Shortly after the episode in Baltimore Blennerhassett parted company with Burr and went to join his beloved Margaret in Natchez. He was now approaching the end of his resources, burdened with an accumulation of debts, and badgered by insolent and exacting creditors. His library, research apparatus and the furniture in the mansion on the island had to be sold. The mansion itself was allowed to go to ruin. It was taken over along with the rest of the island by a tenant who used them for the culture of hemp and the manufacture of cordage. It was not long, however, before the mansion was mercifully rescued from its humiliation by a fire which leveled it to the ground. Despairing of ever getting any money out of Burr, Blennerhassett concentrated on his son-in-law Alston, demanding $35,000 on pain of publishing a pamphlet disclosing the Governor’s connection with the conspiracy. Alston, now Governor of South Carolina, is reported to have given him $10,000. Blennerhassett’s next venture was the purchase of a cotton plantation in Mississippi. In spite of Margaret’s loyal support this too was a failure. At this point the acting Governor of Canada, an old and intimate friend, managed to find a seat for Blennerhassett on one of the provincial courts of the Dominion. So in 1819, disposing of what interest remained to him in the island and the plantation, he moved with his wife and sons to Canada and took up his residence in Montreal. But this solution of his problem proved temporary--he was turned out of office by what he described as the “capriciousness of the British ministry.” All that was left to him now were claims to property still existing in Ireland. So in 1822 the Blennerhassetts set sail from Canada for home. Nothing came of the claims and, after living for a time with a maiden sister of Harman’s in England, the Blennerhassetts sought refuge on the island of Guernsey. That was Blennerhassett’s last move. There he died in 1831, leaving Margaret with little or no money and two dependent sons. In 1842 Mrs. Blennerhassett decided to return to the United States and petitioned Congress for payment for the boats and stores seized at Marietta, Ohio, in the winter of 1806–07. On her arrival in New York with one of her sons, Henry Clay, who was then in the Senate, interested himself in her case. He described her as living in absolute want, presented her petition, and advocated its justice. But the petitioner died before the Senate had time to act.