The tragedy that actually happened was a fitter ending to this dark chapter than any tamer close could have been. Early on the morning of July 11, in the brilliant sunlight of a hot summer, the two men were rowed to the duelling-ground across the river, under the rocky heights of Weehawken, and were placed by their seconds face to face. Had Hamilton acted with the energy of conviction, he would have met Burr in his own spirit; but throughout this affair Hamilton showed want of will. He allowed himself to be drawn into a duel, but instead of killing Burr he invited Burr to kill him. In the paper Hamilton left for his justification, he declared the intention to throw away his first fire. He did so. Burr’s bullet passed through Hamilton’s body. The next day he was dead. As the news spread, it carried a wave of emotion over New England, and roused everywhere sensations strangely mixed. In New York the Clinton interest, guided by Cheetham, seized the moment to destroy Burr’s influence forever. Cheetham affected to think the duel a murder, procured Burr’s indictment, and drove him from the State. Charges were invented to support this theory, and were even accepted as history. In the South and West, on the other hand, the duel was considered as a simple “affair of honor,” in which Burr appeared to better advantage than his opponent. In New England a wail of despair arose. Even the clergy, though shocked that Hamilton should have offered the evil example of duelling, felt that they had lost their champion and sword of defence. “In those crises of our public affairs which seemed likely to happen,” Hamilton’s genius in council and in the field had been their main reliance; he was to be their Washington, with more than Washington’s genius,--their Bonaparte, with Washington’s virtues. The whole body of Federalists, who had paid little regard to Hamilton’s wishes in life, went into mourning for his death, and held funeral services such as had been granted to no man of New England birth. Orators, ministers, and newspapers exhausted themselves in execration of Burr. During the whole summer and autumn, undisturbed by a breath of discord or danger, except such as their own fears created, they bewailed their loss as the most fatal blow yet given to the hopes of society.