...he is a man of extreme & irregular ambition—that he is selfish to a degree which excludes all social affections & that he is decidedly profligate.

Alexander Hamilton referring to Aaron Burr in a letter to James Bayard of Delaware, dated Jan. 16, 1801. The two were political rivals and their mutual distrust of each other reached a climax when they finally met in a duel on the west bank of the Hudson River at Weehawken, N.J., on July 11, 1804, where Hamilton appears to have thrown away his fire (i.e., missed deliberately) and Burr fired to kill — and did. (Governing — November 20, 2020)