An American Patrician, or The Story of Aaron Burr: IllustratedLewis, Alfred Henry
History
An American Patrician, or The Story of Aaron Burr: Illustrated
Lewis, Alfred Henry
Burr, Aaron, 1756-1836
One day as he returns from breakfast at Holland House, he finds a note
on his table. It is from Lord Liverpool. The note is polite, bland,
insinuating, flattering. It says, none the less, that “The presence
of Colonel Burr in Great Britain is embarrassing to His Majesty’s
Government, and it is the wish and expectation of Government that he
remove.”
The note continues to the courteous effect that “passports will be
furnished Colonel Burr,” and a free passage in an English ship to any
port--not English.
Aaron replies to Lord Liverpool’s note, and says that having become, as
his Lordship declares, “embarrassing to His Majesty’s Government,” he
must, of course, as a gentleman “gratify the wishes of Government by
withdrawing.” He adds that Sweden, now he may no longer stay in England,
is his preference.
Aaron goes to Stockholm, and has trouble with the language but none with
the inhabitants, who receive him with open hearts and arms. At once he
is called upon to play the distinguished guest in highest circles, and
does it with usual easy grace. He spends three months in Stockholm, and
two in traveling about the kingdom. The excellence of the roads and the
lack of toll-gates amaze him. Likewise, he is in rapture over Swedish
honesty. He makes an admiring dash at the laws of the realm, and spreads
on his journal:
“There is no country in which personal liberty is so well secured; none
in which the violation of it is punished with so much certainty and
promptitude; none in which justice is administered with so much dispatch
and so little expense.”
Aaron attends the opera, and cannot say too much in praise of the
Swedish appreciation of music. He exalts the sensibility of the
Norsemen. Returning from the opera, he lights his candle and writes:
“What most interested me was the perfect attention and the uncommon
degree of feeling exhibited by the audience. Every countenance was
affected by those emotions which the music expressed. In England you
see no expression painted on the faces at a concert or an opera. All
is somber and grim. They cry ‘Bravo! bravissimo!’ with the same
countenance wherewith they curse.”
From Sweden Aaron repairs to Denmark, and takes up pleasant quarters in
Copenhagen. Here he goes in for science, ransacks libraries, and attends
the courts. Studying the Danish jurisprudence, he is struck by that
amiable feature called the “Committees on Conciliation,” and resolves to
recommend its adoption in America.
Hamburg next. Here Aaron asks for passports into France. They are not
immediately forthcoming, since under the Corsican passports are more
easily asked for than obtained. While his passports are making, Aaron
is visited by the learned Ebeling, and Niebuhr, privy counselor to the
king.
Aaron takes six weeks and explores Germany.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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