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:

Oh, may these pages one day meet the eye of him who subdued my virgin
heart, whom the immutable, unerring laws of nature had pointed out for
my husband, but whose sacred decree t