But the Burr cup of misfortune was not yet full. That summer Theodosia’s only child, Aaron Burr Alston, sickened and died in his twelfth year, leaving the mother prostrated and the grandfather, who had doted on the boy, supervised his education and centered all his hopes upon him, bereft of his composure and optimism, possibly for the first time in his varied and tempestuous life. Mrs. Alston’s letters at this time deserve at least quotation:
“A few miserable days past, my dear father, and your late letters would have gladdened my soul; and even now I rejoice in their contents as much as it is possible for me to rejoice at anything; but there is no more joy for me; the world is a blank. I have lost my boy. My child is gone for ever. He expired on the thirtieth of June. My head is not sufficiently collected to say any thing further. May Heaven, by other blessings, make you some amends for the noble grandson you have lost.”
And again:
“Whichever way I turn the same anguish still assails me. You talk of consolation. Ah! you know not what you have lost. I think Omnipotence could give me no equivalent for my boy; no, none—none.”
This was the woman who set out a few months later, sadly emaciated and very weak, to join her father in New York, hoping that she might gain strength and hope again from the burdened but undaunted man who never yet had failed her.
The second war with England was in progress. Theodosia’s husband was governor of South Carolina, general of the state militia and active in the field. He could not leave his post. Accordingly, the plan of making the trip overland in her own coach was abandoned and Mrs. Alston decided to set sail in the Patriot, a small schooner which had put into Charleston after a privateering enterprise. Parton says that “she was commanded by an experienced captain and had for a sailing master an old New York pilot, noted for his skill and courage. The vessel was famous for her sailing qualities and it was confidently expected she would perform the voyage to New York in five or six days.” On the other hand, Burr himself referred to the ship bitterly as “the miserable little pilot boat.”
Whatever the precise facts, the Patriot was made ready and Theodosia went aboard with her maid and a personal physician, whom Burr had sent south from New York to attend his daughter on the voyage. The guns of the Patriot had been dismounted and stored below. To give her further ballast and to defray the expenses of the trip, Governor Alston filled the hold with tierces of rice from his plantations. The captain carried a letter from Governor Alston addressed to the commander of the British fleet, which was lying off the Capes, explaining the painful circumstances under which the little schooner was voyaging and requesting safe passage to New York. Thus occupied, the Patriot put out from Charleston on the afternoon of December 30th and crossed the bar on the following morning. Here fact ends and conjecture begins.
When, after the elapse of a week, the Patriot had not reached New York, Burr began to worry and to make inquiries, but nothing was to be discovered. He could not even be sure until the arrival of his son-in-law’s letter, that Theodosia had set sail. Even then, he hoped there might be some mistake. When a second letter from the South made it plain that she had gone on the Patriot, Burr still did not abandon hope and we see the picture of this sorely punished man walking every day from his law office in Nassau street to the fashionable promenade at the Battery, where he strolled up and down, oblivious to the hostile or impertinent glances of the vulgar, staring out toward the Narrows—in vain.
The poor little schooner was never seen again nor did any member of her crew reach safety and send word of her end. In due time came the report of the hurricane off Cape Hatteras, three days after the departure of the Patriot. Later still it was found that the storm had been of sufficient power to scatter the British fleet and send other vessels to the bottom. In all probability the craft which bore Theodosia had foundered with all hands.
Naturally, every other possibility came to be considered. It was at first believed that the Patriot might have been taken by a British man-of-war and held on account of her previous activities. Before this could be disproved it was suggested that the schooner might readily have been attacked by pirates, since her guns were stored below decks, and Mrs. Alston taken prisoner. Since there were still a few buccaneers in Southern waters, who sporadically took advantage of the preoccupation of the maritime powers with their wars, this theory of Theodosia Alston’s disappearance gained many adherents, chiefly among the romantics, it is true. But the possibility of such a thing was also seriously considered by the husband and for a time by the father, who hoped the unfortunate woman might have been taken to one of the lesser West Indies by some not unfeeling corsair. Surely, she would soon or late make her escape and win her way back to her dear ones. In the end Burr rejected this idea, too.