ning to relieve a man whose character he
had been enabled to appreciate during a confidential
intercourse of long continuance, and whom [he] must know
incapable of the designs attributed to him. My anxiety on
this subject, has, however, become too painful to be
alleviated by anticipations which no events have yet tended
to justify; and in this state of intolerable suspense I have
determined to address myself to you, and request that you
will, _in my name_, apply to the President for a removal of
the prosecution now existing against AARON BURR. I still
expect it from him as a man of feeling and candor, as one
acting for the world and for posterity.

"Statesmen, I am aware, deem it necessary that sentiments of
liberality, and even justice, should yield to considerations
of policy; but what policy can require the absence of my
father at present? Even had he contemplated the project for
which he stands arraigned, evidently to pursue it any
further would now be impossible. There is not left one
pretext of alarm even to calumny; for bereft of fortune, of
popular favor, and almost of friends, what could he
accomplish? And whatever may be the apprehensions or the
clamors of the ignorant and the interested, surely the
timid, illiberal system which would sacrifice a man to a
remote and unreasonable possibility that he might infringe
some law founded on an unjust, unwarrantable suspicion that
he would desire it, cannot be approved by Mr. Madison, and
must be unnecessary to a President so loved, so honored.
Why, then, is my father banished from a country for which he
has encountered wounds and dangers and fatigue for years?
Why is he driven from his friends, from an only child, to
pass an unlimited time in exile, and that, too, at an age
when others are reaping the harvest of past toils, or ought
at least to be providing seriously for the comfort of
ensuing years? I do not seek to soften you by this
recapitulation. I only wish to remind you of all the
injuries which are inflicted on one of the first characters
the United States ever produced.

"Perhaps it may be well to assure you there is no truth in a
report lately circulated, that my father intends returning
immediately. He never will return to conceal himself in a
country on w