urr's conduct during those momentous weeks when Federalists did their
utmost to make him President, gave his rivals ample ground for
creating the belief that he had evidenced open contempt for the
principles of honest dealing. Had he published a letter after the
Federalists decided to support him, condemning their policy as a
conspiracy to deprive the people of their choice for President, and
refusing to accept an election at their hands if tendered him, it must
have disarmed his critics and smoothed his pathway to further
political preferment; but his failure so to act, coupled with his
well-known behaviour and the activity of his friends, gave opponents
an advantage that skill and ability were insufficient to overcome.

James Cheetham handled his pen like a bludgeon. Even at this distance
of time Cheetham's "View of Aaron Burr's Political Conduct," in which
is traced the Vice President's alleged intrigues to promote himself
over Jefferson, is interesting and exciting. Despite its bitter
sarcasm and torrent of vituperation, Cheetham's array of facts and
dates, the designation of persons and places, and the bold assumptions
based on apparent knowledge, backed by foot-notes that promised
absolute proof if denial were made, impress one strongly. There is
much that is weak, much that is only suspicion, much that is fanciful.
A visit to an uncle in Connecticut, a call upon the governor of Rhode
Island, a communication sent under cover to another, letters in
cipher, pleasant notices in Federalist newspapers, a journey of
Timothy Green to South Carolina--all these belong to the realm of
inference; but the method of blending them with well established facts
was so artful, the writer's sincerity so apparent, and the strokes of
the pen so bold and positive, that it is easy to understand the effect
which Cheetham's accusation, taken up and ceaselessly repeated by
other papers, would have upon the political fortunes of Burr.

Nevertheless the Vice President remained silent. He did not feel, or
seem to feel, newspaper criticism with the acuteness of a sensitive
nature trying to do right. "They are so utterly lost on me that I
should never have seen even this," he wrote Theodosia, "but that it
came inclosed to me in a letter from New York." Still Cheetham kept
his battery at work. After his "Narrative" came the "View," and then,
in 1803, "Nine Letters on the Subject of Burr's Defection," a heavier
volume, a sort of siege-gun, broug