Burr kept his interest alive by letters. The Blennerhassets spent the next winter in New York and Philadelphia, and there met Aaron Burr again. Not unlikely they came with that purpose, for the hopes of new wealth, easily to be made, were alluring and exciting. During that winter it is probable that a sort of land-speculation partnership was formed. Very rich lands lay on the Washita River, within Spanish territory, said Burr, which could be bought for a small sum. Then, by encouraging immigration thither, they might be sold at enormous profit.
This was the Burr scheme as Blennerhasset heard it. The dupe did not dream of the treasonable projects resting within the mind of his dangerous associate. These were, to provoke revolt of the people of Mexico and the northern Spanish provinces, annex the western United States region, and establish a great empire, in which Burr should be the leading potentate.
Mr. Blennerhasset, once enlisted in the land-speculation project, supplied the funds to buy the lands on the Washita, and engaged in operations on a large scale for sending settlers to the purchased domain. Colonel Burr came to Marietta and took an active part in these operations. Fifteen large flat-boats were built to convey the immigrants, their furniture, and such arms as they might need for repelling Indians. Five hundred men were fixed as the number for the first colony, and this number Burr succeeded in enlisting. Each was to have one hundred acres of land. This was not in itself any great inducement where land was so plentiful as in Ohio. But Burr did not hesitate to hint at future possibilities. The lands to be colonized had been peacefully purchased. But the Mexicans were eager to throw off the Spanish yoke; war between the United States and Spain might break out at any minute; Mexico would be invaded by an army, set free, and the new pioneers would have splendid opportunities in the formation of a new and great republic of the West and South. Burr went further than this. He had articles inserted in a Marietta newspaper, signed by an assumed name, in which was advocated the secession of the States west of the Alleghanies. These articles were strongly replied to by a writer who signed himself "Regulus," and with whose views the community at large sympathized. His articles were copied by Eastern papers. They spoke of the armed expedition which Colonel Burr was preparing, and declared that its purpose was the invasion of Mexico. Jefferson, then in the Presidential chair, knew Burr too well to ignore these warnings. He sent a secret agent to Marietta to discover what was going on, and at the same time asked the governor of Ohio to seize the boats and suppress the expedition.
Mr. Blennerhasset assured the secret agent, Mr. Graham, that no thought was entertained of invading Mexico. The project, he said, was an eminently peaceful one. But the public was of a different opinion. Rumor, once started, grew with its usual rapidity. Burr was organizing an army to seize New Orleans, rob the banks, capture the artillery, and set up an empire or republic of his own in the valley of the lower Mississippi. Blennerhasset was his accomplice, and as deep in the scheme as himself. The Ohio Legislature, roused to energetic action by the rumors which were everywhere afloat, passed an act that all armed expeditions should be suppressed, and empowered the governor to call out the militia, seize Burr's boats, and hold the crews for trial.
Public attention had been earnestly and hostilely directed to the questionable project, and Burr's hopes were at an end. The militia were mustered at Marietta, a six-pounder was planted on the river-bank, orders were given to stop and examine all descending boats, and sentries were placed to watch the stream by day and night.
While these events were proceeding, Mr. Blennerhasset had gone to the Muskingum, to superintend the departure of the boats that were to start from that stream. While there the boats were seized by order of the governor. The suspicions of the people and government were for the first time made clear to him. Greatly disturbed, and disposed to abandon the whole project, costly as it had been to him, he hastened back to his island home. There he found a flotilla of four boats, with a crew of about thirty men, which had passed Marietta before the mustering of the militia. They were commanded by a Mr. Tyler.
Mr. Blennerhasset's judgment was in favor of abandoning the scheme. Mrs. Blennerhasset, who was very ambitious, argued strongly on the other side. She was eager to see her husband assume a position fitting to his great talents. Mr. Tyler joined her in her arguments. Blennerhasset gave way. It was a fatal compliance, one destined to destroy his happiness and peace for the remainder of his life, and to expose his wife to the most frightful scenes of outrage and barbarity.
The frontier contained hosts of lawless men, men to whom loyalty meant license. Three days after the conversation described, word was brought to the island that a party of the Wood County militia, made up of the lowest and most brutal men in the community, would land on the island that very night, seize the boats, arrest all the men they found, and probably burn the house.
The danger was imminent. Blennerhasset and all the men with him took to the boats to escape arrest and possibly murder from these exasperated frontiersmen. Mrs. Blennerhasset and her children were left in the mansion, with the expectation that their presence would restrain the brutality of the militia, and preserve the house and its valuable contents from destruction. It proved a fallacious hope. Colonel Phelps, the commander of the militia, pursued Blennerhasset. In his absence his men behaved like savages. They took possession of the house, became brutally drunk from the liquors they found in the cellar, rioted through its elegantly furnished rooms, burned its fences for bonfires, and for seven days made life a pandemonium of horrors for the helpless woman and frightened children who had been left in their midst.
The experience of those seven days was frightful. There was no escape. Mrs. Blennerhasset was compelled to witness the ruthless destruction of all she held most dear, and to listen to the brutal ribaldry and insults of the rioting savages. Not until the end of the time named did relief come. Then Mr. Putnam, a friend from the neighboring town of Belpré, ventured on the island. He provided a boat in which the unhappy lady was enabled to save a few articles of furniture and some choice books. In this boat, with her two sons, six and eight years old, and with two young men from Belpré, she started down the river to join her husband. Two or three negro servants accompanied her.