“The other is England,” proceeds Canning. “Already we are mustering our forces, and enlisting ships, to drive the Corsican out of Spain. We are to become the allies of the royal outcasts, and restore them to Spanish power. I need not draw the inference. As Spain’s ally, fighting her battles against the French in the Peninsula, England will no more permit the loss of Mexico than will Napoleon.”
Aaron listens; a chill of disappointment touches his strong heart. He understands how wholly lost are his hopes, even before Canning is through talking. He had two strings to his bow; both have snapped. No chance now of either France or England aiding him. His prospects, so bright but the moment before, are on the instant darkened.
“Delay! always delay!” he murmurs. Then his courage mounts again; the chill is driven from his heart. He is too thoroughbred to despond, and quickly pulls himself together. “Yes,” says he, “the word you bring shuts double doors against us. The best we may do is wait—wait for Napoleon to win or lose in Spain. Should England hurl him back across the Pyrenees, we may resume our plans again.”
“Indubitably,” returns Canning. “Should England save Spain from the Corsican, she might well lay claim to the right of disposing of Mexico as a recompense for her exertions.”
Thus, for the time, by force of events in far-off Spain, is Aaron compelled to fold away his ambitions.
While waiting the turn of fortune’s wheel in Spain, Aaron fills in his leisure with society. Everywhere he is the lion. “The celebrated Colonel Burr!” is the phrase by which he is presented. Entertained as well as instructed by what he sees and hears, he begins to keep a journal. It shall one day be read with interest by the lustrous Theo, he thinks.
Jeremy Bentham—honest, fussy, sprightly, full of dreams for bettering governments—finds out Aaron. The honest, fussy Bentham loves admiration and the folk who furnish it. He has heard from letter-writing friends in America that “the celebrated Colonel Burr” reads his works with satisfaction. That is enough for honest, fussy, praise-loving Bentham, and he drags Aaron off to live with him at Barrow Green.
“You,” cries the delighted Bentham, when he has the “celebrated Colonel Burr” as a member of his family—“you and Albert Gallatin are the only two in the United States who appreciate my ideas. For the common mind—which is as dull and crawling as a tortoise—my theories travel too fast.”
Aaron lives with Bentham—fussy, kindly, pragmatical Bentham—now at Barrow Green, now at the philosopher’s London house in Queen Square Place. From this latter high vantage he sallies forth and meets William Godwin; and Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft, carry him off to tea with Charles and Mary Lamb. He writes in his journal:
“Go with the Godwins to Mr. Lamb’s. He is a writer, and lives with a maiden sister, also literary, up four pairs of stairs.”