fleet from the shore, the adventurer discovered full soon. He was
prepared to battle with the Mississippi, but had not anticipated
collision with the territorial militia, for he was in ignorance of the
fact that his plans had been exposed, and that a thunderbolt from the
hand of national authority had been hurled. His flotilla, as it
proceeded southward, instead of being hailed and boarded by eager
recruits, was bayed by the watch-dogs of the law, civil and martial.
Intrusive messengers from the courts and officious colonels of raw
militia regiments pestered and threatened; those, with paper warrants
from local magistrates, these, with flintlock muskets in reserve.

Not until his boat arrived at Bayou Pierre, near Natchez, and landed
in Petite Gulf, was Burr fully informed of the action taken by the
National Government and the several States. The situation was
disclosed to him by Major Flaharty of the Second Regiment, who, acting
under the authority of the territorial governor of Mississippi,
ordered Burr to appear at the village of Washington to undergo
examination. The order was not promptly enforced, and the boats were
permitted to cross the river to a point on the western shore, a few
miles lower down.

Before Burr's boat pushed out from Petite Gulf, Blennerhassett hurried
to his superior, and with many apologies, handed him a letter,
crumpled from having been carried long in the bearer's pocket.

"This came by mail to the island, addressed, as you see, in my care.
Margaret warned me to deliver it to you promptly; but the commission
escaped my mind." The superscription on the letter, written in fine
hand, ran thus: "To Colonel Aaron Burr, care of Mr. Harman
Blennerhassett, Blennerhassett's Island, opposite Belpre, Ohio, U. S.
A." Burr waited until the boat was in motion before entering his cabin
to open and read the belated _billet-doux_, for such he judged the
missive to be. The news he had just heard of Wilkinson's changed
attitude, and the prospect of his own arrest, left him in a state of
mind not favorable to playing the capricious game of flirtation, with
pen or tongue. He cast the sealed epistle on the table provided for his
use, and sat down on a wooden stool to ponder. The only illumination of
his rude quarters came from a tallow candle stuck in a socket made by
boring an auger-hole in a block of wood. Night had fallen, the wind blew
in violent gusts and the timbers of the flatboat creaked and shuddered