Dan Snow's History Hit - The Real Alexander Hamilton

Episode Date: July 3, 2022

How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence impoverished in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?This is the famous question posed by Lin Manuel Miranda in his smash-hit Broadway show Hamilton that's swept the globe. It's a celebration and looks into the life of the once lesser-known founding fathers, instrumental in the creation of the United States in the late 18th Century. To mark American Independence Day celebrations, Senior Lecturer of American Studies at the University of Manchester Dr Natalie Zacek joins Dan to break down Alexander Hamilton's life, role in the American Revolutionary War and whether he really was as important as Miranda's play makes him out to be.Produced by Mariana Des Forges & Hannah WardMixed and Mastered by Dougal PatmoreIf you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History. It's the question we've all been asking the last couple of years. And that is, how does a bastard orphan son of a whore and a Scotsman dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by Providence, impoverished, in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar? A question put by Lin-Manuel Miranda into the mouths of one of his characters in the musical Hamilton. of one of his characters in the musical Hamilton. Well, it's a question that has fascinated me for a long time, because as a geeky student of late 18th century US history, I was always a big fan of Hamilton. And then someone came along and wrote a musical about him, seemingly for my benefit. I've been to see that musical so many times, it's embarrassing to enumerate them on this podcast. But today, we're going to put a bit of historical

flesh, factual flesh on the artistic bones with a very brilliant Dr. Natalie Zadzic. She's a senior lecturer at Manchester University. She's an expert not just in the history of the American colonies, but in the colonies of the Caribbean as well, which is where Hamilton was born. So she's the ideal person to talk to us today about Hamilton. Here is Natalie Zacek. Enjoy. Natalie, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me, Dan. So, Alexander Hamilton, not born in the, well, obviously not born in the USA, because the USA

didn't exist clearly in the mid-18th century. But where was he from? What's his background? He was born on the island of Nevis, which was an English colony in the Caribbean, as it was until the mid-20th century, when he had a difficult upbringing. Not only did his family not have a lot of money, but his parents were not married to one another. So by the standards of the time, he was a quote bastard. And his mother died when he was quite young and his father appears to have left the island. So he was essentially orphaned by the time that he was an adolescent. Was he a prodigious genius from an early age, so voraciously reading and writing things? That's the impression given. He certainly was very intelligent and very hardworking. And had he had an easier life as a child, maybe things would have turned out differently, but he was pretty much on his own

from the time he was about 13 years old. So it was really sink or swim. So he had to do whatever he could, read whatever came to him, write well. He was also very numerate, which was an important thing in plantation colony. His family did not have a plantation or own any slaves. So he really had to make his own way. But because he was literate and numerate and smart and quick and hardworking, he was able to get work even at an age that we would think was scandalously young, basically as a clerk to merchants. And because he impressed people as being incredibly smart, and they felt badly that he was a poor orphan, They actually, a number of the merchants pretty much took up a collection and sent him to New York, which at that time was quite

a small town, but it did have an institution of higher learning, which the West Indies didn't have at that time. King's College, which was the basis of what we now know as Columbia University. And indeed, if you go to Columbia University today, and you want to go to the history department, it's in Hamilton Hall. Both of my parents got their PhDs at Columbia, and they hung out a lot at Hamilton Hall. And I suspect King's College had a rebranding, a name change during the revolution, which we'll come to in a second, probably after the revolution, actually, because New York was the last place the Brits held on to. But let's talk about now New York. What was it like when he arrived? It was 1772. So was there kind of rebellious ferment? And was he predisposed to look favourably on rebellion?

What is his background in the West Indies sort of prepared him for politically? It's a little bit hard to say because he left when he was so young and he was working so hard just to keep himself fed. But the West Indian colonies, like North America's colonies, had joined the opposition to the Stamp Act. And there had actually been riots and demonstrations in some of the islands. So he might have been aware of that. He certainly was probably aware of the fact that even though the West Indian colonies were making a huge amount of money for Britain, at the same time, British governmental elites tended to look down on even the richest West Indians as uncultured, violent, primitive. Even people in England who had no moral problem with enslavement still looked down on very rich white Caribbean people. So he might

have already had a sense of himself as a colonial rather than as an Englishman. His father, Mr. Hamilton, was of Scots birth. We don't know a lot about him. What were his political views? Was he a Jacobite? Possibly, but certainly possible that young Alexander didn't have a particularly positive view of the British Empire. And when he got to New York City as still just about a 16-year-old boy, being someone who was smart, poor, on the make, he probably just went around talking to everybody. And he certainly would have picked up on some currents of discontent among people in New York City. You mentioned he's young and poor and he's on the make. Is there an element of that he's the kind of person, unlike Ben Franklin and George Washington, who were pillars of society, he's the kind of person that could seek to benefit from radical transformation? I mean, he's got nothing to lose. Is there an element of that in the kind of revolutionary coalition?

He has no surviving family, as far as we know. He has no money, no land. He does not own enslaved people. He knows that all he really has is a pretty good brain. So an uproar in society, he doesn't have anything to lose, and he's got a great deal that he might gain, particularly if there's going to be the possibility of a new basis of society in an independent, well, what we would now call the United States, where men, and I have to say would be men, not women, men who don't have much and who don't have much of a stake in society might actually rise to great prominence, to wealth and to power. Where do we pick up on him as a historic figure, a well-attested figure? I mean, is it around the Boston Tea Party, for example, when in opposition to British tariffs on tea, people throw the tea from the East India Company in the harbour at Boston. What is a big moment for our hero here? It's probably two things. One is that when the war breaks out, when he's still a very young man, he joins the Continental Army, the American military, which is a very small army. At any given time, it's probably only a few thousand people.

And George Washington, even though he's the great commanding general, he actually gets to know his men very well. And he sees something in Alexander Hamilton. Not that he's necessarily an incredible warrior, but he's a great brain and a very good organizer. So he becomes Washington's aide-de-camp. Maybe he doesn't have quite the personal connection with Washington that Lafayette eventually does. People talk about Lafayette as the son that George Washington never had, because George Washington had no children. He had stepchildren. His wife had been married before, but he never has any children, and people really say Lafayette was his son.

Hamilton isn't quite like that. The relationship isn't quite as intimate, but he certainly sees Hamilton as someone who's very important to the war effort. The other thing is that Hamilton makes a very important marriage. For those who have seen the musical, we know all about the Schuyler sisters, and he marries the daughter of one of the richest and most influential men in colonial America, Philip Schuyler, who is a very, very, very wealthy and influential merchant and colonial politician out of Albany, New York, which is where I grew up. And as a kid, we would all get hauled off to the Schuyler Mansion for our field trip days. And we all thought, man, this isn't that exciting. And so now that the Schuyler mansion is the hottest ticket in all, but it's quite a funny thing to see this sort of obscure

place that you got taken to when you were nine years old as this sort of Disneyland of colonial America. But it's very important because the war isn't going to go on forever. And Washington likes Hamilton, but Washington likes lots of people. But to be married to a Schuyler gives you access to money and to networks. So like many bright young things, they kind of gather around the commanding general to carry messages and write out orders and things like that. Does he see action in that role? Or is he behind the lines being sort of kept in a tent? Washington is a man who led from the front. He didn't sit at headquarters and tell people, why don't you go fight over there for a while?

Washington's on the field. His aide-de-camp are on the field. And Hamilton does see action. And he's very proud of that fact. As a boy who grew up kind of fatherless, he clearly does see Washington as his symbolic father, as lots of people did. But of course, in this case, he actually knew him and worked with him. And, you know, compared to many other people who are important in the United States during and just after independence, many of them, I mean, Ben Franklin was an old man, he wasn't fighting,

Thomas Jefferson wasn't on the battlefield. John Adams wasn't sitting in Philadelphia. But Alexander Hamilton was actually out there shooting at people, getting shot at, risking his life. And so that gives him special legitimacy even beyond his other accomplishments. And he does experience Washington's great moments of success, I guess, Trenton and Princeton, those winter campaigns. And Hamilton is on the battlefield at those times. Right. Amazing. And then he plays an important part, I guess, in keeping the army together, because the biggest, probably the biggest challenge George Washington seems to have is

not the British, it's the logistics. It's holding that force together and trying to find money for it. It's the boring business of logistics and admin. Yeah. So as much as he is intellectually smart and he thinks about political philosophy and history, but he's also a guy that gets stuff done. And so Washington can say, Hamilton, go do that. Go get us more guns. Go find us more blankets. We need a surgeon. And he goes and does it, or he knows who to tell to go do it. It turns out that he isn't simply book smart. He is a guy that because he was on his own from such an early age, and he knew that whatever

he was going to get, he was going to have to get it for himself. No one was there to hold his hand and to make sure that he had what he needed. And so he is a good soldier in military terms, and he is very clever intellectually, but he also is simply, Washington's got a lot on his shoulders. And if he has someone where he can say, I know if I tell Hamilton to do this, if it's possible in any way, Hamilton will go out there and do it. And I don't have to remind him, and I don't have to question him. I can just say, get it done, and it's done. And I'm sure if you were Washington, that would be an incredible relief. And you would be very grateful to that person for making your life that little bit easier.

In the Battle of Yorktown, Hamilton actually gets a field command, right? So he gets to lead his men in battle again, rather than just working the staff job for Washington. He must have been agitated by it. He wanted to get back on the front line. Yes, he was very eager to do so. He wanted to help Washington in any way he could. You have to think about that this is a young, young guy. He's fairly unique among those great, quote, founding fathers, and that he's a lot younger than most of them. He's a lot poorer than most of them. So he's got a lot to prove to everyone and perhaps prove to himself as well. And he's a West Indian. He's not even a guy from New York or Philadelphia or Virginia. So, I mean, I'm sure

that we would say he was brave, but I think he also has a sense that he needs to go out there and accomplish things and keep the ball rolling so that whenever the war ends, he's going to be well set up. So you've got some stalemate really whenever the war ends, he's going to be well set up. So you've got some stalemate really in the northern states, Britain controlling New York and some patches of the north. All the action is in the south, down in Virginia, which I always think is amazing. In Yorktown, it's only a couple of miles away from where Jamestown is, the first successful English settlement in North America. Big British army is down there trying to win back the South, and the middle and the South. But George Washington besieges him. The French Navy, shockingly, win a naval battle against the British Navy. And therefore, Cornwallis,

the British army is blockaded in there. The siege continues and Hamilton, he leads his men in battle. I mean, it's quite a dramatic battlefield moment. Cornwallis gets stuck between the French sailing up from the West Indies and Washington's army advancing down that peninsula. And at this point, Britain is a lot less interested in holding on to these colonies. The war has consumed a lot of men and probably more importantly, a lot of money. Washington is very clever. He knows he can't really win on the battlefield very often, but he can drag things out and bog the British down and cost them a lot of money. So the war doesn't officially end for two more years, but Yorktown really is the end. It's where Cornwallis surrenders. And at that point, all the fighting goes onto paper in terms of treaties.

How does Hamilton transform himself from an essential military aide to the political sphere? A couple of things. I mean, first of all, having Washington be someone who really likes you and really thinks that you are a very smart, capable person is really important. And someone who also has a very good grip on history and political theory. So Hamilton really comes into his own later in the 1780s in the debate over the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. He, along with future President James Madison and diplomat John Jay, are the leaders of what are called the Federalists. These are people who want to ratify the Constitution and want to have a fairly strong central government led by an elected person who eventually becomes called the president. Whereas the Anti-Federalists, they know that independent America needs some kind of government

but they want the center to be quite weak they don't want to ratify the constitution they don't want the three branches of government so Hamilton Madison and Jay are constantly writing pamphlets that are written in for the time fairly casual language so the average literate person should be able to read and understand them. And you could easily read them today in the Federalist Papers. None of them are signed, and at the time, they're usually attributed to Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, but Hamilton wrote about two-thirds of them. So he really is crucial in convincing Americans, or at least the Americans who count, who are basically wealthy white male

landowners and merchants, that they want to support the Constitution and set up a new independent national government, which is an early version of the government that the United States has today. And does he make enemies doing that? I mean, is this a turbulent time? It is quite turbulent. I mean, it's not a violent struggle in physical terms between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, but it certainly is aggressive in the intellectual sphere. And Hamilton, when he wants to, can be incredibly charming. I mean, that's how he gets to marry a Schuyler sister, a young woman from a very wealthy family. He simply overwhelms her with charm and she falls madly in love with him.

It's how Washington, even before he knows how smart and capable Hamilton is, even knows that there's a person called Hamilton in his army. But when he doesn't feel like charming people, he really doesn't bother. So he's quite willing to knock elbows with people. So some people think that he's brilliant and like him a lot. Some people think that he's brilliant and don't like him a lot. And some people, I don't think they think he's stupid, but they think he's wrong about everything and they really don't like him. So he's a contentious figure. And one person with whom he really doesn't have a very positive relationship is Thomas Jefferson. And that becomes a problem because in 1789, when George Washington becomes the first U.S. president,

he wants both Jefferson and Hamilton in his administration playing important roles. And both Jefferson and Hamilton think they're number one, or number one after the president and that what they think is pretty important and they disagree on basically everything and neither one does much to try to win the other over. If you listen to Dan Snow's history we're talking about Alexander Hamilton it's very difficult to sing that. More coming up. It's very difficult to sing that. More coming up. Did you know that some of literature's greatest characters were real people?

It's so fascinating, isn't it, that some of the Three Musketeers are also based on real soldiers. That Sir Walter Raleigh wasn't all that he's been cracked up to be. Chemist, poet, scholar, historian, courtier. He could have been great in all these different things. And that if your name is Dudley, you better watch your back. For the Tudors, each one of them took something from the Dudleys, either by working with a member of the Dudley family, or of course by having one executed. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and I'm learning all this and much more, bringing you Not Just the Tudors, twice a week, every week. Subscribe now to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries.

The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions.

And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Tell me about that moment. As a child of the 90s who loved 18th century history, I never thought my twin passions for hip hop and 18th century history were going to collide in a way that they did in Hamilton, particularly in those two great rap battle moments where Jefferson and Hamilton are both trying to win Washington's approval for their policy towards France. I mean,

would there have been robust discussions in cabinet actually like that? Was this something that was argued out in person? The question of France was a huge one. Jefferson was very passionately pro-France. Jefferson had lived in France. He had been America's first ambassador to France during the constitutional period. And he was very much in favor of the French Revolution, not some of the excesses of the guillotine, but he thought the French Revolution was basically the greatest thing that had ever happened other than the American Revolution. He was very proud that he felt that the American uprising had inspired the French in many ways. He knew all of the French radical intellectuals and was friends with them.

And he said, you know, America must stay loyal to France, first, because they share our values. Secondly, when we had no one to help us and everyone against us, it was the French, even though this was the French monarchy, this was Louis XVI before the revolution, but the French helped us. The French sent us money, soldiers, equipment, and Lafayette. So we must stay loyal to our great friend, France, really our only friend. Hamilton said the opposite. Hamilton, even though in some ways he's quite radical and anti-establishment, felt that the French had gone much too far, that their revolution was frightening, and who knew where it was going to end? It was a bloodbath. And also Hamilton,

he doesn't care about aristocracy and monarchy, but he cares a lot about economic stability. And even though England, of course, had been the great enemy, and he had happily gone onto the field to kill or die in battle against English soldiers. Now that the war is over and America's independent, he says Britain should be our friend and our role model. Britain's going through its industrial revolution at this point. It's becoming a much more financialized society. And he says we should be like them. Look how well they're doing. Britain is the envy of the world in terms of its empire, while the French are just kind of going crazy, murdering each other.

This is a very passionate debate between Jefferson and Hamilton. But it actually goes a little beyond that, though, because regardless of what happens with France, basically Jefferson's vision is the great thing about America is that it's got so much land. Of course, Native Americans live on it, but that's a different question. But there's so much land, so any white man can go out to the frontier and get some land and have a little farm and raise his family and be pretty self-sufficient. So America is going to be a great agricultural nation. Most Americans are going to be farmers, according to Jefferson. Some will be really rich farmers, some will be poor, but almost

everyone will make their money from the land. Hamilton says the opposite. Remember, you know, Jefferson was born to a great plantation. Hamilton is born to nothing. Hamilton says, no, what's going to make America really great is we're going to have cities, we're going to have finance, we're going to have the stock market, we're going to have banks, we're going to have all the things that Britain does, and we are going to be a great mercantile nation. So you can see those are really very opposed ideas about what's the future for the United States. And Hamilton seems to have been right in that particular debate, judging how things turned out. The United States did a pretty good mercantile job there.

Let's briefly talk on that kind of debt, because it is quite important. Fascinating how, by federalising, by bringing the debt of all these different states together, it was an essential way of helping to shape a federal sovereign polity. He's very far-seeing. One thing about Hamilton is he's always reading. I mean, apparently he didn't sleep very much. He was just always doing something. I mean, Jefferson was an incredibly intellectually brilliant man, and he had an immense personal library indeed. One reason he died broke was that he was always buying books. But they read different things. To Hamilton, economics was not the dismal science. Economics was the key to everything. And it doesn't matter

what else your country has. If it doesn't have a good financial system, it isn't going to be successful. So despite having fought Britain, he greatly admired Britain. He said, those are the people. It's not the French. It's not the Spanish. It's not the Portuguese. It's the English. The English know what's going on. The English are very far-seeing in terms of setting up a financial system that enriches the nation. And so we need to learn from them, and we need even to push perhaps beyond them. And here we get back to the whole idea of New York.

New York, the place that he came to from the Caribbean, where he met his wife, where he had his early successes. And he said, yeah, what do you guys have in the South? Tobacco, slaves, cotton. OK, that's good. We sell these products. They're important. But New York's going to be the financial heart of not just New York state, but of our nation. of not just New York State, but of our nation. And he really had kind of a vision of Wall Street long before there really was what we would call Wall Street. His fingerprints, as you say, are all over the development of the USA. One of the great constitutional texts, in a way, not a formal one,

but an informal one, Washington's farewell address. George Washington steps down, blows everyone's minds around the world, relinquishes power voluntarily, which is almost one of his greatest achievements, great legacies. And Hamilton writes some very powerful prose for his farewell address. Yeah, I mean, Hamilton was a really, really good writer. And, you know, as someone who's struggling to finish a book right now, you know, I only wish I, you know, he wrote fast and he wrote well. Often you can do one or the other, but he was very good at both. And even though many people who knew him and who the ones who didn't like him thought of him as a very insensitive person,

I think he actually was very intuitive. And of course, he had his own very personal relationship with Washington as kind of the father he'd never really known. So he really rose to the occasion in crafting words. Washington was a brilliant man in many ways, but he wasn't a particularly elegant writer. So Hamilton lends him some beautiful words for this moment. And he warns rather presciently for people interested today, he warns about foreign influence, he warns about extreme political partisanship within the Republic. I mean, it's enduringly important. Yeah, I mean, it's enduringly important.

Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit hypocritical because he was pretty partisan, as his constant fights with Jefferson showed. So, you know, he was certainly not, let's all hold hands and be friends. But, you know, that anxiety about France certainly shows, you know, stay away from entangling alliances. America can look to others for inspiration and help, but we need to go it alone because we're a real country, not just a bunch of ex-colonies. Let's talk about that duel, famous even before the musical. I mean, you know, people studied this duel in school. Tell us how it came about. How did Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr end up fighting a duel?

Burr and Hamilton had known each other for many, many years. I believe him going back before the revolution. And they had been friends, but they'd kind of been frenemies. Burr is a very ambitious man, a very smart man, but a man who never quite makes it. He's always kind of on the edge of power, but he doesn't really become a national figure. He's clever, but he doesn't really become a national figure. He's clever, but he

doesn't really have the charisma of other figures, or he's not a super intellect, and sometimes he alienates people. So he and Hamilton have been sniping at one another for quite a long time. And there's a scholar at Yale named Joanne Freeman, who wrote a very good book called Affairs of Honor about the political culture of the early US. And unfortunately, at least in the past decade or so, we are used to politicians sniping at one another and saying, at this point, extremely nasty, personal things. I mean, you think about how Donald Trump had many nicknames, you know, Sleepy Joe Biden, how Donald Trump had many nicknames, you know, Sleepy Joe Biden, Crazy Hillary Clinton, Little Marco Rubio. And while most people don't like being insulted this way, they just sort of shrug their shoulders and accept that that's how Donald Trump often speaks

about people he doesn't like. But reputation was everything at this time. So if you're Alexander Hamilton, even though you're famous, many people respect you, even people who don't like you think you're very clever. And you have money through your wife, and you've made some of your own money. But you can't have someone constantly, it's one thing to say, you know, Alexander Hamilton is a jerk. But if you have someone constantly undermining your integrity and saying you're not fit to be in politics, because politics at this time is at least supposed to be about virtue. Why did people love George Washington? He was an effective military commander, but he seemed like a person that should be

president. He seemed like he had all the virtues that would make him a good father and husband, a good plantation owner, though obviously enslaved people might have felt differently. But the same reasons that his family and his neighbors would like him should be the reason that you want him to be your president. He's a virtuous person. So if you're Hamilton and you have someone such as Burr saying, well, he's not virtuous at all, that's really a problem. You can't just shrug your shoulders and say, well, he's just jealous of me, or that's how he talks, or he just wants attention. You have to prove that

you have honor. And at this time, the ultimate way for a man to prove that he has honor is to say, for a man to prove that he has honor is to say, I will fight you for this. I am so angry about the lies that you're spreading in public about me that I am willing to kill you or be killed by you to vindicate my honor. So dueling, we don't think of it as a very American thing, but it was not that uncommon in that era. It was more in the South. If you go to New Orleans, even today, you can go to a park and someone will tell you that's where the dueling oaks are, where young men who probably got drunk at a party and said rude things to one another would meet at dawn with their pistols or swords. But this is a much bigger thing. This isn't just somebody who said something rude about somebody's fiance or spilled a drink on somebody.

This is two men fighting for their political lives. So it is quite a big deal. And that's why long before Lin-Manuel Miranda first put pen to paper, it was widely known that Alexander Hamilton died in a duel with Aaron Burr. And though it's Hamilton that dies in the sense that it's Burr's reputation that dies, he never comes back from this. And his son had been killed in New Jersey on that site three years before, yeah. Also fighting a duel, you know, to vindicate honor. So it's a terrible tragedy, particularly for Hamilton's wife, who loses both her son, Philip, and her husband the same way.

Natalie, the musical has convinced us all that Hamilton is one of the most important formative figures in the history of the world. What is a more sober analysis of his legacy in the development and the growth of the USA? I love the musical, but I think it does overestimate Hamilton's importance. Hamilton certainly is very important in the early United States. And I would say that he's most important because he really does quite innovative in how he thinks about the national economy, about how these ex-colonies that were in a really bad financial situation were somehow going to be able to band together, and they were going to be soon on a firm financial footing. So if you are an American, whenever you think about modern capitalism, you do need to thank Alexander Hamilton that the U.S. didn't just fall apart the minute that George Washington left office. Is he a world historical figure? I really would not say so. And there's also been a lot of doubt,

for example. I mean, he's portrayed in the musical as being anti-slavery. That's not really true. He was not necessarily a racial egalitarian. He certainly was no more racist than most white people and less racist than some of his era, but he was not some sort of liberationist. And I think that the musical is more important in that it shows early American politics in a really creative and interesting way. And it shows just how fragile the new nation was even after it had gotten its independence. But although I like it a lot, and I think it's tremendously entertaining in that Miranda has a great deal of talent, I would perhaps row back a bit on the significance of Alexander Hamilton outside of that particular,

especially economic context of the late 18th century. Well, thank you very much indeed, Natalie. That was a rampage to the life of Alexander Hamilton. Thanks for coming on and talking all about it. Thanks very much for inviting me. Have a great day thank you for making it to the end of this episode of dan snow's history i really appreciate listening to this podcast i love doing these podcasts it's a highlight of my career it's the best thing i've ever done and support, your listening is obviously crucial for that project. If you did feel like doing me a favor, if you go to wherever you get your podcasts and give it a review, give a rating, obviously a good one, ideally, then that would be fantastic. And feel free to share it.

We obviously depend on listeners, depend on more and more people finding out about it, depend on good reviews to keep the listeners coming in. Really appreciate it. Thank you.