In his will, of which a copy shall be sent you if desired, my brother
has given all demands up to you that he had against you. Very
respectfully,
WILLIAM A. ALSTON.
P. S. These are alone the words relating to you in the will: "To my
father-in-law, Aaron Burr, I give, devise, and bequeath all demands I
may have against him, whether by judgment or otherwise."
The trunk and other articles above referred to were subsequently
transmitted to Colonel Burr. Among the private papers of Theodosia
there are some fragments and scraps of much interest. In the summer of
1805 she was dangerously ill, and she appears, from the following
letter, to have been greatly depressed in mind.
FROM THEODOSIA TO JOSEPH ALSTON.
August 6, 1805.
Whether it is the effect of extreme debility and disordered nerves, or
whether it is really presentiment, the existence of which I have been
often told of, and always doubted, I cannot tell; but something
whispers me that my end approaches. In vain I reason with myself; in
vain I occupy my mind, and seek to fix my attention on other subjects
; there is about me that dreadful heaviness and sinking of the heart,
that awful foreboding, of which it is impossible to divest myself.
Perhaps I am now standing on the brink of eternity; and, ere I plunge
in the fearful abyss, I have some few requests to make.
I wish your sisters (one of them, it is immaterial which) would select
from my clothes certain things which they will easily perceive
belonged to my mother.
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