“Ay! they’ll change their tune!” cries Blennerhassett, as he considers his greatness to come. “It should open their Irish eyes, for sure, when they meet me as ‘Don Blennerhassett, grandee of the Mexican Empire, Ambassador to St. James by favor of his Imperial Majesty, Aaron I.’ It’ll cause my surly kinfolk to sing out of the other corners of their mouths; for I cannot remember that they’ve been over-respectful to me in the past.”
Aaron recrosses the mountains, and descends the Potomac to Washington. He dines with Jefferson, and relates his adventures, but hides his plans. No whisper of empire and emperors at the great democrat’s table! Aaron is not so horn-mad as all that.
While Aaron is in Washington, the stubborn Swartwout comes over. As the fruits of the conference between him and his chief, the stubborn one returns, and sends his brother Samuel, young Ogden, and Dr. Bollman to Blennerhassett. Also, the lustrous Theo and little Aaron Burr Alston join Aaron; for the princess mother of the heir presumptive, as well as the sucking emperor himself, is to go with Aaron when he again heads for the West. There will be no return--the lustrous Theo and the heir presumptive are to accompany the expedition of conquest. Son-in-law Alston, who will be chief of the grandees and secretary of state, promises to follow later. Just now he is trying to negotiate a loan on his plantations; and making slow work of it, because of Jefferson’s interference with the exportation of rice.
Madam Blennerhassett welcomes the princess mother with wide arms, and kisses the heir presumptive. Aaron decides to make the island a present headquarters. Leaving the lustrous Theo and the heir presumptive to Madam Blennerhassett, he indulges in swift, darting journeys, west and north and south. He arranges for fifteen bateaux, each to carry one hundred men, at Marietta. He crosses to Nashville to talk with Jackson, and note the progress of that lean filibusterer with the Cumberland flotilla. What he sees so pleases him that he leaves four thousand dollars--a royal sum!--with the lean Jackson, to meet initial charges in outfitting the Tennessee wing of the great enterprise.
Aaron goes to Chillicothe and talks to the Governor of Ohio. Returning, he drops over to the little huddle of huts called Cannonsburg. There he forms the acquaintance of an honest, uncouth personage named Morgan, who is eaten up of patriotism and suspicion. Morgan listens to Aaron, and decides that he is a firebrand of treason about to set the Ohio valley in a blaze. He writes these flaming fears to Jefferson--as suspicious as any Morgan!