In the selection that follows, David Hosack, the physician who attended Hamilton at the duel, describes the scene immediately after Burr fired the fatal shot. He writes to William Coleman, editor of the New York _Post_, the paper Hamilton had founded. To comply with your request is a painful task; but I will repress my feelings while I endeavor to furnish you with an enumeration of such particulars relative to the melancholy end of our beloved friend Hamilton, as dwell most forcibly on my recollection. When called to him, upon his receiving the fatal wound, I found him half sitting on the ground, supported in the arms of Mr. Pendleton. His countenance of death I shall never forget. He had at that instant just strength to say, “This is a mortal wound, Doctor”; when he sunk away, and became to all appearance lifeless. I immediately stripped up his clothes, and soon, alas! ascertained that the direction of the ball must have been through some vital part. His pulses were not to be felt; his respiration was entirely suspended; and upon laying my hand on his heart, and perceiving no motion there, I considered him as irrecoverably gone. I however observed to Mr. Pendleton that the only chance for his reviving was immediately to get him upon the water. We therefore lifted him up, and carried him out of the wood, to the margin of the bank, where the bargemen aided us in conveying him into the boat, which immediately put off. During all this time I could not discover the least symptom of returning life. I now rubbed his face, lips, and temples, with spirits of hartshorn, applied it to his neck and breast, and to the wrists and palms of his hands, and endeavored to pour some into his mouth. When we had got, as I should judge, about fifty yards from the shore, some imperfect efforts to breathe were for the first time manifest. In a few minutes he sighed, and became sensible to the impression of the hartshorn, or the fresh air of the water. He breathed; his eyes, hardly opened, wandered, without fixing upon any objects. To our great joy he at length spoke: “My vision is indistinct,” were his first words. His pulse became more perceptible; his respiration more regular; his sight returned. ... Soon after recovering his sight, he happened to cast his eye upon the case of pistols, and observing the one that he had had in his hand lying on the outside, he said, “Take care of that pistol; it is undischarged, and still cocked; it may go off and do harm.—_Pendleton knows_ (attempting to turn his head towards him) _that I did not intend to fire at him_.” “Yes,” said Mr. Pendleton, understanding his wish, “I have already made Dr. Hosack acquainted with your determination as to that.”... Perceiving that we approached the shore, he said, “Let Mrs. Hamilton be immediately sent for. Let the event be gradually broken to her; but give her hopes.”