He executed his will, in which he made provision for his family and creditors, thinking tenderly of his wife, enjoining his children to bear in mind she had been to them the most devoted and best of mothers. On the night preceding the appointment he wrote a paper declaring his intention to throw away his fire, and acquitting himself before the world of the malice of the duellist, while he rested his conduct upon his usefulness to his country. The next morning, July 11th, they met at Weehawken; the weapons were pistols, the distance ten paces. The duel was fought within a few feet of the shore, in a woodland scene beneath the cliff opposite the present inhabited portion of New York, at a spot now traversed or closely approached by the river road, but then readily accessible only by water. Hamilton fell at the first fire, mortally wounded, his pistol-shot striking at random a twig some seven feet above the head of his antagonist. Burr fled, a wanderer over the earth. Hamilton was carried across the river, supported by Pendleton and Dr. Hosack, to the house of his friend, Mr. Bayard, at Greenwich. He was there enabled to take farewell of his family, and receive the last consolations of religion from the hands of Bishop Moore. He died on the afternoon of Thursday, July 12, 1804. The reception of the fatal news sent a thrill of horror through the community. The brilliant, fiery youth of Hamilton, which had lighted his countrymen to victory and a place among the nations--Hamilton, the counsellor of Washington, the consummate statesman of the Constitution, the reliance of the State, the hope of the future: visions such as these were contrasted in the popular mind with his wretched fall. We perhaps darken the shades of the picture, for time and proof have added to the greatness of Hamilton, and Burr waited not for death to exhibit the penury of his fame. But the men who knew the heart of Hamilton, who saw in him the bulwark of the State, his contemporaries, wept his fate with no common lamentation. New York gave her public honors to his grave. Gouverneur Morris, with strenuous words, delivered the funeral oration by the side of his bier, under the portico of old Trinity; and Mason, the pulpit orator of his time, thundered his strong sentences at the crime which had robbed the world of Hamilton. COUNT DE MIRABEAU[6] By CHARLES S. HATHAWAY (1749-1791) [Footnote 6: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.] [Illustration: Mirabeau. [TN]] Honore Gabriel Riquetti, Count de Mirabeau, one of the most eminent among the great authors, orators, and statesmen of France, was born on March 9, 1749 on his father's estate at Bignon, near Nemours. The earliest of Mirabeau's ancestors of whom there is any notable record, was Jean Riquetti, a prominent merchant at Marseilles, who, in 1570, bought the chateau and estate of Mirabeau, near Pertuis, from the well-known Provencal family of Barras and who, a few years later, acquired the title of Esquire.