position he placed Mr. Drinker in—how could he not? Burr had signed a contract back in ’94to purchase some eighty thousand acres of Pennsylvania land from Drinker, and—well, matters had gone awry from there. The land was nearly a fifth of Drinker’s holdings in Pennsylvania and New York, and yet the Quaker merchant was still without his promised money. His papers overflowed with five years’ worth of apologetic letters, all filled with delays and excuses from Burr. “ThePurchase if made will be made with a View to Settlement in the Spring,” read one from 1795, adding: “Payment uncertain.”
It simply had to stop.
What was more, stateproperty taxes had been accumulating on the land—taxes that Drinker initially refused to pay, as they were rightly owed by Burr. He had been mailing Burr for months, years now, to have this matter resolved—rarely with any satisfactory response from Richmond Hill. Surely Burr could see that he must honor the contract.
Drinker was accustomed to bargaining hard: He stillunderwrote cargo ships from Britain and ran a busy iron mill. He was a canny enough businessman that he’d managed tosupport the Revolutionary patriots in one early boycott campaign, and then turned around to secure a commission to sell British tea during another. Even if those business instincts sometimes backfired—at one point in the Revolution his vague allegiances earned him an exile from the state—they’d served him well enough that he now controlled some half-million acres of land in New York and Pennsylvania.
Burr considered Drinker’s requests carefully.
No
.
It was simply impossible. Burr had been under terrible burdens for years now: After a 1796 land speculation had gone bad, a business partner left himholding the bag for immense debts. Burr did not like to talk numbers, for he was a gentleman, but those knowledgeable of such matters said thathe was on the hook for at least $80,000. It was an
astounding
sum. But if Drinker wished to continue his pursuit—why, then—what Burr no longer possessed in money, he still possessed in wile. And it would be a shame for the good merchant to expose his business interests to legal difficulties.
The damnable truth dawned on Drinker: He was trying to get money out of a lawyer.
“I am not aware of any cause of litigation subsisting between us,” he assured his visitor. “Save one.”
That hardly mattered to Burr. The justness of the old merchant’s complaint was irrelevant: He could tie up Drinker in endlesslitigation anyway. Burr had areputation for harrying foes with blizzards of appeals and motions, and when the occasion called for it, the colonel’s attitude toward legal processes could possess a marvelous flexibility. The law, he once explained, “is whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained.”
Burr pressed the merchant relentlessly through the day, wearing the old man down.
We must come to an agreement
, he insisted.
By the time they adjourned, the elderly merchant hadmissed his Sunday meeting at the Friends meetinghouse, an almost unheard-of lapse for him. And as darkness fell, the old man miserably contemplated another face-to-face stalemate with Burr scheduled for the very next day.
On January 14, 1800, Drinker wearily informed one of his business partners of what had happened next.
“I have had to pay a large demand made on me by Aaron Burr Esq.,” he wrote, chagrined. “
And tho’ it was directly opposite to what of right should have been my situation with him …
I foresaw he was disposed to perplex & spin out the matter to considerable length.”
Colonel Burr, returning to Richmond Hill with some $12,000 in bonds and bills strong-armed from his own creditor, promptly talkedyet another $1,500 out of his local merchants. His creditors staved off—however briefly—Aaron Burr was now ready to get down to business.
He had a man to save from the gallows.
E LMA ’ S FAMILY and friends had not suffered in silence while
It simply had to stop.
What was more, stateproperty taxes had been accumulating on the land—taxes that Drinker initially refused to pay, as they were rightly owed by Burr. He had been mailing Burr for months, years now, to have this matter resolved—rarely with any satisfactory response from Richmond Hill. Surely Burr could see that he must honor the contract.
Drinker was accustomed to bargaining hard: He stillunderwrote cargo ships from Britain and ran a busy iron mill. He was a canny enough businessman that he’d managed tosupport the Revolutionary patriots in one early boycott campaign, and then turned around to secure a commission to sell British tea during another. Even if those business instincts sometimes backfired—at one point in the Revolution his vague allegiances earned him an exile from the state—they’d served him well enough that he now controlled some half-million acres of land in New York and Pennsylvania.
Burr considered Drinker’s requests carefully.
No
.
It was simply impossible. Burr had been under terrible burdens for years now: After a 1796 land speculation had gone bad, a business partner left himholding the bag for immense debts. Burr did not like to talk numbers, for he was a gentleman, but those knowledgeable of such matters said thathe was on the hook for at least $80,000. It was an
astounding
sum. But if Drinker wished to continue his pursuit—why, then—what Burr no longer possessed in money, he still possessed in wile. And it would be a shame for the good merchant to expose his business interests to legal difficulties.
The damnable truth dawned on Drinker: He was trying to get money out of a lawyer.
“I am not aware of any cause of litigation subsisting between us,” he assured his visitor. “Save one.”
That hardly mattered to Burr. The justness of the old merchant’s complaint was irrelevant: He could tie up Drinker in endlesslitigation anyway. Burr had areputation for harrying foes with blizzards of appeals and motions, and when the occasion called for it, the colonel’s attitude toward legal processes could possess a marvelous flexibility. The law, he once explained, “is whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained.”
Burr pressed the merchant relentlessly through the day, wearing the old man down.
We must come to an agreement
, he insisted.
By the time they adjourned, the elderly merchant hadmissed his Sunday meeting at the Friends meetinghouse, an almost unheard-of lapse for him. And as darkness fell, the old man miserably contemplated another face-to-face stalemate with Burr scheduled for the very next day.
On January 14, 1800, Drinker wearily informed one of his business partners of what had happened next.
“I have had to pay a large demand made on me by Aaron Burr Esq.,” he wrote, chagrined. “
And tho’ it was directly opposite to what of right should have been my situation with him …
I foresaw he was disposed to perplex & spin out the matter to considerable length.”
Colonel Burr, returning to Richmond Hill with some $12,000 in bonds and bills strong-armed from his own creditor, promptly talkedyet another $1,500 out of his local merchants. His creditors staved off—however briefly—Aaron Burr was now ready to get down to business.
He had a man to save from the gallows.
E LMA ’ S FAMILY and friends had not suffered in silence while
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