At last in 1812 the Colonel was permitted to return home. By this time public opinion even in New York had relented. The war with England and other more immediate matters served to erase from the public conscience the Hamilton episode. Burr could resume his practice and his native brilliance soon restored to him his earlier reputation as a leader at the bar. But more tragedy was in store. This time it took the form of domestic sorrow, as though fate were trying to see what else it could do to break his indomitable spirit. From Charleston came the distressing news of the death of Aaron Burr Alston, to whom the grandfather was so devoted and on whom he had counted to carry on the family tradition. There was still more to come. Theodosia, stricken with grief and herself fatally ill, sought solace in the company of her father in New York. At noon on December 30, 1812, accompanied by her maid, she set sail from Charleston aboard a vessel named _The Patriot_. Not long after, a terrific storm blew up on the Atlantic. _The Patriot_ was never heard of again. The vessel’s fate has continued to be a mystery. The North Carolina coast in the neighborhood of Cape Hatteras was notorious in those days for “wreckers,” men who, by the ingenious shifting of lights on shore, lured ships on the shoals and, when the ships had broken up, preyed on the wrecks. There were as well rumors of the operations of pirates. In later years legends sprang up of deathbed confessions in which Theodosia Burr Alston figured as a victim of one of these bands of marauders. But convincing proof is lacking. Whatever his innermost thoughts, Burr accepted this last and bitterest loss with the stoicism he had shown on earlier occasions. His pride demanded that he do no less. Meanwhile retribution had caught up with another figure in the trial. Luther Martin’s constitution broke down under his persistent and unrestricted drinking. His law practice fell away. Burr learned of his condition and repaid him for past favors by giving him asylum in his home in New York. Eventually Martin returned to Baltimore, his once brilliant mind shattered by the steady inroads of senility. He often wandered through the court rooms which had been the scene of so many of his triumphs, a drooling derelict, for whose support, in recognition of his great past achievements, each member of the bar accepted a small annual assessment.