It was the same everywhere.  Burr made friends and devoted allies among all sorts of men.  During his stay in France, England, Germany, and Sweden he interested such men as Charles Lamb, Jeremy Bentham, Sir Walter Scott, Goethe, and Heeren.  They found his mind able to meet with theirs on equal terms.  Burr, indeed, had graduated as a youth with honors from Princeton, and had continued his studies there after graduation, which was then a most unusual thing to do.  But, of course, he learned most from his contact with men and women of the world.

Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, in The Minister’s Wooing, has given what is probably an exact likeness of Aaron Burr, with his brilliant gifts and some of his defects.  It is strong testimony to the character of Burr that Mrs. Stowe set out to paint him as a villain; but before she had written long she felt his fascination and made her readers, in their own despite, admirers of this remarkable man.  There are many parallels, indeed, between him and Napoleon—­in the quickness of his intellect, the ready use of his resources, and his power over men, while he was more than Napoleon in his delightful gift of conversation and the easy play of his cultured mind.

Those who are full of charm are willing also to be charmed.  All his life Burr was abstemious in food and drink.  His tastes were most refined.  It is difficult to believe that such a man could have been an unmitigated profligate.

In his twentieth year there seems to have begun the first of the romances that run through the story of his long career.  Perhaps one ought not to call it the first romance, for at eighteen, while he was studying law at Litchfield, a girl, whose name has been suppressed, made an open avowal of love for him.  Almost at the same time an heiress with a large fortune would have married him had he been willing to accept her hand.  But at this period he was only a boy and did not take such things seriously.

Two years later, after Burr had seen hard service at Quebec and on Manhattan Island, his name was associated with that of a very beautiful girl named Margaret Moncrieffe.  She was the daughter of a British major, but in some way she had been captured while within the American lines.  Her captivity was regarded as little more than a joke; but while she was thus a prisoner she saw a great deal of Burr.  For several months they were comrades, after which General Putnam sent her with his compliments to her father.

Margaret Moncrieffe had a most emotional nature.  There can be no doubt that she deeply loved the handsome young American officer, whom she never saw again.  It is doubtful how far their intimacy was carried.  Later she married a Mr. Coghlan.  After reaching middle life she wrote of Burr in a way which shows that neither years nor the obligations of marriage could make her forget that young soldier, whom she speaks of as “the conqueror of her soul.”  In the rather florid style of those days the once youthful Margaret Moncrieffe expresses herself as follows: