Both his fortune and his local political prestige were ruined; he realized that his chance for a career in New York was over.
When Beaten in New York he Turned to the West.
He was no mere New York politician, however.

He was a statesman of national reputation; and he turned his restless eyes toward the West, which for a score of years had seethed in a turmoil out of which it seemed that a bold spirit might make its own profit.

He had already been obscurely connected with separatist intrigues in the Northeast; and he determined to embark in similar intrigues on an infinitely grander scale in the West and Southwest.

He was a cultivated man, of polished manners and pleasing address, and of great audacity and physical courage; and he had shown himself skilled in all the baser arts of political management.
It is small wonder that the conspiracy of which such a man was head should make a noise out of all proportion to its real weight.

The conditions were such that if Burr journied West he was certain to attract universal attention, and to be received with marked enthusiasm.
No man of his prominence in national affairs had ever travelled through the wild new commonwealths on the Mississippi.