The Vice-President made a dramatic exit. On the eve of his departure he addressed the Senate. No scribe was at hand to record for posterity his exact words. He himself stated that he had made no previous preparation, but spoke merely from the heart. What posterity does know is that he spoke so earnestly, so eloquently, and so convincingly that some of his colleagues in that austere body broke down and wept unashamedly. When he had finished, in spite of the duel, in spite of political animosities and suspicions, they “Resolved, unanimously, that the thanks of the Senate, be presented to Aaron Burr, in testimony of the impartiality, dignity and ability with which he has presided over their deliberations, and of the arduous and important duties assigned him as President of the Senate.” Was he not to be excused if, with such impressive evidence of magic power over his fellow men, he was led to imagine that destiny still had great things in store for him? Yet, for the moment, there were serious defects in his fortunes which called for immediate repair. He was out of political office. The indictments against him in New York and New Jersey made it impossible for him to return home to the practice of law which hitherto he had found lucrative. Always extravagant in his tastes, and chronically living beyond his means, he was now heavily in debt. Soon after the duel he had been obliged to sell Richmond Hill for $25,000 to meet his more pressing obligations. As one of his biographers says of him, he was at this point what is popularly described as “a ruined man.” Under these discouraging circumstances Burr turned his eyes to the West. _Chapter_ II The United States census of 1800 showed a population of 5,308,483 persons, of whom one fifth were slaves. The bulk of it was in the states along the eastern seaboard; west of the Allegheny Mountains were fewer than 500,000 settlers, chiefly in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The mountains served as a rugged barrier cutting off the westerners almost completely from the East and giving them a sense of political as well as physical detachment. The only means of communication overland were three crude highways largely limited to travel by horseback or by the great Conestoga wagons drawn by six horses which carried such commerce as there was between the two areas. One road led from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, another followed the line of the Potomac River through Maryland to the Monongahela, and a third ran through Virginia and crossed the mountains into Kentucky and Tennessee. Once the tributaries of the Mississippi River were reached river craft provided a more luxurious mode of travel and also transported freight. The staple products of the western country were floated downstream on flatboats to New Orleans to be sold there and shipped by sea. Sometimes their owners went along to market their goods in the thriving young cities of the East and returned home across country on horseback.