The Liberator

Affecting Anecdote of Hamilton.—There is a touching and thrilling interest connected with the following incident in the life of the illustrious Hamilton, which has been related by the celebrated New-York florist, Grant Thornburn. The day before Hamilton met Burr, on the dark and bloody ground, at Weehawken, he went into Thornburn's store, and with more than his usual tender solemnity of manner, purchased bouquets of rare flowers for his lady and each of his children. He presented them in the evening with all that sweetness and delicacy so peculiar to him in the sanctuary of his affections. No word escaped him of the morrow's doom. For any thing the family knew, the sun would rise and set upon them, still blessed with a husband's and a father's love What must have been his emotions, while he cherished in his warrior soul, the vivid certainty that he should fall on the morrow --as it is well known that he did not expect to survive the meeting unharmed!

Just as the dawning light purpled the east, Hamilton rose before his family awoke —he gazed in silence upon their placid features, asleep in their innocence and beauty, and never dreaming of a flower that should be plucked before the morning dew wasted from the pale and forbidden ground of false honor.

Their sweet scented bouquets were blooming in the vases unwithered, reminding them of conjugal and parental love. As they looked upon these pledges, perhaps the thought stole into their hearts of their lover and father, as the friend of Washington, as the chivalrous chief of the stormy Revolution, as the orator holding charmed Senators in the enchanting thraldom of as pure an eloquence as ever gushed from the fountain of patriotism. But alas! the silver wave of the Hudson was reddened with his blood, as he was borne back to the city, and to his home, to spread paleness and consternation through the border.

Before the flowers had withered, the giver was a 'thing of earth'—a cold, pale dweller in eternity.