“I was certainly desirous of avoiding this interview for the most cogent reasons.
“1. My religious and moral principles are strongly opposed to the practice of duelling, and it would ever give me pain to be obliged to shed the blood of a fellow creature in a private combat forbidden by the laws.
“2. My wife and children are extremely dear to me, and my life is of the utmost importance to them, in various views.
“3. I feel a sense of obligation towards my creditors; who in case of accident to me, by the forced sale of my property, may be in some degree sufferers. I did not think myself at liberty as a man of probity, lightly to expose them to this hazard.
“4. I am conscious of no ill will to Col. Burr, distinct from political opposition, which, as I trust, has proceeded from pure and upright motives.
“Lastly, I shall hazard much, and can possibly gain nothing by the issue of the interview.
“But it was, as I conceive, impossible for me to avoid it. There were intrinsic difficulties in the thing, and artificial embarrassments from the manner of proceeding on the part of Col. Burr.
“ ... I have resolved, if our interview is conducted in the usual manner, and it pleases God to give me the opportunity, to reserve and throw away my first fire, and I have thoughts even of reserving my second fire—and thus giving a double opportunity to Col. Burr to pause and to reflect.
........
“To those who, with me, abhorring the practice of duelling, may think that I ought on no account to have added to the number of bad examples, I answer, that my relative situation, as well in public as private, enforcing all the considerations which constitute what men of the world denominate honour, imposed on me (as I thought) a peculiar necessity not to decline the call.