Page:The Burr-Hamilton duel with correspondence.djvu/28

 With this letter a message was received by Mr. Pendleton, such as was to be expected, containing an invitation, which was accepted, and Mr. Pendleton informed Mr. Van Ness he should hear from him the next day as to further particulars.

This letter was delivered to Gen. Hamilton on the same evening, and a very short conversation ensued between him and Mr. Pendleton, who was to call on him early the next morning for a further conference. When he did so, Gen. Hamilton said he had not understood whether the message and answer was definitively concluded, or whether another meeting was to take place for that purpose between Mr. Pendleton and Mr. Van Ness. Under the latter impression, and as the last letter contained matter that naturally led to animadversion he gave Mr. Pendleton a paper of remarks in his own handwriting to be communicated to Mr. Van Ness if the state of the affair rendered it proper.

In the farther interview with Mr. Van Ness that day, after explaining the causes which had induced Gen. Hamilton to suppose that the state of the affair did not render it improper, he offered this paper to Mr. Van Ness, but he declined receiving it, alleging that he considered the correspondence as closed by the acceptance of the message that he had delivered.

Mr. Pendleton informed Mr. Van Ness of the inducements mentioned by Gen. Hamilton in those remarks for the postponing the meeting until the close of the Circuit, and as this was uncertain, Mr.