argument, and when he came to address the jury, he not only used all his own argu ments, but anticipated all of Hamilton's. In fact he exhausted the case, and left noth ing for Hamilton to advance. Consequently he carried off all the honors. Hamilton never afterwards showed an undue desire to take the place of honor in any suit in which he was jointly engaged with Colonel Burr. Few men had more to forgive and more to forget than Aaron Burr; and few men had more of the gentle grace of charity than this man who had suffered from the treachery of friends, the malice of his enemies, and the thoughtless injustice of the mean and ignorant. Although he believed to his dy ing day that General Wilkinson had deliber ately betrayed him in the Mexican scheme, and he despised him heartily, he never denounced him; although Jefferson had wielded all the power of the federal govern ment to convict him of treason, Burr never seemed embittered against him. He de scribed him as a man of great information, and very agreeable in conversation; but, of no. " presence," a plain man who carried his democratic principles to the verge of Jacob inism. During the last thirty-five years of his life, Burr received many private affronts which he bore with surprising patience. Sometimes, however, he would resent a public insult in a way that was never for gotten by the witnesses, or forgiven by the victim. Once, in his old age, he was attend ing court at Jamaica, on Long Island, when a young lawyer attempted to win the ap plause of the court room by abusing Col onel Burr in his opening speech. Burr listened patiently to the tirade of the young blackguard who was about fifty years his junior, and rising to reply, said in his bland est manner, and without a sign of irritation in his voice :
"I learned in the Revolution, in the soci ety of gentlemen, and have since observed for myself, that a man who is guilty of in tentional bad manners, is capable of crime." This quiet remark completely quelled the insolent young lawyer, and was received with approving smiles by the crowd of spec tators. On another occasion, a lawyer whose standing must have been rather doubtful, declined to appear in a case on the same side with Aaron Burr. The client decided to let the squeamish lawyer go, and to con fide the case entirely to Colonel Burr. It was well known that he never undertook a case which he was not sure of winning, and that he had never lost a case which he had personally conducted. The opposite side waited to hear whether he had accepted the case, and when they heard he had, immedi ately offered to compromise. The game old man continued the practice of law in the New York courts until he was nearly eighty years old. One morning, at the close of the year 1833, as he was walk ing along Broadway, he was stricken with paralysis. He recovered from the stroke with astonishing rapidity, and was soon at work again, determined to be the man of business, the great lawyer to the last. In a few months he suffered another stroke which deprived him of the use of his limbs. Even then he would not give up, but, reclining on a sofa in his office, he received his clients and wrote opinions, and dictated letters day after day. But, as the months went on, he was obliged to relinquish all business pur suits and accept his changed condition. In his helpless state, he was made com fortable by the devoted attention of a lady, who, with the concurrence of her husband, invited him to her house, and placed at his disposal two basement rooms, where, sur rounded by his own books, pictures and
