could live but a few hours longer, a friend at his bedside asked the supposedly expiring man "whether in the expedition to the Southwest he had designed a separation of the Union." Believing himself to be dying, Burr replied: "No! I would as soon have thought of taking possession of the moon and informing my friends that I intended to divide it among them." To a man, his most intimate friends believed this statement to be true.
Finally, on September 14, 1836, Aaron Burr died and was buried near his father at Princeton, New Jersey, where the parent had presided over, and the son had attended, that Alma Mater of so many patriots, soldiers, and statesmen.
For two years his burial place was unmarked. Then, at night-time, unknown friends erected over his grave a plain marble shaft, bearing this inscription:
AARON BURR
Born Feb. 6, 1756
Died Sept. 14, 1836
Colonel in the Army of the Revolution
Vice-President of the United States from 1801 to 1805