Thursday, September 6th, 1798

My Dearest, Philip,

                                       Firstly, I wish to apologise for the prolonged gap between our correspondence. The last letter I received from you was early February and I have spent the last few months debating whether or not I should send this letter. However,, I decided it was better to send it then it was to leave you wondering. I could not bear it if you thought anything less of me for simply deciding not to send the letter.

You may recall, Philip, that when Father wrote a letter addressed to your father, he mentioned that he was looking into finding me a potential suitor. Well, he found one. A nice man by the name of Joseph Alston, he is older than myself by a few years, but it is enough for Father to decide he is respectable. Of course, we are not to be married for a few years yet, with Father discussing a wedding in 1801.

Believe me when I say that this is not something I want, nor something I asked for. Father does not find you to be suitable, as he has stated many times in the past. I have tried, with every fiber of my being, to make him see sense and change his mind, but he will not listen.

The reason for my lack of letters has been that Father has made me spend more time with Joseph, get to know him better and I suppose it has not been such a bad thing. He is a kind man, he is honest, he is truthful. Everything you are, but he will never compare to you, never. You have always been so true to me, so loyal, you are more than he will ever be, but we cannot be together. We have known this to be the case for a long while now, but only now it is something we can no longer fight.

I wish, more than anything, for our letters to continue beyond this and that we can continue to talk. With the courting put in place, I am sure our parents would allow us to correspond now that there is no hope for a romantic relationship between us. Maybe then we can see more of each other, as friends, of course, and you can meet Joseph. I have told him so much about you and he cannot wait to meet you in person.

Please do not allow this to ruin our friendship, I played no part in this and I hope you can see that.

Love Always,

Theodosia Burr.

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Notes;

We know that in 1801, Theodosia Burr married Joseph Alston, but we do not know the exact time they met. This letter helps put it into perspective, though the exact date of their meeting is not specified.

Here we can truly see the kind of devotion that there is between Burr and Hamilton. Although she was likely to marry another, she was determined to keep up their correspondence, and we know they did so, but whether or not they kept up the same jokes and humor as they did previously will not be fully explored until later.