Note 1228 — Chapter IX
Reading edition
See Burr Trials, ii, 96-98.
For this famous passage of Wirt's speech, see Appendix E.
Burr was vastly amused by it and it became "a standing joke with him for the rest of his life." (See Parton: Burr, 506.) But it was no "joke"—standing or otherwise—to the people. They believed Wirt's imagery to be a statement of the facts.