Overview

In 1803, Aaron Burr (1756–1835), then vice-President of the United States, contacted William Godwin through an agent to obtain copies of portraits of Mary Wollstonecraft (by Opie) and of Godwin himself (by Northcote). ¹² Burr greatly admired both as political reformers, and raised his daughter Theodosia Burr in accordance with Wollstonecraft’s theories. But Burr was no ordinary radical. In 1804, he fought a duel with and killed Alexander Hamilton, who had been his staunch political enemy. Burr then plotted to invade Mexico and convince US border States to secede and establish an independent government on the Napoleonic model. The plot discovered, Burr was tried for treason in 1807, but because the conspiracy never went beyond the planning stage, he was found not guilty. In the wake of the trial, Burr went to Europe, arriving in London in 1808, and remaining there for four years. Despite his trial, he was welcomed by liberal thinkers as ‘a representative of American republicanism’ (S&C, vol. 1, p. 443).