ned at
about fifty thousand dollars. Theodosia entirely and warmly approved
the dazzling scheme. The throne of Mexico, she thought, was an object
worthy of her father's talents, and one which would repay him for the
loss of a brief tenure of the Presidency, and be a sufficient triumph
over the men who were supposed to have thwarted him. Her boy,
too,--would he not be heir-presumptive to a throne?

The recent publication of the "Blennerhassett Papers" appears to
dispel all that remained of the mystery which the secretive Burr chose
to leave around the object of his scheme. We can now say with almost
absolute certainty that Burr's objects were the following: The throne
of Mexico for himself and his heirs; the seizure and organization of
Texas as preliminary to the grand design. The purchase of lands on the
Washita was for the three-fold purpose of veiling the real object,
providing a rendezvous, and having the means of tempting and rewarding
those of the adventurers who were not in the secret. We can also now
discover the designed distribution of honors and places: Aaron L,
Emperor; Joseph Alston, Head of the Nobility and Chief Minister; Aaron
Burr Alston, heir to the throne; Theodosia, Chief Lady of the Court
and Empire; Wilkinson, General-in-Chief of the Army; Blennerhassett,
Embassador to the Court of St. James; Commodore Truxton (perhaps),
Admiral of the Navy. There is not an atom of new _evidence_ which
warrants the supposition that Burr had any design to sever the Western
States from the Union. If he himself had ever contemplated such an
event, it is almost unquestionable that his followers were ignorant of
it.

The scheme exploded. Theodosia and her husband had joined him at the
home of the Blennerhassetts, and they were near him when the
President's proclamation dashed the scheme to atoms, scattered the
band of adventurers, and sent Burr a prisoner to Richmond, charged
with high treason. Mr. Alston, in a public letter to the Governor of
South Carolina, solemnly declared that he was wholly ignorant of any
treasonable design on the part of his father-in-law, and repelled with
honest warmth the charge of his own complicity with a design so
manifestly absurd and hopeless as that of a dismemberment of the
Union. Theodosia, stunned with the unexpected blow, returned with her
husband to South Carolina, ignorant of her father's fate. He was
carried through that State on his way to the North, and there it was
that he ma