Grange, June 23, 1804.
SIR,
I was in town to-day till half past one. I thank you for the delicacy which dictated your note to me. If it is indispensable the communication should be made before Monday morning, I must receive it here; but I should think this cannot be important. On Monday, by nine o'clock, I shall be in town at my house in Cedar-street, No. 52, where I should be glad to see you. An additional reason for preferring this is, that I am unwilling to occasion you trouble.
With esteem I am your obedient servant,
A. HAMILTON.
At nine o'clock on Monday, the 25th of June, I called on General Hamilton, at his house in Cedar-street, to present the letter No. IV. already alluded to, and with instructions for a verbal communication, of which the following notes, No. VII, handed me by Mr. Burr, were to be the basis. The substance of which, though in terms as much softened as my injunctions would permit, was accordingly communicated to General Hamilton.
No. VII.
A. Burr, far from conceiving that rivalship authorizes a latitude not otherwise justifiable, always feels greater delicacy in such cases, and would think it meanness to speak of a rival but in terms of respect; to do justice to his merits; to be silent of his foibles. Such has invariably been his conduct towards Jay, Adams, and Hamilton; the only three who can be supposed to have stood in that relation to him.
That he has too much reason to believe that, in regard to Mr. Hamilton, there has been no reciprocity. For several years his name has been lent to the support of base slanders. He has never had the generosity, the magnanimity, or the candour to contradict or disavow. Burr forbears to particularize, as it could only tend to produce new irritations; but, having made great sacrifices for the sake of harmony; having exercised forbearance until it approached to humiliation, he has seen no effect produced by such conduct but a repetition of injury. He is obliged to conclude that there is, on the part of Mr. Hamilton, a settled and implacable malevolence; that he will never cease, in his conduct towards Mr. Burr, to violate those courtesies of life; and that, hence, he has no alternative but to announce these things to the world; which, consistently with Mr. Burr's ideas of propriety, can be done in no way but that which he has adopted. He is incapable of revenge, still less is he capable of imitating the conduct of Mr. Hamilton, by committing secret depredations on his fame and character. But these things must have an end.
Before I delivered the written communication with which I was charged, General Hamilton said that he had prepared a written reply to Colonel Burr's letter of the 21st, which he had left with Mr. Pendleton, and wished me to receive. I answered, that the communication I had to make to him was predicated upon the idea that he would make no reply to Mr. Burr's letter of the 21st of June, and that I had so understood him in our conversation of the 22d. General Hamilton said that he believed, before I left him, he had proffered a written reply. I observed that, when he answered verbally, he had offered to put that refusal in writing; but that, if he had now prepared a written reply, I would receive it with pleasure. I accordingly called on Mr. Pendleton on the same day (Monday, June 25th), between one and two o'clock P. M., and stated to him the result of my recent interview with General Hamilton, and the reference he had made to him.