“What?” cried Hamilton, erect and alert.  “Permit Burr to become Governor of New York?  Do you realize that the New England States are talking of secession, that even the Democrats of the North are disgusted and alarmed at the influence and arrogance of Virginia?  Burr has a certain prestige in New England on account of his father and Jonathan Edwards, and his agents have been promoting discussion of this ancestry for some time past.  Do the Federalists of New York endorse him, this prestige will have received its fine finish; and New Englanders have winked his vices out of sight because Jefferson’s treatment of him makes him almost virtuous in their eyes.  The moment he is Governor he will foment the unrest of New England until it secedes, and then, being the first officer of the leading State of the North, he will claim a higher office that will end in sovereignty.  He fancies himself another Bonaparte, he who is utterly devoid of even that desire for fame, and that magnificence, which would make the Corsican a great man without his genius.  That he is in communication with his idol, I happen to know, for he has been seen in secret conversation with fresh Jacobin spies.  Now is the time to crush Burr once for all.  Jefferson has intrigued the Livingstons and Clinton away from him again; the party he patched together out of hating factions is in a state of incohesion.  If the Federals—­”

“That is just it,” interrupted Troup; “the man is desperate.  So are his followers, his ‘little band.’  They were sick and gasping after Burr’s failure to receive one vote in the Republican caucus for even the Vice-Presidency, and they know that the Louisiana Purchase has made Jefferson invincible with the Democrats—­or the Republicans, as Jefferson still persists in calling them.  They know that Burr’s chance for the Presidency has gone for ever.  So New York is their only hope.  Secession and empire or not, their hope, like his, is in the spoils of office; they are lean and desperate.  If you balk them—­”

“What a spectacle is this!” cried Hamilton, gaily.  He threw himself back on the grass, and clasped his hands behind his head.  “Troup, of all men, reproaching me for keeping a vow he once was ready to annihilate me for having broken.  That offence was insignificant to the crime of supinely permitting our Catiline to accomplish his designs.”

“If I could agree with you, I should be the last to counsel indifference; no, not if your life were the forfeit.  But I never believed in Burr’s talent for conspiracy.  He is too sanguine and visionary.  He desires power, office, and emolument—­rewards for his henchmen before they desert him; but I believe he’d go—­or get—­no farther, and the country is strong enough to stand a quack or two; while, if we lose you—­”