Monday, February 3rd, 1794

Dearest Theodosia,

                                          How is it possible for my infatuation of you to grow even though we are so far apart?

Despite the insanity that may or may not have just presented itself in my previous comment, I feel as though it is the only way to address the seriousness of my feelings for you. Your last correspondence made me smile from ear to ear and I truly could not believe that I had the honour to communicate with you. Although, I must admit that it would be far more pleasant were these correspondences occurring face to face rather than through letters, I can only hope you feel the same way.

Although we are so far apart, I feel it wise to keep up with the standards of a modern gentleman, and pose the question; Do you find yourself in good health?

I heard an awful rumour that your Mother has been gravely ill and feared that you may also find yourself struggling both with your Mother's health and with your own. Father spoke of the possibility of your Father resigning from the Senate in order to spend more time with your Mother, but she refused to allow it. Is this the case? I fear your Mother may know what is to come and refuses to allow your Father to resign were the worst to occur.

Personally, I find myself wishing to spend more time at home then at school, as much as I love school. Were I to spend more time at home, it may allow me to coincidently happen upon you whilst in the street and there is nothing I want more than to see your face. Not only that, but it would allow me to spend more time with my Father, a man who I admire greatly. Alas, he has other ideas and believes that school is exactly where I belong in order to develop myself further, much like he did.

I am afraid I must keep this letter brief, I have school work to complete and Father would be most unimpressed if I fell behind.

I look forward to your response.

Yours,

Philip Hamilton

~~~

Dearest Philip,

                               The arrival of your letter made for an extremely joyous occasion, though I must confess Father gave me an odd glance when he caught me smiling to myself over its contents. It pained me so very much to lie to him, but I knew he could not find out about our letters, were he to do so, I am more than certain he would put a stop to our correspondences.

In response to the comments made in your letter, I feel the exact same about you. Despite our communication only occurring through these letters, you have a way with words that makes everything better. It is almost as though you are in the room beside me, though I know this to be false. I, like you, wish for our conversations to be held in a more personal situation, but I would rather have letters than nothing at all.

Thank you for the concern you presented over my health as well as my Mothers. I am fine, despite all, Mother has been sick for an awful long time and I do not believe she will ever recover, but I hold a small piece of hope that she might. As for Father, it is true that he posed the possibility of resigning to Mother in order to spend more time with her. We both believe that she only denied this because she knows what is likely to happen in the future, though she denies it whenever possible.

You understand your Father is only doing what is best for you, do you not? I firmly believe that you will grow to be a great man, just like your Father. My Father spends so much time obsessing over my education, it is a wonder that he is able to get any work done at all. Though I enjoy getting to spend at least some time with him, even if it is predominately about my education.

Unfortunately, I wish this letter could be longer, but Father will get suspicious if he caught me writing to you and I fear he is already beyond being suspicious.

Yours,

Theodosia Burr.

****************************

Notes;

Through the examination of these two letters, the only thing we found to be a little out of place was Hamilton's comment on Burr's Mother. It is our belief that Theodosia Bartow Prevost because sick in the year 1792, two years before these letters were sent. The comments made suggests that this news was not well known until 1794, the time the letters were sent. It is possible that Burr kept this news to herself in order to hold onto the belief that her Mother could recover from this illness, though her comments to Hamilton suggest otherwise.