Read Online Joseph J. Ellis by Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation - Free Book Online

Hamilton to assume responsibility for “any
rumours
which may be afloat … through the whole period of his acquaintance with Col Burr.” But Burr did not budge, repeating his accusation that “secret whispers traducing his fame and impeaching his honor” over more than a decade demanded an unqualified apology, and that Hamilton’s insistence on distinctions and qualifications “are proofs that he has done the injury specified.” On June 27, 1804, Burr’s patience ran out: “The length to which this correspondence has extended only tending to prove that the satisfactory redress … cannot be obtained,” Van Ness explained, “hedeems it useless to offer any proposition except the simple Message which I shall now have the honor to deliver.” It was the invitation for “the interview at Weehawken.” 25
    Hamilton requested a brief delay so that he could complete some pending legal business and put his personal affairs in order. Both men prepared their wills and left sufficient evidence to piece together some, albeit hazy, picture of what was on their minds. Burr wrote his beloved daughter Theodosia and her husband, extracting a promise that she would be allowed to pursue her study of Latin, Greek, and the classics. Then, in a typically bizarre act of Burrish dash, he requested that, if anything unforeseen should befall him, his daughter and son-in-law convey his respects to one of his former paramours, now a married woman living in Cuba. 26
    On July 4, at the annual Independence Day dinner held by the Society of the Cincinnati, Burr and Hamilton actually sat together at the same table. The artist John Trumbull, who was also present, recorded the scene: “The singularity of their manner was observed by all, but few had any suspicion of the cause. Burr contrary to his wont, was silent, gloomy, sour; while Hamilton entered with glee into the gaiety of a convivial party, and even sung an old military song.” The tune that Hamilton sang, called “General Wolfe’s Song,” was supposedly written by the great British general on the eve of his glorious death on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec in 1759. It was, therefore, an eerily prophetic song, especially the stanza that went:
    Why, soldiers, why

Should we be melancholy, boys?

Why, soldiers, why?

Whose business is to die!

What! Sighing? fie!

Damn fear, drink on, be jolly, boys!

’Tis he, you, or I. 27
    Hamilton’s last days contained several other incidents of equivalent poignancy, though they were only recognizable when viewed through the knowledge of the looming duel. On July 3, the day before the Society of the Cincinnati dinner, he had a dinner party of his own at his new country house, the Grange. The list of guests included WilliamShort, formerly Thomas Jefferson’s personal secretary in Paris and a lifelong Jefferson protégé. Also invited were Abigail Adams Smith and her husband, the daughter and son-in-law of John and Abigail Adams. Since Jefferson was Hamilton’s primal political enemy, and since Adams was his bitterest opponent within the Federalist party, a man whom Hamilton had publicly described as mentally deranged and unfit for the presidency, the choice of guests suggests that Hamilton was making some kind of statement about separating political and personal differences. About this same time, he drafted a “Thesis on Discretion” for his eldest surviving son. It singled out discretion as “if not a splendid … at least a very useful virtue,” then went on to offer an obviously autobiographical warning: “The greatest abilities are sometimes thrown into the shade by this defect or are prevented from obtaining the success to which they are entitled. The person on whom it is chargeable [is] also apt to make and have numerous enemies and is occasionally involved … in the most difficulties and dangers.” 28
    All of which suggests that the impending duel with Burr was prompting some second thoughts on Hamilton’s part about