685. Hamilton: Duel to the Death (Part 3)

15:53Tom Holland:Well, he keeps America out of the war, doesn't he, between Britain and France, which is his great achievement but it comes at massive cost to his reputation he's one of these

16:02Dominic Sandbrook:people who basically you know you see it so often in politics he tries to hold the middle ground it's a bit of a lib dem and everyone says ah he's useless he's a wishy-washy he doesn't stand for

16:11Tom Holland:anything i mean part of the criticism of him is precisely that he has aspirations to be a monarchist i mean this is why he he and jefferson were great pals they'd been in france together

16:20Dominic Sandbrook:and they completely break up over it they do but the tragedy for adams is the federalists don't despise him as well. So Hamilton and Federalists say, oh, he's weak. He's not enough of a Federalist. So you get to 1800 and Jefferson's going to run again. And this really is Jefferson's election to win. Everyone thinks Jefferson's going to win. Now, we'll say more about this next time. So I don't want to tread on your toes, Tom, for the Jefferson episode. But basically what happens is the Democratic Republicans do win the presidential election as expected, but for very complicated reasons which we don't need to go into very complicated there is a tie in the electoral college so basically the democratic republican electors the members of this electoral college have to choose the president from the joint ticket on which they've kind of voted and when they people count all the votes jefferson and his running mate are tied for the presidency on 73 votes each and one of them is clearly going to be president and one of them is going to be vice president but it's going to fall to the House of Representatives to choose which is which.

17:24Dominic Sandbrook:And the House of Representatives is controlled at this point by Hamilton's Federalist Party. And they have to decide they want to have Thomas Jefferson as president or his running mate, who is a man called Aaron Burr. And this brings us to Burr, who is, I think, one of the most fascinating and ambiguous characters in American history. There's something slightly Nixonian about Burr, I think. A sort of brooding, sort of sardonic intellect. He's born in New Jersey, 1756. He too was orphaned. He was orphaned at the age of two. He went to live with an abusive uncle. He went to Princeton.

18:03Tom Holland:Can I just say, Dominic, he's for fans of 18th century American theology, which I know there are lots out there. He's the grandson of Jonathan Edwards, as in the Great Awakening.

18:11Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, but he studied theology. He was interested in it. Yeah. What would Jonathan Edwards make of his subsequent dueling career, I wonder? I don't think you'd approve at all. No, I don't think you would. No, that's a definite black mark. Yeah, definitely. So Burr enlisted in the Continental Army in 1775. He fought with great courage. He was at Valley Forge from our first episode. So kneeling in the snow. Kneeling in the snow. He commanded a company there, playing cricket, surely, and also wearing rags on his feet and stuff and eating those fire cakes or whatever they were called. And he was a strict disciplinarian.

18:42Dominic Sandbrook:he faced down a mutiny at Valley Forge. Everyone said he had a good war. After the war, he became a very successful lawyer and politician in New York. New York in the 1780s and 1790s got very, very fierce factional politics. And Burr takes Jefferson's side and not Hamilton's. He basically delivers New York to Jefferson. Exactly so. And Burr and Hamilton, really their feud, I think, began in 1791. and this is when Hamilton's father-in-law, Philip Schuyler, was running for re-election as senator from New York and Burr beat him. And so from that point onwards, there's a bit of bad blood. But this is more than, it's far more than the bad blood between Hamilton and Jefferson.

19:26Dominic Sandbrook:And I think part of this is because if Hamilton, I'm going to irritate our American listeners by using a British idiom now, if Hamilton is Marmite, Burr is very much Bovril. What does that mean? it means that basically you know people love or loathe marmite yeah and people love or hate marmite but bovril is even more divisive no no everyone loves bovril no wrong i've never met anyone who doesn't love bovril i'll tell you who's cancelling their subscriptions now vegetarians and vegans they still love it they don't they might like the idea of it but not the reality it's like you know you love bacon but you don't eat it i don't think that's how veganism works right okay burr burr is like his fellow orphan hamilton he's very clever he's very ambitious he's hard-working he's very acerbic he's generous to his friends in some ways he's quite progressive by modern standards so he's very critical of slavery he is opposed to nativism and he favors votes for women so he's very ahead of his time he also has very groovily named wife and daughter doesn't he theodosia theodosia they're both called theodosia yes although he's not the most loyal husband in the world so i think burr was such a philanderer he's basically a sex addict so he was said he was said to have frequented all 20 of the finest prostitutes in new york and these women apparently were of the view that burr was their finest customer anyway burr is he's very wily he's self-interested and i think the thing about him is he doesn't really stand for anything other than Aaron Burr.

20:55Dominic Sandbrook:So no wonder you like him. Yeah, exactly. Hamilton is very stubborn and, um, you know, he's a man of fixed principles. Burr is changeable. Burr will do whatever it takes to get ahead. So in an age when people are basically cosplaying as Cato the Younger, Burr stands out. He is Catiline. Yeah. Well, there you go. Very changeable. So let's get back to the year 1800. Burr, as you said, is Jefferson's number two. So the Electoral College is deadlocked. Now, some people might say, well, I was obviously always going to be the running mate, so I should just say to everybody, well, vote for Jefferson.

21:30Dominic Sandbrook:You know, I'll be the number two. Burr thinks, no, this is my chance to be the number one. If I suck up now to the Federalists, they will pick me as the lesser of two evils, and I will be president. The problem for Burr, though, Hamilton has taken a deep dislike to him. And through the winter of 1800 and 1801, Hamilton tells all his friends, look, I know we're not Jefferson fans, but we have to stop this bloke Burr at all costs. So this is a letter from December 1800. Jefferson is not so dangerous a man, but as to Burr there is nothing in his favour. He is bankrupt beyond redemption except by the plunder of his country.

22:08Dominic Sandbrook:His public principles have no other spring than his own aggrandisement. And then another letter, January 1801, a few weeks later, Hamilton says to a friend, Burr is a profligate, a bankrupt, a voluptuary in the extreme. No mortal can tell what his political principles are. He's talked all around the compass. At times he's dealt in all the jargon of Jacobinism. At other times he's proclaimed decidedly the total insufficiency of the federal government and the necessity of changes to one far more energetic. The truth seems to be that he, meaning Burr, has no plan but that of getting power by any means and keeping it by all means.

22:44Dominic Sandbrook:He will court and employ able and daring scoundrels of every party, and by availing himself of their assistance and of all the bad passions of society, he will in all likelihood attempt a usurpation.

22:57Tom Holland:So he is the Andy Burnham of post-revolutionary America. That is such a good comparison. Andy Burnham has no fixed principles, does he?

23:04Dominic Sandbrook:He just kind of makes up and say whatever he thinks people want. He'll just say any stuff and flutter his eyelashes, right? And put on an anorak. So this is very much Burr's vibe. anyway hamilton's campaigned against him after 36 ballots the house of representatives chooses jefferson and burr is gutted and he blames hamilton for this he says hamilton intrigued against me i mean he's not wrong and much later he said to a friend he said i was tempted to challenge hamilton to a duel but he anticipated me by voluntarily coming forward and making apologies from delicacy to him and from a sincere desire for peace i've never mentioned these circumstances, always hoping that the generosity of my conduct would have some influence on his.

23:47Dominic Sandbrook:Isn't that nice? Whether actually this is true is impossible to say. I mean, did Hamilton really come and apologize to him? I think it's highly unlikely.

23:55Tom Holland:Does Burr have a track record as telling fibs?

23:58Dominic Sandbrook:Yes. Tall stories, I think, maybe. Let's move on to 1804. Burr has become vice president. Jefferson, of course, doesn't trust him now because he knows that Burr basically tried to snatch the top job. So he's sidelined Burr, and when he runs for re-election in 1804, he's planning to drop Burr from the ticket. So Burr needs a new job, and he decides to get one back in New York. And that spring, 1804, he makes a bid for the New York governorship. Now, although technically he's still a Democratic Republican, because of his changeable nature and because he's blotted his copybook with the Democratic Republicans, he decides he will run as the champion of the Federalists.

24:40Dominic Sandbrook:There's a very bitter campaign. And even though Burr has now changed his coat, Hamilton is still opposed to him. And part of this is personal, but also Hamilton is actually worried that Burr, he genuinely thinks Burr is a threat to the survival of the Union. It's easy for us to forget that in the early 1800s, the Republic still feels very fragile. The division between Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians runs very deep, and there's a lot of Hamiltonians, federalists in New England, who kind of like the idea of breaking away, attempted to break away. Why are we in a country with all these people from Virginia who are just wittering on about farming all the time?

25:19Dominic Sandbrook:Let's get rid of them, go off on our own. And there's actually in early 1804, a very, very tentative sort of separatist plot that is focused on Washington's old Secretary of State, a man called Timothy Pickering. And Hamilton finds out about this. And he says, oh, this is terrible. Don't do this. Keep the union together at all costs. Burr, on the other hand, seems to have sent signals. I could be open to this. There could be a little mileage in this. If I become governor of New York, if you help me become governor of New York, I would very much be interested in talking to you more about this excellent project.

25:55Dominic Sandbrook:Should the ball come loose at the back of the scrub. Exactly. And Hamilton says to these people burr is a snake don't trust burr don't vote for burr all of this well he's not wrong is he he's a bit of a snake or is he just a very adept modern politician no he's a snake well the result is a landslide victory for um the democratic republican opponent to uh burr who's a called morgan lewis who you know quite obscure burr has been humiliated yet again and of course he blames Hamilton. And then, seven weeks after the election, Burr is shown an old newspaper, the Albany Register, from the 24th of April, 1804.

26:34Dominic Sandbrook:And this was the day that voting opened in the election. And the paper had printed a letter from a man called Dr. Charles D. Cooper, opposing Burr's candidacy. And Cooper said in the letter, he said, I've heard Hamilton talking about Burr. I heard Hamilton say that he, and I quote, he looked upon Mr. Burr to be a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government. And Cooper goes on to say, if you pushed me, and I quote, I could detail to you a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr Burr. Burr reads this and he's absolutely furious.

27:12Dominic Sandbrook:And a few days after his read it, on the 18th of June, his great pal, a man called William Van Ness, delivers a letter to Hamilton. Burr says, I'm absolutely outraged by this word in particular, despicable i want a prompt and unqualified acknowledgement or denial that you ever use

27:31Tom Holland:this word despicable about me see i find this quite odd because surely in the rough and tumble of politics people are allowed to insult their opponents aren't they yeah you would think so was he just looking for a reason to get into a punch-up with him i think possibly although the

27:46Dominic Sandbrook:idea of honor matters enormously to american politicians in this period so dueling is not uncommon at all and the punch-ups of this kind are not uncommon but I think ultimately you're right that Burr is looking for a pretext to challenge Hamilton for reasons that maybe we'll get into I think it's a way for him to he sees it as a way to rebuild his credibility anyway Hamilton sent his answer two days later and Hamilton's answer is extremely long and convoluted it's hard to tell whether he's a over massively overthinking it or b he's basically just making fun of burr so he starts by saying he says well the word despicable admits of infinite shades from the very light to the very dark how am i to judge of the degree intended and then he goes on to say i don't remember using that word to this bloke dr cooper and i refuse on principle to consent to be interrogated as to the justness of inferences which may be drawn from others from whatever i have said of a political opponent in the course of a 15-year competition.

28:47Dominic Sandbrook:Now, people like you, Tom, you see Hamilton very much as the hero of the story, as a bit of a martyr. I think that's a great letter. I think it's important to say this is not at all a conciliatory letter. There's something perhaps a little bit pedantic, a little bit smug about Hamilton's letter. No, it's not smug at all.

29:05Tom Holland:He's been, you know, he's been sent a ludicrous letter by a ludicrous buffoon and he's pricking the pomposity of burr in a very delicate and engaging way i think burr is

29:16Dominic Sandbrook:a bit pompous but but i think hamilton is goading him and hamilton ends this last bit is definitely goading him i trust on more reflection you will see the matter in the same light with me if not i can only regret the circumstance and must abide the consequences well the next uh day burr writes back again he says i've read your letter and i regret to find none of the sincerity and delicacy which you profess to value political opposition can never absolve gentlemen from the necessity of a rigid adherence to the laws of honor and the rules of decorum your letter has furnished me with new reasons for requiring a definite reply i mean to be fair to them they wrote good letters

29:56Tom Holland:but then those days they did i mean it would have been wonderful if um the people criticized by Trump had responded to him in a similar term. If Ted Cruz had written Trump a letter like this. Ron DeSantis.

30:09Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah.

30:10Tom Holland:Low energy Jeb Bush.

30:15Dominic Sandbrook:Brilliant. I'd love to see a duel in which all these men were fighting, frankly. Maybe in that large cage.

30:20Tom Holland:Yeah, in the cage in the White House. In the White House. They kind of run at each other on motorbikes.

30:24Dominic Sandbrook:Then the final boss is Joe Biden. That would be an unexpected twist. That would be a twist. Right. The 22nd, the next day, Hamilton replies, and it's a much shorter letter. And Hamilton says, look, if you want it by definite reply, you want either the direct avowal or disavowal required in your first letter, I have no other answer to give than that which has already been given. And that's basically that. There's a bit of back and forth now between Burr's mate Van Ness and Hamilton's friend Nathaniel Pendleton. But in essence, this is the story. Burr has asked for an apology. Hamilton has said no.

31:00Dominic Sandbrook:And so this is now a matter of honor, which means a jewel. So we should say a little bit about jewels. Jewels are part of the, they're an essential part, really, of the culture of honor among gentlemen in North America in the late 18th, early 19th century. They weren't universally popular. Some of the founding fathers hated jeweling. So Franklin, who you love, he was very anti-jeweling. He said it was a murderous practice. Well, he's a figure of the Enlightenment. He's not going to put up this nonsense. No, Jefferson doesn't like duelling. John Adams doesn't like duelling. But if you've been in the army, you tend to like duelling.

31:40Dominic Sandbrook:If you're from the South, you're much more likely to like duelling. I mean, it's very hard to get precise figures for duels because duels were, in many states, technically illegal. But there's an estimate that of the men who served in the Senate from southern states in the years before the American Civil War, one in five of them had taken part in duels. I suppose this is all part of the South being the home of chivalry, isn't it? That's exactly, yeah. I mean, that's certainly their self-image, isn't it? The kind of lost cause, the Confederacy kind of vibe. People in gigantic hats with feathers are fighting duels or something.

32:14Dominic Sandbrook:And I'm talking about Walter Scott. Tiring for a mint tulip after. Exactly, exactly. While in the background, they've got thousands of people being treated abominably. We'll be coming to that in the next episode as well. So this is how it works. basically it's very very formalized it's a very ritualized business for jewel there'll be the insult there will be the exchange of letters um as bird did the offended party will say i want you to avow or disavow your insult to me if the offender refuses to disavow then the victim of the insults can challenge and he and his antagonist will appoint seconds and the seconds will agree a

32:52Tom Holland:time and place for the duel can i just ask i mean hamilton is um he is representative of the the kind of the north really which isn't a big place for dueling and he's aligned with figures who would despise it would it not have been politically possible for him just to say

33:13Dominic Sandbrook:you know go screw yourself i don't care it would but i think he as we'll discuss he doesn't really like duelling but i think there would have been a cost to his reputation as we shall see his one of his rationales for doing the jewel is he thinks public opinion would require us of him he will look like less of a man if he had turned down the jewel anyway the seconds fix the time and the place we'll talk after the break about how the jewel itself actually works and one reason for postponing that till after the break is that most duels actually don't get to that point so most so-called affairs of honor never get to the point where somebody actually fires a gun it is very typical for the two men to find a solution before then so that will allow them a compromise that will allow them both to preserve their honor and hamilton who is of course we've said a very acerbic very disputatious man he has been involved in at least six affairs of honor before, but none of them have got to the point where he actually had to pull the trigger.

34:16Dominic Sandbrook:So in other words, they were settled in a compromise.

34:18Tom Holland:The equivalent in today's America would be threatening to take someone to court. And that is so financially ruinous that by and large, it gets settled before it comes to court.

34:28Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, that's a good comparison, actually. There's a sort of ritual, there's a ritualistic element to taking somebody to court, isn't there? And as you say, to push it to the extreme of a confrontation, you know, it's so risky. People generally don't want that. Right, exactly. Now, Hamilton knows, he knows more than most people how risky this is. Because in November 1801, his son Philip had gone into a public row with a bloke called George Eaker, who criticized Alexander Hamilton. And Philip had challenged Eaker to a duel. Hamilton said to him well if you're going to go fight this duel I advise you to miss on purpose because then you'll miss and you're the challenger and that will allow the duel to be settled peacefully but actually for some peculiar reason this didn't really work out basically when the duel started both Philip Hamilton and this bloke Iker just stood there for a full minute or so not firing none of them really knowing what to do and then they both sort of leveled their pistols eka fired philip was wounded and philip died and hamilton was absolutely grief-stricken and i

35:40Tom Holland:suppose um eliza as well yeah it must have been i mean she's not going to want to lose more people

35:44Dominic Sandbrook:from her family is she no so given that hamilton knows the costs well this we can this comes to your point your question why did he do it so we can understand why burr did it burr did it because he's been introduced in the New York papers. He's been humiliated by the election results in New York. Burr is very thin-skinned. Burr is very arrogant, and he wants to rebuild his reputation. But for Hamilton, this is massively high risk. He's got his wife, Eliza. He's got seven kids. He's got massive debts. So he's just built this country house in upper Manhattan called The Grange, and it's got orchards, and it's got 35 acres of woodland.

36:21Dominic Sandbrook:It's very nice. and he has taken out a massive mortgage to pay for it which his wife would be unable to repay if he died so he really has very little to gain and what is more he doesn't even agree with duelling and we know this because a few days before the duel he wrote a statement on impending duel with Aaron Burr and he said in this statement my religious and moral principles are strongly opposed to the practice of duelling, it would even give me pain to be obliged to shed the blood of a fellow creature in a private combat forbidden by the laws. But maybe he just hates Aaron Burr so much that he's prepared to make an exception.

37:01Dominic Sandbrook:He basically says, I can't apologise to Burr because I meant what I said. He is despicable. He's terrible. He's a threat to the Republic. But also, he says, I have to conform to public prejudice because one day I want to be useful whether in resisting mischief or affecting good in those crises of public affairs which seem likely to happen basically hamilton's looking ahead he's saying there are going to be a lot of political ructions in the next few years the survival of the republic itself is a stake i need to be popular so that i can have an effect so i have to fight this duel so i can fight i have to fight not just personal honor but so that i can have a role in shaping the future of the country so he he agrees to the jewel very high stakes the mad thing though is they don't immediately get on with it they just hang around and the reason is that hamilton is still representing clients in court and the new york courts are going to sit until the 6th of july so they agree that they'll have the jewel five days later on the 11th of july so that he can finish up with his all his clients and what this means is in the meantime the two of them have to go around new york which of course is not an enormous place in those days they have to hang around new york as though nothing is happening so on independence day there's a dinner organized by the society of the cincinnati for the former tax refuseniks and they actually sit at the same table at this dinner another guest who was there said burr contrary to his want was silent gloomy sour while hamilton entered with glee into the gaiety of a convivial party and even sang an old military song and this is typical of how they spend their last days before the duel burr keeps a low profile he writes to his daughter theodosia who's got married and he says let me give you some advice on how to build a library and he also writes to theodosia's husband new husband he says i would very much appreciate it if you would allow theodosia to carry on her studies of latin and greek you should be warming to burn out on does he change his will yeah he does to allow theodosia to inherit his slaves see he's immediately blotted his copybook again hasn't he he has done yeah now hamilton by contrast he he's quite gregarious he doesn't hang out he doesn't sort of keep himself to himself he goes to dinner parties he visits his friends he writes a couple of letters to two letters to eliza farewell letters and he writes that statement about the jewel that i mentioned about how he doesn't like duelling and in the statement he says i've already decided on my tactics i have resolved to reserve and throw away my first fire and i have thoughts even of reserving my second fire and thus giving a double opportunity to colonel burr to pause and reflect so this is an interesting thing because some people say well this was obviously hamilton's intention this is what he was going to do so just to be clear what that means to reserve and throw away my first

39:56Tom Holland:fire so he's not going to shoot at burr that's what that means well he'll throw away his fire

40:01Dominic Sandbrook:he will shoot but he will deliberately miss he'll fire well wider burr and what this would mean this is not uncommon this would give burr the initiative but it would also give burr a chance to say fair enough let's shake hands and you know settle this on the other hand hamilton did give his son similar advice in 1801 and his son came back dead has hamilton not learned his lesson clearly he hasn't But he's done this six times, has he? He has had six affairs of honour, but they have not come to the point of shooting at all. So this is his first actual duel. Yeah. And I think some historians say that the thing with this letter is, this statement is designed to be read only in the event of Hamilton's death.

40:43Dominic Sandbrook:So you could argue it's basically a press release. It would be used after his death to blacken Burr's name, that Hamilton is preparing for the worst. He will be making himself look good. and making Burr look bad. That would be a very cynical way of looking at it, but anyway. Let's get towards the duel. 7th of July, four days to go. Hamilton and Eliza throw a big garden party. They have 70 guests dining outside. They have musicians hidden in the woods, very like succession or something. They have all the sort of local Federalist bigwigs, and nobody suspects that there's a duel coming because Hamilton seems in great form.

41:20Dominic Sandbrook:Two days later, the 9th of July, he leaves the Grange for the last time. He kisses Eliza goodbye. He rides into the city, goes to his townhouse at 54 Cedar Street, Lower Manhattan. And he spends the next two nights there. And early the following morning, Wednesday the 11th of July, 1804, he wakes for the moment that will define his life and legacy, the climactic duel with Aaron Burr.

41:45Tom Holland:Unbelievable drama. And we will find out what happens after the break.

41:50Dominic Sandbrook:And we're live on match day as Doug reaches for a buffalo wing. He's got it. Oh, and he's gone for a can of Pepsi, too. What a finish. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match days deserve Pepsi.

42:05Tom Holland:You want to get your backyard summer ready, but you don't want to break the bank? Wayfair gets it. Planning on dining al fresco or relaxing poolside? Wayfair has everything you need to prep your space. Shop now and save up to 70 % off during Wayfair's 4th of July clearance. Score huge deals on outdoor furniture, area rugs, and more. We're talking thousands of products for every style and budget. Plus, surprise flash deals July 6th. Don't wait. Shop Wayfair's 4th of July clearance now through July 6th at Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home.

42:35Dominic Sandbrook:Hi, everybody. It's Dominic here from The Rest Is History. I just wanted to let you all know that on our sister podcast, The Book Club, we have just released an episode digging deep into George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, the first book in his Song of Ice and Fire sequence. we go deep into the history behind game of thrones so we go into the wars of the roses hadrian's wall we talk about the influence of jr r tolkien in comparisons with the lord of the rings but tabby we also talk don't we about george rr martin's apparent stagnation and whether he's

43:06Tom Holland:actually ever going to finish the books we investigate why it is that he has battled to finish them at all and whether he will ever be able to but if you want to hear lots more about the history behind some of the greatest novels of all time, fear not. Coming up on the book club, we have The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa, which is all about Italian unification. We talk about Circe, where we delve into a particular part of the Odyssey. And then after that, we are doing The 39 Steps, which Dominic, you chose and you love.

43:37Dominic Sandbrook:Please join us at the book club. It's loads of fun and you will never find a better way to spend your life. Bye-bye. Bye. This episode is brought to you by the cultural phenomenon, Hamilton the Musical.

43:51Tom Holland:We know, of course, that history is about much more than dates and titles and constitutional acts. It's also built on and often driven by intense human emotion, fear, pride, ambition, tragedy, a determination not to pay taxes.

44:09Dominic Sandbrook:And you know, that is exactly what Lin-Manuel Miranda captures so superbly in his musical Hamilton. It lifts the curtain on the turbulent life of the founding father Alexander Hamilton from impoverished orphan and immigrant to brilliant revolutionary.

44:27Tom Holland:250 years on from what America's persist in calling their quest for freedom, the world has absolutely fallen in love with the story of Hamilton. So it's playing in London in the Victoria Palace Theatre in New York at the Richard Rogers Theatre. And it is on tour across North America. So book tickets today at HamiltonMusical.com.

44:53Tom Holland:Hello, everyone, and welcome back to The Rest is History, where it is early in the morning of the 11th of July, 1804. And in their respective Manhattan townhouses, both Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, unsurprisingly, are already up.

45:13Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, so Burr spent the night at his country house in Richmond Hill, Manhattan. So that's between modern Greenwich Village and Soho. So that was then about a mile and a half from the city of New York. And Burr got up very early. he put on this black silk coat and he had himself driven to the quayside on the river hudson with his friend william van ness who's going to be his second and with a couple of other mates van ness and burr erode across the river towards we hawken new jersey great name and we hawken is the um the chosen duelling ground and the reason for this is that although duelling is forbidden in both New York and New Jersey, the New Jersey authorities are much more relaxed about prosecuting duels.

46:00Dominic Sandbrook:So you won't get into so much trouble. The men rowing the boat, the oarsmen, they obviously know why these blokes are there. But the way this works, the oarsmen have their backs to the duelists throughout so that if they're asked afterwards, they can deny any knowledge. They won't be implicated in it at all. So Burr and his team arrive at about 6.30am and they've chosen this spot it's a kind of ledge of land about 20 feet above the river and if you look at new york on a map it's roughly level with west 42nd street today and it was a very popular spot for jewelists it was not it was only a few minutes walk from the similar spot on the river where hamilton's son philip had been killed three years earlier that must have concentrated his mind well it was we'll see there are a couple of other interesting parallels so van ness and another of Burr's mates start clearing the ledge they clear the bushes away so they'll give Burr and Hamilton some space about half an hour later just around seven o 'clock the second boat approaches the New Jersey side of the river and on this boat is Hamilton his second who is a judge called Nathaniel Pendleton and a doctor called David Hosack who taught medicine at Columbia now usually you would have two doctors as a jewel but when the seconds discussed it with their principals burr said we don't really need two doctors let's just get one another bad omen hosak had been on hand at the jewel on the new jersey side of the river where philip hamilton had been killed that's mad yeah of course it's mad it's insane i'll tell you what i'll do i'll have the jewel in the same place where my son was killed i have the same doctor what could possibly go wrong and i'll row over the Hudson.

47:43Dominic Sandbrook:It's kind of like crossing the River Styx. Exactly. The whole thing is demented. So the seconds draw lots to pick sides and they decide who's going to run the duel. And then they hand out the pistols. And the pistols again were chosen by Hamilton. The pistols were made in London by an excellent London gunsmith called Wogden and Barton. And they belonged to Hamilton's brother-in-law, a man called John Barker Church. He was British. he was the mp for wendover and he was married to hamilton's sister-in-law angelica so church now this is a bizarre detail church the bloke who gave him the pistols had actually fought a duel with burr himself in 1799 and nobody had been injured these probably weren't the same pistols that church had used but madly they may well be the same pistols that hamilton's son had used in his duel no yeah why would you use the same pistols just absolutely insane they're very blingy these dueling pistols as dueling pistols often are they're covered with sort of brass and gold they fire these balls which were designed dueling pistols were designed not to be very accurate because basically the ideal is that you'll just shoot nobody will be hit nobody will be killed and you'll both escape with your honor intact and your lives intact the pistols also they'll have hair triggers so a hair trigger you have to set it beforehand and what it means is that you don't have to put as much pressure on as you normally do to pull the trigger and that means you can keep your hands steadier and you'll be more accurate pendleton hamilton second said to hamilton beforehand would you like me to set the hair trigger on your pistol but not burrs because that would give you a big advantage.

49:34Dominic Sandbrook:And Hamilton said, no, not this time. And historians have often wondered why Hamilton said this. I think the answer is obvious. Hamilton is very anxious. He doesn't want to be accused of cheating because that would be very bad for his reputation. Because the duel is covered by very strict rules. We talked about the sort of ritual of it before the break. There's a thing called the code duello. And the code duello runs like this. Basically, what you'll do is, imagine you're fighting a duel. Who would you fight a duel with? I'll fight with you. Okay. fine we'd walk away from each other for 10 paces and then we would turn and then our seconds alia and tabby or whatever callum and dom they would say they would say are you ready the what the second who is running it alia is running it she says are you ready then she calls out present and present is your signal to fire you're into it quite quickly one of you fires first it doesn't really matter who whoever's quickest imagine you fire first you fire you missed shambles you're shaking like a leaf you haven't set your hair trigger no or maybe i'm

50:37Tom Holland:just kind of i'm i'm very cool-handed yeah but i'm compassionate and kind right and i don't actually want to shoot you dead okay so you've missed so i aim at a kind of angle at a tree

50:49Dominic Sandbrook:or something exactly and i accidentally shoot callum

50:55Dominic Sandbrook:at this point right my second let's say dom johnson dom johnson counts uh one two three fire and then you can shoot me and now it's my turn to fire are you going to shoot me i'd shoot you in the through the heart of course you would but maybe i wouldn't if i chose not to right then i would lose my turn now at this point everybody would kind of reconvene and the seconds would say have the obligations of honor being satisfied and we'd probably agree that they had been and that would be the end of the affair so the vast majority of jewels probably nine out of ten jewels really worth stressing do not end in anybody dying because even if you fire the shots because the pistols are designed to be quite inaccurate you're likely to miss generally the duelists will agree a deal before a single shot is fired who has the choice of weapons the person who has been challenged i think hamilton literally has chosen the pistols with which his son was shot hamilton says in the pistols i mean it would be pretty punchy for burr to say i'm choosing the pistols i wouldn't put it past him the pistol that killed your son i mean that's really arts so hamilton and burr take their positions and at this point it is highly likely that both of them will survive the duel now here's a funny detail hamilton aims his pistol and then he says stop not to apologize to burr and settle the duel he says in certain states of the light one requires glasses and he puts on these glasses and he makes a great show of squinting through them aiming his pistol, aiming at Burr, aiming at different things.

52:38Dominic Sandbrook:You know, like he's getting his eye in kind of thing. And the puzzle with this is, as we know, Hamilton wrote beforehand, he said, I'm going to throw away my shot. So why is he making such a fuss about getting his eye in? I think some historians say, well, he had a death wish. He was trying to provoke Burr to kill him. I think that's highly unlikely. I think he's basically just trolling Burr. He's taunting him. He's winding him up. Hamilton can't stop himself doing this. Finally, he's finished. And Pendleton, the allure of the story, Pendleton says, ready, present. Now, if you've seen the musical, well, you have seen the musical because you saw it about a week ago, you will remember all through the musical Hamilton has been singing, I'm not throwing away my shot, but he does throw away his shot at the crucial moment.

53:26Dominic Sandbrook:Hamilton in the musical, he fires into the sky a millisecond later burr fires straight at him he shoots and hamilton falls that's what happens in the musical but in reality what happened is much more ambiguous so the two seconds pendleton and van ness and the doctor hosak have all turned away from the action and the reason they turn away is that if they're caught they can deny having seen anybody firing jewel really i was just out for a walk i didn't know bird watching yeah but all the witnesses agreed that when pendleton shouted present there were two shots fired within a couple of seconds of each other and when they looked round burr was unscathed and hamilton had been hit just above his right hip and the the ball entered him just above his hip in his lower abdomen it ricocheted off his rib it ripped through his diaphragm and his liver and it lodged in his spine and hamilton immediately slumped to the ground and he dropped his pistol so this is the point at which they see what's happened burr moved towards him straight away pendleton said later that burr had an expression of regret and burr seems it looks like he's going to talk to hamilton but at this point burr's second van ness rushed towards him the reason he rushed towards them is that the oars men have heard the shots and they're coming up the slope to see what's going on and van ness wants to preserve the deniability of the whole thing so rather bizarrely he at this point opens an umbrella which is carrying and he hides burr behind the umbrella and sort of hustles him towards the boats so that people can't see him when they get to the boats burr says to van ness i must go and speak to him meaning hamilton but van ness says no no no we just have to get out of here as quickly as possible like you've hit him you've won the jewel let's go now meanwhile back on the ledge the doctor david hosak has rushed to hamilton's side and hosak described the scene a month later and it's worth quoting this at length he said 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 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 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 barge men aided us in conveying him into the boat so they're into the boat and hosak gets spirits and he rubs Hamilton's face with the spirits to revive him.

56:11Dominic Sandbrook:And this does the trick. Hamilton opens his eyes, he's conscious. And then he says something very interesting. He sees that his pistol is lying in the boat and he says to the doctor, take care of that pistol. It is undischarged and still cocked. It may go off and do harm. Pendleton knows that I did not intend to fire at him, meaning Burr. Now we'll come back to this pistol because this is part of, you know, there's a mystery about this. And then Hamilton closes his eyes. He looks very calm, very peaceful. He says to Hosack, how's my pulse? He says, I have lost all feeling in my legs. And he says, Hosack said, he manifested to me that he entertained no hopes that he should long survive.

56:52Dominic Sandbrook:But actually, Hamilton is wrong. They make it back across the river. They make it back to Manhattan and Hamilton is still breathing. And we'll come back to Hamilton in Manhattan in a second, but let's just pause the story to ask what actually happened in those crucial moments in the duel so the most popular version of events is based on Pendleton's accounts this is Hamilton's second and he says that Hamilton aimed his pistol above Burr's head but he did not fire it Burr fired first Burr hit Hamilton and in the shock of being hit Hamilton accidentally triggered his own gun and the ball shot into a cedar tree above Burr's head.

57:33Dominic Sandbrook:Pendleton went back the next day and he found a branch that had been shattered by a bullet that was 12 feet above Burr's head. And that is why, Pendleton says, on the boat, Hamilton said, take care of my pistol, it's still loaded, it might go off. He didn't actually realise that it had fired. He didn't mean to fire it. But Burr's second, Van Ness, told a different story. He said, Hamilton fired first. He did fire, And he missed. And had he deliberately missed? Well, this is the question we don't know. Van Ness actually thought Hamilton hit Burr at first because he noticed that Burr was limping.

58:07Dominic Sandbrook:And he said to Burr afterwards, did Hamilton hit you? And Burr said, actually, no, I twisted my ankle when I was getting out of the boat or something. This is what Van Ness said. Hamilton fired and missed. And Burr then waited. Burr did not shoot straight away. Burr waited for Hamilton's, sorry, for the man running the duel, Pendleton, to count to three as per the rules. But the bloke running the duel, for whatever reason, didn't say anything. Maybe he was caught up in the moment or whatever. Burr was worried that he was going to lose his turn. And so only after this sort of one, two, three, four, maybe five second delay did he then shoot Hamilton because he thought, if I don't do this, I'm going to lose my turn and he might shoot me or who knows what happens.

58:56Dominic Sandbrook:now different historians take different views on this joseph ellis in his book on the sort of founding father's generation he thinks this is actually plausible he thinks that the account by hamilton second was deliberately twisted to make hamilton look like a martyr what's slightly confusing though is if that's if that's true if hamilton did fire first if he knew he fired first why did he think the gun on the boat was still you know loaded again joseph ellis says well maybe he was just in shock or something he didn't realize i'm not so sure about that maybe a way of going through this is to go back to that letter that hamilton wrote beforehand where he said i have resolved to throw away my first fire and then my second fire and then giving an opportunity to burr to pause and reflect i think this is pretty unambiguous and i think it's very plausible that hamilton did fire first and he ostentatiously missed that seems most likely to me because that's what he basically said he was going to do yeah so then the question is why does bur does bur realize this and does bur just deliberately kill him anyway and the answer hangs on what you think of bur's character i know what your answer is going to be straight away yeah he guns him down like a dog so so joseph ellis says there is no way that bur could have known that hamilton was deliberately missing remember he gave hamilton a chance to apologize and hamilton said no remember that he's also seen Hamilton do all that business with the glasses.

1:00:21Dominic Sandbrook:You wouldn't do that if you were trying to deliberately miss, maybe? So Hamilton's done all that stuff with his glasses, you know, practicing his aim and stuff. So Ellis says Burr was completely within his rights. According to the principles of the Code Duelo, Burr was perfectly justified in taking deadly aim at Hamilton and firing to kill. But Ron Chernow, in his book on Hamilton, says this is just rubbish. cherno says hamilton missed by so much by 12 feet that it was obvious that he did it deliberately and burr just shot him dead like a dog because burr was a terrible man cherno says is telling that burr said only bring one doctor no need for two doctors some people might think burr said this because burr thought no one's going to get hurt anyway so we don't need any doctor cherno thinks that burr wanted to minimize the number of doctors because he wanted to maximize the chances of Hamilton dying.

1:01:14Dominic Sandbrook:So you're obviously Team Chernow. And actually, there is one other clue that backs this up. So many years later, Burr lived in exile in London, and he became great friends, bizarrely, with the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Oh, that is unexpected. It is unexpected. So there's a side to Burr, Tom, that you might have enjoyed. I think Jeremy Bentham's incredibly boring. Well, anyway, Bentham said of Burr, Burr gave me an account of his duel with Hamilton. he was sure of being able to kill him so i thought it little better than murder in other words burr planned the whole thing now my take on this do you want to hear my take on this yeah give us your take dominic i think it's going to be a profound take i think it's the unknowability of history of course however such a lib dem response no because i'm now going to say i think it hinges on your understanding of the characters the two men the one issue with burr is his image is so clearly defined by his enemies that we can never really be sure we're seeing him clearly but isn't it telling that he has a lot of enemies who want to paint him yeah and i did compare him with richard nixon before and i think uh what burr and nixon have in common is they will you know they will just do anything they will do what it takes i mean if nixon was in a duel he'd kill you i mean nixon would have shot kennedy but actually kennedy would have shot nixon i think as well i think Nixon and Jimmy Carter duel.

1:02:36Dominic Sandbrook:That's a duel worth seeing. Jimmy Carter would accidentally shoot himself in the foot. He absolutely would.

1:02:42Tom Holland:And then get attacked by a rabbit. He wouldn't even make it across the river. He'd be devoured by rabbits as he was trying to reach the dueling ground.

1:02:53Dominic Sandbrook:Nixon would have shot Reagan in a duel. No question. Reagan would be telling a focusing anecdote, and then Nixon would just shoot him in the head. i mean trump would shoot someone in the duel he undoubtedly would trump would behave disgracefully he'd machine gun him trump would behave absolutely abominably in the duel and then he'd be unrepentant afterwards right let's get back to the story what happened to hamilton they got back across the hudson as i said hamilton's still alive they went to a friend's house at greenwich village it's obvious that hamilton is dying they get elisa to come from the grange with all seven kids and her sister Angelica who's staying with her and this has come as complete surprise to her I guess when Hamilton left the house did he say I'm off to fight a duel he left her notes and stuff so maybe she'd read them I don't know we just don't know to be honest they also got the Bishop of New York who's a man called Benjamin Moore and he wrote an account of afterwards what happened Hamilton greeted him I mean Hamilton is dying he's been shot in the chest and he's in agony and yet Yet he still manages to say to this bishop, and people, he was impressive.

1:03:59Dominic Sandbrook:He said, my dear sir, you perceive my unfortunate situation and no doubt have been made acquainted with the circumstances which led to it. It is my desire to receive the communion at your hands. I hope you will not conceive there is any impropriety in my request.

1:04:13Tom Holland:I mean, there is a reason, presumably, why he is being so formal with the bishop, which is that he wants communion because he's an Episcopalian, I think, isn't he? Yes. And the bishop might say, well, I can't give it to you because you've been fighting duels.

1:04:28Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah. He also surely knows the bishop's going to write this down about two days later and tell everybody about it. So he wants to look good. And Moore said to him, should it please God to restore you the health, sir? Will you never again be engaged in a similar transaction? And will you employ all your influence to discountenance as barbarous custom? And Hamilton said, that, sir, is my deliberate intention. And so this bloke gave him communion. Hamilton later on, again with very much, I think, an eye to posterity, said, I have no ill will against Colonel Burr. I met him with a fixed resolution to do him no harm.

1:05:01Dominic Sandbrook:I forgive all that happened. That's an excellent way to stamp on Burr forever. Put a marker on him. So the following day, the 12th of July, he died at two o 'clock in the afternoon. Moore said he expired without a struggle and almost without a groan. And he was buried in the Trinity Churchyard, Lower Manhattan. You can see his grave today. Now, ironically, you mentioned how he loves the national bank. His management of his own finances was poor. He left his family in massive debt. So they owed about$50 ,000. And if you type that into the measuring worth calculator, I mean, that is millions and millions of dollars today.

1:05:38Tom Holland:I mean, it's a feature, isn't it, of not all the founding fathers. So Franklin died very rich. John Adams was incredibly frugal. But Washington died with massive debt. But Jefferson, as we will see, also has massive debts.

1:05:52Dominic Sandbrook:I mean, no wonder they didn't want to pay tax. Yeah, exactly. They didn't have any money. So the mortgage, as I said, on the Grange was impossible for Eliza to pay. However, Hamilton's friends set up a private fund. They bought the Grange and then they sold it to her half price. So she was able to live there with her children until 1833. She devoted herself to her husband's memory. She co-founded the Orphan Asylum Society of New York, and she died aged 97, having outlived Hamilton by just over 50 years. She didn't marry again? She didn't. She was devoted to his memory. Now, Burr, what does he get up to?

1:06:30Dominic Sandbrook:Even before Hamilton died, Hamilton's allies in New York were busy spinning the story and blackening Burr's name. They said that basically while Eliza was crying over her dying husband, Burr was celebrating in the taverns of New York. And they claimed that Burr was standing there at the bar of all these different pubs, you know, flagon of ale in hand, laughing and saying, I only wish I'd shot him in the heart. The drinks are on me. Yeah. I mean, this is actually just totally untrue. Because actually what happened is that Burr fled New York straight away and he went all the way south to Georgia.

1:07:09Dominic Sandbrook:now of course one thing we haven't really mentioned he's actually still the vice president of the united states so the only parallel i can think of remember dick cheney shot that man in the face yeah we're on a duck shoot don't go shoot don't go hunting with dick cheney because i'll shoot you in the face anyway uh burr is vice president he goes back to washington he's charged with murder in both New York and New Jersey but the case never came to trial the reason is they couldn't actually prove it oh because all these guys the boatmen facing the wrong way and things and the umbrellas and stuff genius brilliant can't pass it no one literally no witnesses so his term as vice president ended in 1805 but obviously his political career is now totally tainted and then in the two years after he left office Burr becomes involved in this absolutely insane conspiracy literally a catalinarian conspiracy so depending on which version you read he plotted with southern planters and u.s army officers to create his own country on the u.s southern border but the mad thing about this story is that no one could agree where his country was going to be what would you call it burrier that's a terrible name call it berry buristan so some people said it was going to be florida some people said it was going to be northern than Mexico.

1:08:30Dominic Sandbrook:Some people said it was going to be more than Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana. It's just not clear at all. Burr, when he was asked, said, I just want to buy myself a nice farm. That's all I've been trying to do. The case actually went to court and he was tried for treason, but it was not proven. Basically, there were no witnesses at all. And there's no evidence. Maybe they'd all had, it was the umbrellas again to come in handy. So after this, Burr went into exile in England, and then he was kicked out of England because there were rumors that he was planning the conquest of mexico and set himself up as king of mexico he wanted to go to france and napoleon refused to allow him like if you're too bad a man for napoleon napoleon said what um this bloke's marauding around taking other people's countries we can't have that there's only room for one of these in my country so he wasn't allowed into france he ended up drifting back to new york he lived there under a false name to escape his creditors and he died in 1836 And there's one little hint that Burr regretted what happened.

1:09:29Dominic Sandbrook:So at the very end of his life, he had loads of strokes. He was bedridden and he was reading a lot of Tristram Shandy, which is commendable behavior. And he said, and I think this really is to his credit. If I had read Lawrence Stern more and Voltaire less, I should have known that the world was wide enough for Hamilton and me. And that's a lesson to our listeners that if you have the choice of Lawrence Stern or Voltaire, you should always read Lawrence Stern. And if you want to challenge something to a deal, think again. Right, exactly. So, I mean, Bo is a very clever man, and he was very brave in the war, but he's very rarely ranked among the founding fathers.

1:10:05Dominic Sandbrook:He's seen as one of American history's great villains. But of course, that's not the case for Hamilton. Hamilton becomes a martyr. There are all sorts of cities and counties named after him. There's Hamilton Heights in New York, and he's been on the$10 bill since 1929. however hamilton's not really as famous because he wasn't president as jefferson adams washington and so on and so in 2015 the department of the treasury wanted to have a woman on the currency who are they going to have abigail adams no but it's got to be a founding mother

1:10:38Tom Holland:isn't abigail adams the founding mother she is people it should be able to talk about founding

1:10:42Dominic Sandbrook:mother but harry bald and uh uh digital guru correctly says harriet tubman oh so harriet tubman was going to go onto the currency possibly it could have been rosa parks or someone i suppose anyway they were going to put a woman on and they said well obviously the person to make way is hamilton he's not as famous as the others he wasn't president but then just two months after that hamilton the musical transferred to broadway and it became the big cultural phenomenon and the treasury department of the treasury changed their mind and said actually we'll keep hamilton after rule i mean the thing is they would they wouldn't be a federal bank if it wasn't for hamilton so right what i would have done is this first of all i'd keep hamilton on the currency but i think to be true to the spirit if you want to be slavish to the musical and the story be true to the spirit of it put burr on as well and have them on either side leveling pistols at each other right the other thing is people may say what samrock not want a woman on the currency you are wrong i do want a woman on the currency and i know exactly who i would take off i would take off a man who in his lifetime owned more than 600 human beings a man of the most shameless and repulsive hypocrisy and that man is the man we'll be talking about next time and that is of course thomas jefferson

1:11:58Tom Holland:And in that episode, we will be exploring the full complexity of the man who I think is the most remarkable, the most talented of all the founding fathers, but also the most morally compromised, I guess. And members of the Rest of History Club can hear that episode right away. It's sitting there waiting for you. and if you're not a member of the club and you would like to hear Thomas Jefferson and also Dominic there's a whole range of supplementary benefits oh incredible benefits we must never forget the supplementary benefits um then go to therestishistory.com uh and also be able to get the incredible newsletter so thank you Dominic thanks everyone for listening bye-bye bye Dominic since it's the summer I've obviously been thinking a lot about cricket however I am aware that the World Cup is on as well.

1:12:51Tom Holland:And so occasionally football intrudes on my mind as well. And so I've been thinking about what my historical dream football teams would be. And who would be in your historical dream team? I've numbered it down to four, what I think would be the classics. And they are, of course, the Aztecs, the Royal Navy, we've got to have the Royal Navy, Austro-Hungary, and of course,

1:13:16Dominic Sandbrook:ancient rome i mean it's an amazing coincidence because the rest is history have just launched football shirts for those very teams so if there are people out there who want to know what quoutamok would have worn during the siege of tenochtitlan or nelson this is your chance to

1:13:35Tom Holland:find out and how would one i'll put it bluntly me how would i get my hands on one two three or perhaps all of these bespoke kits?

1:13:47Dominic Sandbrook:You would want to head as quickly as possible to the restishistory.com and you go to the merch tab then you would be able to pre-order one of these fantastic limited edition shirts.

1:13:59Tom Holland:Would there be a way of personalising these shirts?

1:14:04Dominic Sandbrook:I'm going to make you so happy now because actually there would. Each shirt can be personalised with a choice of historical figures. the big names from that particular team so for example the royal navy you can go for horatio nelson or emma hamilton you can go for franz ferdinand or sophie for the austro-hungarian empire for the aztecs you can go for cuau tamoc montezuma or malinche okay these sound absolutely

1:14:29Tom Holland:brilliant um the perfect way for our beloved listeners to celebrate the world cup and i will certainly be heading to the website and clicking on the merch page on restishistory.com i simply cannot wait

1:14:55Tom Holland:hello there it's al murray here and james holland they're hosts of the second world war pod we have ways of making you talk al and i have been on the rest is history a few times now talking all things World War II with Tom and Dominic. If you've enjoyed their recent topics on 20th century history, then we have good news for you. Yes, that's right, Jim. We have our own show all about the fascinating history of World War II. Every Tuesday and Thursday, WW2 pod, We Have Ways of Making You Talk, discusses the fascinating people, amazing innovations and terrible tragedies of this most pivotal period in human history.

1:15:30Tom Holland:Yeah, and the bottom line is other history has absolutely nothing on this. This past year alone, we've done series on visionary US presidents like FDR and Truman, HMS Hood versus Bismarck, and Japan's Road to War. We've also explored daring night raids behind enemy lines like Brunewald and the nerve-wracking Atlantic convoys. And right now, we're doing the truly Titanic Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi-German invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941. So now is a great time to subscribe and get into the action. Search We We have ways wherever you get your podcasts. That's we have ways wherever you get your podcasts.