The Pirate Coast(138)
William Eaton fell right into this thrum of conviviality; he played cards and drank while lawyerly motions delayed the start of the trial for weeks. Eaton believed Burr, with whom he had spent many hours, guilty of treason. Never shy, he laid wagers, some perhaps as high as $500, on the outcome of the trial.
And Burr’s lawyers and friends—to bolster the defense and discredit a witness—attacked Eaton’s character, even planting articles in the local newspapers. They accused him of wanting to join Burr on his expedition, and then betraying Burr to save himself. They also bad-mouthed Eaton’s exploits in Barbary as an overrated tale.
Eaton could have ignored the taunts; he could have thrived in Richmond, buttonholing wealthy influential men for higher office, but something happened to him that summer in Virginia, something that had been building since the shameful midnight exit from Derne. During the month waiting for the trial to begin, his inner demons from the Tripoli war overwhelmed him. The $12,000 payout had clearly not made him whole. The war was clearly not over. He tossed around the government’s money in card games; he drank whiskey, lots of it. He still craved praise from Jefferson and justice for Hamet.
Some days, he looked worse than others. “The once redoubted Eaton has dwindled down in the eyes of this sarcastic town into a ridiculous mountebank strutting about the streets under a tremendous hat, with a Turkish sash over coloured clothes,” wrote one of Burr’s coconspirators, Harman Blennerhassett. “When . . . tippling in the taverns . . . [Eaton] offers up with his libations the bitter effusions of his sorrows.”
That was Blennerhassett’s opinion and, with his life on the line, he clearly had an incentive to portray Eaton in the worst light.
After numerous preliminaries, the trial finally opened on August 3, with Chief Justice John Marshall presiding.
The prosecution—with Jefferson calling the shots—chose Eaton to be its first witness. Months of anticipation had built to this moment.
To Eaton and to Burr, this was a duel without bullets. Both men’s reputations were at stake. The two former Army officers were both well dressed in high white collars and long dark jackets befitting the occasion; Burr of Manhattan, though shorter and balder, cut a more elegant figure than Eaton of Brimfield.
In the packed courtroom, held in the Virginia House of Delegates to accommodate the overflow, Eaton began dramatically by preempting the lawyers and making a statement.
“Concerning any fact which may go to prove treason against Colonel Burr, I know nothing. Concerning certain transactions which are said to have happened at Blennerhasset’s island, I know nothing; but concerning Colonel Burr’s expressions and his treasonable intentions, I know much; and it is to those my evidence relates.”
With this large prestigious crowd, Eaton couldn’t resist the temptation to speak about his own issues, to justify his conduct in Tripoli. Eaton would exonerate Eaton. He explained how Burr had approached him and why he would have seemed a ripe candidate for this treasonous expedition.