Hamilton foresaw the inevitable end, and commenced putting his affairs in order at once; but, for both personal and abstract reasons, holding the practice of duelling in abhorrence, he was determined to give Burr any chance to retreat, consistent with his own self-respect.  Burr replied in a manner both venomous and insulting, and Hamilton called upon Colonel Pendleton, General Greene’s aide during the Revolution, and asked him to act as his second.  On the 23d he received a note from Van Ness, inquiring when and where it would be most convenient for him to receive a communication, and the correspondence thereafter was conducted by the seconds.

It was Sunday, and Hamilton was at The Grange, when the note from Van Ness arrived.  He was swinging in a hammock, and he put the missive in his pocket, shrugged his shoulders, and lifted himself on his elbow.  His entire family, with the exception of his wife and Angelica, were shouting in the woods.  The baby, a sturdy youngster of two, named for the brother who had died shortly before his birth, emerged in a state of fury.  He had eighty-two years of vitality in him, and he roared like a young bull.  Hamilton’s children inherited the tough fibre and the longevity of the Schuylers.  Of the seven who survived him all lived to old age, and several were close to being centenarians.

Angelica was busy in her aviary, close by.  She was now twenty, and one of the most beautiful girls in the country, but successive deaths had kept her in seclusion; and the world in which her parents were such familiar figures was to remember nothing of her but her tragedy.  Betsey, still as slim as her daughter, ran from the house at the familiar roar, and Gouverneur Morris came dashing through the woods with a half-dozen guests, self-invited for dinner.  It was an animated day, and Hamilton was the life of the company.  He had no time for thought until night.  His wife retired early, with a headache; the boys had subsided even earlier.  At ten o’clock Angelica went to the piano, and Hamilton threw himself into a long chair on the terrace and clasped his hands behind his head.

“So,” he thought, “the end has come.  My work is over, I suppose.  Personally, I am of no account.  All I would have demanded, by way of reward for services faithfully executed, was the health to make a decent living and ten or fifteen years of peaceful and uninterrupted intimacy with my family.  For fame, or public honours, or brilliant successes of any sort, I have ceased to care.  Nothing would tempt me to touch the reins of public life again unless in the event of a revolution.  I believe I have crushed that possibility with this election; otherwise, I doubt if my knell would have sounded.  On the bare possibility that such is not the case, and that my usefulness may not be neutralized by public doubt of my courage, I must accept this challenge, whether or not I have sufficient moral