The Burr Conspiracy by James E. Lewis Jr

Author:James E. Lewis Jr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press

FOURTH INTERLUDE

A “RISING” IN BALTIMORE

On Monday, 2 November 1807, thirteen days after his trial in Richmond ended, Aaron Burr arrived in Baltimore on the stagecoach from Washington. The previous day, four others—fellow indictees Harman Blennerhassett and Comfort Tyler, Burr’s attorney Luther Martin, and defense witness Samuel Swartwout—had arrived from Richmond. Burr settled at the French Hotel on Gay Street, “obscure quarters” if compared to either Martin’s home on South Charles Street or the inn where Blennerhassett and Tyler lodged on Baltimore Street.1 On the day of Burr’s arrival, a letter from Martin appeared in Baltimore’s Federalist newspaper, the Federal Gazette. It defended Burr, attacked the administration, and claimed “freedom from censure” for Martin himself.2 That evening, a local volunteer company led by Captain Leonard Frailey, the printer of the Republican Baltimore Evening Post, visited Martin’s home, where nearly “all the Burrites in town” had dined. The “fife and drum played the Rogue’s march,” then the company “gave 3 cheers” and left.3

The next morning, the city’s newest Republican newspaper, the Whig, urged “the young men of Baltimore” to provide the “illustrious strangers” and Martin, “this very DAY, with a suit of tar and feathers.”4 Around noon, a handbill titled “AWFUL!!!” appeared around the city, informing residents “that four ‘choice spirits’ ”—“His Quid Majesty” (Burr), “Blennerhassett the Chemist,” “Lawyer Brandy Bottle” (Martin), and Chief Justice John Marshall—would be executed “by the Hang-man on Gallows-hill” at three o’clock according to “the sentence pronounced against them by the unanimous voice of every honest man in the community.”5 Within an hour, Burr, Swartwout, and Tyler left the city—“rather precipitately” in Blennerhassett’s view. Certain that Burr would “receive unwelcome obliquy for his flight,” Blennerhassett decided to remain at his lodgings. Martin also stayed in Baltimore, but not at his home. His law students and some friends occupied his house, arming themselves “to repel an expected assault.”6 Before three o’clock, Mayor Thorowgood Smith and other civil officials decided to call out the constables and two companies of cavalry to prevent personal injury or property damage.

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