To this they had made up their minds from the beginning. Burr’s four years of office were drawing to a close. The Virginians had paid him the price he asked for replacing them in power; and had it been Shylock’s pound of flesh, they could not have looked with greater care to see that Burr should get neither more nor less, even in the estimation of a hair, than the exact price they had covenanted to pay. In another year the debt would be discharged, and the Virginians would be free. Burr had not a chance of regaining a commanding place among Republicans, for he was bankrupt in private and public character. In New York the Clintons never ceased their attacks, with the evident wish to drive him from the party. Cheetham, after publishing in 1802 two heavy pamphlets, a “Narrative” and a “View,” attempted in 1803 to crush him under the weight of a still heavier volume, containing “Nine Letters on the Subject of Aaron Burr’s Political Defection.” Nov. 16, 1803, the “Albany Register” at length followed Cheetham’s lead; and nearly all the other democratic newspapers followed the “Register,” abandoning Burr as a man who no longer deserved confidence. Till near the close of 1803 the Vice-President held his peace. The first sign that he meant energetic retaliation was given by an anonymous pamphlet,[108] which won the rare double triumph of political and literary success, in which ability and ill temper seemed to have equal shares. The unexpected appearance of “Aristides” startled New York. This attack recalled the scandal which Alexander Hamilton had created four years before by his pamphlet against his own President. “Aristides” wrote with even more bitterness than Hamilton, and the ferocity of his assault on the personal and political characters of the Republican leaders made the invectives of Hamilton and Cheetham somewhat tame; but the scandal in each case was due not so much to personalities of abuse as to breaches of confidence. “Aristides” furnished to the enemies of the Clintons and Livingstons an arsenal of poisoned weapons; but what was more to the purpose, his defence of Burr was strong. That it came directly from the Vice-President was clear; but the pamphlet showed more literary ability than Burr claimed, and the world was at a loss to discover who could be held responsible for its severities. Cheetham tried in vain to pierce the incognito. Not till long afterward was “Aristides” acknowledged by Burr’s most intimate friend, William Peter Van Ness.