There is abundant evidence that Coleman wished to do Hamilton personal as well as political service in the _Evening Post_. His first opportunity to do this occurred less than ten days after the founding of the journal, when on Nov. 24, 1801, it announced the death of Philip, Hamilton’s eldest and most promising son--“murdered,” said the editor, “in a duel.” The attendant circumstances were obscure, and Coleman spared no labor to inquire into them and set them forth accurately and tactfully, correcting the accounts in the Democratic press. It appeared that Philip Hamilton, a youth of twenty, was sitting with another young man in a box at a performance of Cumberland’s “The West Indian,” and that they exchanged some jocose remarks upon a Fourth of July oration made the previous summer by one George I. Eacker, a Democrat. Eacker overheard them, called them into the lobby, said that he would not be “insulted by a set of rascals,” and scuffled with them. The two excitable boys challenged him. Young Hamilton’s companion fought first, Sunday morning on the Weehawken dueling-ground, and no one was injured. On Monday afternoon the second duel occurred. “Hamilton received a shot through the body at the first discharge,” reported the _Evening Post_, “and fell without firing. He was brought across the ferry to his father’s house, where he languished of the wound until this morning [Tuesday], when he expired.” Coleman took occasion to utter a shrewd warning against dueling. “Reflections on this horrid custom must occur to every friend of humanity; but the voice of an individual or the press must be ineffectual without additional, strong, and pointed legislative interference. Fashion has placed it upon a footing which nothing short of this can control.” The truth of this statement had a melancholy illustration within three years. Coleman also contradicted in detail, using information which Hamilton alone could have furnished, a spiteful story to the effect that President Washington, when Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury, used to send him public papers with the request, “Dear Hamilton, put this into style for me,” and that Hamilton boasted of the service. Again, Coleman assured his readers, using more information from Hamilton, that the letters which Jefferson wrote as Secretary of State to the British Minister, George Hammond, upon the debts owed to the British, were given their finishing touches by Hamilton.