“that Luther Martin’s idolatrous admiration of Mrs. Alston is almost as excessive as my own, but far more beneficial to his interest and injurious to his judgment, as it is the medium of his blind attachment to her father, whose secrets and views, past, present, or to come, he is and wishes to remain ignorant of.  Nor can he see a speck in the character or conduct of Alston, for the best of all reasons with him, namely, that Alston has such a wife.”

It plainly appears, too, from the letters and journal of Blennerhassett, that Alston did all in his power to promote the acquittal and aid the fallen fortunes of Burr, and that he did so, not because he believed in him, but because he loved his Theodosia.

Acquitted by the jury, but condemned at the bar of public opinion, denounced by the press, abhorred by the Republican party, and still pursued by his creditors, Burr, in the spring of 1805, lay concealed at New York preparing for a secret flight to Europe.  Again his devoted child travelled northward to see him once more before he sailed.  For some weeks both were in the city, meeting only by night at the house of some tried friend, but exchanging notes and letters from hour to hour.  One whole night they spent together, just before his departure.  To her he committed his papers, the accumulation of thirty busy years; and it was she who was to collect the debts due him, and thus provide for his maintenance in Europe.

Burr was gay and confident to the last, for he was strong in the belief that the British Ministry would adopt his scheme and aid in tearing Mexico from the grasp of Napoleon.  Theodosia was sick and sorrowful, but bore bravely up and won her father’s commendation for her fortitude.  In one of the early days of June father and daughter parted, to meet no more on earth.

The four years of Burr’s fruitless exile were to Theodosia years of misery.  She could not collect the debts on which they had relied.  The embargo reduced the rice-planters to extreme embarrassment.  Her husband no longer sympathized with her in her yearning love for her father, though loving her as tenderly as ever.  Old friends in New York cooled toward her.  Her health was precarious.  Months passed without bringing a word from over the sea; and the letters that did reach her, lively and jovial as they were, contained no good news.  She saw her father expelled from England, wandering aimless in Sweden and Germany, almost a prisoner in Paris, reduced to live on potatoes and dry bread; while his own countrymen showed no signs of relenting toward him.  In many a tender passage she praised his fortitude.  “I witness,” she wrote, in a well-known letter,