Upon the _Evening Post_, as upon the Federalist party, the tragic death of Hamilton fell as a stunning blow. Announcing the calamity on June 13, 1804, Coleman added that “as soon as our feelings will permit, we shall deem it a duty to present a sketch of the character of our ever-to-be lamented patron and best friend.” The press of the nation looked to him. The best report, said the Fredericktown (Md.) _Herald_, a Federalist sheet, “is expected in the _Evening Post_ of Mr. Coleman, than whom no man perhaps out of the weeping and bereft family of his illustrious friend can more fervently bewail the loss.” On the day of the funeral the _Evening Post_ was suspended, the only time in its history that it missed an issue because of a death, and for a week all its news columns carried heavy black borders. Unfortunately, the editor did not redeem his promise of a character sketch, professing himself too deeply grieved. After devoting a month to discussion of the duel and its causes, he turned from “the most awful and afflicting subject that ever occupied my mind and weighed down my heart”; he could write no more “of him whom I can never cease to mourn as the best of friends, and the greatest and most virtuous of men.” Hamilton’s family and associates wished a volume compiled from the various tributes to his memory, and by Mrs. Hamilton’s express wish, the task was entrusted to Coleman. Before the end of the year he published it with the title of “Facts and Documents Relative to the Death of Major-General Hamilton”; a careful and tasteful work which not many years ago was reissued in expensive form. There was some talk then and later of a more ambitious commission. Thus in 1809 the Providence _American_, deploring the fact that no biography of Hamilton had yet appeared, suggested that Coleman was “the only person qualified.” The editor, however, responded that a gentleman of more leisure, by whom he meant the Rev. John M. Mason, had already accepted the undertaking.