Burr's activities after his term of public office ended in March, 1805, were devious, complicated, and purposely veiled, involving many men and spread over a large territory. ¹ Near Marietta on an island in the Ohio River, Burr came upon Harman Blennerhassett, a genial Irishman living in a luxurious and hospitable mansion which was making a heavy drain upon his already diminished resources. Here Burr, by his charm of manner and engaging conversation, soon won from the simple Irishman his heart and his remaining funds. He also made the island both a convenient rendezvous for his adherents in his ambitious schemes and a starting point for his own extended expeditions, which took him during the latter part of this year to Natchez, Nashville, St. Louis, Vincennes, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia, and back to Washington. ¹ An account of the Burr conspiracy will be found in Jefferson and his Colleagues, by Allen Johnson (in The Chronicles of America). In the summer of 1806 Burr turned westward a second time and with the assistance of Blennerhassett he began military preparations on the latter's island for a mysterious expedition. On the 29th of July, Burr had dispatched a letter in cipher to Wilkinson, his most important confederate. The precise terms of this document we shall never know, but apparently it contained the most amazing claims of the successful maturing of Burr's scheme: "funds had been obtained," "English naval protection had been secured," "from five hundred to a thousand men" would be on the move down the Mississippi by the middle of November. Unfortunately for Burr, however, Wilkinson was far too expert in the usages of iniquity to be taken in by such audacious lying as this. He guessed that the enterprise was on the verge of collapse and forthwith made up his mind to abandon it.