s and Burr five.

Burr had played his game with the skill of a master. The tactics that
elected him to the United States Senate in 1791 and made him a
gubernatorial possibility in 1792 were repeated on a larger scale and
shrouded in deeper mystery. He had appeared to disavow any intention
of supplanting Jefferson, and yet had played for Federalist and
Republican support so cleverly that Jefferson pronounced his conduct
"honourable and decisive, and greatly embarrassing" to those who tried
to "debauch him from his good faith." In the evening of the
inauguration, President and Vice President received together the
congratulations of their countrymen at the presidential mansion. At
Albany banqueting Republicans drank the health of "Aaron Burr, Vice
President of the United States; his uniform and patriotic exertions in
favour of Republicanism eclipsed only by his late disinterested
conduct."

But when soberer thoughts came the Republican mind was disturbed with
the question why Burr, after the Federalists had openly resolved to
support him, did not proclaim on the housetop what he had written to
Samuel Smith before the tie was known. Gradually the truth began to
dawn as men talked and compared notes, and before three months had
elapsed Jefferson's estimate of Burr's character corresponded with
Hamilton's. It is of record that from 1790 to 1800 Jefferson
considered him "for sale," and when the Virginians, after twice
refusing to vote for him, finally sustained him for Vice President,
they did so repenting their act.[116]

[Footnote 116: Henry Adams, _History of the United States_, Vol. 1, p.
229. Jefferson's _Anas_; _Works_, Vol. 9, p. 207.]

It is not easy to indicate the source of Burr's inherent badness. His
father, a clergyman of rare scholarship and culture, became, at the
age of thirty-two, the second president of Princeton College, while
Jonathan Edwards, his maternal grandfather, whose "Freedom of the
Will" made him an intellectual world-force, became its third
president; but if one may accept contemporary judgment, Aaron Burr had
scarcely one good or great quality of heart. Like Lord Chesterfield,
his favourite author, he had intellect without truth or virtue; like
Chesterfield, too, he was small in stature and slender.[117] Here,
however, the comparison must end if Lord Hervey's description of
Chesterfield be accepted, for instead of broad, rough features, and
an ugly face, Burr's personal appearance, suggested