THE CONQUEROR

BEING THE TRUE AND ROMANTIC STORY OF

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

BY

GERTRUDE FRANKLIN ATHERTON

 "Je considère Napoleon, Fox, et Hamilton comme les trois plus grands hommes de notre époque, et si je devais me prononcer entre les trois, je donnerais sans hesiter la première place à Hamilton. Il avait deviné l'Europe. "

 TALLEYRAND, _Études sur la République_

New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO. , LTD. 

1904

Set up, electrotyped, and published March, 1902. Reprinted May, Julytwice, August, September, October, December, 1902; February, 1903;February, 1904. 

Special edition June, 1904. 

Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co. --Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass. , U. S. A. 

TO THE DISTINGUISHED MEN WITHOUT WHOSE SUGGESTION AND ENCOURAGEMENT THISATTEMPT TO RECREATE THE GREATEST OF OUR STATESMEN WOULD NOT HAVE BEENMADE

THE RT. HON. JAMES BRYCE, M. P. 

DR. ALLAN McLANE HAMILTON

CONTENTS

NEVIS

BOOK I RACHAEL LEVINE

BOOK II ALEXANDER HAMILTON. HIS YOUTH IN THE WEST INDIES AND IN THECOLONIES OF NORTH AMERICA

BOOK III THE LITTLE LION

BOOK IV "ALEXANDER THE GREAT"

BOOK V THE LAST BATTLE OF THE GIANTS AND THE END

EXPLANATION

It was my original intention to write a biography of Alexander Hamiltonin a more flexible manner than is customary with that method ofreintroducing the dead to the living, but without impinging upon theterritory of fiction. But after a visit to the British and Danish WestIndies in search of the truth regarding his birth and ancestry, andafter a wider acquaintance with the generally romantic character of hislife, to say nothing of the personality of this most endearing andextraordinary of all our public men, the instinct of the novelist provedtoo strong; I no sooner had pen in hand than I found myself working inthe familiar medium, although preserving the historical sequence. But, after all, what is a character novel but a dramatized biography? Westrive to make our creations as real to the world as they are to us. Why, then, not throw the graces of fiction over the sharp hard factsthat historians have laboriously gathered? At all events, thisinfinitely various story of Hamilton appealed too strongly to myimagination to be frowned aside, so here, for better or worse, is theresult. Nevertheless, and although the method may cause the book to readlike fiction, I am conscientious in asserting that almost everyimportant incident here related of his American career is founded ondocumentary or published facts or upon family tradition; the few thatare not have their roots among the probabilities, and suggestedthemselves. As for the West Indian part, although I was obliged to workupon the bare skeleton I unearthed in the old Common Records and ChurchRegisters, still the fact remains that I did find the skeleton, which Ihave emphasized as far as is artistically possible. No date is given nordeed referred to that cannot be found by other visitors to the Islands. Moreover, I made a careful study of these Islands as they were in thetime of Hamilton and his maternal ancestors, that I might be enabled toexercise one of the leading principles of the novelist, which is tocreate character not only out of certain well-known facts of heredity, but out of understood conditions. In this case I had, in addition, anextensive knowledge of Hamilton's character to work backward from, aswell as his estimate of the friends of his youth and of his mother. Therefore I feel confident that I have held my romancing propensity wellwithin the horizon of the probabilities; at all events, I have depictednothing which in any way interferes with the veracity of history. However, having unburdened my imagination, I shall, in the course of ayear or two, write the biography I first had in mind. No writer, indeed, could assume a more delightful task than to chronicle, in any form, Hamilton's stupendous services to this country and his infinite variety. 

G. F. A. 

NEVIS

In the eighteenth century Nevis was known as The Mother of the EnglishLeeward Caribbees. A Captain-General ruled the group in the name of theKing, but if he died suddenly, his itinerant duties devolved upon theGovernor of Nevis until the crown heard of its loss and made choice ofanother to fill that high and valued office. She had a Council and aHouse of Assembly, modelled in miniature upon the Houses of Peers andCommons; and was further distinguished as possessing the only court inthe English Antilles where pirates could be tried. The Council was madeup of ten members appointed by the Captain-General, but commanded by"its own particular and private Governor. " The freeholders of the Islandchose twenty-four of their number to represent them in the House ofAssembly; and the few chronicles of that day agree in asserting thatNevis during her hundred proud years of supremacy was governedbrilliantly and well. But the careful administration of good lawscontributed in part only to the celebrity of an Island which to-day, still British as she is, serves but as a pedestal for the greatest ofAmerican statesmen. In these old days she was a queen as well as amother. Her planters were men of immense wealth and lived the life ofgrandees. Their cane-fields covered the mountain on all its sides andsubsidiary peaks, rising to the very fringe of the cold forest on thecone of a volcano long since extinct. The "Great Houses, " builtinvariably upon an eminence that commanded a view of the neighbouringislands. --St. Christopher, Antigua, Montserrat, --were built of blocksof stone so square and solid and with a masonry so perfect that oneviews their ruins in amazement to-day. They withstood hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and tidal waves. They were impregnable fortressesagainst rioting negroes and spasmodically aggressive Frenchmen. Theyeven survived the abolition of slavery, and the old gay life went on formany years. English people, bored or in search of health, came for thebrilliant winter, delighted with the hospitality of the planters, and torenew their vitality in the famous climate and sulphur baths, which, ofall her possessions, Time has spared to Nevis. And then, havingweathered all the ills to which even a West Indian Island can besubject, she succumbed--to the price of sugar. Her great familiesdrifted away one by one. Her estates were given over to the agent for atime, finally to the mongoose. The magnificent stone mansions, leftwithout even a caretaker, yielded helplessly to the diseases of age, andthe first hurricane entering unbarred windows carried their roofs to thesea. In Charles Town, the capital since the submergence of James Town in1680, are the remains of large town houses and fine old stone walls, which one can hardly see from the roadstead, so thick are the royalpalms and the cocoanut trees among the ruins, wriggling their slenderbodies through every crevice and flaunting their glittering luxurianceabove every broken wall. 

But in the days when the maternal grandparents of Alexander Hamiltonlooked down a trifle upon those who dwelt on other isles, Nevis reckedof future insignificance as little as a beauty dreams of age. In theprevious century England, after the mortification of the Royalists byCromwell, had sent to Nevis Hamiltons, Herberts, Russells, and manyanother refugee from her historic houses. With what money they tookwith them they founded the great estates of the eighteenth century, andtheir sons sent their own children to Europe to become accomplished menand women. Government House was a miniature court, as gay and splendidas its offices were busy with the commerce of the world. The Governorand his lady drove about the Island in a carriage of state, withoutriders and postilions in livery. When the Captain-General came heoutshone his proud second by the gorgeousness of his uniform only, andboth dignitaries were little more imposing than the planters themselves. It is true that the men, despite their fine clothes and powderedperukes, preferred a horse's back to the motion of a lumbering coach, but during the winter season their wives and daughters, in the shiningstuffs, the pointed bodices, the elaborate head-dress of Europe, visitedGovernment House and their neighbours with all the formality of Londonor Bath. After the first of March the planters wore white linen; theturbaned black women were busy among the stones of the rivers withvoluminous wardrobes of cambric and lawn. 

Several estates belonged to certain offshoots of the ducal house ofHamilton, and in the second decade of the eighteenth century WalterHamilton was Captain-General of the English Leeward Caribbees and"Ordinary of the Same. " After him came Archibald Hamilton, who was, perhaps, of all the Hamiltons the most royal in his hospitality. Moreover, he was a person of energy and ambition, for it is on recordthat he paid a visit to Boston, fleeing from the great drought whichvisited Nevis in 1737. Then there were William Leslie Hamilton, whopractised at the bar in London for several years, but returned to holdofficial position on Nevis, and his brother Andrew, both sons of Dr. William Hamilton, who spent the greater part of his life on St. Christopher. There were also Hugh Hamilton, Charles, Gustavus, andWilliam Vaughn Hamilton, all planters, most of them Members of Councilor of the Assembly. 

And even in those remote and isolated days, Hamiltons and Washingtonswere associated. The most popular name in our annals appears frequentlyin the Common Records of Nevis, and there is no doubt that when ourfirst President's American ancestor fled before Cromwell to Virginia, abrother took ship for the English Caribbees. 

From a distance Nevis looks like a solitary peak in mid-ocean, her basesweeping out on either side. But behind the great central cone--risingthree thousand two hundred feet--are five or six lesser peaks, betweenwhich are dense tropical gorges and mountain streams. In the old days, where the slopes were not vivid with the light green of the cane-field, there were the cool and sombre groves of the cocoanut tree, mango, orange, and guava. 

Even when Nevis is wholly visible there is always a white cloud aboveher head. As night falls it becomes evident that this soft aggravationof her beauty is but a night robe hung on high. It is at about seven inthe evening that she begins to draw down her garment of mist, but she islong in perfecting that nocturnal toilette. Lonely and neglected, shestill is a beauty, exacting and fastidious. The cloud is tortured intomany shapes before it meets her taste. She snatches it off, redisposesit, dons and takes it off again, wraps it about her with yet moreenchanting folds, until by nine o'clock it sweeps the sea; and Nevis, the proudest island of the Caribbees, has secluded herself from thosecynical old neighbours who no longer bend the knee. 

BOOK I

RACHAEL LEVINE

I

Nevis gave of her bounty to none more generously than to John and MaryFawcett. In 1685 the revocation of the Edict of Nantes had sent theHuguenots swarming to America and the West Indies. Faucette was but aboy when the Tropics gave him shelter, and learning was hard to get;except in the matter of carving Caribs. But he acquired the science ofmedicine somehow, and settled on Nevis, remodelled his name, and becamea British subject. Brilliant and able, he was not long accumulating afortune; there were swamps near Charles Town that bred fever, and theplanters lived as high and suffered as acutely as the English squires ofthe same period. His wife brought him money, and in 1714 they received ajoint legacy from Captain Frank Keynall; whether a relative of hers or apatient of his, the Records do not tell. 

Mary Fawcett was some twenty years younger than her husband, ahigh-spirited creature, with much intelligence, and a will which inlater years John Fawcett found himself unable to control. But beforethat period, when to the disparity in time were added the irritabilitiesof age in the man and the imperiousness of maturity in the woman, theywere happy in their children, in their rising fortunes, and, for awhile, in one another. 

For twenty-eight years they lived the life of the Island. They built aGreat House on their estate at Gingerland, a slope of the Island whichfaces Antigua, and they had their mansion in town for use when theCaptain-General was abiding on Nevis. While Mary Fawcett was bringing upand marrying her children, managing the household affairs of a largeestate, and receiving and returning the visits of the other grandees ofthe Island, to say nothing of playing her important part in all socialfunctions, life went well enough. Her children, far away from the swampsof Charles Town, throve in the trade winds which temper the sun of Nevisand make it an isle of delight. When they were not studying with theirgovernesses, there were groves and gorges to play in, ponies to ride, and monkeys and land crabs to hunt. Later came the gay life of theCapital, the routs at Government House, frequent even when the Chief waselsewhere, the balls at neighbouring estates, the picnics in the coolhigh forests, or where more tropical trees and tree ferns grew thick, the constant meeting with distinguished strangers, and the visits toother islands. 

The young Fawcetts married early. One went with her husband, PeterLytton, to the island of St. Croix. The Danish Government, uponobtaining possession of this fertile island, in 1733, immediately issuedan invitation to the planters of the Leeward Caribbees to immigrate, tempting many who were dissatisfied with the British Government orwished for larger estates than they could acquire on their own populousislands. Members of the Lytton, Mitchell, and Stevens families of St. Christopher were among the first to respond to the liberal offer of theDanish Government. The two sons of James Lytton, Peter and James, grewup on St. Croix, Danish by law, British in habit and speech; and bothmarried women of Nevis. Peter was the first to wed, and his marriage toyoung Mary Fawcett was the last to be celebrated in the Great House atGingerland. 

When Peter Lytton and his wife sailed away, as other sons and otherdaughters had sailed before, to return to Nevis rarely, --for those werethe days of travel unveneered, --John and Mary Fawcett were left alone:their youngest daughter, she who afterward became the wife of ThomasMitchell of St. Croix, was at school in England. 

By this time Dr. Fawcett had given up his practice and was living on hisincome. He took great interest in his cane-fields and mills, and in theculture of limes and pine-apples; but in spite of his outdoor life histemper soured and he became irritable and exacting. Gout settled in himas a permanent reminder of the high fortunes of his middle years, andwhen the Gallic excitability of his temperament, aggravated by ahalf-century of hot weather, was stung to fiercer expression by thetwinges of his disease, he was an abominable companion for a womantwenty years closer to youth. 

In the solitudes of the large house Mary Fawcett found life unendurable. Still handsome, naturally gay of temper, and a brilliant figure insociety, she frequently deserted her elderly husband for weeks at atime. The day came when he peremptorily forbade her to leave the placewithout him. For a time she submitted, for although a woman of uncommonindependence of spirit, it was not until 1740 that she broke free oftraditions and astonished the island of Nevis. She shut herself up withher books and needlework, attended to her house and domestic negroeswith the precision of long habit, saw her friends when she could, andendured the exactions of her husband with only an occasional but mightyoutburst. 

It was in these unhappy conditions that Rachael Fawcett was born. 

II

The last affliction the Fawcetts expected was another child. This littlegirl came an unwelcome guest to a mother who hated the father, and toDr. Fawcett, not only because he had outgrown all liking for cryingbabies, but because, as in his excited disturbance he admitted to hiswife, his fortune was reduced by speculations in London, and he had nodesire to turn to in his old age and support another child. Then MaryFawcett made up her definite mind: she announced her intention to leaveher husband while it was yet possible to save her property for herselfand the child to whom she soon became passionately attached. Dr. Fawcettlaughed and shut himself up in a wing where the sounds of baby distresscould not reach him; and it is doubtful if his glance ever lingered onthe lovely face of his youngest born. Thus came into the world under themost painful conditions one of the unhappiest women that has lived. Itwas her splendid destiny to become the mother of the greatest Americanof his centuries, but this she died too soon to know, and sheaccomplished her part with an immediate bitterness of lot which wasremorselessly ordained, no doubt, by the great Law of Compensation. 

There were no divorce laws on the Islands in the eighteenth century, noteven an act for separate maintenance; but Mary Fawcett was a woman ofresource. It took her four years to accomplish her purpose, but she gotrid of Dr. Fawcett by making him more than anxious to be rid of her. TheCaptain-General, William Matthew, was her staunch friend and admirer, and espoused her cause to the extent of issuing a writ of supplicavitfor a separate maintenance. Dr. Fawcett gradually yielded to pressure, separated her property from his, that it might pass under her personaland absolute control, and settled on her the sum of fifty-three pounds, four shillings annually, as a full satisfaction for all her dower orthird part of his estate. 

Mistress Fawcett was no longer a woman of consequence, for even herpersonal income was curtailed by the great drought of 1737, and Nevis, complaisant to the gallantry of the age, was scandalized at the noveltyof a public separation. But she was free, and she was the woman to feelthat freedom to her finger tips; she could live a life with no will init but her own, and she could bring up her little girl in an atmosphereof peace and affection. She moved to an estate she owned on St. Christopher and never saw John Fawcett again. He died a few years later, leaving his diminished property to his children. Rachael's share was thehouse in Charles Town. 

The spot on which Rachael spent her childhood and brief youth was one ofthe most picturesque on the mountain range of St. Christopher. Facingthe sea, the house stood on a lofty eminence, in the very shadow ofMount Misery. Immediately behind the house were the high peaks of therange, hardly less in pride than the cone of the great volcano. Thehouse was built on a ledge, but one could step from the terrace aboveinto an abrupt ravine, wrenched into its tortuous shape by earthquakeand flood, but dark for centuries with the immovable shades of a virgintropical forest. The Great House, with its spacious open galleries andverandahs, was surrounded with stone terraces, overflowing with theintense red and orange of the hybiscus and croton bush, the goldenbrowns and softer yellows of less ambitious plants, the sensuous tintsof the orchid, the high and glittering beauties of the palm andcocoanut. The slopes to the coast were covered with cane-fields, theirbright young greens sharp against the dark blue of the sea. The ledge onwhich the house was built terminated suddenly in front, but extended onthe left along a line of cliff above a chasm, until it sloped to theroad. On this flat eminence was an avenue of royal palms, which, withthe dense wood on the hill above it, was to mariners one of the mostfamiliar landmarks of the Island of "St. Kitts. " From her verandah MaryFawcett could see, far down to the right, a large village of negro huts, only the thatched African roofs visible among the long leaves of thecocoanut palms with which the blacks invariably surround theirdwellings. Beyond was Brimstone Hill with its impregnable fortress. Andon the left, far out at sea, her purple heights and palm-fringed shoresdeepening the exquisite blue of the Caribbean by day, a white everchanging spirit in the twilight, and no more vestige of her under thestars than had she sunk whence she came--Nevis. Mary Fawcett never setfoot on her again, but she learned to sit and study her with a whimsicalaffection which was one of the few liberties she allowed herimagination. But if the unhappiest years of her life had been spentthere, so had her fairest. She had loved her brilliant husband in heryouth, and all the social triumphs of a handsome and fortunate youngwoman had been hers. In the deep calm which now intervened between thetwo mental hurricanes of her life, she sometimes wondered if she hadexaggerated her past afflictions; and before she died she knew howinsignificant the tragedy of her own life had been. 

Although Rachael was born when her parents were past their prime, thevitality that was in her was concentrated and strong. It was not enoughto give her a long life, but while it lasted she was a magnificentcreature, and the end was abrupt; there was no slow decay. During herchildhood she lived in the open air, for except in the cold nights of abrief winter only the jalousies were closed; and on that high shelf eventhe late summer and early autumn were not insufferable. Exhausted as thetrade winds become, they give what little strength is in them to theheights of their favourite isles, and during the rest of the year theyare so constant, even when storms rage in the North Atlantic, that Nevisand St. Christopher never feel the full force of the sun, and the winternights are cold. 

Rachael was four years old when her parents separated, and grew towomanhood remembering nothing of her father and seeing little of herkin, scattered far and wide. Her one unmarried sister, upon her returnfrom England, went almost immediately to visit Mrs. Lytton, and marriedThomas Mitchell, one of the wealthiest planters of St. Croix. MaryFawcett's children had not approved her course, for they rememberedtheir father as the most indulgent and charming of men, whose frequenttempers were quickly forgotten; and year by year she became more whollydevoted to the girl who clung to her with a passionate and uncriticalaffection. 

Clever and accomplished herself, and quick with ambition for her bestbeloved child, she employed the most cultivated tutors on the Island toinstruct her in English, Latin, and French. Before Rachael was ten yearsold, Mistress Fawcett had the satisfaction to discover that the littlegirl possessed a distinguished mind, and took to hard study, and to _lesgraces_, as naturally as she rode a pony over the hills or shot the reefin her boat. 

For several years the women of St. Christopher held aloof, but many ofthe planters who had been guests at the Great House in Gingerland calledon Mistress Fawcett at once, and proffered advice and service. Of theseWilliam Hamilton and Archibald Hamn became her staunch and intimatefriends. Mr. Hamn's estate adjoined hers, and his overlooker relievedher of much care. Dr. James Hamilton, who had died in the year precedingher formal separation, had been a close friend of her husband andherself, and his brother hastened with assurance of his wish to serveher. He was one of the eminent men of the Island, a planter and a memberof Council; also, a "doctor of physic. " He carried Rachael safelythrough her childhood complaints and the darkest of her days; and if hiswas the hand which opened the gates between herself and history, whoshall say in the light of the glorified result that its master shouldnot sleep in peace?

In time his wife called, and his children and stepchildren brought a newexperience into the life of Rachael. She had been permitted to gamboloccasionally with the "pic'nees" of her mother's maids, but since herfourth year had not spoken to a white child until little CatherineHamilton came to visit her one morning and brought Christiana Huggins ofNevis. Mistress Huggins had known Mary Fawcett too well to call withMistress Hamilton, but sent Christiana as a peace offering. Mary's firstdisposition was to pack the child off while Mistress Hamilton wasoffering her embarrassed explanations; but Rachael clung to her newtreasure with such shrieks of protest that her mother, disconcerted bythis vigour of opposition to her will, permitted the intruder to remain. 

The wives of other planters followed Mistress Hamilton, for in that softvoluptuous climate, where the rush and fret of great cities are but awitch's tale, disapproval dies early. They would have called long sincehad they not been a trifle in awe of Nevis, more, perhaps, of MistressFawcett's sharp tongue, then indolent. But when Mistress Hamiltonsuddenly reminded them that they were Christians, and that Dr. Fawcettwas dead, they put on their London gowns, ordered out their coaches, andcalled. Mary Fawcett received them with a courteous indifference. Herresentment had died long since, and they seemed to her, with theircoaches and brocades and powdered locks, but the ghosts of the Nevis ofher youth. Her child, her estate, and her few tried friends absorbedher. For the sake of her daughter's future, she ordered out her ancientcoach and made the round of the Island once a year. The ladies of St. Kitts were as moderately punctilious. 

And so the life of Rachael Fawcett for sixteen years passed uneventfullyenough. Her spirits were often very high, for she inherited the Gallicbuoyancy of her father as well as the brilliant qualities of his mind. In the serious depths of her nature were strong passions and a tendencyto melancholy, the result no doubt of the unhappy conditions of herbirth. But her mother managed so to occupy her eager ambitious mind withhard study that the girl had little acquaintance with herself. HerEnglish studies were almost as varied as a boy's, and in addition to heraccomplishments in the ancient and modern languages, she painted, andsang, played the harp and guitar. Mary Fawcett, for reasons of her own, never let her forget that she was the most educated girl on the Islands. 

"I never was one to lie on a sofa all day and fan myself, while mychildren sat on the floor with their blacks, and munched sugar-cane, orbread and sling, " she would remark superfluously. "All my daughters area credit to their husbands; but I mean that you shall be the mostbrilliant woman in the Antilles. "

The immediate consequences of Rachael's superior education were two: hergirl friends ceased to interest her, and ambitions developed in herstrong imaginative brain. In those days women so rarely distinguishedthemselves individually that it is doubtful if Rachael had ever heard ofthe phenomenon, and the sum of her worldly aspirations was a wealthy andintellectual husband who would take her to live and to shine at foreigncourts. Her nature was too sweet and her mind too serious for egoism orthe pettier vanities, but she hardly could help being conscious of theenergy of her brain; and if she had passed through childhood inignorance of her beauty, she barely had entered her teens when her happyindifference was dispelled; for the young planters besieged her gates. 

Girls mature very early in the tropics, and at fourteen Rachael Fawcettwas the unresponsive toast from Basseterre to Sandy Point. Her heightwas considerable, and she had the round supple figure of a girl who haslived the out-door life in moderation; full of strength and grace, andno exaggeration of muscle. She had a fine mane of reddish fair hair, apair of sparkling eager gray eyes which could go black with passion oreven excited interest, a long nose so sensitively cut that she couldexpress any mood she chose with her nostrils, which expanded quitealarmingly when she flew into a temper, and a full well-cut mouth. Herskin had the whiteness and transparency peculiar to the women of St. Kitts and Nevis; her head and brow were nobly modelled, and the formershe carried high to the day of her death. It was set so far back on hershoulders and on a line so straight that it would look haughty in hercoffin. What wonder that the young planters besieged her gates, that heraspirations soared high, that Mary Fawcett dreamed of a great destinyfor this worshipped child of her old age? As for the young planters, they never got beyond the gates, for a dragon stood there. MistressFawcett had no mind to run the risk of early entanglements. When Rachaelwas old enough she would be provided with a distinguished husband fromafar, selected by the experienced judgement of a woman of the world. 

But Mary Fawcett, still hot-headed and impulsive in her secondhalf-century, was more prone to err in crises than her daughter. Inspite of the deeper passions of her nature, Rachael, except when underthe lash of strong excitement, had a certain clearness of insight anddeliberation of judgement which her mother lacked to her last day. 

III

Rachael had just eaten the last of her sixteenth birthday sweets when, at a ball at Government House, she met John Michael Levine. It was herdébut; she was the fairest creature in the room, and, in the idiom ofDr. Hamilton, the men besieged her as were she Brimstone Hill inpossession of the French. The Governor and the Captain General hadasked her to dance, and even the women smiled indulgently, disarmed byso much innocent loveliness. 

Levine, albeit a Dane, and as colourless as most of his countrymen, washer determined suitor before the night was half over. It may be that hewas merely dazzled by the regal position to which the young men hadelevated her, and that his cold blood quickened at the thought ofpossessing what all men desired, but he was as immediate and persistentin his suit as any excitable creole in the room. But Rachael gave himscant attention that night. She may have been intellectual, but she wasalso a girl, and it was her first ball. She was dazzled and happy, delighted with her conquests, oblivious to the depths of her nature. 

The next day Levine, strong in the possession of a letter from Mr. PeterLytton, --for a fortnight forgotten, --presented himself at MistressFawcett's door, and was admitted. The first call was brief andperfunctory, but he came the next day and the next. Rachael, surprised, but little interested, and longing for her next ball, strummed the harpat her mother's command and received his compliments with indifference. A week after his first call Mary Fawcett drove into town and spent anhour with the Governor. He told her that Levine had brought him apersonal letter from the Governor of St. Croix, and that he was wealthyand well born. He was also, in his Excellency's opinion, a distinguishedmatch even for the most beautiful and accomplished girl on the Island. Peter Lytton had mentioned in his letter that Levine purposed buying anestate on St. Croix and settling down to the life of a planter. On thefollowing day Levine told her that already he was half a West Indian, sofascinated was he with the life and the climate, but that if she wouldfavour his suit he would take Rachael to Copenhagen as often as shewished for the life of the world. 

Mary Fawcett made up her mind that he should marry Rachael, and itseemed to her that no mother had ever come to a wiser decision. Herhealth was failing, and it was her passionate wish not only to leave herchild encircled by the protection of a devoted husband, but to realizethe high ambitions she had cherished from the hour she foresaw thatRachael was to be an exceptional woman. 

Levine had not seen Rachael on the morning when he asked for her hand, and he called two days later to press his suit and receive his answer. Mistress Fawcett told him that she had made up her own mind and wouldperform that office for Rachael at once, but thought it best that heshould absent himself until the work was complete. Levine, promised ananswer on the morrow, took himself off, and Mary Fawcett sent for herdaughter. 

Rachael entered the library with a piece of needlework in her hand. Hermind was not on her books these days, for she had gone to another ball;but her hands had been too well brought up to idle, however her brainmight dream. Mary Fawcett by this time wore a large cap with a frill, and her face, always determined and self-willed, was growing austerewith years and much pain: she suffered frightfully at times withrheumatism, and her apprehension of the moment when it should attack herheart reconciled her to the prospect of brief partings from herdaughter. Her eyes still burned with the fires of an indiminishablecourage however; she read the yellow pages of her many books as rapidlyas in her youth, and if there was a speck of dust on her mahoganyfloors, polished with orange juice, she saw it. Her negroes adored herbut trembled when she raised her voice, and Rachael never had disobeyedher. She expected some dissatisfaction, possibly a temper, but noopposition. 

Rachael smiled confidently and sat down. She wore one of the thin whitelinens, which, like the other women of the Islands, she put aside forheavier stuffs on state occasions only, and her hair had tumbled fromits high comb and fallen upon her shoulders. Mary Fawcett sighed as shelooked at her. She was too young to marry, and had it not been for thehaunting terror of leaving her alone in the world, the Dane, wellcircumstanced as he was, would have been repulsed with contumely. 

"Rachael, " said her mother, gently, "put down your tapestry. I havesomething to say to you, something of great import. "

Rachael dropped her work and met her mother's eyes. They were hard withwill and definite purpose. In an instant she divined what was coming, and stood up. Her face could not turn any whiter, but her eyes wereblack at once, and her nostrils spread. 

"It cannot be possible that you wish me to marry that man--Levine, " shestammered. "I do not know how I can think of such a thing--but I do--itseems to me I see it in your eyes. "

"Yes, " said her mother, with some uneasiness. "I do; and my reasons aregood--"

"I won't listen to them!" shrieked Rachael. "I won't marry him! Hiswhiteness makes me sick! I know he is not a good man! I feel it! I nevercould be happy with him! I never could love him!"

Mary Fawcett looked at her aghast, and, for a moment, without answering;she saw her own will asserting itself, heard it on those piercing notes, and she knew that it sprang from stronger and more tragic foundationsthan had ever existed in her own nature; but believing herself to beright, she determined to prevail. 

"What do you know about men, my darling?" she said soothingly. "You havebeen dreaming romantic dreams, and young Levine does not resemble thehero. That is all. Women readjust themselves marvellously quick. Whenyou are married to him, and he is your tender and devoted husband, youwill forget your prince--who, no doubt, is dark and quite splendid. Butwe never meet our princes, my dear, and romantic love is only one of thethings we live for--and for that we live but a little while. Levine isall that I could wish for you. He is wealthy, aristocratic, andchivalrously devoted. "

Her long speech had given her daughter time to cool, but Rachaelremained standing, and stared defiantly into the eyes which had relaxedsomewhat with anxious surprise. 

"I _feel_ that he is not a good man, " she repeated sullenly, "and I hatehim. I should die if he touched me. I have not danced with him. Hishands are so white and soft, and his eyes never change, and his mouthreminds me of a shark's. "

"Levine is a remarkably handsome man, " exclaimed Mistress Fawcett, indignantly. "You have trained your imagination to some purpose, itseems. Forget your poets when he comes to-morrow, and look at himimpartially. And cannot he give you all that you so much desire, myambitious little daughter? Do you no longer want to go to Europe? tocourt? to be _grande dame_ and converse with princes?"

"Oh, yes, " said Rachael. "I want that as much as ever; but I want tolove the man. I want to be happy. "

"Well, _do_ love him, " exclaimed her mother with energy. "Your fatherwas twenty years older than myself, and a Frenchman, but I made up mymind to love him, and I did--for a good many years. "

"You had to leave him in the end. Do you wish me to do the same?"

"You will do nothing of the kind. There never was but one John Fawcett. "

"I don't love this Levine, and I never shall love him. I don't believeat all that that kind of feeling can be created by the brain, that itresponds to nothing but the will. I shall not love that way. I may beignorant, but I know that. "

"You have read too much Shakespeare! Doubtless you imagine yourself oneof his heroines--Juliet? Rosalind?"

"I have never imagined myself anybody but Rachael Fawcett. I _cannot_imagine myself Rachael Levine. But I know something of myself--I haveread and thought enough for that. I could love someone--but not thisbleached repulsive Dane. Why will you not let me wait? It is my right. No, you need not curl your lip--I am _not_ a little girl. I may besixteen. I may be without experience in the world, but you have beenalmost my only companion, and until just now I have talked withmiddle-aged men only, and much with them. I had no real childhood. Youhave educated my brain far beyond my years. To-day I feel twenty, and itseems to me that I see far down into myself--much deeper than you do. Itell you that if I marry this man, I shall be the most hopeless wretchon earth. "

Mary Fawcett was puzzled and distressed, but she did not waver for amoment. The cleverest of girls could not know what was best for herself, and the mother who permitted her daughter to take her life into her ownhands was a poor creature indeed. 

"Listen, my dear child, " she said tenderly, "you have always trusted inme, believed me. I _know_ that this is a wise and promising marriage foryou. And--" she hesitated, but it was time to play her trump. "You knowthat my health is not good, but you do not know how bad it is. Dr. Hamilton says that the rheumatism may fly to my heart at any moment, andI _must_ see you married--"

She had ejaculated the last words; Rachael had shrieked, and flungherself upon her, her excitement at this sudden and cruel revelationbursting out in screams and sobs and a torrent of tears. Her mother hadseen her excited and in brief ungovernable tempers, but she never hadsuspected that she was capable of such passion as this; and, muchdisturbed, she led her off to bed, and sent for her advisers, ArchibaldHamn and Dr. Hamilton. 

IV

Mr. Hamn responded at once to the widow's call, his adjacence giving himthe advantage of Dr. Hamilton, of whom he was a trifle jealous. He wasan old bachelor and had proposed to Mistress Fawcett--a captivatingwoman till her last hour--twice a year since her husband's death. Butmatrimony had been a bitter medicine for Mary after her imagination hadceased to sweeten it, and her invariable answer to her several suitorswas the disquieting assertion that if ever she was so rash as to takeanother husband, she certainly should kill him. Archibald was not theman to conquer her prejudices, although she loved the sterling in himand attached him to her by every hook of friendship. He was a darknervous little man, spare as most West Indians, used a deal of snuff, and had a habit of pushing back his wig with a jerking forearm when inheated controversy with Dr. Hamilton, or expounding matrimony to thewidow. 

Dr. Hamilton, for whose arrival Mr. Hamn was kept waiting, --MistressFawcett tarried until her daughter fell asleep, --was a large square man, albeit lean, and only less nervous than the widow's suitor. His whitelocks were worn in a queue, a few escaping to soften his big powerfulface. Both men wore white linen, but Dr. Hamilton was rarely seenwithout his riding-boots, his advent, except in Mistress Fawcett'shouse, heralded by the clanking of spurs. Mary would have none of hisspurs on her mahogany floors, and the doctor never yet had been able tododge the darkey who stood guard at her doorstep. 

The two men exchanged mild surmises as to the cause of the summons; butas similar summons occurred when newly wedded blacks were pounding eachother's heads, provoked thereto by the galling chain of decency, or anobeah doctor had tied a sinister warning to Mistress Fawcett's knocker, neither of the gentlemen anticipated serious work. When Mary Fawcettentered the long room, however, both forgot the dignity of their yearsand position, and ran forward. 

Dr. Hamilton lifted her as if she had been a palm leaf, and laid her onthe sofa. He despatched Mr. Hamn for a glass of Spanish port, andforbade her to speak until he gave permission. 

But Mary Fawcett made brief concessions to the weakness of the flesh. She drank the wine, then sat up and told her story. 

"Oh, Mary, " said Dr. Hamilton, sadly, "why do you ask our advice? Yourear may listen, but never your mind. If it were a matter of business, wemight even be allowed to act for you; but in a domestic--"

"What?" cried Mistress Fawcett; "have I not asked your advice a thousandtimes about Rachael, and have I not always taken it?"

"I recall many of the conversations, but I doubt if you could recall theadvice. However, if you want it this time, I will give it to you. Don'tforce the girl to marry against her will--assuredly not if the man isrepulsive to her. For all your brains you are a baby about men andwomen. Rachael knows more by instinct. She is an extraordinary girl, andshould be allowed time to make her own choice. If you are afraid ofdeath, leave her to me. I will legally adopt her now, if you choose--"

"Yes, and should you die suddenly, your wife would think Rachael one toomany, what with your brood and the Edwardses to boot. " Mistress Fawcettwas nettled by his jibe at the limit of her wisdom. "I shall leave herwith a husband. To that I have made up my mind. What have you to say, Archibald?"

This was an advantage which Mr. Hamn never failed to seize; he alwaysagreed with the widow; Dr. Hamilton never did. Moreover, he wassincerely convinced that--save, perhaps, in matters of money--MaryFawcett could not err. 

"I like the appearance of this Dane, " he said, reassuringly, "and hislittle country has a valiant history. This young man is quiteprince-like in his bearing, and his extreme fairness is but one moreevidence of his high breeding--"

"He looks like a shark's belly, " interrupted Dr. Hamilton, "I don'twonder he sickens Rachael. I have nothing against him but hisappearance, but if he came after Kitty I'd throw him out by the seat ofhis breeches. "

"He never looked at Kitty, at Government House, nor at MistressMontgomerie's, " cried Mary. "You are jealous, Will, because Rachael hascarried off the foreign prize. "

Dr. Hamilton laughed, then added seriously, "I am too fond of the girlto forbear to give my advice. Let her choose her own husband. If youdare to cut out her future, as if it were one of her new frocks, youhave more courage than I. She has more in her than twenty women. Let heralone for the next five years, then she will have no one to answer tobut herself. Otherwise, my lady, you may find yourself holding yourbreath in a hurricane track, with no refuge from the storm you'vewhipped up but five feet underneath. If you won't give her to me, thereare her sisters. They are all wealthy--"

"They are years older than Rachael and would not understand her at all. "

"I can't see why they should not understand her as well as a strangeman. "

"He will be her husband, madly in love with her. "

"Levine will never be madly in love with anybody. Besides, it would notmatter to Rachael if her sisters did not understand her; she has toostrong a brain not to be independent of the ordinary female nonsense;moreover, she has a fine disposition and her own property. But if herhusband did not understand her, --in other words, if their tastes provedas opposite as their temperaments, --it would make a vast deal ofdifference. Sisters can be got rid of, but husbands--well, you know thedifficulties. "

"I will think over all you have said, " replied Mary, with suddenhumility; she had great respect for the doctor. "But don't you say aword to Rachael. "

"I'm far too much afraid of you for that. But I wish that Will were homeor Andrew old enough. I'd set one of them on to cut this Dane out. Well, I must go; send for me whenever you are in need of advice, " and with aparting laugh he strode out of the house and roared to the darkey tocome and fasten his spurs. 

Archibald Hamn, who foresaw possibilities in the widow's loneliness, andwho judged men entirely by their manners, remained to assure MistressFawcett of the wisdom of her choice, and to offer his services asmediator. Mary laughed and sent him home. She wrote to Levine not tocall until she bade him, and for several days pondered deeply upon herdaughter's opposition and Dr. Hamilton's advice. The first result ofthis perturbing distrust in her own wisdom was a violent attack ofrheumatism in the region of her heart; and while she believed herself tobe dying, she wrung from her distracted daughter a promise to marryLevine. She recovered from the attack, but concluded that, the promisebeing won, it would be folly to give it back. Moreover, the desire tosee her daughter married had been aggravated by her brush with death, and after another interview with Levine, in which he promised all thatthe fondest mother could demand, she opened her chests of fine linen. 

Rachael submitted. She dared not excite her mother. Her imagination, always vivid though it was, refused to picture the end she dreaded; andshe never saw Levine alone. His descriptions of life in Copenhageninterested her, and when her mother expatiated upon the glitteringdestiny which awaited her, ambition and pride responded, althoughprecisely as they had done in her day dreams. She found herselfvisioning Copenhagen, jewels, brocades, and courtiers; but she realizedonly when she withdrew to St. Kitts, that Levine had not entered thedream, even to pass and bend the knee. Often she laughed aloud inmerriment. As the wedding-day approached, she lost her breath more thanonce, and her skin chilled. During the last few days before the ceremonyshe understood for the first time that it was inevitable. But time--itwas now three months since the needlewomen were set at thetrousseau--and her unconscious acceptance of the horrid fact had trimmedher spirit to philosophy, altered the habit of her mind. She saw hermother radiant, received the personal congratulations of every family onthe Island. Her sisters came from St. Croix, and made much of the littlegirl who was beginning life so brilliantly; beautiful silks and laceshad come from New York, and Levine had given her jewels, which she triedon her maid every day because she thought the mustee's tawny skinenhanced their lustre. She was but a child in spite of her intellect. Her union with the Dane came to appear as one of the laws of life, andshe finished by accepting it as one accepted an earthquake or ahurricane. Moreover, she was profoundly innocent. 

V

Mary Fawcett accompanied the Levines to Copenhagen, but returned to St. Christopher by a ship which left Denmark a month later, being one ofthose women who picture their terrestrial affairs in a state ofdissolution while deprived of their vigilance. She vowed that the Northhad killed her rheumatism, and turned an absent ear to Rachael's appealto tarry until Levine was ready to return to St. Croix. She remainedlong enough in Denmark, however, to see her daughter presented at court, and installed with all the magnificence that an ambitious mother coulddesire. There was not a misgiving in her mind, for Rachael, if somewhatinanimate, could not be unhappy with an uxorious husband and the worldat her feet; and although for some time after her marriage she hadbehaved like a naughty child caught in a trap, and been a sore trial toher mother and Mr. Levine, since her arrival in Copenhagen she haddeported herself most becomingly and indulged in no more tantrums. Levine had conducted himself admirably during his trying honeymoon. Uponhis arrival in Copenhagen he had littered his wife's boudoir withvaluable gifts, and exhibited the beauty he had won with a pride verygratifying to his mother-in-law. In six months he was to sail for hisestates on St. Croix, and pay an immediate visit to St. Kitts, whenceMistress Fawcett would return with her daughter for a sojourn of severalmonths. She returned to her silent home the envy of many Island mothers. 

Rachael wrote by every ship, and Mary Fawcett pondered over theseletters, at first with perplexity, finally with a deep uneasiness. Herdaughter described life in Denmark, the court and society, her new gownsand jewels, her visits to country houses, the celebrities she met. Buther letters were literary and impersonal, nor was there in them a traceof her old energy of mind and vivacity of spirit. She never mentionedLevine's name, nor made an intimate allusion to herself. 

"Can she no longer love me?" thought Mary Fawcett at last and in terror;"this child that I have loved more than the husband of my youth and allthe other children I have borne? It cannot be that she is unhappy. Shewould tell me so in a wild outburst--indeed she would have run home tome long since. Levine will never control her. Heaven knows what wouldhave happened if I had not gone on that wedding-journey. But she settleddown so sweetly, and I made sure she would have loved him by this. It isthe only thing to do if you have to live with one of the pests. Perhapsthat is it--she has given him all her love and has none left for me. "And at this she felt so lonely and bitter that she almost acceptedArchibald Hamn when he called an hour later. But in the excitement ofhis risen hopes his wig fell on the floor, and she took offence at hisyellow and sparsely settled scalp. 

There were few gleams of humour left in life for Mary Fawcett. Rachael'sletters ceased abruptly. Her mother dared not sail for Denmark, lest shepass the Levines on their way to St. Croix. She managed to exist throughtwo distracted months, then received a note from her daughter, Mrs. Mitchell. 

"Rachael is Here, " it ran, "but refuses to see Us. I do not know what tothink. I drove over as soon as I heard of Their arrival. Levine receivedMe and was as Courteous and Polished as ever, but Rachael had a_Headache_ and did not come out. Mary and I have been there Twice since, and with the _same_ result. Levine assured us that he had begged her tosee her Sisters, but that She is in a very _low_ and _melancholy_ state, owing doubtless to her Condition. He seemed much _concerned_, but More, I could not help thinking, because he feared to lose an Heir than fromany _love_ for my little Sister. Peter and Mary agree with Me, that _Youhad best come here_ if You can. "

Mary Fawcett, whatever her foibles, had never failed to spring uprightunder the stiffest blows of her life. Ignoring her physical pains, whichhad been aggravated by the mental terrors of the last two months, andsternly commanding the agony in her heart to be silent, she despatched anote at once to Dr. Hamilton, --Archibald Hamn was in Barbados, --askinghim to charter a schooner, if no ship were leaving that day for theDanish Islands, and accompany her to St. Croix. He sent her word thatthey could sail on the following morning if the wind were favourable, and the black women packed her boxes and carried them on their heads toBasseterre. 

That evening, as Mary Fawcett was slowly walking down the avenue, leaning heavily on her cane, too wretched to rest or sleep, a shipflying the German colours sailed past. She wondered if it had stopped atSt. Croix, then forgot it in the terrible speculations which her willstrove to hold apart from her nerves. 

Wearied in body, she returned to the house and sat by the window of herroom, striving to compose her mind for sleep. She was forcing herself tojot down instructions for her housekeeper, whom she had taught to read, when she heard a chaise and a pair of galloping horses enter the avenue. A moment later, Dr. Hamilton's voice was roaring for a slave to come andhold his horses. Then it lowered abruptly and did not cease. 

Mary Fawcett knew that Rachael had come to her, and without her husband. For a moment she had a confused idea that the earth was rocking, andcongratulated herself that the house was too high for a tidal wave toreach. Then Dr. Hamilton entered with Rachael in his arms and laid heron the bed. He left at once, saying that he would return in the morning. Mary Fawcett had not risen, and her chair faced the bed. Rachael laystaring at her mother until Mary found her voice and begged her tospeak. She knew that her hunger must wait until she had stood at the barand received her sentence. 

Rachael told her mother the story of her married life from the day shehad been left alone with John Levine, --a story of unimaginable horrors. Like many cold men to whom the pleasures of the world are, nevertheless, easy, Levine was a voluptuary and cruel. Had his child been safely born, there would have been no measure in his brutality. Rachael had watchedfor her opportunity, and one night when he had been at a state functionin Christianstadt, too secure in her apparent apathy to lock her door, she had bribed a servant to drive her to Frederikstadt, and boarded theship her maid had ascertained was about to leave. She knew that he wouldnot follow her, for there was one person on earth he feared, and thatwas Mary Fawcett. He would not have returned to St. Croix, had hisinvestments been less heavy; but on his estates he was lord, and had nomind that his mother-in-law should set foot on them while he had slavesto hold his gates. 

Mary Fawcett listened to the horrid story, at first with a sort offrantic wonder, for of the evil of life she had known nothing; then herclear mind grasped it, her stoicism gave way, and she shrieked and ravedin such agony of soul that she had no fear of hell thereafter. Rachaelhad to rise from the bed and minister to her, and the terrified blacksran screaming about the place, believing that their mistress had beencursed. 

She grew calm in time, but her face was puckered like an old apple, andher eyes had lost their brilliancy for ever. And it was days before sherealized that her limbs still ached. 

Rachael never opened her lips on the subject again. She went back to bedand clung to her mother and Dr. Hamilton until her child was born. Thenfor three months she recognized no one, and Dr. Hamilton, with all hisskill, did not venture to say whether or not her mind would live again. 

The child was a boy, and as blond as its father. Mary Fawcett stood itspresence in the house for a month, then packed it off to St. Croix. Shereceived a curt acknowledgment from Levine, and an intimation that shehad saved herself much trouble. As for Rachael, he would have her backwhen he saw fit. She wrote an appeal to the Captain-General and he senther word that the Danes would never bombard Brimstone Hill, and therewas no other way by which Levine could get her daughter while one of herfriends ruled the Leeward Caribbees. 

Many thoughts flitted through the brain of Mary Fawcett during that longvigil. Her mind for the first time dwelt with kindness, almost withsoftness, on the memory of her husband. Beside this awful Dane hisshadow was god-like. He had been high-minded and a gentleman in hisworst tantrums, and there was no taint of viciousness in him. A doubtgrew in her brain, grew to such disquieting proportions that shesometimes deserted Rachael abruptly and went out to fatigue herself inthe avenue. Had she done wrong to leave him alone in his old age, tobear, undiverted, the burden of a disease whose torments she now couldfully appreciate, to die alone in that great house with only his slavesto tend him? It had seemed to her when she left him that human naturecould stand no more, and that she was justified; but she was an oldwoman now and knew that all things can be endured. When that picture ofhis desolate last years and lonely death had remorselessly shaped itselfin her imagination, and she realized that it would hang there until herhands were folded, she suffered one more hour of agony and abasement, then caught at the stoicism of her nature, accepted her new dole, andreturned to her daughter. 

VI

Rachael's mind struggled past its eclipse, but her recovery was veryslow. Even after she recognized her mother and Dr. Hamilton, she sat formonths staring at Nevis, neither opening a book nor looking round uponthe life about her. But she was only eighteen, and her body grew strongand vital again. Gradually it forced its energies into her brain, released her spirit from its apathy, buried memory under the fresherimpressions of time. A year from the day of her return, if there weredeep and subtle changes in her face and carriage, which added ten yearsto her appearance, she was more beautiful to experienced eyes than whenshe had flowered for the humming-birds. She took up her studies whereshe had dropped them, a little of her old buoyancy revived; and if hergirlishness was buried with ideals and ambitions, her intellect wasclear and strong and her character more finely balanced. She flew intono more rages, boxed her attendants' ears at rarer intervals, and thedeliberation which had seemed an anomaly in her character before, becamea dominant trait, and rarely was conquered by impulse. When it workedalone her mother laid down her weapons, edged as they still were, andwhen impulse flew to its back, Mary Fawcett took refuge in oblivion. Butshe made no complaint, for she and her daughter were more united thanwhen the young girl had seemed more fit to be her grandchild. 

The Governor of St. Christopher had written a letter to his friend, theGovernor of St. Croix, which had caused that estimable functionary toforbid Levine the door of Government House. Levine could not enduresocial ostracism. He left St. Croix immediately, and took his son Peterwith him. To this child Rachael never referred, and her mother doubtedif she remembered anything associated with its impending birth. Perhapsshe believed it dead. At all events, she made no sign. Except that shewas called Mistress Levine, there was nothing in her outer life toremind her that for two years the markers in her favourite books had notbeen shifted. She had studied music and painting with the best mastersin Copenhagen, and in the chests which were forwarded by her sistersfrom St. Croix, there were many new books. She refused to return tosociety, and filled her time without its aid; for not only did she havethe ample resources of her mind, her mother, the frequent companionshipof Dr. Hamilton and four or five other men of his age and attainments, but she returned to the out-door life with enthusiasm. On her spirit wasan immovable shadow, in her mind an indelible stain, but she had strongcommon sense and a still stronger will. An experience which would haveembittered a less complete nature, or sent a lighter woman to thegallantries of society, gave new force and energy to her character, evenwhile saddening it. To the past she never willingly gave a thought;neither was she for a moment unconscious of its ghost. 

VII

Two years passed. Rachael was twenty, a beautiful and stately creature, more discussed and less seen than any woman on the islands of Nevis andSt. Christopher. Occasionally Christiana Huggins paid her a visit, orCatherine Hamilton rode over for the day; but although Christiana atleast, loved her to the end, both were conscious of her superiority ofmind and experience, and the old intimacy was not resumed. 

Dr. Hamilton had used all his influence in the Council to promote aspecial bill of divorce, for he wanted Rachael to be free to marryagain. He had no faith in the permanent resources of the intellect for ayoung and seductive woman, and he understood Rachael very thoroughly. The calm might be long, but unless Levine died or could be legallydisposed of, she would give the Islands a heavier shock than when theinnovation of Mary Fawcett had set them gabbling. Against theconservatism of his colleagues, however, he could make no headway, andboth the Governor and Captain-General disapproved of a measure whichEngland had never sanctioned. 

But Dr. Hamilton and her mother were more disturbed at the failure ofthe bill than Rachael. Time had lifted the shadow of her husband fromthe race, but, never having loved, even a little, her imaginationmodelled no pleasing features upon the ugly skull of matrimony. It istrue that she sometimes thought of herself as a singularly lonely being, and allowed her mind to picture love and its companionships. As timedimmed another picture she caught herself meditating upon woman's chiefinheritance, and moving among the shadows of the future toward thatlarger and vitalizing part of herself which every woman fancies is onearth in search of her. When she returned from these wanderings shesternly reminded herself that her name was Levine, and that no womanafter such an escape had the right to expect more. She finally compelledherself to admit that her avoidance of society was due to prudence aswell as to her stern devotion to intellect, then studied harder thanever. 

But it is a poor fate that waits upon the gathering together of manypeople. 

VIII

Rachael was riding home one afternoon from Basseterre, where she hadbeen purchasing summer lawns and cambrics. It was March, and the wintersun had begun to use its summer fuel; but the trades blew softly, andthere was much shade on the road above the sea. There was one longstretch, however, where not a tree grew, and Rachael drew rein for amoment before leaving the avenue of tamarinds which had rustled aboveher head for a mile or more. Although it was a hot scene that lay beforeher, it was that which, when away from home, for some reason best knownto her memory, had always been first to rise. The wide pale-gray roadrose gradually for a long distance, dipped, and rose again. On eitherside were cane-fields, their tender greens sharp against the deep hardblue of the sea on the left, rising to cocoanut groves and the darkheights of the mountains above the road. Far away, close to the sea, wasBrimstone Hill, that huge isolated rock so near in shape to the craterof Mount Misery. Its fortifications showed their teeth against the fadedsky, and St. Christopher slept easily while tentative conquerorsapproached, looked hard at this Gibraltar of the West Indies, and sailedaway. 

But there scarcely was a sail on the sea to-day. Its blue rose and fell, in that vast unbroken harmony which quickens the West Indian at timesinto an intolerable sense of his isolation. Rachael recalled how she hadstared at it in childish resentment, wondering if a mainland really laybeyond, if Europe were a myth. She did not care if she never set foot ona ship again, and her ambitions were in the grave with her desire for awealthy and intellectual husband. 

On the long road, rising gray and hot between the bright greencane-fields, horsemen approached, and a number of slave women movedslowly: women with erect rigid backs balancing large baskets or stacksof cane on their heads, the body below the waist revolving with apivotal motion which suggests an anatomy peculiar to the tropics. Theyhad a dash of red about them somewhere, and their turbans were white. Rachael's imagination never gave her St. Kitts without its slave women, the "pic'nees" clinging to their hips as they bore their burdens on theroad or bent over the stones in the river. They belonged to itslandscape, with the palms and the cane-fields, the hot gray roads, andthe great jewel of the sea. 

Rachael left the avenue and rode onward. One of the horsemen took offhis Spanish sombrero and waved it. She recognized Dr. Hamilton and shookher whip at him. He and his companion spurred their horses, and a momentlater Rachael and James Hamilton had met. 

"An unexpected pleasure for me, this sudden descent of my youngkinsman, " said the doctor, "but a great one, for he brings me news ofall in Scotland, and he saw Will the day before he sailed. "

"It is too hot to stand here talking, " said Rachael. "Come home with meto a glass of Spanish port, and cake perhaps. "

The doctor was on his way to a consultation, but he ordered his relativeto go and pay his respects to Mistress Fawcett, and rode on whistling. The two he had recklessly left to their own devices exchangedplatitudes, and covertly examined each other with quick admiration. 

There are dark Scots, and Hamilton was one of them. Although tall andslight, he was knit with a close and peculiar elegance, which made himlook his best on a horse and in white linen. His face was burnt to thehue of brick-dust by the first quick assault of the tropic sun, but itwas a thin face, well shaped, in spite of prominent cheek bones, and setwith the features of long breeding; and it was mobile, fiery, impetuous, and very intelligent: ancestral coarseness had been polished fine longsince. 

They left the road and mounted toward the dark avenue of the Fawcettestate, Rachael wondering if her mother would be irritated at theinformality of the stranger's first call; he should have arrived instate with Dr. Hamilton at the hour of five. Perhaps it was to postponethe moment of explanation that she permitted her horse to walk, evenafter they had reached the level of the avenue, and finally to crop thegrass while she and Hamilton dismounted and sat down in a heavy grove oftamarinds on the slope of the hill. 

"I'm just twenty-one and have my own way to make, " he was telling her. "There are three before me, so I couldn't afford the army, and as I've afancy for foreign lands, I've come out here to be a merchant. I have somany kinsmen in this part of the world, and they've all succeeded sowell, I thought they'd be able to advise me how best to turn over thefew guineas I have. My cousin, the doctor, has taken me in hand, and ifI have any business capacity I shall soon find it out. But I ached forthe army, and failing that, I'd have liked being a scholar--as I knowyou are, by your eyes. "

His Scotch accent was not unlike that of the West Indians, particularlyof the Barbadians; but his voice, although it retained the huskiness ofthe wet North, had, somewhere in its depths, a peculiar metallic qualitywhich startled Rachael every time it rang out, and was the last of allmemories to linger, when memories were crumbling in a brain that couldstand no more. 

How it happened, Rachael spent the saner hours of the morrow attemptingto explain, but they sat under the tamarinds until the sun went down, and Nevis began to robe for the night. Once they paused in theirdesultory talk and listened to the lovely chorus of a West Indianevening, that low incessant ringing of a million tiny bells. The bellshung in the throats of nothing more picturesque than grasshoppers, serpents, lizards, and frogs so small as to be almost invisible, butthey rang with a harmony that the inherited practice of centuries hadgiven them. And beyond was the monotonous accompaniment of the sea onthe rocks. Hamilton lived to be an old man, and he never left the WestIndies; but sometimes, at long and longer intervals, he found himselflistening to that Lilliputian orchestra, his attention attracted to it, possibly, by a stranger; and then he remembered this night, and thewoman for whom he would have sacrificed earth and immortality had hebeen lord of them. 

Heaven knows what they talked about. While it was light they stared outat the blue sea or down on the rippling cane-fields, not daring toexchange more than a casual and hasty glance. Both knew that they shouldhave separated the moment they met, but neither had the impulse nor theintention to leave the shade of the wood; and when the brief twilightfell and the moon rose, there still was Nevis, and after her the manycraft to divert their gaze. Hamilton was honourable and shy, and Rachaelwas a woman of uncommon strength of character and had been brought up bya woman of austere virtue. These causes held them apart for a time, butone might as well have attempted to block two comets rushing at eachother in the same orbit. The magnetism of the Inevitable embraced themand knit their inner selves together, even while they sat decorouslyapart. Rachael had taken off her hat at once, and even after it grewdark in their arbour, Hamilton fancied he could see the gleam of herhair. Her eyes were startled and brilliant, and her nostrils quivereduneasily, but she defined none of the sensations that possessed her butthe overwhelming recrudescence of her youth. It had seemed to her thatit flamed from its ashes before Dr. Hamilton finished his formal wordsof introduction, and all its forgotten hopes and impulses, timidity andvagueness, surged through her brain during those hours beside thestranger, submerging the memory of Levine. Indeed, she felt even youngerthan before maturity so suddenly had been thrust upon her; for in thoseold days she had been almost as severely intellectual as yesterday, andwhen she had dreamed of the future, it had been with the soberness of anovertaxed brain. But to-day even the world seemed young again. Shefancied she could hear the unquiet pulses of the Island, so long grownold, and Nevis had never looked so fair. She hardly was conscious of herwomanhood, only of that possessing sense of happiness in youth. As forHamilton, he had never felt otherwise than young, although he was acollege-bred man, something of a scholar, and he had seen more or lessof the world since his boyhood. But the intensity and ardour of hisnature had received no check, neither were they halfway on theircourse; and he had never loved. It had seemed to him that the Islandopened and a witch came out, and in those confused hours he hardly knewwhether she were good or bad, his ideal woman or his ideal devil; but heloved her. He was as pale as his sunburn would permit him to be, and hishands were clasped tightly about his knees, when relief came in theshape of Mary Fawcett. 

Her daughter's horse had gone home and taken the stranger with him, andMistress Fawcett, with quick suspicion, new as it was, started at oncedown the avenue. Rachael heard the familiar tapping of her mother'sstick, hastily adjusted her hat, and managed to reach the road withHamilton before her mother turned its bend. 

Mary Fawcett understood and shivered with terror. She was far from beingher imperious self as her daughter presented the stranger and remarkedthat he was a cousin of Dr. Hamilton, characteristically refraining fromapology or explanation. 

"Well, " she said, "the doctor will doubtless bring you to call some day. I will send your horse to you. Say good evening to the stranger, Rachael, and come home. " She was one of the most hospitable women in theCaribbees, and this was the kinsman of her best friend, but she longedfor power to exile him out of St. Kitts that night. 

Hamilton lifted his hat, and Rachael followed her mother. She was coldand frightened, and Levine's white malignant face circled about her. 

Her mother requested her support, and she almost carried the lightfigure to the house. Mistress Fawcett sent a slave after Hamilton'shorse, then went to her room and wrote a note to Dr. Hamilton, askinghim to call on the following day and to come alone. The two women didnot meet again that night. 

But there is little privacy in the houses of St. Kitts and Nevis. Eitherthe upper part of almost every room is built of ornamental lattice-work, or the walls are set with numerous jalousies, that can be closed when adraught is undesirable but conduct the slightest sound. Rachael's roomadjoined her mother's. She knew that the older woman was as uneasilyawake as herself, though from vastly different manifestations of thesame cause. At four o'clock, when the guinea fowl were screeching likedemons, and had awakened the roosters and the dogs to swell the infernalchorus of a West Indian morning, Rachael sat up in bed and laughednoiselessly. 

"What a night!" she thought. "And for what? A man who companioned me forfour hours as no other man had ever done? and who made me feel as if theworld had turned to fire and light? It may have been but a mood of myown, it is so long since I have talked with a man near to my ownage--and he is so near!--and yet so real a man. .. . No one could call himhandsome, for he looks like a flayed Carib, and I have met some of thehandsomest men in Europe and not given them a thought. Yet this man keptme beside him for four hours, and has me awake a whole night because heis not with me. Has the discipline of these last years, then, gone fornothing? Am I but an excitable West Indian after all, and shall I havecorded hands before I am twenty-five? It was a mistake to shut myselfaway from danger. Had I been constantly meeting the young men of theIsland and all strangers who have come here during the last two years, Ishould not be wild for this one--even if he has something in him unlikeother men--and lie awake all night like the silly women who dreameverlastingly of the lover to come. I am a fool. "

She lit her candle and went into her mother's room. Mary Fawcett wassitting up in bed, her white hair hanging out of her nightcap. It seemedto her that the end of the world had come, and she cursed human natureand the governors of the Island. 

"I know what has kept you awake, " said Rachael, "but do not fear. It wasbut a passing madness--God smite those guinea fowl! I have lived thelife of a nun, and it is an unnatural life for a young woman. YesterdayI learned that I have not the temperament of the scholar, therecluse--that is all. I should have guessed it sooner--then I should nothave been fascinated by this brilliant Scot. It was my mind that fleweagerly to companionship--that was all. The hours were pleasant. I wouldnot regret them but for the deep uneasiness they have caused you. To-dayI shall enter the world again. There are many clever and accomplishedyoung men on St. Kitts. I will meet and talk to them all. We willentertain them here. There is a ball at Government House to-night, another at Mistress Irwin's on Wednesday week. I promise you that I willbe as gay and as universal as a girl in her first season, and this manshall see no more of me than any other man. "

Her mother watched her keenly as she delivered her long tirade. Her facewas deeply flushed. The arm that held the candle was tense, and her hairfell about her splendid form like a cloud of light. Had Hamilton seenanything so fair in Europe? What part would he play in this scheme ofcatholicity?

"You will meet this man if you go abroad, " she replied. "Better stayhere and forbid him the gates. "

"And think about him till I leap on my horse and ride to meet him? Afevered imagination will make a god of a Tom Noddy. If I see himdaily--with others--he will seem as commonplace as all men. "

Mary Fawcett did not speak for some moments. Then she said: "Hark ye, Rachael. I interfered once and brought such damnable misery upon youthat I dare not--almost--(she remembered her note to Dr. Hamilton)interfere again. This time you shall use your own judgement, somethingyou have taught me to respect. Whatever the result, I will be to the endwhat I always have been, the best friend you have. You are very strong. You have had an awful experience, and it has made a woman of thirty ofyou. You are no silly little fool, rushing blindly into the arms of thefirst man whose eyes are black enough. You have been brought up to lookupon light women with horror. In your darkest days you never sought toconsole yourself as weaker women do. Therefore, in spite of what I sawin both your faces yesterday, I hope. "

"Yes--and give yourself no more uneasiness. Could _I_ look upon thelove of man with favour? Not unless I were to be born again, and mymemory as dead as my body. "

"If you love, you will be born again; and if this man overmasters yourimagination, your memory might quite as well be dead. One of the threeor four things in my life that I have to be thankful for is that I neverhad to pass through that ordeal. You are far dearer to me than I everwas to myself, and if you are called upon to go through that wretchedexperience, whose consequences never finish, and I with so little timeleft in which to stand by and protect you--" She changed abruptly. "Promise me that you will do nothing unconsidered, that you will notbehave like the ordinary Francesca--for whom I have always had the mostunmitigated contempt. The hour. The man. The fall. The wail: 'The earthrocked, the stars fell. I knew not what I did!' You have deliberationand judgement. Use them now--and do not ramble alone in the gorge withthis handsome Scot--for he is a fine man; I would I could deny it. Ifelt his charm, although he did not open his mouth. "

Rachael's eyes flashed. "Ah! did you?" she cried. "Well, but what ofthat? Are not our creoles a handsome race, and have not all but a fewbeen educated in England? Yes, I will promise you--if you think all thisis serious enough to require a promise. "

"But you care so little for the world. You would be sacrificing so muchless than other women--nevertheless it would make you wretched andhumiliate just as much; do not forget that. I almost am tempted to wishthat you had a lighter nature--that you would flirt with love and brushit away, while the world was merely amused at a suspected gallantry. But_you_--you would love for a lifetime, and you would end by living withhim openly. There is no compromise in you. "

"Surely we have become more serious than an afternoon's talk with aninteresting stranger should warrant. I am full of a sudden longing forthe world, and who knows but I shall become so wedded to it that I wouldyield it for no man? Besides, do I not live to make you happy, toreward as best I can your unselfish devotion? If ever I could love anyman more than I love you, then that love would be overwhelming indeed. But although I can imagine myself forgetting the world in such a love, Icannot picture you on the sacrificial altar. "

IX

Rachael was asleep when Dr. Hamilton called. Mistress Fawcett receivedhim in the library, which was at the extreme end of the long house. Helaughed so heartily at her fears that he almost dispelled them. Whateverhe anticipated in Rachael's future, he had no mind to apprehend dangerin every man who interested her. 

"For God's sake, Mary, " he exclaimed, "let the girl have a flirtationwithout making a tragedy of it. She is quite right. The world is whatshe wants. If ever there was a woman whom Nature did not intend for anun it is Rachael Levine. Let her carry out her plan, and in a week shewill be the belle of the Island, and my poor cousin will be consolinghimself with some indignant beauty only a shade less fair. I'll engageto marry him off at once, if that will bring sleep to your pillow, but Ican't send him away as you propose. I am not King George, nor yet theCaptain-General. Nor have I any argument by which to persuade him to go. I have given him too much encouragement to stay. I'll keep him away fromrouts as long as I can--but remember that he is young, uncommonlygood-looking, and a stranger: the girls will not let me keep him inhiding for long. Now let the girl alone. Let her think you've forgottenmy new kinsman and your fears. I don't know any way to manage women butto let them manage themselves. Bob Edwards failed with Catherine. I havesucceeded. Take a leaf out of my book. Rachael is not going through lifewithout a stupendous love affair. She was marked out for it, speciallymoulded and equipped by old Mother Nature. Resign yourself to it, and goout and put up your hands against the next tidal wave if you want anillustration of what interference with Rachael would amount to. I wishLevine would die, or we could get a divorce law through on this Island. But the entire Council falls on the table with horror every time Isuggest it. Don't worry till the time comes. I'll fill my house with allthe pretty girls on St. Kitts and Nevis, and marry this hero of romanceas soon as I can. "

Rachael went to the ball at Government House that night, glittering in agown of brocade she had worn at the court of Denmark: Levine had senther trunks to Peter Lytton's, but not her jewels. She was the mostsplendid creature in the rooms, and there was no talk of anyone else. But before the night was a third over she realized that the attentionshe would receive during this her second dazzling descent upon societywould differ widely from her first. The young men bowed before her indeep appreciation of her beauty, then passed on to the girls of thatlight-hearted band to which she no longer belonged. She was a woman witha tragic history and a living husband; she had a reputation for severeintellectuality, and her eyes, the very carriage of her body, expresseda stern aloofness from the small and common exteriorities of life. TheGovernor, the members of Council, of the Assembly, of the bench and bar, and the clergy, flocked about her, delighted at her return to the world, but she was the belle of the matrons, and not a young man asked her todance. 

She shrugged her shoulders when she saw how it was to be. 

"Can they guess that I am younger than they are?" she thought. "Andwould I have them? Would I share that secret with any in the world--butone? Do I want to dance--to _dance_--Good God! And talk nonsense and thegossip of the Island with these youths when I have naught to say butthat my soul has grown wings and that the cold lamp in my breast hasblown out, and lit again with the flame that keeps the world alive? Evenif I think it best never to see him again, he has given me that, and Iam young at last. "

When she returned home, as the guinea fowl were at their raucous matins, she was able to tell her mother that the Scot had not attended the ball, and Mary Fawcett knew that Dr. Hamilton had managed to detain him. 

But a fortnight later they met again at the house of Dr. George Irwin, an intimate friend of the Hamiltons. 

The Irwin's house in Basseterre was on the north side of the Park, whichwas surrounded by other fine dwellings and several public buildings. Thebroad verandahs almost overhung the enclosure, with its great banyantree, the royal palms about the fountain, the close avenues, the flaminghedges of croton and hybiscus, and the traveller's palm and tree fernsbrought from the mountains. When a ball was given at one of the housesabout this Park on a moonlight night, there was much scheming to avoidthe watchful eyes of lawful guardians. 

It was inevitable that Hamilton should attend this ball, for the Irwinsand his relatives were in and out of each other's houses all day andhalf the night. By this time, however, he had met nearly every girl onSt. Kitts, and his cousin had ridden out that afternoon to assureMistress Fawcett that the danger weakened daily. 

But for an hour, he did not leave Rachael's side that night. Thebeauties of St. Christopher--and they were many, with theirporcelain-like complexions and distinguished features--went through alltheir graceful creole paces in vain. That he was recklessly in love withRachael Levine was manifest to all who chose to look, and as undauntedby her intellect and history as any man of his cousin's mature coterie. As for Rachael, although she distributed her favours impartially for awhile, her mobile face betrayed to Dr. Hamilton that mind and body weresteeped in that tremulous content which possesses a woman when close toan undeclared lover in a public place; the man, and Life and her ownemotions unmortalized, the very future bounded by the gala walls, themusic, the lights, and the perfume of flowers. These walls were hungwith branches of orange trees loaded with fruit, and with ferns andorchids brought fresh from the mountains. A band of blacks played ontheir native instruments the fashionable dances of the day with a weirdand barbaric effect, and occasionally sang a wailing accompaniment invoices of indescribable softness. There was light from fifty candles, and the eternal breeze lifted and dispersed the heavy perfume of theflowers. Hamilton had been in many ball-rooms, but never in one likethis. He abstained from the madeiras and ports which were passed aboutat brief intervals by the swinging coloured women in their gay frocksand white turbans; but he was intoxicated, nevertheless, and more thanonce on the point of leaving the house. The unreality of it all held himmore than weakness, for in some things James Hamilton was strong enough. The weakness in him was down at the roots of his character, and he wasneither a feathercock nor a flasher. He had no intention of making loveto Rachael until he saw his future more clearly than he did to-night. During the fortnight that had passed since he met her, he had thought oflittle else, and to-night he wanted nothing else, but impulsive andpassionate as he was, he came of a race of hard-headed Scots. He had nomind for a love affair of tragic seriousness, even while his quickenedimagination pictured the end. 

He deliberately left her side after a time and joined a group of men whowere smoking in the court. After an hour of politics his brain had lessblood in it, and when he found himself standing beside Rachael on theverandah he suggested that they follow other guests into the Park. Hegave Rachael his arm in the courtly fashion of the day, and they walkedabout the open paths and talked of the negroes singing in thecane-fields, and the squalid poverty of the North, as if their heartswere as calm as they are to-day. People turned often to look at them, commenting according to the mixing of their essences, but all concurringin praise of so much beauty. Hamilton's sunburn had passed the acutestage, leaving him merely brown, and his black silk small clothes andlace ruffles, his white silk stockings and pumps, were vastly becoming. His hair, lightly powdered, was tied with a white ribbon, but althoughhe carried himself proudly, there was no manifest in his bearing thatthe vanities consumed much of his thought. He was gallanted like a youngblood of the period, and so were the young men of St. Kitts. Rachaelwore a heavy gold-coloured satin, baring the neck, and a stiff andpointed stomacher, her hair held high with a diamond comb. Her fairnesswas dazzling in the night-light, and it was such a light as Hamiltonnever had seen before: for in the Tropics the moon is golden, and thestars are crystal. The palm leaves, high on their slender shafts, glittered like polished dark-green metal, and the downpour was sodazzling that more than once the stranger shaded his eyes with his hand. Had it not been for the soft babble of many voices, the silence wouldhave been intense, until the ear was tuned to the low tinkle of thenight bells, for the sea was calm. 

Once, as if in explanation for words unspoken, he commented nervously onthe sensation of unreality with which these tropic scenes inspired him, and Rachael, who longed to withdraw her hand from his arm, told him ofan entertainment peculiar to the Islands, a torchlight hunt forland-crabs, which once a year travel down from the mountains to the sea, to bathe and shed their shells. Words hastened. Before she drew breathshe had arranged a hunt for the night of the 10th of April, and receivedhis promise to be one of her guests. They were not so happy as they hadbeen within doors, for the world seemed wider. But their inner selvespressed so hard toward each other that finally they were driven tocertain egotisms as a relief. 

"I think little of the future, " she said, after a direct question, "forthat means looking beyond my mother's death, and that is the one fact Ihave not the courage to face. But of course I know that it holds nothingfor me. A ball occasionally, and the conversation of clever men whoadmire me but care for some one else, books the rest of the week, andlife alone on a shelf of the mountain. The thought that I shall one daybe old does not console me as it may console men, for with women theheart never grows old. The body withers, and the heart in its awfuleternal youth has the less to separate and protect it from the worldthat has no use for it. Then the body dies and is put away, but theheart is greedily consumed to feed the great pulses of the world thatlives faster every year. We give, and give, and give. "

"And are only happy in giving, " said Hamilton, quickly. "But if menpreserve the balance of the world by taking all that women give them, atleast the best of us find our happiness in the gifts of one woman, and awoman so besought dare not assert that her heart is empty. Iunderstand--and no one more clearly than I do to-night--that if she givetoo much, she may curse her heart and look out bitterly upon themanifold interests that could suppress it for weeks and months--if lifewere full enough. Is yours? What would you sacrifice if you came to me?"

He asked the question calmly, for there were people on every side ofthem, but he asked it on an uncontrollable impulse, nevertheless; he hadvowed to himself that he would wait a month. 

His natural repose was greater than hers, for she had the excitablenerves of the Tropics. He felt her arm quiver before she dropped herhand from his arm. But she replied almost as calmly: "Nothing after mymother's death. Absolutely nothing. When a woman suffers as I have done, and her future is ruined in any case, the world counts for very littlewith her, unless it always has counted for more than anything else. Wegrow the more cynical and contemptuous as we witness the foolishgallantries of women who have so much to lose. I am not hard. I am verysoft about many things, and since you came I am become the very tragedyof youth; but I have no respect for the world as I have seen it. Formany people in the world I have a great deal, but not for the substanceout of which Society has built itself. One never loses one's realfriends, no matter what one does. Every circumstance of my life hasisolated me from this structure called society, forced me to make my ownlaws. I may never be happy, because my capacity for happiness is toogreat, but in my own case there is no alternative worth considering. This is the substance of what I have thought since we met, but you arenot to speak to me of it again while my mother lives. "

"I do not promise you that--but this: that I will do much thinkingbefore I speak again. "

X

But although they parted with formal courtesy, it was several nightsbefore either slept. Rachael went home to her bed and lay down, becauseshe feared to agitate her mother, but her disposition was to go out andwalk the circuit of the Island, and she rose as soon as she dared, andclimbed to the highest crest behind the house. It was cold there, andthe wind was keen. She sat for hours and stared out at Nevis, who wasrolling up her mists, indifferent to the torment of mortals. 

During the past fortnight she had conceived a certain stern calm, partlyin self-defence, due in part to love for her mother. But since she hadleft Hamilton, last night, there had been moments when she had feltalone in the Universe with him, exalted to such heights of human passionthat she had imagined herself about to become the mother of a new race. Her genius, which in a later day might have taken the form of mentalcreation, concentrated in a supreme capacity for idealized humanpassion, and its blind impulse was a reproduction of itself in anotherbeing. 

Were she and Hamilton but the victims of a mighty ego roaming theUniverse in search of a medium for human expression? Were they buthelpless sacrifices, consummately equipped, that the result of theirunion might be consummately great? Who shall affirm or deny? The verycommonplaces of life are components of its eternal mystery. We knowabsolutely nothing. But we have these facts: that a century and a halfago, on a tropical island, where, even to common beings, quick andintense love must seem the most natural thing in the world, this man andwoman met; that the woman, herself born in unhappy conditions, butbeautiful, intellectual, with a character developed far beyond her yearsand isolated home by the cruel sufferings of an early marriage, rearedby a woman whose independence and energy had triumphed over the narrowlaws of the Island of her birth, given her courage to snap her fingersat society--we know that this woman, inevitably remarkable, met andloved a stranger from the North, so generously endowed that he alone ofall the active and individual men who surrounded her won her heart; andthat the result of their union was one of the stupendous intellects ofthe world's history. 

Did any great genius ever come into the world after commonplacepre-natal conditions? Was a maker of history ever born amidst thepleasant harmonies of a satisfied domesticity? Of a mother who was lessthan remarkable, although she may have escaped being great? Did a womanwith no wildness in her blood ever inform a brain with electric fire?The students of history know that while many mothers of great men havebeen virtuous, none have been commonplace, and few have been happy. Andlest the moralists of my day and country be more prone to outragedvirtue, in reading this story, than were the easy-going folk whosurrounded it, let me hasten to remind them that it all happened closeupon a hundred and fifty years ago, and that the man and woman who gavethem the brain to which they owe the great structure that has made theircountry phenomenal among nations, are dust on isles four hundred milesapart. 

A century and a half ago women indulged in little introspectiveanalysis. They thought on broad lines, and honestly understood thestrength of their emotions. Moreover, although Mary Wollstonecraft wasunborn and "Émile" unwritten, Individualism was germinating; and whatsoil so quickening as the Tropics? Nevertheless, to admit was not to laythe question, and Rachael passed through many hours of torment beforehers was settled. She was not unhappy, for the intoxication lingered, and behind the methodical ticking of her reason, stood, calmly awaitingits time, that sense of the Inevitable which has saved so many brainsfrom madness. She slept little and rested less, but that sentinel in herbrain prevented the frantic hopelessness which would have possessed herhad she felt herself strong enough to command James Hamilton to leavethe Island. 

She met him several times before the night of her entertainment, andthere were moments when she was filled with terror, for he did notwhisper a reference to the conversation in the Park. Had he thoughtbetter of it? Would he go? Would he conquer himself? Was it but apassing madness? When these doubts tormented her she was driven to sucha state of jealous fury that she forgot every scruple, and longed onlyfor the bond which would bind him fast; then reminded herself that sheshould be grateful, and endeavoured to be. But one day when he liftedher to her horse, he kissed her wrist, and again the intoxication oflove went to her head, and this time it remained there. Once they met upin the hills, where they had been asked with others to take a dish oftea with Mistress Montgomerie. They sat alone for an hour on one of theterraces above the house, laughing and chattering like children, thenrode down the hills through the cane-fields together. Again, they met inthe Park, and sat under the banyan tree, discussing the great books theyhad read, all of Europe they knew. For a time neither cared to finishthat brief period of exquisite happiness and doubt, where imaginationrules, and the world is unreal and wholly sweet, and they its first tolove. 

The wrenching stage of doubt had passed for Hamilton, but he thought onthe future with profound disquiet. He would have the woman wholly or notat all, after Mary Fawcett's death; he knew from Dr. Hamilton that itwould occur before the year was out. He had no taste for intrigue. Hewanted a home, and the woman he would have rejoiced to marry was thewoman he expected to love and live with for the rest of his life. Onceor twice the overwhelming sense of responsibility, the certainty ofchildren, whom he could not legalize, the possible ruin of his worldlyinterests, as well as his deep and sincere love for the woman, drove himalmost to the bows of a homeward-bound vessel. But the sure knowledgethat he should return kept him doggedly on St. Christopher. He even hadceased to explain his infatuation to himself by such excuse as was givenhim by her beauty, her grace, her strong yet charming brain. He lovedher, and he would have her if the skies fell. 

It is doubtful if he understood the full force of the attraction betweenthem. The real energy and deliberation, the unswerving purpose in hermagnetized the weakness at the roots of his ardent, impulsive, butunstable character. Moreover, in spite of the superlative passion whichhe had aroused in her, she lacked the animal magnetism which was his inabundance. Her oneness was a magnet for his gregariousness andconcentrated it upon herself. That positive quality in him overwhelmedand intoxicated her; and in intellect he was far more brilliant and farless profound than herself. His wit and mental nimbleness stung andpricked the serene layers which she had carefully superimposed in herown mind to such activities as mingled playfully with his lighter moodsor stimulated him in more intellectual hours. While the future was yetunbroken and imagination remodelled the face of the world, there weremoments when both were exalted with a sense of completeness, andterrified, when apart, with a hint of dissolution into unrelatedparticles. 

When a man and woman arrive at that stage of reasoning and feeling, itwere idle for their chronicler to moralize; her part is but to tell thestory. 

XI

Mary Fawcett encouraged her daughter's social activity, and asHamilton's name entered the rapid accounts of revels and routs in themost casual manner, she endeavoured to persuade herself that the madnesshad passed with a languid afternoon. She was a woman of the world, butthe one experience that develops deepest insight had passed her by, andthere were shades and moods of the master passion over which her sharpeyes roved without a shock. 

As she was too feeble to sit up after nine o'clock, she refused to openher doors for the crab hunt, but gave Rachael the key of a little villaon the crest of a peak behind the house, and told her to keep herfriends all night if she chose. 

This pavilion, designed for the hotter weeks of the hurricane season, but seldom used by the Fawcetts, was a small stone building, with twobedrooms and a living room, a swimming bath, and several huts forservants. The outbuildings were dilapidated, but the house after anairing and scrubbing was as fit for entertainment as any on St. Kitts. The furniture in the Tropics is of cane, and there are no carpets orhangings to invite destruction. Even the mattresses are often butplaited thongs of leather, covered with strong linen, and stretcheduntil they are hard as wood. All Mary Fawcett's furniture was ofmahogany, the only wood impervious to the boring of the West Indianworm. This tiny house on the mountain needed but a day's work to cleanit, and another to transform it into an arbour of the forest. The wallsof the rooms were covered with ferns, orchids, and croton leaves. Goldand silver candelabra had been carried up from the house, and they wouldhold half a hundred candles. 

All day the strong black women climbed the gorge and hill, their hipsswinging, baskets of wine, trays of delicate edibles, pyramids of linen, balanced as lightly on their heads as were they no more in weight andsize than the turban beneath; their arms hanging, their soft voicesscolding the "pic'nees" who stumbled after them. 

Toward evening, Rachael and Kitty Hamilton walked down the mountaintogether, and lingered in the heavy beauty of the gorge. The ferns grewhigh above their heads, and palms of many shapes. The dark machineelwith its deadly fruit, the trailing vines on the tamarind trees, themonkeys leaping, chattering with terror, through flaming hybiscus andmasses of orchid, the white volcanic rock, the long torn leaves of thebanana tree, the abrupt declines, crimson with wild strawberries, theloud boom of the sunset gun from Brimstone Hill--Rachael never forgot adetail of that last walk with her old friend. Hers was not the naturefor intimate friendships, but Catherine Hamilton had been one of herfirst remembered playmates, her bridesmaid, and had hastened tocompanion her when she emerged from the darkness of her married life. But Catherine was an austere girl, of no great mental liveliness, andthe friendship, although sincere, was not rooted in the sympathies andaffections. She believed Rachael to be the most remarkable woman in theworld, and had never dared to contradict her, although she lowered herfine head to no one else. But female virtue, as they expressed it in theeighteenth century, stood higher in her estimation than all the gifts ofmind and soul which had been lavished upon Rachael Levine, and she wasthe first to desert her when the final step was taken. But on thisevening there was no barrier, and she talked of her future with the manshe was to marry. She was happy and somewhat sentimental. Rachael sighedand set her lips. All her girlhood friends were either married or aboutto be--except Christiana, who had not a care in her little world. Whywere sorrow and disgrace for her alone? What have I done, she thought, that I seem to be accursed? I have wronged no one, and I am more giftedthan any of these friends of mine. Not one of them has studied soseverely, and learned as much as I. Not one of them can command thehomage of such men as I. And yet I alone am singled out, first, for themost hideous fate which can attack a woman, then to live apart from allgood men and women with a man I cannot marry, and who may break myheart. I wish that I had not been born, and I would not be dead for allthe peace that is in the most silent depths of the Universe. 

At ten o'clock, that night, the hills were red with the torches of asgay a company as ever had assembled on the Island. The Governor and Dr. Hamilton were keen sportsmen, and nothing delighted them more than tochase infuriated land-crabs down the side of a mountain. There were sometwenty men in the party, and most of them followed their distinguishedelders through brush and rocky passes. Occasionally, a sudden yell ofpain mingled with the shouts of mirth, for land-crabs have their methodsof revenge. The three or four girls whom Rachael had induced to attendthis masculine frolic, kept to the high refuge of the villa, attended bycavaliers who dared not hint that maiden charms were less thanland-crabs. 

Hamilton and Rachael sat on the steps of the terrace, or paced up anddown, watching the scene. Just beyond their crest was the frowning massof Mount Misery. The crystal flood poured down from above, and the moonwas rising over the distant hills. The sea had the look of infinity. There might be ships at anchor before Basseterre or Sandy Point, but theshoulders of the mountain hid them; and below, the world looked as ifthe passions of Hell had let loose--the torches flared and crackled, andthe trees took on hideous shapes. Once a battalion of the palevenomous-looking crabs rattled across the terrace, and Rachael, who wasmasculine in naught but her intellect, screamed and flung herself intoHamilton's arms. A moment later she laughed, but their conversationceased then to be impersonal. It may be said here, that if Hamiltonfailed in other walks of life, it was not from want of resolution wherewomen were concerned. And he was tired of philandering. 

The hunters returned, slaves carrying the slaughtered crabs in baskets. There were many hands to shell the victims, and in less than half anhour Mary Fawcett's cook sent in a huge and steaming dish. Then therewere mulled wines and port, cherry brandy and liqueurs to refresh theweary, and sweets for the women. A livelier party never sat down totable; and Hamilton, who was placed between two chattering girls, was aman of the world, young as he was, and betrayed neither impatience norennui. Rachael sat at the head of the table, between the Governor andDr. Hamilton. Her face, usually as white as porcelain, was pink in thecheeks; her eyes sparkled, her nostrils fluttered with triumph. Shelooked so exultant that more than one wondered if she were intoxicatedwith her own beauty; but Dr. Hamilton understood, and his supper lostits relish. Some time since he had concluded that where Mary Fawcettfailed he could not hope to succeed, but he had done his duty andlectured his cousin. He understood human nature from its heights to itsdregs, however, and promised Hamilton his unaltered friendship, evenwhile in the flood of remonstrance. He was a philosopher, who invariablyheld out his hand to the Inevitable, with a shrug of his shoulders, buthe loved Rachael, and wished that the ship that brought Levine to theIslands had encountered a hurricane. 

The guests started for home at one o'clock, few taking the same path. The tired slaves went down to their huts. Rachael remained on themountain, and Hamilton returned to her. 

XII

It was a month later that Rachael, returning after a long ride withHamilton, found her mother just descended from the family coach. 

"Is it possible that you have been to pay visits?" she asked, as shehastened to support the feeble old woman up the steps. 

"No, I have been to Basseterre with Archibald Hamn. "

"Not to St. Peter's, I hope. "

"Oh, my dear, I do not feel in the mood to jest. I went to court tosecure the future of my three dear slaves, Rebecca, Flora, and Esther. "

Rachael placed her mother on one of the verandah chairs and dropped uponanother. 

"Why have you done that?" she asked faintly. "Surely--"

"There are several things I fully realize, and one is that each attackleaves me with less vitality to resist the next. These girls are thedaughters of my dear old Rebecca, who was as much to me as a black evercan be to a white, and that is saying a good deal. I have just signed adeed of trust before the Registrar--to Archibald. They are still minefor the rest of my life, yours for your lifetime, or as long as you livehere; then they go to Archibald or his heirs. I want you to promise methat they shall never go beyond this Island or Nevis. "

"I promise. " Rachael had covered her face with her hand. 

"I believe you kept the last promise you made me. It is not in yourcharacter to break your word, however you may see fit to take the lawinto your own hands. "

"I kept it. "

"And you will live with him openly after my death. I have appreciatedyour attempt to spare me. "

"Ah, you _do_ know me. "

"Some things may escape my tired old eyes, but I love you too well notto have seen for a month past that you were as happy as a bride. I shallsay no more--save for a few moments with James Hamilton. I am old andill and helpless. You are young and indomitable. If I were as vigorousand self-willed as when I left your father, I could not control you now. I shall leave you independent. Will Hamilton, Archibald, and a fewothers will stand by you; but alas! you will, in the course of nature, outlive them all, and have no friend in the world but Hamilton--althoughI shall write an appeal to your sisters to be sent to them after mydeath. But oh, how I wish, how I wish, that you could marry this man. "

Mary Fawcett was attacked that night by the last harsh rigours of herdisease and all its complications. Until she died, a week later, Rachael, except for the hour that Hamilton sat alone beside the bed ofthe stricken woman, did not leave her mother. The immortal happiness ofthe last month was forgotten. She was prostrate, literally on her kneeswith grief and remorse, for she believed that her mother's discovery hadhastened the end. 

"No, it is not so, " said Mary Fawcett, one day. "My time has come todie. Will Hamilton will assure you of that, and I have watched the spacebetween myself and death diminish day by day, for six months past. Ihave known that I should die before the year was out. It is true that Idie in sorrow and with a miserable sense of failure, for you have beenmy best-beloved, my idol, and I leave you terribly placed in life andwith little hope of betterment. But for you I have no reproach. You havegiven me love for love, and duty for duty. Life has treated youbrutally; what has come now was, I suppose, inevitable. Human naturewhen it is strong enough is stronger than moral law. I grieve for you, but I die without grievance against you. Remember that. And Hamilton? Heis honourable, and he loves you utterly--but is he strong? I wish Iknew. His emotions and his active brain give him so much apparentforce--but underneath? I wish I knew. "

Rachael was grateful for her mother's unselfish assurance, but she wasnot to be consoled. The passions in her nature, released from otherthrall, manifested themselves in a grief so profound, and at times soviolent, that only her strong frame saved her from illness. For twoweeks after Mary Fawcett's death she refused to see James Hamilton; butby that time he felt at liberty to assert his rights, and her finelypoised mind recovered its balance under his solace and argument. Herlife was his, and to punish him assuaged nothing of her sorrow. He haddecided, after consultation with his cousin, to take her to Nevis, notonly to seclude her from the scandalized society she knew best, but thathe might better divert her mind, in new scenes, from her heavyaffliction. Hamilton had already embarked in his business enterprise, but he had bought and manned a sail-boat, which would carry him to andfrom St. Kitts daily. In the dead calms of summer there was littlebusiness doing. 

"I attempted no sophistry with my cousin, " said Hamilton, "and for thatreason I think I have put the final corking-pin into our friendship. Right or wrong we are going to live together for the rest of our lives, because I will have no other woman, and you will have no other man; andwe will live together publicly, not only because neither of us has thepatience for scheming and deceit, but because passion is not our onlymotive for union. There is gallantry on every side of us, and doubtlesswe alone shall be made to suffer; for the world loves to be fooled, ithates the crudeness of truth. But we have each other, and nothing elsematters. "

And to Rachael nothing else mattered, for her mother was dead, and sheloved Hamilton with an increasing passion that was long in culminating. 

XIII

They sailed over to Nevis, accompanied by a dozen slaves, and tookpossession of Rachael's house in Main Street. It stood at the very endof the town, beyond the point where the street ceased and the road roundthe Island began. The high wall of the garden surrounded a grove ofpalms and cocoanut trees. Only sojourners from England had occupied thebig comfortable house, and it was in good repair. 

When the acute stage of her grief had passed, it was idle for Rachael todeny to Hamilton that she was happy. And at that time she had not a carein the world, nor had he. Their combined incomes made them as carelessof money as any planter on the Island. Every ship from England broughtthem books and music, and Hamilton was not only the impassioned loverbut the tenderest and most patient of husbands. Coaches dashed by andthe occupants cast up eyes and hands. The gay life of Nevis pulsedunheeded about the high walls, whose gates were always locked. Thekinsman of the leading families of the Island and the most beautifuldaughter of old John and Mary Fawcett were a constant and agitatingtheme, but two people lived their life of secluded and poignanthappiness, and took Nevis or St. Kitts into little account. 

BOOK II

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

HIS YOUTH IN THE WEST INDIES AND IN THE COLONIES OF NORTH AMERICA

I

I should have been glad to find an old Almanac of Nevis which containeda description of its 11th of January, 1757. But one January is much likeanother in the Leeward Islands, and he who has been there can easilyimagine the day on which Alexander Hamilton was born. The sky was adeeper blue than in summer, for the sun was resting after the terrificlabours of Autumn, and there was a prick in the trade winds whichstimulated the blood by day and chilled it a trifle at night. The slavewomen moved more briskly, followed by a trotting brood of "pic'nees, "one or more clinging to their hips, all bewailing the rigours of winter. Down in the river where they pounded the clothes on the stones, theyvowed they would carry the next linen to the sulphur springs, for thevery marrow in their bones was cold. In the Great Houses there were nofires, but doors and windows were closed early and opened late, andblankets were on every bed. The thermometer may have stood at 72°. 

Nevis herself was like a green jewel casket, after the autumn rains. Oranges and sweet limes were yellow in her orchards, the long-leavedbanana trees were swelling with bunches of fruit, the guavas were readyfor cream and the boiling. The wine was in the cocoanut, the royal palmshad shed their faded summer leaves and glittered like burnished metal. The gorgeous masses of the croton bush had drawn fresh colour from therain. In the woods and in the long avenues which wound up the mountainto the Great House of every estate, the air was almost cold; but outunder the ten o'clock sun, even a West Indian could keep warm, and thenegroes sang as they reaped the cane. The sea near the shore was likegreen sunlight, but some yards out it deepened into that intense hotblue which is the final excess of West Indian colouring. The spray flewhigh over the reef between Nevis and St. Kitts, glittering like the saltponds on the desolate end of the larger island, the roar of the breakersaudible in the room where the child who was to be called AlexanderHamilton was born. 

Rachael rose to a ceaseless demand upon her attention for which she wasgrateful during the long days of Hamilton's absence. Alexander turnedout to be the most restless and monarchical of youngsters and preferredhis mother to his black attendants. She ruled him with a firm hand, however, for she had no mind to lessen her pleasure in him, and althoughshe could not keep him quiet, she prevented the blacks from spoilinghim. 

During the hurricane months Hamilton yielded to her nervous fears, as hehad done in the preceding year, and crossed to St. Kitts but seldom. Asa matter of fact, hurricanes of the first degree, are rare in the WestIndies, the average to each island being one in a century. But from the25th of August, when all the Caribbean world prostrates itself in churchwhile prayers for deliverance from the awful visitation are read, to the25th of October, when the grateful or the survivors join inthanksgiving, every wind alarms the nervous, and every round woollycloud must contain the white squall. Rachael knew that Nevis boats hadturned over when minor squalls dashed down the Narrows between theextreme points of the Islands, and that they were most to be dreaded inthe hurricane season. Hamilton's inclination was to spare in everypossible way the woman who had sacrificed so much for him, and he askedlittle urging to idle his days in the cool library with his charmingwife and son. Therefore his business suffered, for his partners tookadvantage of his negligence; and the decay of their fortunes began whenRachael, despite the angry protests of Archibald Hamn, sold her propertyon St. Kitts and gave Hamilton the money. He withdrew from the firmwhich had treated him inconsiderately, and set up a business forhimself. For a few years he was hopeful, although more than onceobliged to borrow money from his wife. She gave freely, for she had beenbrought up in the careless plenty of the Islands. Mary Fawcett, admirable manager as she was, had been lavish with money, particularlywhen her favourite child was in question; and Rachael's imagination hadnever worked toward the fact that money could roll down hill and notroll up again. She was long in discovering that the man she loved andadmired was a failure in the uninteresting world of business. He was abrilliant and charming companion, read in the best literatures of theworld, a thoughtful and adoring husband. It availed Archibald Hamnnothing to rage or Dr. Hamilton to remonstrate. Rachael graduallylearned that Hamilton was not as strong as herself, but the maternalinstinct, so fully aroused by her child, impelled her to fill out hisnature with hers, while denying nothing to the man who did all he couldto make her happy. 

In the third year Hamilton gave up his sail-boat, and had himself rowedacross the Narrows, where the overlooker of a salt estate he had boughtawaited him with a horse. Once he would have thought nothing of walkingthe eight miles to Basseterre, but the Tropics, while they sharpen thenerves, caress unceasingly the indolence of man. During the hurricaneseason he crossed as often as he thought necessary, for with expertoarsmen there was little danger, even from squalls, and the distance wasquickly covered. 

Gradually Rachael's position was accepted. Nothing could alter the factthat she was the daughter of Dr. And Mary Fawcett, and Hamilton was ofthe best blood in the Kingdom. She was spoken of generally as MistressHamilton, and old friends of her parents began to greet her pleasantlyas she drove about the Island with her beautiful child. In time theycalled, and from that it was but another step to invite, as a matter ofcourse, the young Hamiltons to their entertainments. After all, Rachaelwas not the first woman in tropical Great Britain to love a man shecould not marry, and it was fatiguing to ask the everlasting question ofwhether the honesty of a public irregular alliance were notcounterbalanced by its dangerous example. It was a day of loose morals, the first fruit of the vast scientific movement of the century, whoselast was the French Revolution. Moreover, the James Hamiltons weredelightful people, and life on the Islands was a trifle monotonous attimes; they brought into Nevis society fresh and unusual personalities, spiced with a salient variety. Hamilton might almost be said to havebeen born an astute man of the world. He opened his doors with anaccomplished hospitality to the most intelligent and cultivated peopleof the Island, ignoring those who based their social pretensions on rankand wealth alone. In consequence he and his wife became the leaders of asmall and exclusive set, who appreciated their good fortune. Dr. Hamilton and a few other Kittifonians were constant visitors in thishospitable mansion. Christiana Huggins, who had taken a bold stand fromthe first, carried her father there one day in triumph, and that austereparent laid down his arms. All seemed well, and the crumbling of thefoundations made no sound. 

And Alexander? He was an excitable and ingenious imp, who saved himselffrom many a spanking by his sparkling mind and entrancing sweetness oftemper. He might fly at his little slaves and beat them, and to hiswhite playmates he never yielded a point; but they loved him, for he wasgenerous and honest, and the happiest little mortal on the Island. Hecould get into as towering a rage as old John Fawcett, but he wasimmediately amenable to the tenderness of his parents. 

When he was four years old he was sent to a small school, which happenedto be kept by a Jewess. In spite of his precocity his parents had nowish to force a mind which, although delightful to them in its saucyquickness, aroused no ambitious hopes; they sent him to school merelythat there might be less opportunity to spoil him at home. His newexperience was of a brief duration. 

Hamilton on a Sunday was reading to Rachael in the library. Alexandershoved a chair to the table and climbed with some difficulty, for he wasvery small, to an elevated position among the last reviews of Europe. He demanded the attention of his parents, and, clasping his hands behindhis back, began to recite rapidly in an unknown tongue. The day was veryhot, and he wore nothing but a white apron. His little pink feet werebare on the mahogany, and his fair curls fell over a flushed and earnestface, which at all times was too thin and alert to be angelic orcherubic. Hamilton and Rachael, wondering whom he fancied himselfimitating, preserved for a moment a respectful silence, then, overcomeby his solemn countenance and the fluency of his outlandish utterance, burst into one of those peals of sudden laughter which seem to strikethe most sensitive chord in young children. Alexander shrieked in wrathand terror, and made as if to fling himself on his mother's bosom, thenplanted his feet with an air of stubborn defiance, and went on with hisrecital. Hamilton listened a moment longer, then left the houseabruptly. He returned in wrath. 

"That woman has taught him the Decalogue in Hebrew!" he exclaimed. "'Tisa wonder his brains are not addled. He will sail boats in theswimming-bath and make shell houses in the garden for the next threeyears. We'll have no more of school. "

II

Alexander Hamilton had several escapes from imminent peril when he was aboy, and the first occurred in the month of December, 1761. Hamilton hadgone to St. Croix on business, and Rachael and the child spent thefortnight of his absence with Christiana Huggins. Rachael was accustomedto Hamilton's absences, but Nevis was in a very unhealthy condition, through lack of wind and rains during the preceding autumn. The sea hadlooked like a metal floor for months, the Island was parched and dry, the swamps on the lowlands were pestiferous. Many negroes had died inCharles Town, and many more were ill. The obeah doctors, with theirabsurd concoctions and practices, were openly defying the physicians ofrepute, for the terrified blacks believed that the English had prayedonce too often that the hurricane should be stayed, and that he sulkedwhere none might feel his faintest breath. Therefore they cursed thewhite doctor as futile, and flung his physic from the windows. 

Rachael was glad to escape to the heights with Alexander. There it wasalmost as cool as it should be in December, and she could watch for herhusband's sloop. He had gone with the first light wind, and there wasenough to bring him home, although with heavy sail. She forgot themuttering negroes and the sickness below. Her servants had beeninstructed to nurse and nourish where assistance was needed, and up herethere was nothing to do but wander with her friend and child through thegay beauty of the terraced garden, or climb the stone steps to the coldquiet depths of the forest. 

At the end of a fortnight there was no sign of her husband's sloop, butthe wind was strengthening, and she decided to return home and makeready for him. During the long drive she passed negroes in largenumbers, either walking toward Charles Town or standing in mutteringgroups by the roadside. At one time the driveway was so thick with themthat her coach could not pass until the postilion laid about him withhis whip. 

"This is very odd, " she said to her nurse. "I have never seen anythinglike this before. "

"Me no t'ink he nothin'. All go tee tick--oh, dis pic'nee no keep tillone minit. Me no t'ink about he'n de road. "

She lifted the child between her face and her mistress's eyes, andRachael saw that her hand trembled. "Can the negroes be rising?" shewondered; and for a moment she was faint with terror, and prayed forHamilton's return. 

But she was heroic by nature, and quickly recovered her poise. When shearrived at home she sent the nurse to Charles Town on an errand, thenwent directly to her bedroom, which was disconnected from the otherrooms, and called her three devoted maids, Rebecca, Flora, and Esther. They came running at the sound of her voice, and she saw at once thatthey were terrified and ready to cling to her garments. 

"What is the matter?" she demanded. "Tell me at once. "

"Me no know fo' sure, " said Rebecca, "but me t'ink, t'ink, till me yellin me tleep. Somethin' ter'ble go to happen. Me feel he in de air. Allde daddys, all de buddys, 'peak, 'peak, togedder all de time, an' lookso bad--an' de oby doctors put de curse ebberywheres. Me fine befo' degate dis mornin' one pudden', de mud an' oil an' horsehair, but me notouch he. Me ask all de sissys me know, what comes, but he no 'peak. Herun out he tongue, and once he smack me ear. Oh, Mistress, take us backto Sinkitts. "

"But do you _know_ nothing?"

They shook their heads, but stared at her hopefully, for they believedimplicitly in her power to adjust all things. 

"And my other slaves? Do you think they are faithful to me?"

"All in de town all de time. Me ask ebbery he tell me what comes, and hesay 'nothin, ' but I no believe he. "

"And has the Governor taken no notice?"

"De Gobbenor lord and all de noble Buckras go yis'day to Sinkitts. Takede militia for one gran' parade in Bassetarr. Is de birfday to-morrow deGobbenor lord de Sinkitts. Up in de Great Houses no hear nothin', an'all quiet on 'states till yes'day. Now comin' to town an' look so bad, so bad!"

"Very well, then, the Governor and the militia must come back. Rebecca, you are the most sensible as well as the weakest in the arms. You willstay here to-night, and you will not falter for a moment. As soon as itis dark Flora and Esther will row me across the channel, and I will sendthe Buckra's agent on a fast horse with a note to the Governor. If theother house servants return, you will tell them that I am ill and thatFlora and Esther are nursing me. You will lock the gates, and open themto no one unless your Buckra should return. Do you understand?"

The slave rolled her eyes, but nodded. She might have defied theCaptain-General, but not one of the Fawcetts. 

There were two hours before dark. Rachael was conscious of every nervein her body, and paced up and down the long line of rooms whichterminated in the library, until Alexander's legs were worn out trottingafter her, and he fell asleep on the floor. Twice she went to the roofto look for Hamilton's sloop, but saw not a sail on the sea; and thestreets of Charles Town were packed with negroes. England sent nosoldiers to protect her Islands, and every free male between boyhood andold age was forced by law to join the militia. It was doubtful if therewere a dozen muscular white men on Nevis that night, for the birthday ofa Governor was a fête of hilarities. Unless the militia returned thatnight, the blacks, if they really were plotting vengeance, and she knewtheir superstitions, would have burned every house and cane-field beforemorning. 

The brief twilight passed. The mist rolled down from the heights ofNevis. Rachael, with Alexander in her arms, and followed by her maids, stole along the shore through the thick cocoanut groves, meeting no one. They were far from the town's centre, and all the blacks on the Islandseemed to be gathered there. The boat was beached, and it took thecombined efforts of the three women to launch it. When they pushed off, the roar of the breakers and the heavy mist covered their flight. Butthere was another danger, and the very physical strength of the slavesdeparted before it. They had rowed their mistress about the roadsteadbefore St. Kitts a hundred times, but the close proximity of the reef soterrified them that Rachael was obliged to take the oars; while Floracaught Alexander in so convulsive an embrace that he awoke and protestedwith all the vigour of his lungs. His mother's voice, to which he waspeculiarly susceptible, hushed him, and he held back his own, althoughthe gasping bosom on which he rested did not tend to soothe a nervouschild. But there were other ways of expressing outraged feelings, and hekicked like a little steer. 

Rachael herself was not too sure of her knowledge of the dangerouschannel, although she had crossed it many times with Hamilton; and themist was floating across to St. Kitts. The hollow boom of the reefseemed so close that she expected to hear teeth in the boat everymoment, and she knew that far and wide the narrows bristled. Shewondered if her hair were turning white, and her straining nervesquivered for a moment with a feminine regret; for she knew the power ofher beauty over Hamilton. But her arms kept their strength. Life hadtaught her to endure more than a half-hour of mortal anxiety. 

She reached the shore in safety, and Esther recovered her muscle andagreed to run to the overlooker's house and send him, on his fleetesthorse, with her mistress's note to the Governor of Nevis. When theothers reached the house, a mile from the Narrows, the man had gone; andRachael could do no more. The overlookers wife mulled wine, and themaids were soon asleep. Alexander refused to go to bed, and Rachael, whowas not in a disciplinary mood, led him out into the open to watch forthe boats of the Governor and his militia. There was no moon; they couldcross and land near Hamilton's house and overpower, without discharginga gun, the negroes packed in Charles Town. If the Governor were prompt, the blacks, even had they dispersed to fire the estates, would not havetime for havoc; and she knew the tendency of the negro to procrastinate. They did not expect the Governor until late on the following day; theycould drink all night and light their torches at dawn when Nevis washeavy in her last sleep. Nevertheless, Rachael watched the Islandanxiously. 

Fortunately, Alexander possessed an inquiring mind, and she was obligedto answer so many questions that the strain was relieved. They walkedamidst a wild and dismal scene. The hills were sterile and black. Thesalt ponds, sunken far below the level of the sea, from lack of rain, glittered white, but they were set with aloes and manchineel, and therewere low and muddy flats to be avoided. It was a new aspect of nature tothe child who had lived his four years amid the gay luxuriance of tropicverdure, and he was mightily interested. Nevertheless, it was a longhour before the overlooker returned with word that the Governor was onhis way to Nevis with the militia of both Islands--for St. Kitts wasquiet, its negroes having taken the drouth philosophically--and that herhusband was with them. He had arrived at Basseterre as the boats wereleaving; as a member of the Governor's staff, he had no choice. He hadsent her word, however, not to return to Nevis that night; and Rachaeland Alexander went down to the extreme point of the Island and sat therethrough a cold night of bitter anxiety. With the dawn Hamilton came forthem. 

The negroes, surprised and overwhelmed, had surrendered withoutresistance, and before they had left the town. They confessed that theirintention had been to murder every white on the Island, seize theammunition which was stored on the estates, and fire upon the militia asit passed, on the following day. The ringleaders and obeah doctors wereeither publicly executed or punished with such cruelty that the othermalcontents were too cowed to plan another rebellion; and the abundantrains of the following autumn restored their faith in the white man. 

III

When Alexander was five years old, James arrived, an object of muchinterest to his elder brother, but a child of ordinary parts to mostbeholders. He came during the last days of domestic tranquillity; for itwas but a few weeks later that Hamilton was obliged to announce toRachael that his fortunes, long tottering, had collapsed to their rottenfoundations. It was some time before she could accommodate herunderstanding to the fact that there was nothing left, for even Levinehad not dared to lose his money, far less her own; and had she evergiven the subject of wealth a thought, she would have assumed that ithad roots in certain families which no adverse circumstance coulddeplace. She had overheard high words between Archibald Hamn and herhusband in the library, but Hamilton's casual explanations had satisfiedher, and she had always disliked Archibald as a possible stepfather. Dr. Hamilton had frequently looked grave after a conversation with hiskinsman, but Rachael was too unpractical to attribute his heavier moodsto anything but his advancing years. 

When Hamilton made her understand that they were penniless, and that hisonly means of supporting her was to accept an offer from Peter Lytton totake charge of a cattle estate on St. Croix, Rachael's controllingsensation was dismay that this man whom she had idolized and idealized, who was the forgiven cause of her remarkable son's illegitimacy, was afailure in his competition with other men. Money would come somehow, italways had; but Hamilton dethroned, shoved out of the ranks of plantersand merchants, reduced to the status of one of his own overlookers, almost was a new and strange being, and she dared not bid forth herhiding thoughts. 

Fortunately the details of moving made life impersonal and commonplace. The three slaves whose future had been the last concern but one of MaryFawcett, were sent, wailing, to Archibald Hamn. Two of the others wereretained to wait upon the children, the rest sold with the old mahoganyfurniture and the library. The Hamiltons set sail for St. Croix on a dayin late April. The sympathy of their friends had been expressed in morethan one offer of a lucrative position, but Hamilton was intenselyproud, and too mortified at his failure to remain obscure among a peoplewho had been delighted to accept his princely and exclusive hospitality. On St. Croix he was almost unknown. 

They made the voyage in thirty-two hours, but as the slaves were ill, after the invariable habit of their colour, Rachael had little respitefrom her baby, or Hamilton from Alexander, whose restless legs andenterprising mind kept him in constant motion; and the day began at fiveo'clock. There was no opportunity for conversation, and Hamilton wasgrateful to the miserable mustees. He had the tact to let his wifereadjust herself to her damaged idols without weak excuses and apleading which would have distressed her further, but he was glad to bespared intimate conversation with her. 

As they sailed into the bright green waters before Frederikstadt, thesun blazed down upon the white town on the white plain with a viciousenergy which Rachael had never seen on Nevis during the hottest and mostsilent months of the year. She closed her eyes and longed for the coolshallows of the harbour, and even Alexander ceased to watch the flyingfish dart like silver blades over the water, and was glad to be stowedcomfortably into one of the little deck-houses. As for the slaves, weakened by illness, they wept and refused to gather themselvestogether. 

But Rachael's soul, which had felt faint for many days, rose triumphantin the face of this last affliction. Like all West Indians, she hatedextreme heat, and during those months on her own Islands when the tradeshibernated, rarely left the house. She remembered little of St. Croix. Her imagination had disassociated itself from all connected with it, butnow it burst into hideous activity and pictured interminable years ofscorching heat and blinding glare. For a moment she descended to theverge of hysteria, from which she struggled with so mighty an effortthat it vitalized her spirit for the ordeal of her new life; and whenHamilton, cursing himself, came to assist her to land, she was able toremark that she recalled the beauty of Christianstadt, and toanathematize her sea-green maids. 

The trail of Spain is over all the islands, and on St. Croix has leftits picturesque mark in the heavy arcades which front the houses in thetowns. Behind these arcades one can pass from street to street withbrief egress into the awful downpour of the sun, and they give to bothtowns an effect of architectural beauty. At that time palms andcocoanuts grew in profusion along the streets of Frederikstadt and inthe gardens, tempering the glare of the sun on the coral. 

Peter Lytton's coach awaited the Hamiltons, and at six o'clock theystarted for their new home. The long driveway across the Island was setwith royal palms, beyond which rolled vast fields of cane. St. Croix wasapproaching the height of her prosperity, and almost every inch of herfertile acres was under cultivation. They rolled up and over every hill, the heavy stone houses, with their negro hamlets and mills, rising likehalf-submerged islands, unless they crowned a height. The roads swarmedwith Africans, who bowed profoundly to the strangers in the fine coach, grinning an amiable welcome. Surrounded by so generous a suggestion ofhospitality and plenty, with the sun low in the west, the spirits of thetravellers rose, and Rachael thought with more composure upon themorrow's encounter with her elder sisters. She knew them very slightly, their husbands less. When her connection with Hamilton began, correspondence between them had ceased; but like others they hadaccepted the relation, and for the last three years Hamilton had been awelcome guest at their houses when business took him to St. Croix. Mrs. Lytton had been the first to whom he had confided his impending failure, and she, remembering her mother's last letter and profoundly pitying theyoung sister who seemed marked for misfortune, had persuaded her husbandto offer Hamilton the management of his grazing estates on the easternend of the Island. She wrote to Rachael, assuring her of welcome, andreminding her that her story was unknown on St. Croix, that she would beaccepted without question as Hamilton's wife and their sister. ButRachael knew that the truth would come out as soon as they had attractedthe attention of their neighbours, and she had seen enough of the worldto be sure that what people tolerated in the wealthy they censured inthe unimportant. To depend upon her sisters' protection instead of herown lifelong distinction, galled her proud spirit. For the first timeshe understood how powerless Hamilton was to protect her. The glamour ofthat first year when nothing mattered was gone for ever. She had twochildren, one of them uncommon, and they were to encounter life withoutname or property. True, Levine might die, or Hamilton make somebrilliant coup, but she felt little of the buoyancy of hope as they leftthe cane-fields and drove among the dark hills to their new home. 

The house and outbuildings were on a high eminence, surrounded on threesides by hills. Below was a lagoon, which was separated from the sea bya deep interval of tidal mud set thick with mangroves. The outletthrough this swamp was so narrow that a shark which had found its way inwhen young had grown too large to return whence he came, and was thesolitary and discontented inhabitant of the lagoon. The next morningRachael, rising early and walking on the terrace with Alexander, washorrified to observe him warming his white belly in the sun. On threesides of the lagoon was a thick grove of manchineels, hung with theirdeadly apples; here and there a palm, which drooped as if in discordwith its neighbours. It was an uncheerful place for a woman with terrorand tumult in her soul, but the house was large and had been madecomfortable by her brother-in-laws' slaves. 

Mrs. Lytton and Mrs. Mitchell drove over for the eleven o'clockbreakfast. They were very kind, but they were many years older than theyoungest of their family, proudly conscious of their virtue, uncomprehending of the emotions which had nearly wrenched Rachael's soulfrom her body more than once. Moreover, Mrs. Mitchell was the physicalimage of Mary Fawcett without the inheritance of so much as the oldlady's temper; and there were moments, as she sat chattering amiablywith Alexander, with whom she immediately fell in love, when Rachaelcould have flown at and throttled her because she was not her mother. Mrs. Lytton was delicate and nervous, but more reserved, and Rachaelliked her better. Nevertheless, she was heartily glad to be rid of bothof them, and reflected with satisfaction that she was to live on themost isolated part of the Island. She had begged them to ask no one tocall, and for months she saw little of anybody except her family. 

Her household duties were many, and she was forced at once to alter herlifelong relation to domestic economics. Hamilton's salary was sixhundred pieces of eight, and for a time the keeping of accounts and theplans for daily disposal of the small income furnished almost the onlysubjects of conversation between her husband and herself. His dutieskept him on horseback during all but the intolerable hours of the day, and until their new life had become a commonplace they were fortunatein seeing little of each other. 

Alexander long since had upset his father's purpose to defer the openingof his mind until the age of seven. He had taught himself the rudimentsof education by such ceaseless questioning of both his parents that theywere glad to set him a daily task and keep him at it as long aspossible. In this new home he had few resources besides his little booksand his mother, who gave him all her leisure. There were no whiteplaymates, and he was not allowed to go near the lagoon, lest the sharkget him or he eat of forbidden fruit. Just after his sixth birthday, however, several changes occurred in his life: Peter Lytton sent him apony, his father killed the shark and gave him a boat, and he made theacquaintance of the Rev. Hugh Knox. 

This man, who was to play so important a part in the life of AlexanderHamilton, was himself a personality. At this time but little overthirty, he had, some years since, come to the West Indies with aclassical library and a determination to rescue the planters from thathell which awaits those who drowse through life in a clime where it isalways summer when it is not simply and blazingly West Indian. He soonthrew the mantle of charity over the patient planters, and became theboon companion of many; but he made converts and was mightily proud ofthem. His was the zeal of the converted. When he arrived in the UnitedStates, in 1753, young, fresh from college, enthusiastic, and handsome, he found favour at once in the eyes of the Rev. Dr. Rogers of Middletownon the Delaware, to whom he had brought a letter of introduction. Through the influence of this eminent divine, he obtained a school andmany friends. The big witty Irishman was a welcome guest at the populartavern, and was not long establishing himself as the leader of itshilarities. He was a peculiarly good mimic, and on Saturday nights hisboon companions fell into the habit of demanding his impersonation ofsome character locally famous. One night he essayed a reproduction ofDr. Rogers, then one of the most celebrated men of his cloth. Knoxrehearsed the sermon of the previous Sunday, not only with all thedivine's peculiarity of gesture and inflection, but almost word forword; for his memory was remarkable. At the start his listenersapplauded violently, then subsided into the respectful silence they werewont to accord Dr. Rogers; at the finish they stole out without a word. As for Knox, he sat alone, overwhelmed with the powerful sermon he hadrepeated, and by remorse for his own attempted levity. His emotionalCeltic nature was deeply impressed. A few days later he disappeared, andwas not heard of again until, some months after, Dr. Rogers learned thathe was the guest of the Rev. Aaron Burr at Newark, and studying for thechurch. He was ordained in due course, converted his old companions, then set sail for St. Croix. 

Hamilton met him at Peter Lytton's, talked with him the day through, andcarried him home to dinner. After that he became little less than aninmate of the household; a room was furnished for him, and when he didnot occupy it, he rode over several times a week. His books litteredevery table and shelf. 

Alexander was his idol, and he was the first to see that the boy wassomething more than brilliant. Hamilton had accepted his son'scleverness as a matter of course, and Rachael, having a keen contemptfor fatuous mothers, hardly had dared admit to herself that her son wasto other boys as a star to pebbles. When Knox, who had undertaken hiseducation at once, assured her that he must distinguish himself if helived, probably in letters, life felt almost fresh again, although sheregretted his handicap the more bitterly. As for Knox, his patience wasinexhaustible. Alexander would have everything resolved into itselements, and was merciless in his demand for information, no matterwhat the thermometer. He had no playmates until he was nine, and by thattime he had much else to sober him. Of the ordinary pleasures ofchildhood he had scant knowledge. 

Rachael wondered at the invariable sunniness of his nature, --save whenhe flew into a rage, --for under the buoyancy of her own had always beena certain melancholy. Before his birth she had gone to the extremes ofhappiness and grief, her normal relation to life almost forgotten. Butthe sharpened nerves of the child manifested themselves in acutesensibilities and an extraordinary precocity of intellect, never inmorbid or irritable moods. He was excitable, and had a high andsometimes furious temper, but even his habit of study never extinguishedhis gay and lively spirits. On the other hand, beneath the surfacesparkle of his mind was a British ruggedness and tenacity, and astubborn oneness of purpose, whatever might be the object, with which nolighter mood interfered. All this Rachael lived long enough to discoverand find compensation in, and as she mastered the duties of her new lifeshe companioned the boy more and more. James was a good butuninteresting baby, who made few demands upon her, and was satisfiedwith his nurse. She never pretended to herself that she loved him as shedid Alexander, for aside from the personality of her first-born, he wasthe symbol and manifest of her deepest living. 

Although Rachael was monotonously conscious of the iron that had impaledher soul, she was not quite unhappy at this time, and she never ceasedto love Hamilton. Whatever his lacks and failures, nothing could destroyhis fascination as a man. His love for her, although tranquillized bytime, was still strong enough to keep alive his desire' to please her, and he thought of her as his wife always. He felt the change in her, andhis soul rebelled bitterly at the destruction of his pedestal and halo, and all that fiction had meant to both of them; but he respected herreserve, and the subject never came up between them. He knew that shenever would love any one else, that she still loved him passionately, despite the shattered ideal of him; and he consoled himself with thereflection that even in giving him less than her entire store, she gavehim, merely by being herself, more than he had thought to find in anywoman. His courteous attentions to her had never relaxed, and in timethe old companionship was resumed; they read and discussed as in theirother home; but this their little circle was widened by two, Alexanderand Hugh Knox. The uninterrupted intimacy of their first years was notto be resumed. 

They saw little of the society of St. Croix. In 1763 Christiana Huggins, visiting the Peter Lyttons, married her host's brother, James, andsettled on the Island. She drove occasionally to the lonely estate inthe east, but she had a succession of children and little time for oldduties. Rachael exchanged calls at long intervals with her sisters andtheir intimate friends, the Yards, Lillies, Crugers, Stevens, Langs, andGoodchilds, but she had been too great a lady to strive now for socialposition, practically dependent as she was on the charity of herrelatives. 

IV

In the third year of their life on St. Croix, Rachael discovered thatPeter Lytton was dissatisfied with Hamilton, and retained him to his owndetriment, out of sympathy for herself and her children. From that timeshe had few tranquil moments. It was as if, like the timid in thehurricane season, she sat constantly with ears strained for that firstloud roar in the east. She realized then that the sort of upheaval whichshatters one's economic life is but the precursor of other upheavals, and she thought on the unknown future until her strong soul was faintagain. 

Hamilton was one of those men whose gifts are ruined by their impulses, in whom the cultivation of sober judgement is interrupted by theexcesses of a too sanguine temperament. He was honourable, and alwayswilling to admit his mistakes, but years and repeated failure did littletoward balancing his faults and virtues. In time he wore out thepatience of even those who loved and admired him. His wife remained hisone loyal and unswerving friend, but her part in his life was near itsfinish. The day came when Peter Lytton, exasperated once too often, after an ill-considered sale of valuable stock, let fly his temper, andfurther acceptance of his favour was out of the question. Hamilton, after a scene with his wife, in which his agony and remorse quickenedall the finest passions in her own nature, sailed for the Island of St. Vincent, in the hope of finding employment with one of his formerbusiness connections. He had no choice but to leave his wife andchildren dependent upon her relatives until he could send for them; anda week later Rachael was forced to move to Peter Lytton's. 

Her brother-in-law's house was very large. She was given an upstairswing of it and treated with much consideration, but this final ignominybroke her haughty spirit, and she lost interest in herself. She wasthankful that her children were not to grow up in want, that Alexanderwas able to continue his studies with Hugh Knox. He was beyond her nowin everything but French, in which they read and talked together daily. She also discussed constantly with him those heroes of historydistinguished not only for great achievements, but for sternest honour. She dreamed of his future greatness, and sometimes of her part in it. But her inner life was swathed like a mummy. 

To Alexander the change would have been welcome had he understood hismother less. But the ordinary bright boy of nine is acute and observing, and this boy of Rachael's, with his extraordinary intuitions, hisunboyish brain, his sympathetic and profound affection for his mother, felt with her and criticised his father severely. To him failure wasincomprehensible, then, as later, for self-confidence and indomitabilitywere parts of his equipment; and that a man of his father's age andexperience, to say nothing of his education and intellect, should sofail in the common relation of life, and break the heart and pride ofthe uncommonest of women, filled him with a deep disappointment, which, no doubt, was the first step toward the early loss of certain illusions. 

Otherwise his life was vastly improved. He soon became intimate withboys of neighbouring estates, Edward and Thomas Stevens, and BenjaminYard, and for a time they all studied together under Hugh Knox. At firstthere was discord, for Alexander would have led a host of cherubims orhad naught to do with them, and these boys were clever and spirited. There were rights of word and fist in the lee of Mr. Lytton's barn, where interference was unlikely; but the three succumbed speedily, notalone to the powerful magnetism in little Hamilton's mind, and to hisactive fists, but because he invariably excited passionate attachment, unless he encountered jealous hate. When his popularity with these boyswas established they adored the very blaze of his temper, and when heformed them into a soldier company and marched them up and down the palmavenue for a morning at a time, they never murmured, although they werelike to die of the heat and unaccustomed exertion. Neddy Stevens, whoresembled him somewhat in face, was the closest of these boyhoodfriends. 

Alexander was a great favourite with Mr. Lytton, who took him to rideevery morning; Mrs. Lytton preferred James, who was a comfortable childto nurse; but Mrs. Mitchell was the declared slave of her lively nephew, and sent her coach for him on Saturday mornings. As for Hugh Knox, henever ceased to whittle at the boy's ambition and point it toward agreat place in modern letters. Had he been born with less sound senseand a less watchful mother, it is appalling to think what a brat hewould have been; but as it was, the spoiling but fostered aself-confidence which was half the battle in after years. 

Hamilton never returned. His letters to his wife spoke always of thehappiness of their final reunion, of belief in the future. His brothershad sent him money, and he hoped they would help him to recover hisfortunes. But two years passed and he was still existing on a smallsalary, his hopes and his impassioned tenderness were stereotyped. Rachael's experience with Hamilton had developed her insight. She knewthat man requires woman to look after her own fuel. If she cannot, hemay carry through life the perfume of a sentiment, and a tender regret, but it grows easy and more easy to live without her. It was a long whilebefore she forced her penetrating vision round to the certainty that shenever should see Hamilton again, and then she realized how strong hopehad been, that her interest in herself was not dead, that her love mustremain quick through interminable years of monotony and humiliation. Fora time she was so alive that she went close to killing herself, but shefought it out as she had fought through other desperate crises, andwrenched herself free of her youth, to live for the time when her son'sgenius should lift him so high among the immortals that his birth wouldmatter as little as her own hours of agony. But the strength thatcarried her triumphantly through that battle was fed by the last of hervitality, and it was not long before she knew that she must die. 

Alexander knew it first. The change in his mother was so sudden, theearthen hue of her white skin, the dimming of her splendid eyes, spokeso unmistakably of some strange collapse of the vital forces, that itseemed to the boy who worshipped her as if all the noises of theUniverse were shrieking his anguish. At the same time he fought for animpassive exterior, then bolted from the house and rode across theIsland for a doctor. The man came, prescribed for a megrim, andAlexander did not call him again; nor did he mention his mother'scondition to the rest of the family. She was in the habit of remainingin her rooms for weeks at a time, and she had her own attendants. Mrs. Lytton was an invalid, and Peter Lytton, while ready to give of hisbounty to his wife's sister, had too little in common with Rachael toseek her companionship. Alexander felt the presence of death too surelyto hope, and was determined to have his mother to himself during thetime that remained. He confided in Hugh Knox, then barely left theapartments. 

Just before her collapse Rachael was still a beautiful woman. She wasonly thirty-two when she died. Her face, except when she forced herbrain to activity, was sad and worn, but the mobile beauty of thefeatures was unimpaired, and her eyes were luminous, even at theirdarkest. Her head was always proudly erect, and nature had given her agrace and a dash which survived broken fortunes and the death of hercoquetry. No doubt this is the impression of her which Alexander carriedthrough life, for those last two months passed to the sound of fallingruins, on which he was too sensible to dwell when they had gone into thecontrol of his will. 

After she had admitted to Alexander that she understood her condition, they seldom alluded to the subject, although their conversation was asrarely impersonal. The house stood high, and Rachael's windows commandedone of the most charming views on the Island. Below was the greenvalley, with the turbaned women moving among the cane, then the longwhite road with its splendid setting of royal palms, winding past a hillwith groves of palms, marble fountains and statues, terraces coveredwith hibiscus and orchid, and another Great House on its summit. Far tothe right, through an opening in the hills, was a glimpse of the sea. 

Rachael lay on a couch in a little balcony during much of the softwinter day, and talked to Alexander of her mother and her youth, finallyof his father, touching lightly on the almost forgotten episode withLevine. All that she did not say his creative brain divined, and whenshe told him what he had long suspected, that his mother's name wasunknown to the Hamiltons of Grange, he accepted the fact as but one moreobstacle to be overthrown in the battle with life which he had longknown he was to fight unaided. To criticise his mother never occurred tohim; her control of his heart and imagination was too absolute. His onlyregret was that she could not live until he was able to justify her. Theaudacity and boldness of his nature were stimulated by the prospect ofthis sharp battle with the world's most cherished convention, and he wasfully aware of all that he owed to his mother. When he told her this shesaid:--

"I regret nothing, even though it has brought me to this. In the firstplace, it is not in me to do anything so futile. In the second place, Ihave been permitted to live in every part of my nature, and how manywomen can say that? In the third, you are in the world, and if I couldlive I should see you the honoured of all men. I die with regret becauseyou need me for many years to come, and I have suffered so much that Inever could suffer again. Remember always that you are to be a greatman, not merely a successful one. Your mind and your will are capable ofall things. Never try for the second best, and that means to put yourimmediate personal desire aside when it encounters one of the ideals ofyour time. Unless you identify yourself with the great principles of theworld you will be a failure, because your mind is created in harmonywith them, and if you use it for smaller purposes it will fail as surelyas if it tried to lie or steal. Your passions are violent, and you havea blackness of hate in you which will ruin you or others according tothe control you acquire over it; so be warned. But you never can failthrough any of the ordinary defects of character. You are too bold andindependent to lie, even if you had been born with any such disposition;you are honourable and tactful, and there is as little doubt of yourfascination and your power over others. But remember--use all thesegreat forces when your ambition is hottest, then you can stumble upon nosecond place. As for your heart, it will control your head sometimes, but your insatiable brain will accomplish so much that it can afford tolose occasionally; and the warmth of your nature will make you so manyfriends, that I draw from it more strength to die than from all yourother gifts. Leave this Island as soon as you can. Ah, if I could giveyou but a few thousands to force the first doors!"

She died on the 25th of February, 1768. Her condition had been known forsome days, and her sisters had shed many tears, aghast and deeplyimpressed at the tragic fate of this youngest, strangest, and mostgifted of their father's children. Unconsciously they had expected herto do something extraordinary, and it was yet too soon to realize thatshe had. His aunts had announced far and wide that Alexander was thebrightest boy on the Island, but that a nation lay folded in his saucyaudacious brain they hardly could be expected to know. 

V

The Great House of Peter Lytton was hung with white from top to bottom, and every piece of furniture looked as if the cold wing of death hadtouched it. A white satin gown, which had come from London for Rachaelsix years before, --just too late, for she never went to a ballagain, --was taken from her mahogany press and wrapped about her wastedbody. Her magnificent hair was put out of sight in a cap of blond lace. 

The fashionable world of St. Croix, which had seen little of Rachael inlife, came to the ceremonious exit of her body. They sat along the foursides of the large drawing-room, looking like a black dado against thewhite walls, and the Rev. Cecil Wray Goodchild, the pastor of the largernumber of that sombre flock, sonorously read the prayers for the dead. Hugh Knox felt that his was the right to perform that ceremony; but hewas a Presbyterian, and Peter Lytton was not one of his converts. He wasthere, however, and so were several Danes, whose colourless faces andheads completed the symbolization encircling the coffin. People ofNevis, St. Christopher, and St. Croix were there, the sisters born ofthe same mother, a kinsman of Hamilton's, himself named James Hamilton, these bleached people of the North, whose faces, virtuous as they were, would have seemed to the dead woman to shed the malignant aura ofLevine's, --and the boy for whom the sacrificial body had been laid onthe altar. He paid his debt in wretchedness then and there, and stood bythe black pall which covered his mother, feeling a hundred years olderthan the brother who sat demurely on Mrs. Lytton's agitated lap. 

When Mr. Goodchild closed his book, the slave women entered with silverpitchers containing mulled wines, porter mixed with sugar and spice, madeira, and port wine. Heaped high on silver salvers were pastries and"dyer bread, " wrapped in white paper sealed with black wax. The guestsrefreshed themselves deeply, then followed the coffin, which was borneon the shoulders of the dead woman's brothers and their closestfriends, across the valley to the private burying-ground of the Lyttons. Old James Lytton was placed beside her in the following year, and tenyears later a child of Christiana Huggins, the wife of his son. The canegrows above their graves to-day. 

VI

Alexander went home with Mrs. Mitchell, and it was long before hereturned to Peter Lytton's. His favourite aunt was delighted to get him, and her husband, for whom Alexander had no love, was shortly to sail onone of his frequent voyages. 

Mrs. Mitchell had a winter home in Christianstadt, for she loved the gaylife of the little capital, and her large house, on the corner of Kingand Strand streets, was opened almost as often as Government House. Thispile, with its imposing façade, represented to her the fulfilment ofworldly ambitions and splendour. There was nothing to compare with it onNevis or St. Kitts, nor yet on St. Thomas; and her imagination or memorygave her nothing in Europe to rival it. When Government House was closedshe felt as if the world were eating bread and cheese. The Danes werenot only the easiest and most generous of rulers, but they entertainedwith a royal contempt of pieces of eight, and their adopted children hadneither the excuse nor the desire to return to their native isles. 

Christianstadt, although rising straight from the harbour, has thepicturesque effect of a high mountain-village. As the road across theIsland finds its termination in King Street, the perceptible decline andthe surrounding hills, curving in a crescent to the unseen shore a mileaway, create the illusion. On the left the town straggles away in anirregular quarter for the poor, set thick with groves of cocoanut andpalm. On the right, and parallel with the main road, is Company Street, and above is the mountain studded with great white stone houses, softened by the lofty roofs of the royal palm. All along King Street themassive houses stand close together, each with its arcade and itscurious outside staircase of stone which leads to an upper balcony whereone may catch the breeze and watch the leisures of tropic life. Almostevery house has a court opening into a yard surrounded by theoverhanging balconies of three sides of the building; and here theguinea fowl screech their matins, the roosters crow all night, there isalways a negro asleep under a cocoanut tree, and a flame of colour frompotted plants. 

Down by the sea is the red fort, built on a bluff, and commanding aharbour beautiful to look upon, with its wooded island, its sharp highpoints, its sombre swamps covered with lacing mangroves, but locked fromall the world but that which can come in sailing ships, by the coralreef on which so many craft have gone to pieces. 

From Alexander's high window in Thomas Mitchell's house, he could seethe lively Park behind the Fort; the boats sail over from the blue peaksof St. Thomas and St. John, the long white line of the sounding reef. Above the walls of Government House was the high bold curve of themountain with its dazzling façades, its glitter of green. In the KingStreet of that day gentlemen in knee breeches and lace shirts, theirhair in a powdered queue, were as familiar objects as turbaned blacksand Danes in uniform. After riding over their plantations "to hear thecane grow, " they almost invariably brought up in town to talk overprospects with the merchants, or to meet each other at some more jovialresort. Sometimes they came clattering down the long road in a coach andfour, postilions shouting at the pic'nees in the road, swerving, andhalting so suddenly in some courtyard, that only a planter, accustomedto this emotional method of travel, could keep his seat. Ordinarily hepreferred his horse, perhaps because it told no tales. 

Thomas Mitchell had made his large fortune in the traffic of slaves, andwas on terms of doubtful courtesy with Peter Lytton, who disapproved theindustry. Blacks were by no means his only source of revenue; he hadone of the two large general stores of the Island--the other wasNicholas Cruger's--and plantations of cane, whose yield in sugar, molasses, and rum never failed him. He was not a pleasing man in hisfamily, and did not extend the hospitality of its roof to Alexander witha spontaneous warmth. His own children were married, and he did not lookback upon the era of mischievous boys with sufficient enthusiasm toprompt him to adopt another. He yielded to his wife's volublesupplications because domestic harmony was necessary to his content, andMistress Mitchell had her ways of upsetting it. Alexander wasimmediately too busy with his studies to pay attention to theindifferent grace with which Mr. Mitchell accepted his lot, and, fortunately, this industrious merchant was much away from home. HughKnox, as the surest means of diverting the boy from his grief, put himat his books the day after he arrived in Christianstadt. His own housewas on Company Street, near the woods out of which the town seemed tospring; and in his cool library he gathered his boys daily, and crammedtheir brains with Latin and mathematics. The boys had met at PeterLytton's before, but Knox easily persuaded them to the new arrangement, which was as grateful to him--he was newly married--as to Alexander. When the lessons were over he gave his favourite pupil a book and aneasy-chair, or made experiments in chemistry with him until it was coolenough to ride or row. In the evening Alexander had his difficultlessons to prepare, and when he tumbled into bed at midnight he was toohealthy not to sleep soundly. He spent two days of every week with hisfriend Ned Stevens, on a plantation where there were lively people andmany horses. Gradually the heaviness of his grief sank of its weight, the buoyancy and vivacity of his mind were released, the eager sparklereturned to his eyes. He did not cease to regret his mother, norpassionately to worship her memory; but he was young, the future was anunresting magnet to his ambitious mind, devoted friends did theirutmost, and his fine strong brain, eager for novelty and knowledge, opened to new impressions, closed with inherent philosophy to what wasbeyond recall. So passed Rachael Levine. 

A year later his second trial befell him. Ned Stevens, the adored, setsail for New York to complete his education at King's College. Alexanderstrained his eyes after the sails of the ship for an hour, then burstunceremoniously into the presence of Hugh Knox. 

"Tell me quick, " he exclaimed; "how can I make two thousand pieces ofeight? I must go to college. Why didn't my uncles send me with Neddy? Hehad no wish to go. He swore all day yesterday at the prospect of sixyears of hard work and no more excuses for laziness. I am wild to go. Why could it not have been I?"

"That's a curious way the world has, and you'll be too big a philosopherin a few years to ask questions like that. If you want the truth, I'vewrangled with Peter Lytton, --it's no use appealing to Tom Mitchell, --buthe's a bit close, as you know, when it actually comes to putting hishand in his pocket. He didn't send any of his own sons to New York orEngland, and never could see why anyone else did. Schooling, of course, and he always had a tutor and a governess out from England; but what thedevil does a planter want of a college education? I argued that Icouldn't for the life of me see the makings of a planter in you, butthat by fishing industriously among your intellects I'd found a certainamount of respectable talent, and I thought it needed more training thanI could give it; that I was nearing the end of my rope, in fact. Then heasked me what a little fellow like you would do with a college educationafter you got it, for he couldn't stand the idea of you trying to earnyour living in a foreign city, where there was ice and snow on theground in winter; and when I suggested that you might stay on in thecollege and teach, if you were afraid of being run over or frozen todeath in the street, he said there was no choice between a miserableteacher's life and a planter's, and he'd leave you enough land to startyou in life. I cursed like a planter, and left the house. But he lovesyou, and if you plead with him he might give way. "

"I'd do anything else under heaven that was reasonable to get to NewYork but ask any man for money. Peter Lytton knows that I want learningmore than all the other boys on this island; and if I'm little, I'vebroken in most of his colts and have never hesitated to fight. He findshis pathos in his purse. Why can't I make two thousand pieces of eight?"

"You'd be so long at it, poor child, that it would be too late to entercollege; for there's a long apprenticeship to serve before you get asalary. But you must go. I've thought, thought about it, and I'll thinkmore. " He almost wished he had not married; but as he had no other causeto regret his venture, even his interest in young Hamilton did not urgehim to deprive his little family of the luxuries so necessary in theWest Indies. Economy on his salary would mean a small house instead oflarge rooms where one could forget the heat; curtailment of thevoluminous linen wardrobes so soon demolished on the stones of theriver; surrender of coach and horses. He trusted to a moment of suddeninsight on the part of Peter Lytton, assisted by his own eloquentargument; and his belief in Alexander's destiny never wavered. Once heapproached Mrs. Mitchell, for he knew she had money of her own; but, ashe had expected, she went into immediate hysterics at the suggestion topart with her idol, and he hastily retreated. 

Alexander turned over every scheme of making money his fertile brainconceived, and went so far as to ask his aunt to send him to New York, where he could work in one of the West Indian houses, and attend collegeby some special arrangement. He, too, retreated before Mrs. Mitchell'sagitation, but during the summer another cause drove him to work, andwithout immediate reference to the wider education. 

Mr. Mitchell was laid up with the gout and spent the summer on hisplantation. His slaves fled at the sound of his voice, his wife weptincessantly at this the heaviest of her life's trials, and it was notlong before Alexander was made to feel his dependence so keenly by theirascible planter that he leaped on his horse one day and galloped fivemiles under the hot sun to Lytton's Fancy. 

"I want to work, " he announced, with his usual breathless impetuositywhen excited, bursting in upon Mr. Lytton, who was mopping his faceafter his siesta. "Put me at anything. I don't care what, except inUncle Mitchell's store. I won't work for him. "

Mr. Lytton laughed with some satisfaction. "So you two have come tologgerheads? Tom Mitchell, well, is insufferable. With gout in him hemust bristle with every damnable trait in the human category. Come backand live with me, " he added, in a sudden burst of sympathy, for the boylooked hot and tired and dejected; and his diminutive size appealedalways to Peter Lytton, who was six feet two. "You're a fine littlechap, but I doubt you're strong enough for hard work, and you love yourbooks. Come here and read all day if you like. When you're grown I'llmake you manager of all my estates. Gad! I'd be glad of an honest one!The last time I went to England, that devil, Tom Collins, drank everybottle of my best port, smashed my furniture, broke the wind of everyhorse I had, and kept open house for every scamp and loafer on theIsland, or that came to port. How old are you--twelve? I'll turneverything over to you in three years. You've more sense now than anyboy I ever saw. Three years hence, if you continue to improve, you'll bea man, and I'll be only too glad to put the whole thing in your hands. "

Alexander struggled with an impulse to ask his uncle to send him tocollege, but not only did pride strike at the words, but he reflectedwith some cynicism that the affection he inspired invariably expresseditself in blatant selfishness, and that he might better appeal to theenemies he had made to send him from the Island. He shook his head. 

"I'll remain idle no longer, " he said. "I'm tired of eating bread that'sgiven me. I'd rather eat yours than his, but I've made up my mind towork. What can you find for me now?"

"You are too obstinate to argue with in August. Cruger wants a reliableclerk. I heard him say so yesterday. He'll take you if I say the word, and give you a little something in the way of salary. "

"I like Mr. Cruger, " said Alexander, eagerly, "and so did my mother. "

"He's a kind chap, but he'll work you to death, for he's always in afunk that Tom Mitchell'll get ahead of him. But you cannot do better. Ihave no house in town, but you can ride the distance between here andChristianstadt night and morning, if my estimable brother-in-law--whommay the gout convince of his sins--is too much for you. "

But Alexander had no desire to return to the house where he had passedthose last terrible weeks with his mother, and Mrs. Mitchell begged himon her knees to forgive the invalid, and sent him to the house inChristianstadt, where he would be alone until December; by that time, please God, Tom Mitchell would be on his way to Jamaica. But Alexanderhad little further trouble with that personage. Mr. Mitchell had hissusceptibilities; he was charmed with a boy of twelve who was too proudto accept the charity of wealthy relatives and determined to make hisliving. Alexander entered Mr. Cruger's store in October. Mr. Mitchelldid not leave the Island again until the following spring, and moved totown in November. He and Alexander discussed the prospects of rum, molasses, and sugar, the price of mahogany, of oats, cheese, bread, andflour, the various Island and American markets, until Mrs. Mitchell leftthe table. Her husband proudly told his acquaintance that his nephew, Alexander Hamilton, was destined to become the cleverest merchant in theCaribbees. 

VII

But Alexander had small liking for his employment. He had as muchaffinity with the sordid routine of a general store and counting-houseas Tom Mitchell had with the angels. But pride and ambition carried himthrough most of the distasteful experiences of his life. He would comeshort in nothing, and at that tender age, when his relatives wereprepared to forgive his failures with good-humoured tact, he was willingto sacrifice even his books to clerical success. He soon discovered thathe had that order of mind which concentrates without effort upon whatever demands its powers, --masters the detail of it with incredibleswiftness. At first he was a general clerk, and attended to the loadingand unloading of Mr. Cruger's sloops; after a time he was madebookkeeper; it was not long before he was in charge of thecounting-house. He got back to his books in time--for business in theIslands finishes at four o'clock--and when he had learned all the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and mathematics Hugh Knox could teach him, he spent hisleisure hours with Pope, Plutarch, Shakespeare, Milton, Plato, and thefew other English poets and works of Greek philosophers which Knoxpossessed, as well as several abridged histories of England and Europe. These interested him more than aught else, purely literary as hisproclivities were supposed to be, and he read and reread them, andlonged for some huge work in twenty volumes which should reveal Europeto his searching vision. But this was when he was fourteen, and hadalmost forgotten what the life of a mere boy was like. Shortly after heentered Mr. Cruger's store he wrote his famous letter to young Stevens. It will bear republication here, and its stilted tone, so different fromthe concise simplicity of his business letters, was no doubt designed toproduce an effect on the mind of his more fortunate friend. He became amaster of style, and before he was twenty; but there is small indicationof the achievement in this letter, lovable as it is:--

 ST. CROIX, November 11, 1769. 

 DEAR EDWARD, This serves to acknowledge the receipt of yours per Capt. Lowndes, which was delivered me yesterday The truth of Capt. Lightbowen and Lowndes' information is now verified by the presence of your father and sister, for whose safe arrival I pray, and that they may convey that satisfaction to your soul, that must naturally flow from the sight of absent friends in health; and shall for news this way, refer you to them. 

 As to what you say, respecting your soon having the happiness of seeing us all, I wish for an accomplishment of your hopes, provided they are concomitant with your welfare, otherwise not; though doubt whether I shall be present or not, for to confess my weakness, Ned, my ambition is prevalent, so that I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk, or the like, to which my fortune condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station. I am confident, Ned, that my youth excludes me from any hopes of immediate preferment, nor do I desire it; but I mean to prepare the way for futurity. I'm no philosopher, you see, and may be justly said to build castles in the air; my folly makes me ashamed, and beg you'll conceal it; yet, Neddy, we have seen such schemes successful, when the projector is constant. I shall conclude by saying I wish there was a war. 

 I am, Dear Edward, Yours

 ALEX. HAMILTON. 

 P. S. I this moment received yours by William Smith, and pleased to see you give such close application to study. 

He hoped that in time Mr. Cruger would find it necessary to send him toNew York; but his employer found him too useful on St. Croix, andrecognized his abilities, not to the extent of advancing hisintellectual interests, but of taxing and developing his capacity forbusiness and its heavy responsibilities. In the following year he placedhim in temporary charge of his branch house, in Frederikstadt, andAlexander never wished for war so desperately as when he stood under thearcade on Bay Street and stared out at the shallow green roadstead andthe inimitable ocean beyond. Frederikstadt was a hamlet compared toChristianstadt, and unredeemed--the arcades excepting--by any of thecapital's architectural or natural beauty. Alexander believed it to bethe hottest, dullest, and most depressing spot on either hemisphere. Themerchants and other residents were astonished that Nicolas Cruger shouldsend a lad of thirteen to represent him in matters which involved largesums of money, but they recognized young Hamilton's ability even whilethey stared with some rudeness at the small figure in white linen, andthe keen but very boyish face. When they passed him under the arcades, and asked him what ship he expected to heave in sight, he was tempted tosay a man-of-war, but had no mind to reveal himself to the indifferent. He read from sundown until midnight or later, by the light of two longcandles protected from draughts and insects by curving glass chimneys. Mosquitoes tormented him and cockroaches as long as his hand ran overthe table; occasionally a land-crab rattled across the room, or acentipede appeared on the open page. But he was accustomed to theseembellishments of tropic life, and although he anathematized them andthe heat, he went on with his studies. It was about this time that hebegan to indulge in literary composition; and although less gifted boysthan Alexander Hamilton struggle through this phase of mentaldevelopment as their body runs the gamut of juvenile complaints, stillit may be that had not his enormous energies been demanded in theirentirety by a country in the terrible straits of rebirth, or had hedwelt on earth twenty years longer, he would have realized the ambitionsof his mother and Hugh Knox, and become one of the greatest literaryforces the world has had. But although this exercise of his restlessfaculties gave him pleasure, it was far from satisfying him, even then. He wanted the knowledge that was locked up in vast libraries far beyondthat blinding stretch of sea, and he wanted action, and a sight of and apart in the great world. Meanwhile, he read every book he could find onthe Island, made no mistakes in Mr. Cruger's counting-house, and stooddreaming under the arcade for hours at a time, muttering his thoughts, his mobile features expressing the ceaseless action of his brain. 

Sometime during the previous year Peter Levine had returned to St. Croixfor his health, and he remained with relatives for some time. He andAlexander met occasionally and were friendly. As he was a decent littlechap our hero forgave him his paternity, although he never could quiteassimilate the fact that he was his mother's child. 

Alexander returned, after six months of Frederikstadt, to the East Endof the Island. A few months later, Mr. Cruger, whose health had failed, went to New York for an extended sojourn, leaving the entireresponsibility of the business in young Hamilton's hands. Men of allages were forced to obey and be guided by a boy in the last weeks of hisfourteenth year, and there were many manifestations of jealous ill-will. Some loved, others hated him, but few submitted gracefully to aleadership which lowered their self-esteem. For the first time Alexanderlearned that even a mercantile life can be interesting. He exercised allthe resources of his inborn tact with those who had loved and those whodid not hate him, and won them to a grateful acceptance of a mastershipwhich was far more considerate and sympathetic than anything they hadknown. As for his enemies, he let them see the implacable quality of histemper, mortified them by an incessant exposure of their failings, struck aside their clumsy attempts to humiliate him with the keen bladeof a wit that sent them skulking. Finally they submitted, but theycursed him, and willingly would have wrung his neck and flung him intothe bay. As for Hamilton, there was no compromise in him, even then, where his enemies were concerned. He enjoyed their futile wrath, andwould not have lifted his finger to flash it into liking. 

Only once the tropical passions of his inheritance conquered his desireto dominate through the forces of his will alone. One of the oldestemployees, a man named Cutter, had shown jealousy of young Hamilton fromthe first, and a few days after Mr. Cruger's departure began to manifestsigns of open rebellion. He did his work ill, or not at all, absentedhimself from the store for two days, and returned to his post withoutexcuse, squaring his shoulders about the place and sneering his contemptof youthful cocks of the walk. Alexander struggled to maintain aself-control which he felt to be strictly compatible with the dignity ofhis position, although his gorge rose so high that it threatened tochoke him. The climax came when he gave Cutter a peremptory order, andthe man took out a cigar, lit it, and laughed in his face. For the nextfew moments Alexander had a confused impression that he was in hell, struggling his way through the roar and confusion of his netherquarters. When he was himself again he was in the arms of his chiefassistant, and Mr. Cutter bled profusely on the floor. He was informedlater that he had "gone straight over the counter with a face like ahurricane" and assaulted his refractory hireling with such incrediblerapidity of scientific fist that the man, who was twice his size, hadsuccumbed from astonishment and an almost supernatural terror. Alexander, who was ashamed of himself, apologized at once, but gave theman his choice of treating him with proper respect or leaving the store. Cutter answered respectfully that he would remain; and he gave nofurther trouble. 

"You'll get your head blown off one of these days, " said Hugh Knox toAlexander, on a Sunday, as they sat in the library over two long glassesof "Miss Blyden, " a fashionable drink made of sugar, rum, and the juiceof the prickly pear, which had been buried in the divine's garden forthe requisite number of months. "These Creoles are hot, even whenthey're only Danes. It's not pleasant for those clerks, for it isn't asif you had the look of the man you are. You look even younger than yourage, and for a man of thirty to say 'Yes, sir' to a brat like you chokeshim, and no wonder. I believe if there was a war this minute, you'drouse the Island and lead it to battle without a misgiving or anapology. Well, don't let your triumphs lead to love of this business. Ihappen to know that Cruger means to make a partner of you in a fewyears, for he thinks the like of you never dropped into a merchant'scounting-house; but never forget that your exalted destiny is to be agreat man of letters, a historian, belike. You're taking to history, Inotice, and you're getting a fine vocabulary of your own. "

"I'd like to know what I'll write the history of if I'm to rot in thisGod-forsaken place. Caribs? Puling rows between French and English? I'das well be up on Grange with my mother if it wasn't for you and yourbooks. I want the education of a collegian. I want to study and readeverything there is to be studied and read. I've made out a list ofbooks to send for, when I've money enough, as long as you are. It'spinned on the wall of my room. "

"And I suppose you've never a qualm but that head of yours will hold itall. You've a grand opinion of yourself, Alec. "

"That's a cutting thing for you to say to me, sir, " cried Alexander, springing to his feet. "I thought you loved me. If you think I'm a fool, I'll not waste more of your time. "

"A West Indian temper beats the conceit out of the Irish. You'll controlyours when you're older, for there's nothing you won't do when you putyour mind to it, and you'll see the need for not making a fool ofyourself too often. But as for its present liking for exercise--it's along way the liveliest thing on St. Croix. However, you've forgiven me;I know that by the twinkle in your eye, so I'll tell you that your brainwill hold all you care to put into it, and that you'll have made anotherlist as long as King Street before you're five years older. Meanwhile, I've some books on theology and ethics you haven't had a dash at yet, and you can't read my other old books too often. Each time you'll findsomething new. Sitting up till midnight won't hurt you, but don't forgetto say your prayers. "

Knox, long since, had laid siege to Alexander's susceptible and ardentmind with the lively batteries of his religious enthusiasms. Hisfavourite pupil was edifyingly regular in attendance at church, and saidhis prayers with much fervour. The burden of his petitions wasdeliverance from St. Croix. 

When this deliverance was effected by a thunderbolt from heaven, hissaving sense of humour and the agitated springs of his sympathy forbadea purely personal application. But twenty years later he might havereflected upon the opportune cause of his departure from St. Croix asone of the ironies of the world's history; for an Island was devastated, men were ruined, scores were killed, that one man might reach his propersphere of usefulness. 

VIII

Early in August, 1772, Mr. Cruger sent him on a business tour to severalof the neighbouring Islands, including the great _entrepôt_ of the WestIndies, --St. Thomas. Despite the season, the prospect of no wind fordays at a time, or winds in which no craft could live, Alexandertrembled with delight at the idea of visiting the bustling brilliantversatile town of Charlotte Amalie, in whose harbour there weresometimes one hundred and eighty ships, where one might meet in a daymen of every clime, and whose beauty was as famous as her wealth andimportance. How often Alexander had stared at the blue line of the hillsabove her! Forty miles away, within the range of his vision, was a bitof the great world, the very pivot of maritime trade, and one cause andanother had prevented him from so much as putting his foot on a sloopwhose sails were spread. 

As soon as the details of his tour were settled he rode out to theplantations to take leave of his relatives. Mrs. Mitchell, who barredthe hurricane windows every time, the wind rose between July andNovember, and sat with the barometer in her hand when the palms began tobend, wept a torrent and implored him to abstain from the madness ofgoing to sea at that time of the year. Her distress was so acute andreal that Alexander, who loved her, forgot his exultation and would haverenounced the trip, had he not given his word to Mr. Cruger. 

"I'll be careful, and I'll ride out the day after I return, " he said, arranging his aunt on the sofa with her smelling-bottle, an office hehad performed many times. "You know the first wind of the hurricane is adelight to the sailor, and we never shall be far from land. I'm incommand, and I'll promise you to make for shore at the first sign ofdanger. Then I shall be as safe as here. "

His aunt sighed for fully a minute. "If I only could believe that youwould be careful about anything. But you are quite a big boy now, almostsixteen, and ought to be old enough to take care of yourself. "

"If I could persuade you that I am not quite a failure at keeping thebreath in my body we both should be happier. However, I vow not to setsail from any island if a hurricane is forming, and to make for portevery time the wind freshens. "

"Listen for that terrible roar in the southeast, and take mybarometer--Heaven knows what barometers are made for; there are notthree on the Island. I shall drive in to church every Sunday and besiegeHeaven with my supplications. "

"Well, spare me a breeze or I shall pray for a hurricane. "

He did not see Mrs. Lytton or James, but Mr. Lytton had scantapprehension of hurricanes, and was only concerned lest his nephew rollabout in the trough of the sea under an August sun for weeks at a time. "That's when a man doesn't repent of his sins; he knows there is nothingworse to come, " he said. "I'd rather have a hurricane, " and Alexandernodded. Mr. Lytton counted out a small bag of pieces of eight and toldthe boy to buy his aunt a silk gown in Charlotte Amalie. "I've noticedthat if it's all one colour you're not so sure to have it accepted witha sigh of resignation, " he said. "But be careful of plaids and stripes. "And Alexander, with deeper misgivings than Mrs. Mitchell had inspired, accepted the commission and rode away. 

He set sail on the following day, and made his tour of the lesserislands under a fair breeze. Late in the month he entered the harbour ofSt. Thomas, and was delighted to find at least fifty ships in port, despite the season. It was an unusually busy year, and he had dared tohope for crowded waters and streets; exquisite as Charlotte Amalie mightbe to look upon, he wanted something more than a lovely casket. 

The town is set on three conical foot-hills, which bulge at equaldistances against an almost perpendicular mountain, the tip, it is said, of a range whose foundations are four miles below. The three sections ofthe town sweep from base to pointed apex with a symmetry so perfect, their houses are so light and airy of architecture, so brilliant andvaried of colour, that they suggest having been called into being by thestroke of a magician's wand to gratify the whim of an Eastern potentate. Surely, they are a vast seraglio, a triple collection of pleasure houseswhere captive maidens are content and nautch girls dance with feet likelarks. Business, commerce, one cannot associate with this enchantingvista; nor cockroaches as long as one's foot, scorpions, tarantulas, andrats. 

When Alexander was in the town he found that the houses were of stone, and that one long street on the level connected the three divisions. Flights of steps, hewn out of the solid rock of that black and barrenrange, led to the little palaces that crowned the cones, and there werepalms, cocoanuts, and tamarind trees to soften the brilliancy of façadeand roof. Above the town was Blackbeard's Castle; and Bluebeard's sohigh on the right that its guns could have levelled the city in an hour. Although not a hundred years old, and built by the Danes, both thesefrowning towers were museums of piratical tradition, and travellersreturned to Europe with imaginations expanded. 

The long street interested Alexander's practical mind more than legendsor architecture. Huge stone buildings--warehouses, stores, exchange- andcounting-houses--extended from the street to the edge of the water, where ships were unloaded and loaded from doors at the rear. Men ofevery nation and costume moved in that street; and for a day Mr. Cruger's business was in abeyance, while the boy from the quiet Islandof St. Croix leaned against one of the heavy tamarind trees at the footof the first hill, and watched the restless crowd of Europeans, Asiatics, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, North and South Americans. There wereas many national costumes as there were rival flags in the harbour. There was the British admiral in his regimentals and powdered queue, theChinaman in his blouse and pigtail, the Frenchman with his earrings, villanous Malays, solemn merchants from Boston, and negroes trundlingbarrows of Spanish dollars. But it was the extraordinary assortment offaces and the violent contrasts of temperament and character theyrevealed which interested Alexander more than aught else. With all hisreading he had not imagined so great a variety of types; his mentalpictures had been the unconscious reflection of British, Danish, orAfrican. Beyond these he had come in contact with nothing more strikingthan sailors from the neighbouring Islands, who had suggested littlebesides the advisability of placing an extra guard over the money boxeswhilst they were in port. Most of these men who surged before him weremerchants of the first rank or the representatives of others asimportant, --captains of large ships and their mates. The last saunteredand cursed the heat, which was infernal; but the merchants moved rapidlyfrom one business house to another, or talked in groups, under thetamarind trees, of the great interests which brought them to the Indies. Upon the inherent characteristics which their faces expressed weresuperimposed the different seals of those acquired, --shrewdness, suspicion, a hawk-like alertness, the greed of acquisition. Alexander, with something like terror of the future, reflected that there was notone of these men he cared to know. He knew there were far greater citiesthan the busy little _entrepôt_ of the West Indies, but he rightlydoubted if he ever should see again so cosmopolitan a mob, a more pickedassortment of representative types. Not one looked as if he rememberedhis wife and children, his creed, or the art and letters of his land. They were a sweating, cursing, voluble, intriguing, greedy lot, picturesque to look upon, profitable to study, calculated to rouse in aboy of intellectual passions a fury of final resentment against themeannesses of commercial life. Alexander jerked his shoulders withdisgust and moved slowly down the street. After he had reflected thatgreat countries involved great ideas, and that there was no place foreither political or moral ideals in an isolated and purely commercialtown like little Charlotte Amalie, he recovered his poise, and lenthimself to his surroundings again with considerable philosophy. 

He had almost crossed the foot of the third hill when he turnedabruptly into a large store, unlike any he had seen. It was full ofwomen, splendid creatures, who were bargaining with merchants' clerksfor the bales of fine stuffs which had been opened for the display ofsamples to the wholesale buyers from other Islands. These womenpurchased the exiled stuffs to sell to the ladies of the capital, andthis was the only retail trade known to the St. Thomas of that day. Alexander bethought himself of his uncle's commission, and precipitatelybought from the open bale nearest the door, then, from the next, apresent for Mrs. Mitchell. Mrs. Lytton, who was an invalid andfifty-eight, received, a fortnight later, a dress pattern ofrose-coloured silk, and Mrs. Mitchell, who aspired to be a leader offashion, one of elderly brown. But Alexander was more interested in thesellers than in the possible dissatisfaction of his aunts. The women ofhis acquaintance were fair and fragile, and the Africans of St. Croixwere particularly hideous, being still of parent stock. But thesecreatures were tawny and magnificent, with the most superb figures, themost remarkable swing, that ever a man had looked upon; and gloriouseyes, sparkling with deviltry. On their heads the white linen was woundto a high point and surmounted by an immense hat, caught up at one sidewith a flower. They wore for clothing a double skirt of coloured linen, and a white fichu, open in a point to the waist and leaving theirgold-coloured arms quite bare. They moved constantly, if only from onefoot to the other. Occasionally their eyes flashed sparks, and they flewat each other's throats, screeching like guinea fowl, but in a momentthey were laughing good-naturedly again, and chattering in voices of aremarkable soft sweetness. Several of them noticed Alexander, for hisbeauty had grown with his years. His eyes were large and gray and dark, like his mother's, but sparkled with ardour and merriment. His mouth waschiselled from a delicate fulness to a curving line; firm even then, butalways humorous, except when some fresh experience with the ingenuousself-interest of man deepened the humour to cynicism. The nose was long, sharply cut, hard, strong in the nostrils, the head massive, the browfull above the eyes, and the whole of a boyish and sunburned fairness. He could fetch a smile that gave his face a sweet and dazzling beauty. His figure was so supple and well knit, so proud in its bearing, that nowoman then or later ever found fault with its inconsiderable inches; andhis hands and feet were beautiful. His adoring aunt attended to hiswardrobe, and he wore to-day, as usual, white linen knee-breeches, blacksilk stockings, a lawn shirt much beruffled with lace. His appearancepleased these gorgeous birds of plumage, and one of them snatched himsuddenly from the floor and gave him a resounding smack. Alexander, muchembarrassed, but not wholly displeased, retreated hurriedly, and askedan Englishman who they were and whence they came. 

"They are literally the pick of Martinique, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and theother Islands celebrated for beautiful women. Of course they've all gota touch of the tar brush in them, but the French or the Spanish bloodmakes them glorious for a few years, and during those few they come hereand make hay. Some come at certain seasons only, others perch here tillthey change in a night from houri to hag. This daylight trade gives thema _raison d'étre_, but wait till after dark. God! this is a hell hole;but by moonlight or torchlight this street is one of the sights of theearth. The magnificent beauty of the women, enhanced by silken stuffs ofevery colour, the varied and often picturesque attire of the men, allhalf mad with drink--well, if you want to sleep, you'd better get a roomhigh up. "

"Mine is up one hundred and seventeen steps. I am but afraid I may notsee all there is to see. "

But before the week was half out he had tired of St. Thomas by day andby night. The picture was too one-sided, too heavily daubed with colour. It made a palette of the imagination, sticky and crude. He began todesire the green plantations of St. Croix, and more than ever he longedfor the snow-fields of the north. Two days of hard work concluded Mr. Cruger's business, and on the thirtieth of the month he weighed anchor, in company with many others, and set sail for St. Croix. He startedunder a fair breeze, but a mile out the wind dropped, and he was untilmidnight making the harbour of Christianstadt When they were utterlybecalmed the sun seemed to focus his hell upon the little sloop. Itrolled sickeningly in the oily wrinkled waters, and Alexander put hisPope in his pocket. The sea had a curious swell, and he wondered if anearthquake were imminent. The sea was not quite herself when herfoundations were preparing to shake. Earth-quakes had never concernedhim, but as the boat drifted past the reef into the harbour ofChristianstadt at midnight, he was assailed by a fit of terror so suddenand unaccountable that he could recall but one sensation in his lifethat approached it: shortly after he arrived on the Island he had stolendown to the lagoon one night, fascinated by the creeping mist, thescowling manchineels, the talk of its sinister inhabitant, and wasenjoying mightily his new feeling of creeping terror, when the silencewas broken by a heavy swish, and he saw the white belly of the shark notthree feet from him. He had scampered up the hill to his mother's skirtsas fast as his legs could carry him, nor visited the lagoon again untilthe shark was mouldering on its bed. To-night a mist, almostimperceptible except on the dark line of coast, changed the beauty ofthe moonbeams to a livid light that gave the bay the horrid pallor of acorpse. The masses of coral rock in the shallow waters looked leprous, the surface was so glassy that it fell in splinters from the oars of theboat that towed them to shore. There was not a sound from the reef, nota sound from the land. The slender lacing mangroves in the swamp lookedlike upright serpents, black and petrified, and the Fort on the highbluff might have been a sarcophagus full of dead men but for thechallenge of the sentry. 

Alexander began to whistle, then climbed down into the boat and took anoar. When he had his feet on land he walked up King Street more hastilythan was his habit in the month of August. But here, although the townmight have been a necropolis, so quiet was it, it had not put on a deathmask. There was no mist here; the beautiful coral houses gleamed underthe moonbeams as if turned to marble, and Alexander forgot the horror ofthe waters and paused to note, as he had done many times before, thecurious Alpine contrast of these pure white masses against the green andburnished arches of tropic trees. Then he passed through theswimming-bath to his bed, and a half-hour later slept as soundly as ifthe terrible forces of the Caribbean world were safe in leash. 

IX

When he awoke, at seven o'clock, he heard a dull low roar in thesoutheast, which arrested his attention at once as a sound quitedissimilar from the boom of the reef. As he crossed Strand Street to Mr. Cruger's store, an hour later, he noticed that a strong wind blew fromthe same direction and that the atmosphere was a sickly yellow. For amoment, he thought of the hurricane which he had passed his lifeexpecting, but he had a head full of business and soon forgot both roarand wind. He was immediately immersed in a long and precise statement ofhis trip, writing from notes and memory, muttering to himself, utterlyoblivious to the opening of the windows or the salutations of theclerks. Mr. Cruger arrived after the late breakfast. He looked worried, but shook Alexander's hand heartily, and thanked heaven, with somefervour, that he had returned the night before. They retired to theprivate office on the court, and Mr. Cruger listened with interest toyoung Hamilton's account of his trip, although it was evident that hismind felt the strain of another matter. He said abruptly:--

"The barometer was down two-tenths when I visited the Fort at a quarterto eleven. I'd give a good deal to know where it is now. "

Alexander remembered his aunt's barometer, which he had hung in his roombefore sailing, and volunteered to go over and look at it. 

"Do, " exclaimed Mr. Cruger; "and see if the wind's shifted. "

As Alexander crossed Strand Street to the side door of Mr. Mitchell'shouse he encountered the strongest wind he had ever known, and blackclouds were racing back and forth as if lost and distracted. He returnedto tell Mr. Cruger that the barometer stood at 30. 03. 

"And the wind hasn't shifted?" demanded Mr. Cruger. "That means we'll bein the direct path of a hurricane before the day is half out, unlessthings change for the better. If the barometer falls four-tenths"--hespread out his hands expressively. "Of course we have many scares. Unless we hear two double guns from the Fort, there will be no realcause for alarm; but when you hear that, get on your horse as quick asyou can and ride to warn the planters. The Lyttons and Stevens andMitchells will do for you. I'll send out three of the other boys. "

They returned to accounts. Mr. Cruger expressed his gratificationrepeatedly and forgot the storm, although the wind was roaring up KingStreet and rattling the jalousies until flap after flap hung on a brokenhinge. Suddenly both sprang to their feet, books and notes tumbling tothe floor. Booming through the steady roar of the wind was the quickthunder of cannon, four guns fired in rapid succession. 

As Alexander darted through the store, the clerks were tumbling overeach other to secure the hurricane windows; for until the last minute, uneasy as they were, they had persuaded themselves that St. Croix was inbut for the lashing of a hurricane's tail, and had bet St. Kitts againstMonserrat as flattening in the path of the storm. The hurricane windowswere of solid wood, clamped with iron. It took four men to close themagainst the wind. 

Alexander was almost flung across Strand Street. Shingles were flying, the air was salt with spray skimmed by the wind from the surface ofwaves which were leaping high above the Fort, rain was beginning tofall. Mr. Mitchell's stables were in the rear of his house. Every negrohad fled to the cellar. Alexander unearthed four and ordered them toclose the hurricane windows. He had saddled many a horse, and he urgedhis into Strand Street but a few moments later. Here he had to face thewind until he could reach the corner and turn into King, and even thehorse staggered and gasped as if the breath had been driven out of him. He reared back against the wall, and Alexander was obliged to dismountand drag him up the street, panting for breath himself, although hisback was to the wind and he kept his head down. The din was terrific. Cannon balls might have been rattling against the stones of every house, and to this was added a roar from the reef as were all the sounds of theCaribbean Sea gathered there. Alexander would have pulled his hat downover his ears, for the noise was maddening, but it had flown over thetop of a house as he left the store. He was a quarter of an hourcovering the few yards which lay between the stable and the corner, andwhen he reached the open funnel of King Street he was nearly swept offhis feet. Fortunately the horse loved him, and, terrified as it was, permitted him to mount; and then it seemed to Alexander, as they flew upKing Street to the open country, that they were in a fork of the wind, which tugged and twisted at his neck while it carried them on. Heflattened himself to the horse, but kept his eyes open and saw othermessengers, as dauntless as himself, tearing in various directions towarn the planters, many of whom had grown callous to the cry of "Wolf. "

The horse fled along the magnificent avenue of royal palms whichconnected the east and west ends of the Island. They were bending andcreaking horribly, the masses of foliage on the summits cowering awayfrom the storm, wrapping themselves about in a curiously pitiful manner;the long blade-like leaves seemed striving each to protect the other. Through the ever-increasing roar of the storm, above the creaking of thetrees, the pounding of the rain on the earth, and on the young cane, Alexander heard a continuous piercing note, pitched upon one monotonouskey, like the rattle of a girl's castinets he had heard on St. Thomas. His brain, indifferent now to the din, was as active as ever, and hesoon made out this particular noise to be the rattle of millions ofseeds in the dry pods of the "shaggy-shaggy, " or "giant, " a commonIsland tree, which had not a leaf at this season, nothing but countlesspods as dry as parchment and filled with seeds as large as peas. Not fora second did this castinet accompaniment to the stupendous bass of thestorm cease, and Alexander, whose imagination, like every other sense inhim, was quickening preternaturally, could fancy himself surrounded bythe orchestra of hell, the colossal instruments of the infernal regionsperformed upon by infuriate Titans. He was not conscious of fear, although he knew that his life was not worth a second's purchase, but hefelt a wild exhilaration, a magnificent sense of defiance of the mostpowerful element that can be turned loose on this planet; his nostrilsquivered with delight; his soul at certain moments, when his practicalfaculty was uncalled upon, felt as if high in the roaring space with theBerserkers of the storm. 

Suddenly his horse, in spite of the wall of wind at his back, stood onhis hind legs, then swerved so fiercely that his rider was all butunseated. A palm had literally leaped from the earth, sprawled acrossthe road not a foot in front of the horse. The terrified brute toreacross the cane-field, and Alexander made no attempt to stop him, for, although the rain was now falling as if the sea had come in on the highback of the wind, he believed himself to be on the Stevens plantation. The negro village was not yet deserted, and he rode to the west side ofthe mill and shouted his warning to the blacks crouching there. On everyestate was a great bell, hung in an open stone belfry, and never to berung except to give warning of riot, flood, fire, or hurricane. One ofthe blacks obeyed Alexander's peremptory command to ring this bell, and, as it was under the lee of the mill, reached it in a moment. AsAlexander urged his horse out into the storm again, he heard the rapidagitated clang of the bell mingle discordantly with the bass of the windand the piercing rattle of the giant's castinets. He rode on through thecane-field, although if the horse stumbled and injured itself, he wouldhave to lie on his face till the storm was over. But there was a greaterdanger in the avenue; he was close enough to see and hear tree aftertree go down, or their necks wrenched and the great green heads rushthrough the air with a roar of their own, their long glittering leavesextended before them as if in supplication. 

The Lytton plantation was next on his way, and Alexander rode straightfor the house, as the mills and village lay far to the left. Thehurricane shutters on the sides encountering the storm were alreadyclosed, and he rode round to the west, where he saw his uncle's anxiousface at a drawing-room window. Mr. Lytton flung himself across the sashin an attempt to lift the boy from his horse into the room, and whenAlexander shouted that he was on his way to the Mitchell estate, expostulated as well as he could without breaking his throat. He beggedhim to rest half an hour at least, but when informed that the Fort forthe first time within the memory of man had fired its double warning, heran to fasten his hurricane windows more securely, and despatch a slaveto warn his blacks; their huts never would survive the direct attack ofa hurricane. He was horrified to think of his favourite exposed to afury, which, clever and intrepid as he was, he had small chance ofoutwitting; but at least he had that one chance, and Mrs. Mitchell wasalone. 

Alexander passed through one other estate before he reached Mr. Mitchell's, terrifying those he warned almost as much by his wild andragged appearance--his long hair drove straight before him, and his thinshirt was in sodden ribbons--as by his news that a first-class hurricanewas upon them. At last he was in the cane-fields of his destination, andthe horse, as if in communication with that ardent brain so close to hisown, suddenly accelerated his already mercurial pace, until it seemed toAlexander that he gathered up his legs and darted like an inflatedswallow straight through crashing avenues and flying huts to the stabledoor. Fortunately this solid building opened to the west, and Alexanderwas but a few moments stalling and feeding the animal who had saved twonecks by his clever feet that day. He was sorry so poorly to reward himas to close and bar the door, but he feared that he might forget toattend to it when the hurricane veered, and in all the fury ofapproaching climax was pouring out of the west. 

The house was only an eighth of a mile away, but Alexander was half anhour reaching it. He had to travel on his knees, sometimes on hisstomach, until he reached the western wall, keeping his arm pressedclose against his eyes; his sense of humour, not to be extinguished by ahurricane, rebelling at the ignoble pass to which his pride had come. When he reached the north wall he rose, thinking he could cling to theprojections, but he was still facing the storm; he flung himselfprostrate again to avoid being lifted off his feet and sailing with therubbish of Mr. Mitchell's plantation. As he reached the corner the windgave him a vicious flip, which landed him almost at the foot of thesteps, but he was comparatively safe, and he sat down to recover hisbreath. He could afford a few moments' rest, for the heavy woodenwindows facing the east, north, and south, were closed. Here he wassheltered in a way. The only two good words that can be said for ahurricane are that it gives sufficient warning of its approach, and thatit blows from one point of the compass at a time. Alexander sat therepanting and watched the wild battle in mid-air of shingles, fences, thatched roofs, and tree-tops; listened to the artillery of the storm, which, with a stone building to break its steady roar, sounded as if ahundred cannon were bombarding the walls and rattling here and there ontheir carriages meanwhile; listened to crash after crash of tree andwall, the terrified bowlings and bellowings of beasts, the shrieking andgrinding of trees, the piercing monotone of the dry seeds in their casesof parchment, the groans and prayers of the negroes in the cellar behindhim. He turned his head and looked through the windows of the greatapartment, which, although above ground, was supposed to be safest in ahurricane. All but the western blinds being closed, the cellar wasalmost dark, but Alexander knew that it was packed: doubtless everyAfrican on the estate was there; he could see, for some distance back, row after row of rolling eyes and hanging tongues. Some knelt on theshoulders of others to get the air. Alexander shuddered. The sightreminded him of his uncle's slave-ships, where the blacks came, chainedtogether, standing in the hold, so closely packed that if one died hecould not fall, nor the others protect themselves from the poisons of acorpse, which pressed hard against the living for twenty hours perhaps, before it was unchained and flung to the sharks. Alexander went close toone of the windows and shouted to them not to forget to secure thewestern blinds when the lull came, then ran up the steps and vaultedthrough an open window. It was a few minutes before he found his aunt, and it must be recorded that on his way to the front of the house helooked under two beds and into four wardrobes. He came upon her in thedrawing-room, valiantly struggling with a hurricane window. Her hair wasdishevelled, and her eyes bulged with horror, but even as Alexander cameto the rescue, she shoved the bar into place. Then she threw herselfinto his arms and fainted. He had but time to fling water on her face, when a loud rattle from another window sent him bounding to it, and forten minutes he struggled to fasten the blind soundly again, while itseemed to him that a hundred malignant fingers were tugging at its edge. He had no sooner secured it, than his aunt's voice at his ear begged himto try every window on three sides of the house, and he went rapidlyfrom one to the other, finding most of them in need of attention--longdisuse had weakened both staples and hooks. His aunt trotted after him, thumping every window, and reminding him that if one went, and the windburst in, the roof would be off and the torrents upon them before theycould reach the cellar. 

Fortunately for those who fought the storm, the temperature had fallenwith the barometer, and these two dared not relax their vigilance for amoment. Every negro had deserted to the lower region. Alexander wasunable to change his wet clothes or to refresh himself with so much as abanana, but there was not a second's time to think of hunger ordiscomfort. More than once that sense of wild exultation in fighting amighty element possessed him. His own weak hands and a woman's weakeragainst one of the Titanic hurricanes of the world's history, with aprospect of winning the fight, was a sight to move comfortable gods topaean or laughter, according to their spiritual development. 

But during much of that terrible day and night Alexander's brain wasobliged to work on device after device to strengthen those batteredboards which alone protected the house from destruction, its inmates, perhaps, from death. A tamarind tree came down on a corner of the roofwith a crash; and when Mrs. Mitchell and Alexander reached the room, which was in a wing, the rain was struggling past the heavy mass througha hole in the roof. They closed up the room, as well as the jalousies ofthe inner walls, but as they returned to the windows they heard the rainfighting to pass the branches, and knew that if the wind snatched thetree, the deluge would come in. 

Mrs. Mitchell neither fainted again nor exhibited other sign of fear. While that hurricane lasted she was all Mary Fawcett; and Alexander, meeting her eyes now and again, or catching sight of her as she dartedforward at the first rattle of a shutter, recalled his mother's manyanecdotes of his redoubtable grandmother, and wondered if that valiantold soul had flown down the storm to the relief of the fortress. 

Toward evening that sudden lull came which means that at last thebesieged are in the very centre of the hurricane, and will have respitewhile the monster is swinging his tail to the west. Alexander and Mrs. Mitchell, after opening the windows on the east side of the house, andsecuring those opening to the west, went to the pantry and made asubstantial meal without sitting or selecting. To his last day Alexandercould not remember what he ate that night, although he recalled thecandle in the long chimney, the constant craning of his aunt's head, theincessant racing of the rats along the beams. He went to his room andtook a cold bath, which with the food and suspended excitement quiterefreshed him; put on dry clothes, nailed a board against the hole inthe roof, then sat down with Mrs. Mitchell in the western gallery toawait the hurricane's return. 

"We have three windows where we had one before, " remarked Mrs. Mitchell; "and the hinges of that door are rusty. God knows! If you hadnot come, the roof would have gone long before this. "

"The silence is horrible, " said Alexander. 

It was, indeed, earsplitting. Not a sound arose from that devastatedland. Birds and beasts must lie dead by the thousand; not a horsemanventured abroad; not a whisper came from the cellar, where two hundredAfricans might be dead from fright or suffocation. Mrs. Mitchell had litthe candles, and there was something sinister and ironical in the steadyflames. How long before they would leap and add the final horror to whatmust be a night of horrors? It was impossible to work in the dark, butevery yellow point was a menace. 

They had not long to endure the silence. This time the hurricane sent nocriers before it. It burst out of the west with a fury so intensifiedthat Alexander wondered if one stone in Frederikstadt were left uponanother. It was evident that it had gathered its forces for a finalassault, and its crashing and roaring, as it tore across the unhappyIsland it had marked for destruction, was that of a gigantic wheelwhirling ten thousand cannon, exploding, and lashing each other inmid-air. It seemed to Alexander that every ball they surely carriedrattled on the roof, and the heavy stone structure vibrated for thefirst time. It was two hours before he and Mrs. Mitchell met again, forthey worked at opposite ends of the long gallery; but in the third bothrushed simultaneously to the door. It sprang back from its rustyfastenings, and they were but in time to seize the bar which passedthrough a staple in its middle, and pull it inward until it pressed hardagainst the jamb on the right. There was no other way to secure it, andfor three hours Alexander and Mrs. Mitchell dragged at it alternately, while the other attended to the windows. By this time Alexander hadceased to wonder if he should see another morning, or much to care: thestorm was so magnificent in its almighty power, its lungs of ironbellowed its purpose with such furious iteration, as if out of allpatience with the mortals who defied it, that Alexander was almostinclined to apologize. More than once it took the house by the shouldersand shook it, and then a yell would come from below, a simultaneous notepitched in a key of common agony. Suddenly the house seemed to springfrom its foundations, then sink back as if to collapse. Alexander calledout that it had been uprooted and would go down the hill in anothermoment, but Mrs. Mitchell, who was at the bar, muttered, "An earthquake. I believe a hurricane shakes the very centre of the earth. "

They feared that the foundations of the house had been loosened, andthat the next blast would turn it over, but the house was one of thestrongest in the Caribbees, built to withstand the worst that Naturecould do, so long as man saw to its needs; and when the hurricane atlast revolved its artillery away into the east, carrying with it thatpiercing rattle of the giant's castinets, which never for a moment hadceased to perform its part, roof and walls were firm. Mrs. Mitchell andAlexander sank where they had stood, and slept for twenty hours. 

X

Alexander rode back to Christianstadt two days later, and again andagain he drew a hard breath and closed his eyes. It was a sight to moveany man, and the susceptible and tender nature of young Hamilton bledfor the tragedy of St. Croix. There was not a landmark, not acane-field, to remind him that it was the beautiful Island on which hehad spent the most of his remembering years. Although all of the GreatHouses were standing, their mien and manner were so altered by thedisappearance of their trees and outbuildings, and by the surroundingpulpy flats in place of the rippling acres of young cane, that they wereunrecognizable. Here and there were masses of débris, walls and thatchedroofs swept far from the village foundations; but as a rule there wasbut a board here or a bunch of dried leaves there, a battered utensil ora stool, to reward the wretched Africans who wandered about searchingfor the few things they had possessed before the storm. They lookedhopeless and dull, as if their faculties had been stunned by theprolonged incessant noise of the hurricane. 

Alexander was riding down what a week ago had been the most celebratedavenue in the Antilles. Where there were trees at all, they wereheadless, the long gray twisted trunks as repulsive as they had oncebeen beautiful The road was littered with many of the fallen; but otherswere far away in what had been the cane-fields, serpents and lizardssunning themselves on the dead roots. Even stone walls were down, andunder them, sometimes, were men. Mills were in ruins; for no one hadremained to keep bars in their staples. Tanks of last year's rum andtreacle had been flung through the walls, and their odours mingled withthe stench of decomposing men and cattle. The horrid rattle of theland-crab was almost the only sound in that desolate land. "The Gardenof the Antilles" looked like a putrid swamp, and she had not a beauty onher. 

Alexander turned at a cross-road into a path which led through theGrange estate to the private burying-ground of the Lyttons. These fewmoments taxed his courage more heavily than the ride with the hurricanehad done, and more than once he opened his clenched teeth and halfturned his horse's head. But he went on, and before long he had climbedto the end of his journey. The west wall of the little cemetery had beenblown out, and the roof of old James Lytton's tomb lay with its débris. A tree, which evidently had been torn from the earth and flung from adistance, lay half in and half out of the enclosure. But his mother'sheadstone, which stood against the north wall, was undisturbed, althoughthe mound above her was flat and sodden. The earth had been strongenough to hold her. Alexander remembered its awful air of finality as itopened to receive her, then closed over her. What he had feared was thatthe burying-ground, which stood on the crest of a hill, would have beenuprooted and scattered over the cane-fields. 

He rode on to Christianstadt. There the evidences of the hurricane wereless appalling, for the houses, standing close together, had protectedeach other, and only two were unroofed; but everywhere the trees lookedlike twisted poles, the streets and gardens were full of rubbish, anddown by the bay the shore was strewn with the wreckage of ships; thePark behind the Fort was thick with decaying fish, which the blacks werebut just now sweeping out to the water. 

After Alexander had ascertained that Mr. Mitchell's house was quiteunharmed, although a neighbour had lost half a roof and been deluged inconsequence, he walked out Company Street to see how it had fared withHugh Knox. That worthy gentleman was treating his battered nerves withweak whiskey and water when he caught sight of Alexander through thelibrary window. He gave a shout that drew an exasperated groan throughthe ceiling, flung open the door, and clasped his beloved pupil in hisarms. 

"I knew you were safe, because you are you, although I've been afraid toask if you were dead or alive. Cruger sent out three others to warn theplanters, and they've all been brought home, one dead, one maimed, onewith chills and fever and as mad as a March hare. Good God! what avisitation! I'd rather have been on a moving bog in Ireland. Youwouldn't have ridden out in that hurricane if I'd got you, not if I'dbeen forced to tie you up. Fancy your being here alive, and not even acold in your head! But you've a grand destiny to work out, and thehurricane--which I believe was the Almighty in a temper--knew what itwas about. Now tell me your experience. I'm panting to tell you mine. I've not had a soul to talk to since the hour it started. The Missisbehaved like a Trojan while it lasted, then went to bed, and hasn'tspoken to me since; and as for everyone else in Christianstadt--well, they've retired to calm their nerves in the only way, --prayer first andwhiskey after. "

Alexander took possession of his own easy-chair and looked gratefullyaround the room. The storm had not disturbed it, neither had a wench'sduster. Since his mother's death he had loved this room with a moregrateful affection than any mortal had inspired, well as he loved hisaunt, Hugh Knox, and Neddy. But the room did not talk, and the men whohad written the great books which made him indifferent to his islandprison for days and weeks at a time, were dead, and their selfishnesswas buried with them. 

Meanwhile Knox, forgetting his desire to hear the experience of hisguest, was telling his own. It was sufficiently thrilling, but not to becompared with that of the planter's; and when he had finished, Alexanderbegan with some pride to relate his impressions of the storm. He, too, had not talked for three days; his heart felt warm again; and in thefamiliar comfortable room, the terrible picture of the hurricane seemedto spring sharp and vivid from his memory; he had recalled it confusedlyhitherto, and made no effort to live it again. Knox leaned forwardeagerly, dropping his pipe; Alexander talked rapidly and brilliantly, finally springing to his feet, and concluding with an outburst soeloquent that his audience cowered and covered his face with his hands. For some moments Knox sat thinking, then he rose and pushed a smalltable in front of Alexander, littering it with pencils and paper, in hisuntidy fashion. 

"My boy, " he said, "you're still hot with your own eloquence. Before youcool off, I want you to write that down word for word as you told it tome. If it twisted my very vitals, it will give a similar pleasure toothers. 'Twould be selfish to deny them. When it's done, I'll send it toTiebout. Now I'll leave you, and if my niggers are still too demoralizedto cook supper for you, I'll do it myself. "

Alexander, whose brain, in truth, felt on fire, for every nerve hadleapt to the recreating of that magnificent Force that had gathered anisland into the hollow of its hand, crushed, and cast it back to thewaters, dashed at the paper and wrote with even more splendour than hehad spoken. When he had finished, he was still so excited that herushed from the house and walked till the hideous sights and smellsdrove him home. He was quivering with the ecstasy of birth, and longedfor another theme, and hours and days of hot creation. But he was to bespared the curse of the "artistic temperament. "

XI

The description of the hurricane went to St. Christopher by sloop twodays later (there were no English papers on St. Croix), and was notheard from for two weeks. Meanwhile Alexander forgot it, as writers havea way of forgetting their infants of enthusiastic delivery. There wasmuch to do on St. Croix. The negroes were put at once to rebuilding andrepairing, and masters, as well as overlookers and agents, were behindthem from morning till night. Mr. Mitchell had not returned, andAlexander was obliged to take charge of his estates. When he was notgalloping from village to village and mill to mill, driving the sullenblacks before him, or routing them out of ruins and hollows, where theyhuddled in a demoralized stupor, he was consoling his aunt for thepossible sacrifice of Mr. Mitchell to the storm. Alexander was quiteconfident that the hurricane had spared Tom Mitchell, whomsoever else itmay have devoured, but his logic did not appeal to his aunt, who weptwhenever he was there to offer his arm and shoulder. At other times shebustled about among her maids, who were sewing industriously for theafflicted. 

Alexander was grateful for the heavy task Mr. Mitchell's absenceimposed, for there was no business doing in Christianstadt, and hisnerves were still vibrating to the storm he had fought and conquered. His rigorous self-control was gone, his suppressed energies andambitions were quick and imperious, every vial of impatience and disgustwas uncorked. As he rode through the hot sunlight or moved among theAfricans, coaxing and commanding, getting more work out of them by hisgay bright manner than the overlookers could extract with their whips, his brain was thumping with plans of delivery from a life which hehated so blackly that he would wrench himself free of it before the yearwas out if he had to ship as a common sailor for New York. It seemed tohim that the vacancies in his brain ached. His imagination was hot withthe future awaiting him beyond that cursed stretch of blinding water. For the first time he fully realized his great abilities, knew that hehad in him the forces that make history. All the encouragement of hismother and Hugh Knox, the admiration and confidence of such men as Mr. Cruger, the spoiling of his relatives, and his easy conquest or equallyflattering antagonism of the youth of the Island, had fostered hisself-confidence without persuading him that he was necessarily a genius. Strong as his youthful ambitions had been, burning as his desire formore knowledge, much in his brain had been dormant, and a humorousphilosophy, added to the sanguineness of youth and a deep affection fora few people, had enabled him to bear his lot with unbrokencheerfulness. But the clashing forces of the Universe had roused thesleeping giant in his brain and whirled his youth away. His onlyformulated ambition was to learn first all that schools could teach him, then lead great armies to battle. Until the day of his death his desirefor military excitement and glory never left him, and at this time itwas the destiny which heated his imagination. It seemed to him that theroar and rattle of the hurricane, in whose lead he had managed tomaintain himself unharmed, were the loud prophecy of battle andconquest. At the same time, he knew that other faculties and demands ofhis brain must have their way, but he could only guess at their nature, and statesmanship was the one achievement that did not occur to him; theAmerican colonies were his only hope, and there was no means by which hecould know their wrongs and needs. Such news came seldom to the WestIndies, and Knox retained little interest in the country where he hadsojourned so short a while. And at this time their struggle hardly wouldhave appealed to young Hamilton had he known of it. He was British byinstinct and association, and he had never received so much as ascratch from the little-finger nail of the distant mother, whose longarm was rigid above her American subjects. 

His deliverance was so quick and sudden that for a day or two he wasalmost as dazed as the Africans after the hurricane. One day Hugh Knoxsent him out a copy of the St. Christopher newspaper which had publishedhis description of the storm. With some pride in his first-born, he readit aloud to his aunt. Before he was halfway down the first column shewas on the sofa with her smelling-salts, vowing she was more terrifiedthan when she had expected to be killed every minute. When he hadfinished she upbraided him for torturing people unnecessarily, butremarked that he was even cleverer than she had thought him. The nextmorning she asked him to read it again; then read it herself. On thefollowing day Hugh Knox rode out. 

Alexander was at one of the mills. Knox told Mrs. Mitchell that he hadsent a copy of the newspaper to the Governor of St. Croix, who hadcalled upon him an hour later and insisted upon knowing the name of thewriter. Knox not only had told him, but had expanded upon Alexander'sabilities and ambitions to such an extent that the Governor at thatmoment was with Peter Lytton, endeavouring to persuade him to open hispurse-strings and send the boy to college. 

"He will not do all, " added Knox, "and I rely upon you to do the rest. Between you, Alexander can get, first the education he wants now morethan anything in life, then the chance to make a great reputation amongmen. If you keep him here you're no better than criminals, and that'sall I have to say. "

Mrs. Mitchell shuddered. "Do you think he really wants to go?" sheasked. 

"Do I think he wants to go!" roared Hugh Knox. "Do I think--Good God!why he's been mad to go for five years. He'd have thought of nothingelse if he hadn't a will like a bar of iron made for a hurricane door, and he'd have grown morbid about it if he hadn't been blest with acheerful and a sanguine disposition. You adore him, and you couldn'tsee that!"

"He never said much about it, " said Mrs. Mitchell, meekly; "but I thinkI can see now that you are right. It will make me ill to part with him, but he ought to go, and if Peter Lytton will pay half his expenses, I'llpay the other half, and keep him in pocket coin besides. Of course Tomwon't give a penny, but I have something of my own, and he is welcome toit. Do have everything arranged before my husband's return. He is aliveand well. I had a letter from him by the sloop that came from St. Kitts, and he'll be here by the next or the one after. "

As soon as Knox had gone Mrs. Mitchell ordered her coach and drove toLytton's Fancy. Her love for Alexander had struggled quite out of itsfond selfishness, and she determined that go to New York he should andby the next ship. She found her brother-in-law meditating upon thearguments of the Governor, and had less difficulty in persuading himthan she had anticipated. 

"I'm sorry we haven't sent him before, " he said finally. "For if two menlike Walsterstorff and Knox think so highly of him, and if he can writelike that, --it gave me the horrors, --he ought to have his chance, andthis place is too small for him. I'll help you to keep him at collegeuntil he's got his education, --and it will take him less time than mostboys to get it, --and then he'll be able to take care of himself. If hesails on Wednesday, there's no produce to send with him to sell; butI've silver, and so have you, and he can take enough to keep him untilthe Island is well again. We'll do the thing properly, and he shan'tworry for want of plenty. "

When Alexander came home that evening he was informed that the world hadturned round, and that he stood on its apex. 

XII

The night before he sailed he rode out to the Grange estate. The wall ofthe cemetery had been repaired, James Lytton's slab was in its place, the tree had been removed, and he had rebuilt the mound above hismother as soon as the earth was firm again. There was no evidence of thehurricane here. The moon was out, and in her mellow bath the Island hadthe beauty of a desert. Alexander leaned his elbows on the wall andstared down at his mother's grave. He knew that he never should see itagain. What he was about to do was for good and all. He would no morewaste months returning to this remote Island than he would turn backfrom any of the goals of his future. And it mattered nothing to the deadwoman there. If she had an immortal part, it would follow him, and shehad suffered too much in life for her dust to resent neglect. But hepassionately wished that she were alive and that she were sailing withhim to his new world. He had ceased to repine her loss, much to missher, but his sentiment for her was still the strongest in his life, andas a companion he had found no one to take her place. To-night he wantedto talk to her. He was bursting with hope and anticipation and theenthusiasm of the mere change, but he was close to melancholy. 

Suddenly he bent his head. From the earth arose the golden music of amillion tiny bells. They had hung rusty and warped since the hurricane, but to-night they rang again, and as sweetly as on the night, seventeenyears ago, when their music filled the Universe, and two souls, whosedestiny it was to bring a greater into the world, were flooded with adiviner music than that fairy melody. Alexander knew nothing of thatmeeting of his parents, when they were but a few years older than he wasto-night, but the inherited echo of those hours when his own soulawaited its sentence may have stirred in his brain, for he stood thereand dreamed of his mother and father as they had looked and thought whenthey had met and loved; and this he had never done before. The tirelesslittle ringers filled his brain with their Lilliputian clamour, and hisimagination gave him his parents in the splendour of their young beautyand passion. For the first time he forgave his father, and he had a deepmoment of insight: one of the mysteries of life was bare before him. Hewas to have many of these cosmic moments, for although his practicalbrain relied always on hard work, never on inspiration, his diviningfaculty performed some marvellous feats, and saved him from muchplodding; but he never had a moment of insight which left a profounderimpression than this. He understood in a flash the weakness of theworld, and his own. At first he was appalled, then he pitied, then hevibrated to the thrill of that exultation which had possessed his motherthe night on the mountain when she made up her mind to outstay herguests. And then the future seemed to beckon more imperiously to the boyfor whose sake she had remained, the radiant image of his parents meltedin its crucible, and the world was flooded with a light which revealedmore than the smoke of battlefields and the laurels of fulfilledambition. 

XIII

On the following day, as Alexander stood on the wharf with his tearfulrelatives and friends, Hugh Knox detached him from Mrs. Mitchell and ledhim aside. 

"Alec, " he said, "I've two pieces of parting advice for you, and I wantyou to put them into the pocket of your memory that's easiest to find. Get a tight rein on that temper of yours. It's improved in the lastyear, but there's room yet. That's the first piece. This is the second:keep your own counsel about the irregularity of your birth, unlesssomeone asks you point-blank who has the right; if anyone else does, knock him down and tell him to go to hell with his impertinence. Andnever let it hit your courage in the vitals for a moment. You are notaccountable; your mother was the finest woman I ever knew, and you'vegot the best blood of Britain in your veins, and not a relative in theworld who's not of gentle blood. You're an aristocrat in body and brain, and you'll not find a purer in the American colonies. The lack of apriest at the right time can cause a good deal of suffering and trouble, but it can't muddy a pure stream; and many a lawful marriage has donethat. So, mind you never bring your head down for a minute, norpersuade yourself that anyone has a better right to keep it up. It wouldbe the death of you. "

Alexander nodded, but did not reply. He was feeling very low, now thatthe hour for parting was come, for his affections were strong andtender, and they were all rooted in the Island he hated. He understood, however. 

He was six weeks reaching Boston, for even the wind seemed to have hadthe life beaten out of it. He had a box of Knox's books, which he was toreturn by the Captain; and although he had read them before, he readthem again, and wrote commentaries, and so kept his mind occupied forthe greater part of the voyage. But an active brain, inexperienced inthe world, and in no need of rest, is always bored at sea, and he grewsick of the sight of that interminable blue waste; of which he had seentoo much all his life. When he had learned all there was to know about aship, and read all his books, he burned for change of any sort. Thechange, when it came, was near to making an end of him: the ship caughtfire, and they were a day and a night conquering the flames andpreparing their philosophy to meet death; for the boats wereunseaworthy. Alexander had all the excitement he wanted, for he foughtthe fire as hard as he had fought the hurricane, and he was delightedwhen the Captain gave him permission to turn in. This was his thirdtouch-and-go with death. 

He arrived in Boston late in October, and took passage immediately forNew York. There had been no time to announce his coming, and he wasobliged to find his own way to the house of Hercules Mulligan, a memberof the West Indian firm, to whom Mr. Cruger had given him a warm letterof introduction. Mr. Mulligan, a good-natured Irishman, received himhospitably, and asked him to stop in his modest house until his planswere made. Alexander accepted the invitation, then started out in searchof his friend, Ned Stevens, but paused frequently to observe the queer, straggling, yet imposing little city, the red splendour of the autumnfoliage; above all, to enjoy the keen and frosty air. All his life hehad longed for cold weather. He had anticipated it daily during hisvoyage, and, although he had never given way to the natural indolence ofthe Tropics, he had always been conscious of a languor to fight. But themoment the sharp air of the North had tingled his skin his very musclesseemed to harden, his blood to quicken, and even his brain to becomemore alert and eager. If he had been ambitious and studious in anaverage temperature of eighty-five degrees, what would happen when thethermometer dropped below zero? He smiled, but with much contentment. The vaster the capacity for study, the better; as for his ambitions, they could rest until he had finished his education. Now that his feetwere fairly planted on the wide highway of the future, his impatiencewas taking its well-earned rest; he would allow no dreams to interferewith the packing of his brain. 

It was late in the afternoon, and the fashionable world was promenadingon lower Broadway and on the Battery by the Fort. It was the first timethat Alexander had seen men in velvet coats, or women with hoopskirtsand hair built up a foot, and he thought the city, with its quaint Dutchhouses, its magnificent trees, and these brilliant northern birds, quitelike a picture book. They looked high-bred and intelligent, theseanimated saunterers, and Alexander regarded the women with deepinquisitiveness. Women had interested him little, with the exception ofhis mother, who he took for granted _sui generis_. The sisters of hisfriends were white delicate creatures, languid and somewhat affected;and he had always felt older than either of his aunts. In consequence, he had meditated little upon the sex to which poets had formed a habitof writing sonnets, regarding them either as necessary appendages orcreatures for use. But these alert, dashing, often handsome women, stirred him with a new gratitude to life. He longed for the day when heshould have time to know them, and pictured them gracing the solidhome-like houses on the Broadway, and in the fine grounds along theriver front, where he strayed alter a time, having mistaken the way toKing's College. He walked back through Wall Street, and his enthusiasmwas beginning to ebb, he was feeling the first pangs of a lonelynostalgia, when he almost ran into Ned Stevens's arms. It was four yearssince they had met. Stevens had grown a foot and Alexander a few inches, but both were boyish in appearance still and recognized each other atonce. 

"When I can talk, " exclaimed Stevens, "when I can get over myamazement--I thought at first it was my double, come to tell mesomething was wrong on the Island--I'll ask you to come to Fraunces'Tavern and have a tankard of ale. It's healthier than swizzle. "

"That is an invitation, Neddy, " cried Alexander, gaily. "Initiate me atonce. I've but a day or two to play in, but I must have you forplayfellow. "

They dined at Fraunces' Tavern and sat there till nearly morning. Alexander had much to tell but more to hear, and before they parted atMr. Mulligan's door he knew all of the New World that young Stevens hadpatiently accumulated in four years. It was a stirring story, thataccount of the rising impatience of the British colonies, and Stevenstold it with animation and brevity. Alexander became so interested thathe forgot his personal mission, but he would not subscribe to hisfriend's opinion that the Colonials were in the right. 

"Did I have the time, I should study the history of the colonies fromthe day they built their first fort, " he said. "Your story ispicturesque, but it does not convince me that they have all the right ontheir side. England--"

"England is a tyrannical old fool, " young Stevens was beginning, heatedly, when a man behind arose and clapped a hand over his mouth. 

"There are three British officers at the next table, " he said. "We don'twant any more rows. One too many, and God knows what next. "

Stevens subsided, but Alexander's nostrils expanded. Even the mentalatmosphere of this brilliant North was full of electricity. 

The next day he presented to Dr. Rogers and Dr. Mason the letters whichHugh Knox had given him. He interested them at once, and when he askedtheir advice regarding the first step he should take toward enteringcollege, they recommended Francis Barber's Grammar School, atElizabethtown, New Jersey. Stevens had suggested the same institution, and so did other acquaintances he made during his brief stay in the citywhich was one day to be christened by angry politicians, "Hamiltonopolis. " Early in the following week he crossed to New Jerseyand rode through the forests to the village, with its quaint streets andhandsome houses, "the Burial Yard Lot, " beside the main thoroughfare ofthe proud little hamlet, and Mr. Barber's Grammar School at its upperend. Hamilton was accepted immediately, but where to lodge was aharassing question. The only rooms for hire were at the tavern, wherepermanent lodgement would be intolerable. When he presented a letter toMr. Boudinot, which Mr. Cruger had given him, the problem was solved atonce. Mr. Boudinot, one of the men of his time, had a spacious andelegant house, set amidst gardens, lawns, and forest trees; there weremany spare bedrooms, and he invited Hamilton to become a member of hisfamily. The invitation was given as a matter of course, and Hamiltonaccepted it as frankly. All the pupils who were far from home visited inthe neighbourhood. Liberty Hall, on the Springfield turnpike, wasfinishing when Hamilton arrived. When the family was installed and hepresented his letter to its owner, William Livingston, he received aspressing an invitation as Mr. Boudinot's, and divided his time betweenthe two houses. 

Mr. Boudinot was a large man, with a long nose and a kindly eye, who wasdeeply attached to his children. Susan was healthy, pretty, lively, andan ardent young patriot. The baby died, and Hamilton, having offered tosit up with the little body, entertained himself by writing anappropriate poem, which was long treasured by Mr. Boudinot. 

At Liberty Hall life was even more interesting. William Livingston wasone of the ablest lawyers, most independent thinkers, and ardentrepublicans of the unquiet times. Witty and fearless, he had for yearsmade a target of kingly rule; his acid cut deep, doing much to weakenthe wrong side and encourage the right. His wife was as uncompromising apatriot as himself; his son, Brockholst, and his sprightly cultivateddaughters had grown up in an atmosphere of political discussion, and inconstant association with the best intellects of the day. Sarah, thebeauty, was engaged to John Jay, already a distinguished lawyer, notoriously patriotic and high-minded. He was a handsome man, with hisdark hair brushed forward about his face, his nobility and classicrepose of feature. Mr. Livingston wore his hair in a waving mass, aslong as he had any. His nose was large and sharp, and he had a verydisapproving eye. He took an immediate liking to young Hamilton, however, and his hospitality was frank and delightful. Brockholst andAlexander liked and admired each other in those days, although they wereto become bitter enemies in the turbulent future. As for the lively bevyof women, protesting against their exile from New York, but amusingthemselves, always, they adopted "the young West Indian. " Thedelicate-looking boy, with his handsome sparkling face, his charmingmanners, and gay good humour captivated them at once; and he wrote toMrs. Mitchell that he was become shockingly spoiled. When Mr. Livingstondiscovered that his brain and knowledge were extraordinary, he ceased atonce to treat him as a fascinating boy, and introduced him to the menwho were constantly entertained at his house: John Jay, James Duane, Dr. Witherspoon, President of Princeton; and members of the Morris, Schuyler, Ogden, Clinton, and Stockton families. The almost weeklyconversation of these men contributed to the rapid maturing ofHamilton's mind. His recreation he found with the young women of thefamily, and their conversation was not always political. SarahLivingston, beautiful, sweet, and clever, was pensively in love; butKitty and Susan were not, and they were handsome and dashing. They weresufficiently older than Alexander to inspire him with the belief that hewas in love with each in turn; and if he was constant to either, it wasto Kitty, who was the first to reveal to him the fascination of hersex. But they did not interrupt the course of his studies; and in thedawn, when he repaired to the Burial Yard Lot to think out his difficulttask for the day, not a living face haunted the tombstones. 

And when winter came and he walked the vast black forests alone, thesnow crunching under his feet, the blood racing in his body, a gun onhis shoulder, lest he meet a panther, or skated till midnight under thestars, a crystal moon illuminating the dark woods on the river's edge, the frozen tide glittering the flattering homage of earth, he felt soalive and happy, so tingling and young and primeval, that had hisfellow-inhabitants flown to the stars he would not have missed them. Until that northern winter embraced and hardened him, quickening mindand soul and body, crowding the future with realized dreams, he neverhad dared to imagine that life could be so fair and beautiful a thing. 

On stormy winter nights, when he roasted chestnuts or popped corn in thegreat fireplace of Liberty Hall, under the tuition of all the Livingstongirls, Sarah, Susan, Kitty, and Judith, he felt very sociable indeed;and if his ears, sometimes, were soundly boxed, he looked so penitentand meek that he was contritely rewarded with the kiss he had snatched. 

The girls regarded him as a cross between a sweet and charming boy to bespoiled--one night, when he had a toothache, they all sat up withhim--and a phenomenon of nature of which they stood a trifle in awe. Butthe last was when he was not present and they fell to discussing him. And with them, as with all women, he wore, because to the gay vivacityand polished manners of his Gallic inheritance he added the ruggedsincerity of the best of Britons; and in the silences of his heart hewas too sensible of the inferiority of the sex, out of which, first andlast, he derived so much pleasure, not to be tender and considerate ofit always. 

Before the year of 1773 was out Mr. Barber pronounced him ready forcollege, and, his choice being Princeton, he presented himself to Dr. Witherspoon and demanded a special course which would permit him tofinish several years sooner than if he graduated from class to class. Heknew his capacity for conquering mental tasks, and having his own way tomake in the world, had no mind to waste years and the substance of hisrelatives at college. Dr. Witherspoon, who had long been deeplyinterested in him, examined him privately and pronounced him equal tothe heavy burden he had imposed upon himself, but feared that the boardof trustees would not consent to so original a plan. They would not. Hamilton, nothing daunted, applied to King's College, and found noopposition there. He entered as a private student, attached to noparticular class, and with the aid of a tutor began his customaryannihilation of time. Besides entering upon a course of logic, ethics, mathematics, history, chronology, rhetoric, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, allthe modern languages, and Belles Lettres, he found time to attend Dr. Clossy's lectures on anatomy, with his friend Stevens, who was studyingmedicine as a profession. 

King's was a fine building facing the North River and surrounded byspacious grounds shaded by old sycamores and elms. There were manysecluded corners for thought and study. A more favourite resort ofAlexander's was Batteau Street, under whose great elms he formed thehabit of strolling and muttering his lessons, to the concern of thepasser-by. In his hours of leisure he rollicked with Stevens and his newfriends, Nicolas Fish and Robert Troup. The last, a strong and splendidspecimen of the young American collegian, had assumed at once therelation of big brother to the small West Indian, but was not longdiscovering that Hamilton could take care of himself; was flown atindeed by two agile fists upon one occasion, when protectiveness, inAlexander's measurement, rose to interference. But they formed a deepand lifelong friendship, and Troup, who was clever and alert, withoutbrilliancy, soon learned to understand Hamilton, and was not longrecognizing potentialities of usefulness to the American cause in hisgenius. 

It was Troup who took him for his first sail up the Hudson, and exceptfor the men who managed the boat, they went alone. Troup was a goodlistener, and for a time Hamilton chattered gaily as the boat sped upthe river, jingling rhymes on the great palisades, which looked like thewalls of some Brobdingnagian fortress, and upon the gorgeous masses ofOctober colouring swarming over the perpendicular heights of Jersey andthe slopes and bluffs of New York. It was a morning, and a piece ofnature, to make the quicksilver in Hamilton race. The arch was blue, thetide was bluer, the smell of salt was in the keen and frosty air. Twoboats with full white sails flew up the river. On either bank theprimeval forest had burst in a night into scarlet and gold, pale yellowand crimson, bronze, pink, the flaming hues of the Tropics, and thedelicate tints of hot-house roses. Hamilton had never seen such a riotof colour in the West Indies. They passed impenetrable thickets close tothe water's edge, ravines, cliffs, irregular terraces on the hillside, gorges, solitary heights, all flaunting their charms like a vast boothwhich has but a day in which to sell its wares. They sped past thebeautiful peninsula, then the lawns of Philipse Manor. Hamilton steppedsuddenly to the bow of the boat and stood silent for a long while. 

The stately but narrow end of the Hudson was behind; before him rolled awide and ever widening majestic flood, curving among its hills andpalisades, through the glory of its setting and the soft mists ofdistance, until the far mountains it clove trembled like a mirage. Theeye of Hamilton's mind followed it farther and farther yet. It seemed tohim that it cut the world in two. The sea he had had with him always, but it had been the great chasm between himself and life, and he hadoften hated it. This mighty river, haughty and calm in spite of theprimeval savagery of its course, beat upon the gates of his soul, beatthem down, filled him with a sense of grandeur which made him tremble. He had a vision of the vastness and magnificence of the New World, ofthe great lonely mountains in the North, with their countless lakeshidden in the immensity of a trackless forest, of other mountain rangesequally wild and lonely, cutting the monotony of plains and prairies, and valleys full of every delight. All that Hamilton had read or heardof the immense area beyond or surrounding the few cities and hamlets ofthe American colonies, flew to coherence, and he had a suddenappreciation of the stupendousness of this new untravelled world, understood that with its climate, fertility, and beauty, its largenucleus of civilization, its destiny must be as great as Europe's, normuch dissimilar, no matter what the variance of detail. The noblestriver in the world seemed to lift its voice like a prophet, and the timecame--after his visit to Boston--when Hamilton listened to it with athrill of impatient pride and white-hot patriotism. But to-day he feltonly the grandeur of life as he never had felt it before, felt his soulmerge into this mighty unborn soul of a nation sleeping in the infinity, which the blue flood beneath him spoke of, almost imaged; with nopremonition that his was the destiny to quicken that soul to its birth. 

 * * * * *

While on the ship, Alexander had written to his father, asking for newsof him and telling of the change in his own fortunes. James Hamilton hadreplied at once, gratefully, but with melancholy; by this time he knewhimself to be a failure, although he was now a planter in a small way. Alexander's letter, full of the hope and indomitable spirit of youth, interested as keenly as it saddened him. He recalled his own highcourage and expectant youth, and wondered if this boy had strongermettle than his own equipment. Then he remembered Rachael Levine andhoped. He lived to see hope fulfilled beyond any achievement of hisimagination, although the correspondence, brisk for a time, graduallysubsided. From Hugh Knox and Mrs. Mitchell Alexander heard constantly, and it is needless to state that his aunt kept him in linen which wasthe envy of his friends. His beruffled shirts and lace stocks weremarvels, and if he was an exquisite in dress all his life, it certainlywas not due to after-thought. Meanwhile, he lodged with the family ofHercules Mulligan, and wrote doggerel for their amusement in theevening. Troup relates that Hamilton presented him with a manuscript offugitive poetry, written at this period. Mercifully, Troup lost it. Hamilton has been peculiarly fortunate in this respect. He lies moreserenely in his grave than most great men. 

When he was not studying, or joking, or rhyming, during those two shortyears of college life, he read: Cudworth's "Intellectual System, "Hobbes's "Dialogues, " Bacon's "Essays, " Plutarch's "Morals, " Cicero's"De Officiis, " Montaigne's "Essays, " Rousseau's "Émile, " Demosthenes's"Orations, " Aristotle's "Politics, " Ralt's "Dictionary of Trade, " andthe "Lex Mercatoria. "

He accomplished his mental feats by the--to him--simple practice ofkeeping one thing before his mind at a time, then relegating ituncompromisingly to the background; where, however, it was safe in thefolds of his memory. What would have sprained most minds merelystimulated his, and never affected his spirits nor his health, highly asnature had strung his nerves. He was putting five years college workinto two, but the effect was an expansion and strengthening of theforces in his brain; they never weakened for an instant. 

XIV

In the spring of 1774 Hamilton visited Boston during a short holiday. His glimpse of this city had been so brief that it had impressed hismind but as a thing of roofs and trees, a fantastic woodlandamphitheatre, in whose depths men of large and solemn mien added dailyto the sum of human discomfort. He returned to see the important city ofBoston, but with no overwhelming desire to come in closer contact withits forbidding inhabitants. He quickly forgot the city in what thosestern sour men had to tell him. For to them he owed that revelation ofthe tragic justice of the American cause which enabled him to begin withthe pen his part in the Revolution, forcing the crisis, taking rank as apolitical philosopher when but a youth of seventeen; instead of boltingfrom his books to the battlefield at the first welcome call to arms. Upto this time he had adhered to his resolution to let nothing impede theprogress of his education, to live strictly in the hour until the timecame to leave the college for the world. Therefore, although he hadheard the question of Colonies versus Crown argued week after week atLiberty Hall, and at the many New York houses where he dined of a Sundaywith his friends, Stevens, Troup, and Fish, he had persistently refusedto study the matter: there were older heads to settle it and there wasonly one age for a man's education. Moreover, he had grown up with adeep reverence for the British Constitution, and his strong aristocraticprejudices inclined him to all the aloofness of the true conservative. So while the patriots and royalists of King's were debating, ofttimesconcluding in sequestered nooks, Hamilton remained "The young WestIndian, " an alien who cared for naught but book-learning, walkingabstractedly under the great green shade of Batteau Street while LibertyBoys were shouting, and British soldiers swaggered with a sharp eye foraggression. This period of philosophic repose in the midst of electricfire darting from every point in turn and sometimes from all points atonce, endured from the October of his arrival to its decent burial inBoston shortly after his seventeenth birthday. 

Boston was sober and depressed, stonily awaiting the vengeance of thecrown for her dramatic defiance in the matter of tea. Even in thatrumbling interval, Hamilton learned, the Committee of Correspondence, which had directed the momentous act, had been unexcited and methodical, restraining the Mohawks day after day, hoping until the last moment thatthe Collector of Customs would clear the ships and send the tea whenceit came. Hamilton heard the wrongs of the colonies discussed without anyof the excitement or pyrotechnical brilliancy to which he had becomeaccustomed. New York was not only the hot-bed of Toryism, but even suchardent Republicans as William Livingston, George Clinton, and John Jaywere aristocrats, holding themselves fastidiously aloof from the rankand file that marched and yelled under the name of Sons of Liberty. ToHamilton the conflict had been spectacular rather than real, until hemet and moved with these sombre, undemonstrative, superficiallyunpleasing men of Boston; then, almost in a flash, he realized that thecolonies were struggling, not to be relieved of this tax or that, butfor a principle; realized that three millions of people, a respectablemajority honourable, industrious, and educated, were being treated likeincapables, apprehensive of violence if they dared to protest for theirrights under the British Constitution. Hamilton also learned that Bostonwas the conspicuous head and centre of resistance to the crown, that shehad led the colonies in aggressiveness since the first Stamp Act of 1765had shocked them from passive subjects into dangerous critics. He hadletters which admitted him to clubs and homes, and he discussed but onesubject during his visit. There were no velvet coats and lace ruffleshere, except in the small group which formed the Governor's court. Themen wore dun-coloured garments, and the women were not much livelier. Itwas, perhaps, as well that he did not see John Hancock, that ornamentalhead-piece of patriotic New England, or the harmony of the impressionmight have been disturbed; but, as it was, every time he saw these mentogether, whether sitting undemonstratively in Faneuil Hall while one oftheir number spoke, or in church, or in groups on Boston Common, it wasas if he saw men of iron, not of flesh and blood. Every word theyuttered seemed to have been weighed first, and it was impossible toconsider such men giving their time and thought, making ready to offerup their lives, to any cause which should not merit the attention of allmen. Although Hamilton met many of them, they made no individualimpression on him; he saw them only as a mighty brain, capable ofsolving a mighty question, and of a stern and bitter courage. 

He returned to New York filled with an intense indignation against thecountry which he had believed too ancient and too firm in her highestprinciples to make a colossal mistake, and a hot sympathy for thecolonists which was not long resolving itself into as burning apatriotism as any in the land. It was not in him to do anything byhalves, it is doubtful if he ever realized the half-hearted tendency ofthe greater part of mankind. He studied the question from the firstStamp Act to the Tea Party. The day he was convinced, he ceased to be aWest Indian. The time was not yet come to draw the sword in behalf ofthe country for which he conceived a romantic passion, which satisfiedother wants of his soul, but he began at once on a course of readingwhich should be of use to her when she was free to avail herself ofpatriotic thinkers. He also joined the debating club of the college. Hisabrupt advent into this body, with his fiery eloquence and remarkablelogic, was electrical. In a day he became the leader of the patriotstudents. There were many royalists in King's, and the president, Dr. Myles Cooper, was a famous old Tory. He looked upon this influentialaddition to the wrong side with deep disfavour, and when he discoveredthat the most caustic writer of Holt's Whig newspaper, who had carvedhim to the quick and broken his controversial lances again and again, was none other than his youngest and most revolutionary pupil, his wrathknew no bounds. 

With the news of the order to close the port of Boston, the wave ofindignation in the colonies rose so high that even the infatuated clergywriggled. Philadelphia went so far as to toll her muffled bells for aday, and as for New York, then as now, the nerve-knot of the country, she exploded. The Sons of Liberty, who had reorganized after the finalattempt of England to force tea on the colonies, paraded all day andmost of the night, but were, as yet, more orderly than the masses, whostormed through the streets with lighted torches, shrieking and yellingand burning the king and his ministers in effigy. 

The substantial citizens also felt that the time was come to prepare forthe climax toward which their fortunes were hastening. That spitefulfist would be at their own skulls next, beyond a doubt. The result of along and hot debate in the Exchange between the Sons of Liberty and themore conservative patriots was an agreement to call a Congress of theColonies. The contest over the election of delegates was so bitter, however, the Committee of the Assembly, which was largely ministerial, claiming the right to nomination, that it was determined to submit thequestion to the people at large. 

XV

In the early morning Hamilton still sauntered beneath the college treesor those of Batteau Street, pondering on his studies, and abstractinghimself from the resting city, but in the evenings and during half thenight he inhaled the hot breath of rebellion; and the flaring torches, the set angry faces, the constant shouting, the frightened pallor of thewomen at the windows of the great houses on the line of march, theconstant brawls with British soldiers, stormed the curb he had put onhis impatient spirit. He realized that the colonies were not yetprepared to fight, and he had no thought of doing anything rash, but itwas his propensity to do a thing at once if it were to be done at all, and this last indignity should result in something except talk. He waspresent at the meeting in the Exchange and listened carefully to allthat was said, feeling that he could add to that whirlwind of ideas, butforbearing on account of his youth. His mind, by now, was so mature thathe reminded himself, with some difficulty, that he was but seventeen. Hewas as lively and as happy as ever, but that was temperamental and wouldendure through all things; mentally he had no youth in him, had hadlittle since the day he began to ask questions. 

The meeting in the Fields--at which it was hoped to effect a choice ofdelegates by the people at large--was called for the 6th of July, and agreat multitude assembled. Alexander McDougall, the first patriot tohave suffered imprisonment at the hands of the Tyrant, presided, andcelebrated speakers harangued. It was here that Hamilton's impatiencegot rid of its curb. He heard much that was good, more that was bad, little that was new; and he found the radicals illogical and theconservatives timid. Nicolas Fish and Robert Troup pushed their waythrough the crowd to where Hamilton stood, his uplifted face expressinghis thoughts so plainly to those who knew him that these friendsdetermined to force him to the platform. 

At first he protested; and in truth, the idea, shaping concretely, filled his very legs with terror; but the young men's insistence, addedto his own surging ideas, conquered, and he found himself on theplatform facing a boundless expanse of three-cornered hats. Beneath werethe men who represented the flower as well as the weeds of the city, alldominated by the master passion of the civilized world. There was littleshade in the Fields and the day was hot. It was a crowded, uncomfortable, humid mass whose attention he was about to demand, andtheir minds were already weary of many words, their calves of theruthless mosquito. They stared at Hamilton in amazement, for his slenderlittle figure and fair curling hair, tied loosely with a ribbon, madehim look a mere boy, while his proud high-bred face, the fine greenbroadcloth of his fashionably cut garments, the delicate lawn of hisshirt and the profusion of lace with which it was trimmed, particularlyabout his exquisite hands, gave him far more the appearance of a courtfavourite than a champion of liberty. Some smiled, others grunted, butall remained to listen, for the attempt was novel, and he was beautifulto look upon. 

For a moment Hamilton felt as if the lower end of his heart had grownwings, and he began falteringly and in an almost inaudible voice. Pridehastened to his relief, however, and his daily debates in college hadgiven him assurance and address. He recovered his poise, and as ideasswam from his brain on the tide of a natural eloquence, he forgot allbut the great principle which possessed him in common with that jam ofweary men, the determination to inspire them to renewed courage andgreater activity. He rehearsed their wrongs, emphasized theirinalienable rights under the British Constitution--from which theministerial party and a foolish sovereign had practically divorced them. He insisted that the time had come in their history to revert to the_natural_ rights of man--upon which all civil rights were founded--sincethey were no longer permitted to lead the lives of self-respectingcitizens, pursuing the happiness which was the first instinct of thehuman intelligence; they had been reduced almost to the level of theirown slaves, who soon would cease to respect them. 

He paused so abruptly that the crowd held its breath. Then his ringingthrilling voice sounded the first note of the Revolution. "It is war!"he cried. "It is war! It is the battlefield or slavery!"

When the deep roar which greeted the startling words had subsided, hespoke briefly of their immense natural advantages, in the event of war, the inability of England to gain any permanent advantage, and finally ofthe vast resources of the country, and its phenomenal future, when the"waves of rebellion, sparkling with fire, had washed back to the shoresof England the wrecks of her power, her wealth, and her glory. "

His manner was as fiery and impetuous as his discourse was clear, logical, and original. The great crowd was electrified. It was as if ablade of lightning had shot down from the hot blue sky to illuminate thedoubting recesses of their understandings. They murmured repeatedly "Itis a collegian, " "a collegian, " and they thundered their applause whenhe finished. 

Troup and Fish bore him off in triumph to Fraunces' Tavern, whereStevens joined them immediately, hot, but exultant. 

"I've just passed our president, looking like an infuriated bumblebee, "he cried. "I know he heard your speech from some hidden point ofvantage. It was a great speech, Alec. What a pity Hugh Knox, Mr. Lytton, and Benny Yard were not there to hear. I'll write them about itto-night, for St. Croix ought to burn a bonfire for a week. It was ahurricane with a brain in it that whirled you straight to theseshores--as opportune for this country as for your own ambitions, for, unless I'm much mistaken, you're going to be a prime factor in gettingrid of these pestiferous redcoats--we've a private room, so I can talkas I please. One tried to trip me up just now, thinking I was you. "

Fish leaned across the table and looked penetratingly at Hamilton, whowas flushed and nervous. The young New Yorker had a chubby face, almostfeminized by a soft parted fringe, but his features were strong, and hiseyes preternaturally serious. 

"You've committed yourself, Hamilton, " he said. "That was no collegeplay. Whether you fight or not doesn't so much matter, but you must giveus your pen and your speech. I'm no idle purveyor of compliments, butyou are extraordinary, and there isn't a man living can do for the causewith his pen what you can do. Write pamphlets, and they'll be publishedwithout an hour's delay. "

"Ah, I see!" cried Hamilton, gaily. "I was a bit bewildered. You thinkmy new patriotism needs nursing. 'After all, he is a West Indian, bornBritish, brought up under Danish rule, which is like being coddled byone's grandmother. He sympathizes with us, his mind is delighted with anew subject for analysis and discourse, but patriotism--that isimpossible, ' Is it not true?"

"You have read my thought, " said Fish, with some confusion. "And youhave a great deal to occupy your mind. I never have known anyone whosebrain worked at so many things at once. I am selfish enough to want youto give a good bit of it to us. "

"I never was one to make fierce demonstrations, " said Alexander; "butfill up another bumper--the first has calmed my nerves, which were liketo jump through my skin--and stand up, and I'll drink you a pledge. "

The three other young men sprang to their feet, and stood with theirglasses raised, their eyes anxiously fixed on young Hamilton. They hadbelieved him to be preparing himself for a great career in letters, andknowing his tenacity and astonishing powers of concentration, haddoubted the possibility of interesting him permanently in politics. Theyall had brains and experience enough--it was a hot quick time--torecognize his genius, and to conceive the inestimable benefit it couldconfer upon the colonial cause. Moreover, they loved him and wanted tosee him famous as quickly as possible. 

"Stand up on the table, " cried Troup. "It is where you belong; andyou're the biggest man in New York, to-day. " As Hamilton, althoughself-confident, was modest, Troup put down his bumper, seized the heroin his big arms and swung him to the middle of the table. Then thethree, raising their glasses again, stood in a semi-circle. Hamiltonthrew back his head and raised his own glass. His hand trembled, and hislips moved for a moment without speaking, after his habit when excited. 

"The pledge! The pledge!" cried Fish. "We want it. "

"It is this, " said Hamilton. "I pledge myself, body and soul and brain, to the most sacred cause of the American colonies. I vow to it all mybest energies for the rest of my life. I swear to fight for it with mysword; then when the enemy is driven out, and all the brain in thecountry needed to reconstruct these tattered colonies and unify theminto one great state, or group of allied states, which shall take arespectable place among nations, to give her all that I have learned, all that my brain is capable of learning and conceiving. I believe thatI have certain abilities, and I solemnly swear to devote them wholly to_my country_. And I further swear that never, not in a single instance, will I permit my personal ambitions to conflict with what must be thelifelong demands of this country. "

He spoke slowly and with great solemnity. The hands of the three youngmen shook, as they gulped down a little of the wine. Hamilton rarely wasserious in manner; even when discussing literature, politics, or any ofthe great questions before the world, his humour and wit were inconstant play, a natural gift permitting this while detracting nothingfrom the weight of his opinions. But his words and his manner were sosolemn to-day that they impressed his hearers profoundly, and they allhad a vague presentiment of what the unborn Country would owe to thatpledge. 

"You'll keep that, Alexander, " said Fish. "Perhaps it were better foryou had you not made it so strong. I burn with patriotism, but I'd nothave you sacrificed--"

"I've made my vows, " cried Hamilton, gaily, "and I'll not have youmention the fact again that I'm not an American born. Here's not only toliberty, but to a united people under the firmest national constitutionever conceived by man. "

"Amen, " said Troup, "but that's looking well ahead. Hard as it will beto get England out, it will be harder still to make New York and NewEngland love each other; and when it comes to hitching Massachusetts andVirginia about each other's necks, I vow my imagination won't budge. "

"It will come, " said Hamilton, "because in no other way can theycontinue to exist, much less become one of the nations of the earth. This war is but an interlude, no matter how long it may take. Then willcome the true warfare of this country--the Great Battle of Ideas, andour real history will begin while it is raging, while we areexperimenting; and there will be few greater chapters in any country. Ishall take part in that battle; how, it is too soon to know, except thatfor union I shall never cease to strive until it is a fact. But it hasgrown cooler. Let us ride up to the village of Harlem and have supperunder the trees. "

XVI

It was not long after this that he wrote the pamphlets in reply to thetracts assailing the Congress and aimed particularly at setting thefarmers against the merchants. These tracts were by two of the ablestmen on the Tory side, and were clever, subtle, and insinuating. Hamilton's pamphlets were entitled, "A Full Vindication of the Measuresof Congress from the Calumnies of Their Enemies, " and "The FarmerRefuted; or a More Comprehensive and Impartial View of the Disputesbetween Great Britain and the Colonies, Intended as a FurtherVindication of the Congress. " It is not possible to quote thesepamphlets, and they can be found in his "Works, " but they wereremarkable not only for their unanswerable logic, their comprehensivearraignment of Britain, their close discussion of the rights of thecolonists under the British Constitution, their philosophical definitionof "natural rights, " and their reminder that war was inevitable, but fortheir anticipation of the future resources of the country, particularlyin regard to cotton and manufactures, and for the prophecies regardingthe treatment of the colonies by Europe. The style was clear, concise, and bold, and with a finish which alone would have suggested a penpointed by long use. 

These pamphlets, which created a profound sensation, were attributed toWilliam Livingston and John Jay, two of the ablest men on the patriotside. That side was profoundly grateful, for they put heart into thetimid, decided the wavering, and left the Tory writers without a leg tostand on. Nothing so brilliant had been contributed to the cause. 

It was not long before the public had the author's name. Troup had beenpresent at the writing of the pamphlets, and he called on Dr. Cooper, one day, and announced the authorship with considerable gusto. 

"I'll not believe it, " exclaimed the president, angrily; "Mr. Jay wrotethose pamphlets, and none other. A mere boy like that--it's absurd. Whydo you bring me such a story, sir? I don't like this Hamilton, he's tooforward and independent--but I have no desire to hear more ill of him. "

"He wrote them, sir. Mulligan, in whose house he lives, and I, can proveit. He's the finest brain in this country, and I mean you shall knowit. "

He left Dr. Cooper foaming, and went to spread the news elsewhere. Theeffect of his revelation was immediate distinction for Hamilton. He wasdiscussed everywhere as a prodigy of intellect; messages reached himfrom every colony. "Sears, " said Willets, one of the leaders of theLiberty party, "was a warm man, but with little reflection; McDougallwas strong-minded; and Jay, appearing to fall in with the measures ofSears, tempered and controlled them; but Hamilton, after these greatwritings, became our oracle. "

Congress met in May, 1775, and word having come that Chatham'sconciliation bill had been rejected, and that Britain was about to sendan army to suppress the American rebellion, this body assumed sovereignprerogatives. They began at once to organize an army; Washington waselected Commander-in-chief, and they ordered that five thousand men beraised to protect New York, as the point most exposed. The royal troopswere expelled, and the city placed in command of General Charles Lee, anEnglish soldier of fortune, who had fought in many lands and brought tothe raw army an experience which might have been of inestimable service, had he been high-minded, or even well balanced. As it was, he verynearly sacrificed the cause to his jealousy of Washington and to hisinsane vanity. 

Hamilton, meanwhile, published his two pamphlets on the Quebec Bill, andtook part in a number of public debates. At one of these, as he rose tospeak, a stranger remarked, "What brings that lad here? The poor boywill disgrace himself. " But the merchants, who were present in force, listened intently to all he had to say on the non-importation agreement, and admitted the force of his arguments toward its removal, now that warpractically had been declared. One of the most interesting of thephenomena in the career of Hamilton was the entire absence of strugglefor an early hearing. People recognized his genius the moment they camein contact with it, and older men saw only the extraordinary and maturebrain, their judgement quite unaffected by the boyish face and figure. Those who would not admit his great gifts were few, for except in theinstances where he incurred jealous hate, he won everybody he met by hischarming manner and an entire absence of conceit. He was conscious ofhis powers, but took them as a matter of course, and thought only ofwhat he would do with them, having no leisure to dwell on their quality. In consequence, he already had a large following of unhesitatingadmirers, many of them men twice his age, and was accepted as theleading political philosopher of the country. 

Dr. Cooper sent for him after his third pamphlet. He, too, was a patriotin his way, and although he bristled whenever Hamilton's name wasmentioned, he had come in contact with too many minds not to recognizeability of any sort; he knew that Hamilton would be invaluable to theRoyalist cause. 

"Ask your own price, sir, " he said, after suggesting the higher serviceto which he could devote his pen. "You will find us more liberal--" ButHamilton had bolted. It is impossible to knock down one's venerablepresident, and his temper was still an active member in the family ofhis faculties. To the numerous other offers he received from the Toryside he made no reply, beyond inserting an additional sting into his penwhen writing for Holt's _Journal_. In the press he was referred to, now, as "The Vindicator of Congress, " and it was generally conceded that hehad done more to hasten matters to a climax, by preparing and whettingthe public mind, than anyone else in America. 

There is no doubt that the swiftness and suddenness of Hamilton'sconversion, his abrupt descent from a background of study and alienindifference, gave him a clearer and more comprehensive view of thewrongs and needs of the colonists than they possessed themselves. Theyhad been muttering ever since the passage of the first stamp tax, threatening, permitting themselves to be placated, hoping, despairing, hoping again. Hamilton, from the first moment he grasped the subject, saw that there was no hope in ministerial England, no hope in anythingbut war. Moreover, his courage, naturally of the finest temper, and anaudacity which no one had ever discouraged, leapt out from that farbackground of the West Indies into an arena where the natives moved inan atmosphere whose damps of doubt and discouragement had corroded themfor years. Even among men whose courage and independence were of thefirst quality, Hamilton's passionate energy, fearlessness of thought, and audacity of expression, made him remarkable at once; and they drewa long breath of relief when he uncompromisingly published what they hadlong agreed upon over the dining-table, or built up the doctrine ofresistance with argument as powerful as it was new. 

But the time rapidly approached for deeds, and Hamilton had beenoccupied in other ways than writing pamphlets. During the past sixmonths he had studied tactics and gunnery, and had joined a volunteercorps in order to learn the practical details of military science. Allhis friends belonged to this corps, which called itself "Hearts of Oak, "and looked very charming in green uniforms and leathern caps, inscribed"Freedom or Death. " They soon attracted the attention of General Greene, a superior man and an accomplished officer. He took an especial fancy toHamilton, and great as was their disparity in years, they were closefriends until the General's death. It was Greene who first attractedWashington's attention to the youngest of his captains, and Hamilton wasable to render the older man, whose services and talents have even yetnot been properly recognized by his country, exceptional service. Thecompany exercised in the churchyard of St. George's chapel, early in themorning; for in spite of the swarms of recruits clad in every variety ofuniform, deserted houses, and daily flights of the timid into Jersey, earthworks and fortifications, college went on as usual. 

It was not long before the "Hearts of Oak" had an opportunity todistinguish themselves. The provincial committee ordered them to removethe cannon stationed at the Battery. In the harbour was the Britishwar-ship, _Asia_, which immediately sent off a boat to enquire into thisproceeding. A large number of armed citizens had escorted the littlecorps to the Battery, and several lost their heads and fired at theboat. There was an immediate broadside from the _Asia_. Three of themilitia were wounded, and one fell dead by Hamilton's side. "It ischild's play to a hurricane, " he thought. "I doubt if a man could have abetter training for the battlefield. " They removed the guns. 

The result of this attack was another explosion of New York's nerves. The Sons of Liberty made it unsafe for a Tory to venture abroad. Theymarched through the streets shouting vengeance, burning in effigy, andmaking alarming demonstrations before the handsome houses of certainloyalists. Suddenly, about ten o'clock at night, they were animated by adesire to offer up Dr. Cooper, and they cohered and swarmed down towardKing's. Hamilton and Troup happened to be walking in the grounds whenthe sudden flare of torches and the approaching tide of sound, warnedthem of the invasion. They ran like deer to head them off, but reachedthe portico only a moment ahead of the mob, which knew that it must besudden and swift to be victorious. 

"I can talk faster than you, " whispered Hamilton, "I'll harangue them, and it won't take Dr. Cooper long to understand and flee through theback door--and may the devil fly away with him. "

"A moment!" he cried, "I've something to say, and I may not have anotherchance, war is so close upon us. "

"'Tis young Hamilton, " cried someone in the crowd. "Well, make us aspeech; we're always glad to hear you, but we'll not go home without oldCooper. Don't think it. "

Hamilton never remembered what nonsense he talked that night. Fortunately words always came with a rush, and he could mix up politics, wrongs, the clergy, and patriotism, in so picturesque a jumble that anexcited crowd would not miss his usual concise logic. "Do you supposehe's gone?" he whispered, pausing to take breath. 

"Go on, go on, " said Troup nervously, "I hear someone moving. "

"Ah-h-h!"

There was a wild yell from the crowd, and a hoarse roar from above. Hamilton and Troup looked up. Dr. Cooper's infuriated visage, surroundedby a large frill, projected from his bedroom window. "Don't listen tohim, " he shrieked, thrusting his finger at Hamilton. "He's crazy! He'scrazy!"

"The old fool, " fumed Troup, "he thinks you're taking your just revenge. If I could get inside--"

Dr. Cooper was jerked back by a friendly hand and the window slammed. "Someone understands, " whispered Troup, excitedly; "and they'll have himout in two minutes. Go on, for heaven's sake. "

Hamilton, who had been tearful with laughter, began again:--

"I appeal to you, my friends, am I crazy?" Indignant shouts of "No! No!""Then let me, I pray, make a few remarks on the possibility of holdingNew York against the advancing fleet, that you can testify to my sanityto-morrow, and save me from whatever unhappy fate this irasciblegentleman has in store for me. "

"Go ahead! Go ahead!" cried someone in the mob. "We won't let him touchyou. "

And again Hamilton harangued them, until Troup slipped round to the rearof the big building and returned with word that Dr. Cooper was safelyover the back fence and on his way to the _Asia_. When Hamiltonannounced the flight, there was muttering, but more laughter, for themob was in a better humour than when it came. 

"Well, that silver tongue of yours did the old man a good turn to-night, but you shan't make fools of us again. " And a few days later, whenAlexander attempted to head off the same mob as it made for the press ofRivington, the Tory printer, they would not listen to him. But theeffort raised him still higher in the estimation of the patriots, forthey saw that his love of law and order was as great as his passion forwar. 

XVII

In January the convention of New York gave orders that a company ofartillery be raised. Hamilton, through Colonel McDougall of the FirstNew York regiment, at once applied for the captaincy, underwent anexamination that convinced the Congress of his efficiency, and on the14th of March was appointed Captain of the Provincial Company ofArtillery. McDougall had already applied for "coarse blue cloth, " withwhich to clothe in a semblance of uniform those who already hadenlisted, and Hamilton took even better care of them. On May 26th hewrote a brief, pointed, and almost peremptory letter to the Congress, representing the injustice of paying his men less than the wagesreceived by the Continental artillery, adding that there were many marksof discontent in his ranks, and that in the circumstances it wasimpossible for him to get any more recruits. "On this account I shouldwish to be immediately authorized to offer the same pay to all who maybe inclined to recruit, " he wrote. He then went on to demand tenshillings a head for every man he should be able to enlist, and thateach man of his company be allowed a frock as a bounty. 

Congress passed a resolution as soon as the letter was read, grantinghim all he asked for, but limiting his company to one hundred men. Whenit was recruited to his satisfaction, it numbered ninety-one, exclusiveof himself and his four officers. Besides his Captain-Lieutenant, andfirst, second, and third Lieutenants, he had three sergeants, threecorporals, six bombardiers, three gunners, two drummers, two fifers, abarber, and seventy-one matrosses, or assistant gunners. 

He had his troubles, and Congress came to the rescue whenever itreceived one of his singularly unboyish letters, expressed, moreover, with little more diffidence than if he had been Commander-in-chief. Buthe knew what he wanted, and he never transcended courtesy; he wasevidently a favourite with the Congress. On July 26th he wrote demandinga third more rations for his men, and on the 31st a resolution waspassed which marked an end to the disposition to keep his little companyon a level with the militia rather than with the regular army. Thereafter he had no further complaints to carry to headquarters; but hewas annoyed to discover that one of his officers was a hard drinker, andthat the Lieutenant Johnson who had recruited the larger number of hismen before he assumed command, had disobeyed orders and enlisted themfor a year instead of for the term of war. 

Meanwhile, although the very air quivered and every man went armed tothe teeth, if a war-ship fired a gun the streets were immediately filledwith white affrighted faces; and although redoubts were building day andnight, still Congress came out with no declaration, and the countryseemed all nerves and no muscle. The English fleet arrived and filledthe bay, --a beautiful but alarming sight. Washington came and made NewYork his headquarters, called for more troops, and Brooklyn Heights werefortified, lest the English land on Long Island and make an easy descenton the city. 

It is doubtful if the Americans have ever appreciated all they owe toLord Howe. He sat out in the harbour day after day, while they completedtheir preparations, practically waiting until they announced themselvesready to fight. But no man ever went to the wars with less heart for hiswork, and he put off the ugly business of mowing down a people headmired, hoping from day to day for an inspired compromise. It was notuntil after the Declaration of Independence by the Congress, the wildenthusiasm it excited throughout the colonies, and the repeateddeclination of Washington to confer with Howe as a private citizen, thatour Chief received word the British Commander was landing troops on LongIsland, near Gravesend. 

Several thousand troops were ordered across to reinforce the Brooklynregiments, and Hamilton's artillery was among them. He stood up in hisboat and stared eagerly at the distant ridge of hills, behind which sometwenty thousand British were lying on their arms with their usual easydisregard of time, faint, perhaps, under the torrid sun of August. Butthey were magnificently disciplined and officered, and nothing inhistory had rivalled the rawness and stubborn ignorance of the Americantroops. Hamilton had not then met Washington, but he knew from commonfriends that the Chief was worried and disgusted by what he had seenwhen inspecting the Brooklyn troops the day before. Greene, second onlyto Washington in ability, who had been in charge of the Brooklyncontingent, knowing every inch of the ground, was suddenly ill. Putnamwas in command, and the Chief was justified in his doubt of him, fornothing in the mistakes of the Revolution exceeded his carelessness andhis errors of judgement during the battle of Long Island. 

There were still two days of chafing inactivity, except in the matter ofstrengthening fortifications, then, beginning with dawn of the 28th, Hamilton had his baptism of fire in one of the bloodiest battlefields ofthe Revolution. 

The Americans were outgeneralled and outnumbered. Their attention wasdistracted by land and water, while a British detachment, ten thousandstrong, crept over the ridge of hills by night, and through the BedfordPass, overpowering the guards before their approach was suspected. Atdawn they poured down upon the American troops, surprising them, not inone direction, but in flank, in rear, and in front. The green woodsswarmed with redcoats, and the Hessians acted with a brutalitydemoralizing to raw troops. Hamilton's little company behaved well, andhe was in the thick of the fight all day. The dead were in heaps, thebeautiful green slopes were red, there was not a hope of victory, but heexulted that the colonies were fighting at last, and that he was acting;he had grown very tired of talking. 

He was driven from his position finally, and lost his baggage and afield-piece, but did not take refuge within the redoubts untilnightfall. There, in addition to fatigue, hunger, a bed on the wetground, and the atmosphere of hideous depression which pressed low uponthe new revolutionists, he learned that Troup had been taken prisoner. Then he discovered the depths to which a mercurial nature could descend. He had been fiercely alive all day; the roar of the battle, the plunginghorses, the quickening stench of the powder, that obsession by the devilof battles which makes the tenderest kill hot and fast, all had made himfeel something more than himself, much as he had felt in the hurricanewhen he had fancied himself on high among the Berserkers of the storm. In his present collapse he felt as if he were in a hole underground. 

Washington arrived on the scene next morning, and for forty-eight hourshe barely left the saddle, encouraging the wretched men and exercisingan unceasing vigilance. For two long days they were inactive in therain. The Chief, having assured himself that the British aimed to obtaincommand of the river, determined upon the retreat which ranks as one ofthe greatest military achievements in history. On the night of the 29th, under cover of a heavy fog, the feat of embarking nine thousand men, with all the ammunition and field-pieces of the army, and ferrying themacross the East River with muffled oars, was accomplished within earshotof the enemy. Washington rode from regiment to regiment, superintendingand encouraging, finally taking his stand at the head of the ferrystairs. He stood there until the last man had embarked at four in themorning. The last man was Hamilton. His was one of the regiments, andthe rear one, detailed to cover the retreat, to attract fire to itselfif necessary. His position was on the Heights, just outside theintrenchments, at the point closest to the enemy. For nine hours hehardly moved, his ear straining for the first indication that theBritish heard the soft splashing of bare feet in the mud. The fog was sothick that he could see nothing, not even the battalions of retreatingAmericans; the forms of his own men were vague and gray of outline. Henever had fancied an isolation so complete, but his nerves stood thestrain; when they began to mutter he reminded himself of Mr. Cruger'sstore and St. Croix. There was a false summons, and after turning hisback upon his post with a feeling of profound relief, he was obliged toreturn and endure it for two hours longer. Did the fog lift he wouldnever see another. It was dawn when a messenger came with the news thathis turn positively had come, and he marched his men down the slope tothe ferry stairs. He passed close enough to Washington to see hisdejected, haggard face. 

On the 15th of the following month, after much correspondence withCongress, discussion, and voting, it was determined to abandon New YorkCity, and intrench the army on the Heights of Harlem. Hamilton wasbitterly disappointed; he wanted to defend the city, and so had threeof the generals, but they were overruled, and the march began on ablazing Sunday morning. It was not only the army that marched, but allthe inhabitants of the town who had not escaped to the Jersey shore. Theretreat was under the command of General Putnam, and guided through allthe intricacies of those thirteen winding miles by his aide-de-camp, Aaron Burr. The last man in the procession was Alexander Hamilton. 

"So, you're covering again, Alexander, " said Fish, as he passed him onhis way to his own regiment, --the New York, of which he wasbrigade-major. "You can't complain that your adopted country doesn'tmake use of you. By the way, Troup is in the Jersey prison-ship, safeand sound. "

"Can't we exchange him?" asked Hamilton, eagerly, "Do you think GeneralWashington would listen to us?"

"If we have a victory. I shouldn't care to approach him at present. God!This is an awful beginning. The whole army is ready to dig its owngrave. The only person of the lot who has any heart in him to-day islittle Burr. He's like to burst with importance because he leads and wefollow. He's a brave little chap, but such a bantam one must laugh. Well, I hate to leave you here, the very last man to be made a targetof. You won't be rash?" he added anxiously. 

"No, granny, " said Hamilton, whose gaiety had revived as he heard ofTroup's safety. "And I'd not exchange my position for any. "

"Good-by. "

Handshakes in those days were solemn. Fish feared that he never shouldsee Hamilton again, and his fear was close to being realized. 

It was a long, hot, dusty, miserable march; some lay down by the waysideand died. Hamilton had been bred in the heat of the Tropics, but he hadridden always, and to-day he was obliged to trudge the thirteen miles onfoot. He had managed to procure horses for his guns and caissons, butnone for himself and his officers. 

It was on the Hoagland farm at the junction of the Kingsbridge andBloomingdale roads that a serious skirmish occurred, and Hamilton andhis men stood the brunt of it. The tired column was almost through thepass, when a detachment of British light infantry suddenly appeared onthe right. Fortunately the cannon had not entered the pass, and wereready for action. Hamilton opened fire at once. There was a sharpengagement, but the British were finally driven off. Then the defendersof the column made good their own retreat, for they knew that by now theredcoats were swarming over the island. 

Toward night a cold wind and rain swept in from the ocean. When thelittle army finally reached Harlem Heights they were obliged to sleep onthe wet ground without so much as a tent to cover them, then arise atdawn and dig trenches. But by night they were men again, they had ceasedto be dogged machines: the battle of Harlem Heights had been fought andwon. The British had begun the battle in the wrong place and at thewrong time, and all the natural advantages of that land of precipices, forests, gorges, wooded hills, and many ravines, were with theAmericans. Again Hamilton worked in the thick of the fight during thefour hours it lasted, but like everybody else he went to sleep happy. 

XVIII

He rose at dawn the next morning, and rousing his men, set them at workthrowing up redoubts. He was standing some distance from them, watchingthe sun rise over the great valley they had been forced to abandon, withits woods and beautiful homes, now the quarters of British officers, when every nerve in his body became intensely aware that some one wasstanding behind him. He knew that it was a man of power before hewhirled round and saw Washington. 

"This is Captain Hamilton?" said the Chief, holding out his hand. "General Greene spoke to me, weeks ago, about you, but I have been in nomood until to-day for amenities. I know of your part in the retreatfrom Long Island, and I noticed you as you passed me on the ferrystairs. What a lad you are! I am very proud of you. "

"I had asked for no reward, sir, " cried Hamilton, with a smile soradiant that Washington's set face caught a momentary reflection fromit, and he moved a step nearer, "but I feel as if you had pinned anorder on my coat. "

"I have heard a great deal more about you, " said Washington, "and I wantto know you. Will you come up and have breakfast with me?"

"_Oh, yes, I will_, " said Hamilton, with such seriousness that they bothlaughed. Hamilton's personal pride was too great to permit him to feeldeeply flattered by the attentions of any one, but the halo aboutWashington's head was already in process of formation; he stood aloft, whether successful or defeated, a strong, lonely, splendid figure, andhe had fired Hamilton's imagination long since. At that time he wasready to worship the great Chief with all a boy's high enthusiasm, andalthough he came to know him too well to worship, he loved him, save atintervals, always. As for Washington, he loved Hamilton then and there, and it is doubtful if he ever loved any one else so well. When they werealone he called him "my boy, " an endearment he never gave another. 

On that September morning they breakfasted together, and talked forhours, beginning a friendship which was to be of the deepestconsequences to the country they both were striving to deliver. 

During the following month Hamilton had much leisure, and he spent it inthe library of the Morris house, which its owner, a royalist, hadabandoned on the approach of the American troops, fleeing too hurriedlyto take his books. The house was now General Washington's headquarters, and he invited Hamilton to make what use of the library he pleased. Itwas a cool room, and he found there many of the books he had noted downfor future study. He also wrote out a synopsis of a political andcommercial history of Great Britain. As the proclivities and furnishingof a mind like Hamilton's cannot fail to interest the students ofmankind, a digression may be pardoned in favour of this list of bookshe made for future study, and of the notes scattered throughout his paybook:--

 Smith's History of New York; Leonidas; View of the Universe; Millot's History of France; Memoirs of the House of Brandenburgh; Review of the Characters of the Principal Nations of Europe; Review of Europe; History of Prussia; History of France; Lassel's Voyage through Italy; Robertson's Charles V; Present State of Europe; Grecian History; Baretti's Travels; Bacon's Essays; Philosophical Transactions; Entick's History of the Late War; European Settlements in America; Winn's History of America. 

 The Dutch in Greenland have from 150 to 200 sail and ten thousand seamen. .. . It is ordered that in their public prayers they pray that it should please God to bless the Government, the Lords, the States, and their great and small fisheries. 

 Hamburg and Germany have a balance against England--they furnish her with large quantities of linen. 

 Trade with France greatly against England. .. . The trade with Flanders in favour of England. .. . A large balance in favour of Norway and Denmark. 

 Rates of Exchange with the several Nations in 52, viz. : To Venice, Genoa, Leghorn, Amsterdam, Hamburgh. To Paris--Loss, Gain. 

 Postlethwaite supposes the quantity of cash necessary to carry on the circulation in a state one third of the rents to the land proprietors, or one ninth of the whole product of the lands. See the articles, Cash and Circulation. 

 The par between land and labour is twice the quantity of land whose product will maintain the labourer. In France one acre and a half will maintain one. In England three, owing to the difference in the manner of living. 

 Aristotle's Politics, chap. 6, definition of money, &c. 

 The proportion of gold and silver, as settled by Sir Isaac Newton's proposition, was 1 to 14. It was generally through Europe 1 to 15. In China I believe it is 1 to 10. 

 It is estimated that the labour of twenty-five persons, on an average, will maintain a hundred in all the necessaries of life. 

 Postlethwaite, in his time, supposes six millions of people in England. The ratio of increase has been found by a variety of observations to be, that 100, 000 people augment annually, one year with another to--. Mr. Kerseboom, agreeing with Dr. Halley, makes the number of people thirty-five times the number of births in a year. 

 Extracts from Demosthenes' Orations. 

 Philippic. "As a general marches at the head of his troops, so ought wise politicians, if I dare use the expression, to march at the head of affairs; insomuch that they ought not to wait _the event_, to know what measures to take; but the measures which they have taken ought to produce the _event_. "

 "Where attack him? it will be said. Ah, Athenians--war, war, itself will discover to you his weak sides, if you will seek them. "

 Sublimely simple. Vide Long. C. 16. 

 Are the limits of the several states and the acts on which they are founded ascertained, and are our ministers provided with them? What intelligence has been given to Congress by our ministers of the designs, strength by sea and land, actual interests and views of the different powers in Europe?

 The government established (by Lycurgus) remained in vigour about five hundred years, till a thirst of empire tempted the Spartans to entertain foreign troops, and introduce Persian gold to maintain them; then the institutions of Lycurgus fell at once, and avarice and luxury succeeded. 

 He (Numa) was a wise prince, and went a great way in civilizing the Romans. The chief engine he employed for this purpose was religion, which could alone have sufficient empire over the minds of a barbarous and warlike people to engage them to cultivate the arts of peace. 

 Dr. Halley's Table of Observations exhibiting the probabilities of life; containing an account of the whole number of people of Breslau, capital of Silesia, and the number of those of every age, from one to a hundred. (Here follows the table with comments by A. H. )

 When the native money is worth more than the par in foreign, exchange is high; when worth less, it is low. 

 Portugal trade--Spanish trade--Artificers--Money--Exchange--Par of exchange--Balance of trade--Manufactures--Foundry--Coin--Gold--Silver--Naval Power--Council of trade--Fishery. 

 Money coined in England from the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 

 Quere. Would it not be advisable to let all taxes, even those imposed by the States, be collected by persons of Congressional appointment; and would it not be advisable to pay the collectors so much per cent. On the sums collected?

Hamilton was nineteen at this time, and while there are many instancesof mental precocity in the history of mankind, it is doubtful if thereis a parallel case of so great a _range_ of intellectual curiosity, orsuch versatility combined with pursuit of knowledge as distinct frominformation. But the above notes are chiefly significant as showing thatlong before he could have dreamed of directing the finances of theUnited States, while he was wild with delight at the prospect ofmilitary excitement and glory, a part of his mind was imperiouslyattracted to the questions which were to become identified in Americanhistory with his name. 

Washington often came in and sat for an hour with him; and although theytalked military science and future campaigns invariably, --forWashington was a man of little reading and his thoughts moved in aconstant procession to one tune, --this was perhaps the happiest periodof their intercourse. The Chief demanded nothing, and his young friendwas free to give or not, as he chose. In that interval nothing gaveHamilton such pleasure as to see Washington come into the cool library, his face softening. 

"You have a streak of light in you that never goes out, " said the man ofmany burdens once. "When I catch a spark of it, I am cheered for therest of the day. When I am close to it for a time, I can feel the ironlid on my spirits lifting as if it were on a bubbling pot. I believe youare something more than human. "

During the first of these conversations Hamilton suggested theadvisability of keeping up the spirits of the raw troops by drawing theenemy in separate detachments into constant skirmishes, a plan in whichthe Americans were sure to have every advantage; and this policy waspursued until Washington fell back into Westchester County. 

The American troops under Washington numbered about nineteen thousandmen, in one-third of whom the Chief felt something like confidence. Manywere grumbling at the prospect of a winter in the discomforts of camplife; others were rejoicing that their time of service drew to a close;all were raw. Nevertheless, he determined to give the British battle onthe shore of the Bronx River, where they were camped with the intentionof cutting him off from the rest of the country. 

Both armies were near White Plains on the morning of the 28th ofOctober. Most of the Americans were behind the breastworks they hadthrown up, and the British were upon the hills below, on the oppositeside of the Bronx. On the American side of the stream was an eminencecalled Chatterton's Hill, and on the evening of the 27th Colonel Hasletwas stationed on this height, with sixteen hundred men, in order toprevent the enfilading of the right wing of the army. Early the nextmorning McDougall was ordered to reinforce Haslet with a small corpsand two pieces of artillery under Hamilton, and to assume generalcommand. 

At ten o'clock the British army began its march toward the village, butbefore they reached it, Howe determined that Chatterton's Hill should bethe first point of attack, and four thousand troops under Leslie movedoff to dislodge the formidable looking force on the height. 

Hamilton placed his two guns in battery on a rocky ledge about halfwaydown the hill, and bearing directly upon that part of the Bronx whichthe British were approaching. He was screened from the enemy by a smallgrove of trees. The Hessians, who were in the lead, refused to wade theswollen stream, and the onslaught was checked that a bridge mighthastily be thrown together for their accommodation. Hamilton waited ahalf-hour, then poured out his fire. The bridge was struck, the workmenkilled, the Hessians fell back in a panic. Leslie appealed to theloyalty of the British, forded the river at another point, and rushed upthe hill with bayonets fixed, resolved to capture the guns. But the gunsflashed with extraordinary rapidity. Both the British and the watchingAmericans were amazed. There were no tin canisters and grape-shot in theAmerican army, even the round shot were exhausted. Loading cannon withmusket balls was a slow process; but Hamilton was never withoutresource. He stood the cannon on end, filled his three-cornered hat withthe balls, and loaded as rapidly as had he leaped a century. His gunsmowed down the British in such numbers that Leslie fell back, andjoining the Hessian grenadiers and infantry, who had now crossed thestream, charged up the southwestern declivity of the hill andendeavoured to turn McDougall's right flank. McDougall's advance opposedthem hotly, while slowly retreating toward the crown of the eminence. The British cavalry attacked the American militia on the extreme right, and the raw troops fled ignominiously. McDougall, with only six hundredmen and Hamilton's two guns, sustained an unequal conflict for an hour, twice repulsing the British light infantry and cavalry. But the attackon his flank compelled him to give way and retreat toward theintrenchments. Under cover of a heavy rainstorm and of troops despatchedin haste, he retreated in good order with his wounded and artillery, leaving the victors in possession of a few inconsiderable breastworks. 

Fort Washington was betrayed, and fell on the 16th of November. Thenbegan that miserable retreat of the American army through the Jerseys, with the British sometimes in full pursuit, sometimes merely camping onthe trail of the hapless revolutionists. For Washington's force was nowreduced to thirty-five hundred, and they were ragged, half fed, andwretched in mind and body. Many had no shoes, and in one regiment therewas not a pair of trousers. They left the moment their leave expired, and recruits were drummed up with great difficulty. Washington wasobliged to write eight times to General Lee, who was at North Castlewith a considerable force, before he was able to hope for relief in thatquarter. 

Hamilton had a horse at times, at others not. But his vitality was proofagainst even those endless days and nights of marching andcountermarching, through forests and swamps, in the worst of late autumnand winter weather; and he kept up the spirits of his little regiment, now reduced from bullets, exposure, and the expiration of service tothirty men. Nevertheless, he held the British in check at the RaritanRiver while the Americans destroyed the bridge, and when Washington, after having crossed the Delaware, determined to recross it on Christmasnight and storm Trenton, he was one of the first to be chosen, with whatremained of his men and guns. 

As they crossed the Delaware that bitter night, the snow stinging andblinding, the river choked with blocks of ice, Hamilton for the firsttime thought on St. Croix with a pang of envy. But it was the night fortheir purpose, and all the world knows the result. The victory wasfollowed on the 3d of January by the capture of Princeton; and hereHamilton's active military career came to an end for the present. 

 Well do I recollect the day [wrote a contemporary] when Hamilton's company marched into Princeton. It was a model of discipline. At their head was a boy, and I wondered at his youth; but what was my surprise, when, struck with his slight figure, he was pointed out to me as that Hamilton of whom we had heard so much. 

 I noticed [a veteran officer said many years after] a youth, a mere stripling, small, slender, almost delicate in frame, marching beside a piece of artillery, with a cocked hat pulled down over his eyes, apparently lost in thought; with his hand resting on a cannon, and every now and again patting it as if it were a favourite horse or a pet plaything. 

BOOK III

THE LITTLE LION

I

Hamilton's body succumbed to the climax of Trenton and Princeton uponmonths of hardship and exposure, and he was in hospital for a week witha rheumatic fever. But Troup, whose exchange had been effected, was withhim most of the time, and his convalescence was made agreeable by manycharming women. He was not the only brilliant young man in the army, forTroup, Fish, Burr, Marshall, were within a few months or, at most, ayear or two of his age, and there were many others; men had maturedearly in that hot period before the Revolution, when small boys talkedpolitics, and even the women thought of little else; but Hamilton, through no fault of his, had inspired his friends with the belief thathe was something higher than human, and they never tired of sounding hispraises. Moreover, Washington had not hesitated to say what he thoughtof him, and the mere fact that he had won the affection of that austereChieftain was enough to give him celebrity. At all events, he was adazzling figure, and pretty women soothed many a weary hour. As forTroup, who was unpleasantly anatomical, he had a fresh story for everyday of the horrors of the prison cattle-ship _Mentor_, where half theprisoners had died of filth, starvation, and fever, from putrid waterand brutal treatment. 

But never was there a more impatient invalid than Hamilton. He wasastonished and disgusted that his body should defy his mind, and at thefirst moment possible he was up and about his duties with the army atMorristown. Troup was ordered to join the army under Gates in the North. 

Morristown was a natural fortress, a large fertile valley, protected byprecipitous hills and forests, yet with defiles known to the Americans, through which they could retreat if necessary. It was within strikingdistance of New Brunswick and Amboy, in which towns Washington kept theBritish cooped up for months, not permitting them to cut a stick offorest wood without fighting for it. "Here was seen, " to quote Hamilton, "the spectacle of a powerful army straitened within narrow limits by thephantom of a military force, and never permitted to transgress thoselimits with impunity; in which skill supplied the place of means, anddisposition was the substitute for an army. "

Congress had invested Washington with such extraordinary powers afterthe brilliant exploit at Trenton, that in Europe he was called "TheDictator of America. " Therein lay the sole cause of the ultimate victoryof the Revolutionists, and had the States been more generous, and lessjealous of delegating powers to Congress, he would have driven out theBritish in short order. 

Mrs. Washington had joined her General--she kept an eye on him--atFreeman's Tavern, which had been converted into comfortableheadquarters, and he was happy in his military family: Colonel Harrison, indefatigable and fearless, affectionately known as "Old Secretary";Tench Tilghman of Maryland, young, accomplished, cheerful, devoted toWashington and serving without pay, for his fortune was considerable;Richard Kidder Meade, sprightly, enthusiastic, always willing to slave;and John Fitzgerald, --all in an attitude of perpetual adoration. But helacked a secretary of the requisite ability, and as soon as he heard ofHamilton's return to camp he sent for him. 

Hamilton was feeling almost well, and he walked rapidly across thevillage green to headquarters, delighted at the prospect of seeingWashington again. He had acquired a military air and walked more erectlythan ever, for he was somewhat sensitive of his juvenile appearance. Hefound Washington in a front room on the second floor. The General worehis usual blue and buff, and looked less harassed and worn than when hehad last seen him. He rose and shook hands warmly with Hamilton, whothanked him again for the messages he had received while in hospital. 

"I would have had you brought here if there had been any place to makeyou comfortable; and I am going to ask you to come and live with menow--as my aide and secretary. "

Hamilton sprang to his feet impetuously. "Oh, sir!" he exclaimed, "Idon't want to leave the regular line of promotion! I don't want to leavemy men. I'm much attached to them. And I'll not deny my ambition, sir; Iwant opportunities to distinguish myself. I've already refused twogenerals. This war will last for years. There is no reason in the worldwhy I should not be a general in three. "

"No, " said Washington, "there is none; there is every possibility ofyour becoming one of the most brilliant figures on the revolutionarybattlefields. I admit that, and I understand your ambition. Nevertheless, I think I can prove to you that there is another way inwhich you can serve your country better. I know your uncompromisingsense of duty and your high patriotism, and I am sure you will accept myinvitation when I prove to you that while there are hundreds to fightvalorously, even brilliantly, there is scarcely a man I can get to writemy letters who can do more than punctuate properly or turn a sentenceneatly. You must know the inexpressible value of a brilliantaccomplished versatile secretary, with a brain capable of grasping everyquestion that arises--and you can imagine how many of that sort havecome my way. I have been driven nearly distracted, dictating, explaining, revising--when I have so much else to think of. Besides theconstant correspondence with the Congress and the States, something elseis always turning up--to-day it is the exchange of prisoners, a mostimportant and delicate matter. Were you my secretary, you would also bemy brain: a word would be sufficient. I could trust you so implicitlythat if matters pressed I could confidently sign my name to whatever youwrote without reading it over. There is no one else living of whom I cansay that. You are the most useful young man in America, and if you willgive your great brain to this country from this time on, she will be farmore grateful to you than if you merely continued to fight, splendidlyas you have done that. And _I_ need you--I have no words to tell you howmuch. "

"Sir, " said Hamilton, deeply touched, "no human being could withstandsuch an appeal, and your words of praise are glory enough. I will comeas soon as you say, and do the best I can. "

"Come at once. The British persist in treating us as rebels. It is foryou, with your inspired pen, to force and coax them to regard us withthe respect an educated thinking people--not a horde of ignorant rebels, as they imagine--deserve. If you do that, you will do a greater serviceto your country than if you rose to be first in military rank. Here aresome notes. When you have finished, write to Congress and ask for therank of Lieutenant-Colonel; and move up here to-day, if possible. Icannot tell you how happy I shall be to have you a member of my family. "

Washington had won his point. A shrewd judge of men, he had calculatedupon Hamilton succumbing to an appeal to his sense of patrioticduty--the strongest passion in his passionate nature. Much as he lovedHamilton, he had no hesitation in using him, and our petted young herowas to learn what work meant for the first time in his life. He wrotemost of the day, often half the night; but although he chafed angrily atthe confinement, beat many a tattoo on the floor with his heels, andwent for a hard ride more than once that he might keep his temper, theresult was that mass of correspondence, signed "George Washington, "which raised the commander of the American forces so high in theestimation of Europe, adding to his military renown the splendour of aprofound and luminous intellect. 

There was, also, some correspondence with the Congress regarding thedisposition of his artillery men. He insisted upon definite provisionfor them, and they were permitted to enlist in the Continental Army. They loved him, and the final parting on March 18th, with cannon aswell as men!--made him ill for half a day. 

Otherwise his life at Headquarters was very pleasant Tilghman and Meadebecame two of the most congenial friends he ever made. The tavern wascomfortable, and he had a room to himself for a time. The dining roomreunions were agreeable in spite of their formality. Besides the amiablemilitary family, and the most motherly of women, who knit him stockingsand kept his wardrobe in order, there were frequent visitors. TheLivingston girls were spending the winter with their aunt, LadySterling, and, with their beautiful cousin, the Lady Kitty Alexander, often drove over to a five o'clock dinner or the more informal supper. The Boudinots and Morgans, the generals in camp at Morristown and theirwives, and the more distinguished officers, were frequently dined atHeadquarters. Washington sat halfway in the table's length, with Mrs. Washington opposite. Hamilton was placed at the head of the table on theday of his arrival, a seat he retained while a member of the family. TheChief encouraged him to talk, and it must be confessed that he talkedfrom the time he sat down till the meal finished. His ideas were alwayson the rush, and talking was merely thinking aloud. As he expressedhimself with wit and elegance, and on subjects which interested them allprofoundly, illuminating everything he touched, old men and young wouldlean forward and listen with respect to the wisdom of a young man whowas yet an infant in the eyes of the law. How he escaped beinginsufferably spoiled can only be explained by the ceaseless activity ofhis brain, and the fact that the essence of which prigs are made was notin him. That he was utterly without commonplace conceit is indisputable, for he was the idol of the family. Harrison christened him "The LittleLion, " a name his friends used for their aptest designation as long ashe lived, and assumed a paternal relation which finished only with theolder man's death. The Lady-in-chief made such a pet of him that he wasreferred to in the irreverent Tory press as "Mrs. Washington'sTom-cat. "

"Alexander, " said Kitty Livingston to him, one day, "have a care. Youare too fortunate. The jealous gods will smite you. "

But Hamilton, thinking of those terrible months in the previous year, ofmental anxiety and physical hardship, when, in bitter weather, he hadoften gone hungry and insufficiently clothed, and of his present arduousduties, concluded there was a fine balance in his affairs whichdoubtless would placate the gods. 

II

In May and July there were illustrious additions to Washington'sfamily, --John Laurens and Lafayette. Both became the intimate friends ofHamilton, the former one of the few passionate attachments of his life. Although Hamilton was by no means indifferent to the affection heinspired in nine-tenths of the people he met, he did not himself loveeasily. He was too analytical, he saw people too precisely as they were, and his acquaintance with human nature had made him too cynical topermit the flood gates of his affections to open except under uncommonstress. He dreaded disappointment. For Troup, Fish, Stevens, Meade, andTilghman he had a deep affection and served their interests ardently;for Washington a contradictory budget of emotions, which were sometimesto be headed "respectful affection, " at others "irritated resentment, "now and again a moment of adoration. While he could not pay sufficienttribute to Washington's magnanimity and generosity, he had by now seenhim in too many tempers, had been ground too fine in his greedy machine, to think on him always with unqualified enthusiasm. Lafayette, brilliant, volatile, accomplished, bubbling with enthusiasm for thecause of Liberty, and his own age within a few months, he likedsincerely and always. There was no end to the favours he did him, andLafayette loved no one better in his long and various career. Women, Hamilton fancied sharply and forgot quickly. 

But Laurens, the "young Bayard of the Revolution, " fresh from thecolleges and courts of Europe, a man so handsome that, we are told, people experienced a certain shock when he entered the room, courtly, accomplished to the highest degree, of flawless character, with a mindas noble and elevated as it was intellectual, and burning with the mostelevated patriotism, --he took Hamilton by storm, capturing judgement aswell as heart, and loving him as ardently in return. 

Like Hamilton, Laurens was of Huguenot descent; he was born in SouthCarolina, of a distinguished family. Against the expressed wish of hisfather he had returned to America, made his way to Headquarters andoffered his services to Washington, who immediately attached him to hismilitary household. The unhappiest of men, praying for death on everybattlefield, he lived long enough to distinguish himself by a bravery soreckless, by such startling heroic feats, that he was, beyond allquestion, the popular young hero of the Revolution. He worshippedWashington as one might worship a demi-god, and risked his life for himon two occasions. But Hamilton was the friend of his life; the bondbetween them was romantic and chivalrous. Each burned to prove thestrength of his affection, to sacrifice himself for the other. Laurensslaved at Washington's less important correspondence, and Hamilton'sturn came later. The age has passed for such friendships; but at thattime, when young men were nurtured on great ideas, when they weresacrificing themselves in a sacred cause, and had seen next to nothingof the frivolities of life, they were understandable enough. 

Hamilton was obliged to share his room with both the young men, and theyslept on three little cots in a small space. When the nights wereinsufferably hot they would go out and lie on the grass and talk untilthey were in a condition to sleep anywhere. Hamilton would forecast thenext movement of the enemy; Laurens and Lafayette would tell all theyknew about military science in Europe; and then they would discuss thefuture of the liberated country and the great ideals which must governher. And when men can be idealistic while fighting the Jersey mosquito, it must be admitted that they are of the stuff to serve their countrywell. 

But all this delightful intercourse was interrupted in August. Washington gave battle to the British at Brandywine, was defeated, andin the following month surprised them at Germantown, and was defeatedagain. Nevertheless, he had astonished the enemy with his strength andcourage so soon after a disastrous battle. To hold Philadelphia wasimpossible, however, and the British established themselves in theCapital of the colonies, making, as usual, no attempt to follow up theirvictories. 

Washington went into temporary quarters near the village of Whitemarsh. His own were in a baronial hall at the head of a beautiful valley. Oldtrees shaded the house, and a spring of pure water bubbled in a fountainbefore the door. The men were encamped on the hills at the north. 

There was a great hall through the centre of the mansion, and hereWashington held his audiences and councils of war. The house throughoutwas of extreme elegance, and much to the taste of the younger members ofthe family, particularly of Hamilton, who spent the greater part of hisleisure in the library. But his enjoyment of this uncommon luxury wasbrief. 

Washington must have reinforcements or his next engagement might be hislast. There was but one source from which he could obtain a considerablesupply, and that was from the army of Gates in the North. But Gates wasswollen with the victory of Saratoga and the capture of Burgoyne, andwas suspected to be in the thick of an intrigue to dethrone Washingtonand have himself proclaimed Commander-in-chief. At the moment he was theidol of the army, and of the northern and eastern States, for hisvictories were tangible and brilliant, while Washington's surerprocesses were little appreciated. Therefore to get troops from himwould be little less difficult than to get them from Lord Howe, short ofa positive command, and this prerogative Washington did not think itpolitic to use. He called a council of war, and when it was over hewent to his private office and sent for Alexander Hamilton. 

He looked haggard, as if from sleepless nights, and for a moment afterHamilton entered the room, although he waved his hand at a chair, hestared at him without speaking. Hamilton divined what was coming--heattended all councils of war--and sat forward eagerly. The prospect of aholiday from clerical work would alone have filled him with youth, andhe knew how great a service he might be able to render the coweringRepublic. 

"Hamilton, " said Washington, finally, "you are as much in my secretthoughts as I am myself. If I attempted to deceive you, you would divinewhat I withheld. It is a relief to speak frankly to you, I dare notdemand these troops from Gates, because there is more than a possibilityhe would defy me, and that the Congress and a large part of the armywould sustain him. He has given sufficient evidence of his temper insending me no official notice of the battle of Saratoga. But unless I amto meet with overwhelming disaster here, I must have reinforcements. Itmay be possible to extract these by diplomacy, and I have selected youfor the mission, because I feel sure that you will not forget the issuesat stake for a moment, because you never lose your head, and because youwill neither be overawed by Gates's immediate splendour, nor will youhave any young desire to assert the authority which I give you as a lastresort. There is another point: If you find that Gates purposes toemploy his troops on some expedition, by the prosecution of which thecommon cause will be more benefited than by their being sent down toreinforce this army, you must suspend your consideration for me. Godknows I am tender of my reputation, and I have no wish to be disgraced, but we are or should be fighting for a common cause and principle, andshould have little thought of individual glory. However, I do notbelieve in the disinterestedness of Gates, nor in his efficiency on alarge scale. But I leave everything in your hands. "

Hamilton stood up, his chest rising, and stared at his Chief. 

"Sir, " he said, after a moment, "do you appreciate that you are placingyour good name and your future in my hands?" For a moment he realizedthat he was not yet of age. 

"You are the only being to whom I can confide them, and who can savethis terrible situation. "

"And you have the magnanimity to say that if Gates has a chance of othervictories to let him go unhindered?" He had one of his moments ofadoration and self-abnegation for this man, whose particular virtues, solittle called upon in ordinary affairs, gave him so lonely a place amongmen. 

Washington jerked his head. There was nothing more to say. Hamilton'shead dropped for a moment, as if he felt the weight of an iron helmet, and his lips moved rapidly. 

"Are you saying your prayers when your lips work like that?" askedWashington, crossly. 

Hamilton threw back his head with a gay laugh. His eyes were sparkling, his nostrils dilating; his whole bearing was imperious and triumphant. "Never mind that. I'll undertake this mission gladly, sir, and I thinkI'll not fail. My old friend Troup is his aide. He will advise me ofmany things. I'll bring you back those regiments, sir. One way oranother a thing can always be managed. "

The light in Hamilton's face was reflected on Washington's. "You are mygood genius, " he said shortly. "Take care of yourself. You will have toride hard, for there is no time to lose, but be careful not to takecold. I shall give you orders in writing. Come back as soon as you can. I believe I am not lacking in courage, but I always have most when youare close by. "

There is a print somewhere representing Hamilton setting forth on thismission. He is mounted on a handsome white horse, and wears a long greencloak, one end thrown over a shoulder. His three-cornered hat is pulledlow over his eyes. In the rear is an orderly. 

He started on the 30th of October, riding hard through the torn desolatecountry, toward Newburg on the Hudson. He was three days making thedistance, although he snatched but a few hours' rest at night, and buta few moments for each meal. From Newburg he crossed to Fishkill and, acting on his general instructions, ordered Putnam to despatch southwardthree brigades; and on his own account despatched seven hundred Jerseymilitia on the same expedition. 

He then started hot and hard for Albany, a dangerous as well asexhausting journey, for neither savage tribes nor redcoats could be farin the distance. His mental anxiety by now wore as severely as thephysical strain. None knew better than he that his talents were not fordiplomacy. He was too impatient, too imperious, too direct for itssinuous methods. On the other hand, he had a theory that a first-ratemind could, for a given time, be bent in any direction the willcommanded, and he had acquired an admirable command of his temper. Butthe responsibility was terrific, and he was half ill when he reachedAlbany. He presented himself at General Gates's headquarters at once. 

Gates, like Lee, was a soldier of fortune; and low-born, vain, weak, andinsanely ambitious. He had been advised of Hamilton's coming, and had nointention of giving Washington an opportunity to rival his ownachievements and reëstablish himself with the army and the Congress. Hereceived Hamilton surrounded by several of his military family; and forthe first time our fortunate hero encountered in high places activeenmity and dislike. He had incurred widespread jealousy on account ofhis influence over Washington, and for the important part he was playingin national affairs. To the enemies of the Commander-in-chief herepresented that exalted personage, and was particularly obnoxious. Never was a youth in a more difficult position. 

"I cannot expose the finest arsenal in America, " said Gates, pompously, "to the possibility of destruction. Sir Henry Clinton may return at anyminute. Nor could I enterprise against Ticonderoga were my armydepleted. Nor can I leave the New England States open to the ravages andthe depredations of the enemy. "

These statements made no impression on Hamilton, and he arguedbrilliantly and convincingly for his object, but Gates was inflexible. He would send one brigade and no more. 

Hamilton retired, uneasy and dejected. Gates had an air of omnipotence, and his officers had not concealed their scorn. He hesitated to use hisauthority, for a bold defiance on the part of Gates might mean thedownfall of Washington, perhaps of the American cause. That Washingtonwas practically the American army, Hamilton firmly believed. If he fell, it was more than likely that the whole tottering structure wouldcrumble. 

Another reason inclined him not to press Gates too far. He had been ableto order seventy-seven hundred troops from Fishkill, which was more thanWashington had expected, although by no means so many as he needed. Hetherefore wrote to the Chief at length, sent for Troup, and threwhimself on the bed; he was well-nigh worn out. 

Troup was already in search of him, and met the messenger. Big andbronzed, bursting with spirits, he seemed to electrify the very air ofthe room he burst into without ceremony. Hamilton sat up and poured outhis troubles. 

"You have an affinity for posts of danger, " said Troup. "I believe youto be walking over a powder-mine here. I am not in their confidence, forthey know what I think of Washington, but I believe there is a cabal onfoot, and that Gates may be in open rebellion any minute. But he's acoward and a bully. Treat him as such. Press your point and get yourtroops. He is but the tool of a faction, and I doubt if they could makehim act when it came to the point. He wants to make another grand coupbefore striking. Look well into what regiment he gives you. Which areyou to have?"

"General Patterson's. "

"I thought as much. It is the weakest of the three now here, consists ofbut about six hundred rank and file fit for duty. There are two hundredmilitia with it, whose time of service is so near expiring that theywill have dissolved ere you reach Headquarters. "

Hamilton had sprung to his feet in a fury. He forgot his pains, and lethis temper fly with satisfaction in the exercise. "If that is the case, "he cried, when he had finished his anathema of Gates, "I'll have themen;" and he dashed at his writing materials. But he threw his pen asidein a moment. "I'll wait till to-morrow for this. I must be master ofmyself. Tell me of Saratoga. You distinguished yourself mightily, and noone was more glad than I. "

Troup talked while Hamilton rested. That evening he took him to call atthe Schuyler mansion, high on the hill. 

Philip Schuyler was the great feudal lord of the North. He had servedthe colonial cause in many ways, and at the outbreak of the Revolutionhad been one of its hopes and props. But brilliant as his exploits hadbeen, the intrigues of Gates, after the fall of Ticonderoga, had beensuccessful, and he was deprived of the army of the North before thebattle of Saratoga. The day of exoneration came, but at present he wasliving quietly at home, without bitterness. A man of the most exaltedcharacter, he drew added strength from adversity, to be placed at theservice of the country the moment it was demanded. Mrs. Schuyler, herself a great-granddaughter of the first patroon, Killian VanRensselaer, was a woman of strong character, an embodied type of all thevirtues of the Dutch pioneer housewife. She had a lively and turbulentfamily of daughters, however, and did not pretend to manage them. Thespirit of our age is feeble and bourgeois when compared with theindependence and romantic temper of the stormy days of this Republic'sbirth. Liberty was in the air; there was no talk but of freedom andexecration of tyrants; young officers had the run of every house, andClarissa Harlowe was the model for romantic young "females. " AngelicaSchuyler, shortly before the battle of Saratoga, had run off with JohnBarker Church, a young Englishman of distinguished connections, atpresent masquerading under the name of Carter; a presumably fatal duelhaving driven him from England. Subsequently, both Peggy and CorneliaSchuyler climbed out of windows and eloped in a chaise and four, although there was not an obstacle worth mentioning to union with theyouths of their choice. It will shock many good mothers of the presentday to learn that all these marriages were not only happy, but set withthe brilliance of wealth and fashion. When Hamilton was introduced tothe famous white hall of the Schuyler mansion on the hill, Cornelia andPeggy were still free in all but fancy; Elizabeth, by far the bestbehaved, was the hope of Mrs. Schuyler's well-regulated soul and one ofthe belles of the Revolution. Hamilton was enchanted with her, althoughhis mind was too weighted for love. Her spirits were as high as his own, and they talked and laughed until midnight as gaily as were Gates's armymarching south. But Hamilton was a philosopher; nothing could be donebefore the morrow; he might as well be happy and forget. He had met manyclever and accomplished American women by this, and Lady Kitty Alexanderand Kitty and Susan Livingston were brilliant. He had also met AngelicaChurch, or Mrs. Carter, as she was called, one of the cleverest and mosthigh-spirited women of her time. It had crossed his mind that had shebeen free, he might have made a bold dash for so fascinating a creature, but it seemed to him to-night that on the whole he preferred her sister. "Betsey" Schuyler had been given every advantage of education, accomplishment, and constant intercourse with the best society in theland. She had skill and tact in the management of guests, and without;being by any means a woman of brilliant parts, understood the questionsof the day; her brain was informed with shrewd common sense. Hamiltonconcluded that she was quite clever enough, and was delighted with herbeauty, her charm of manner, and style. Her little figure was gracefuland distinguished, her complexion the honey and claret that artistsextol, and she had a pair of big black eyes which were alternatelyroguish, modest, tender, sympathetic; there were times when they werevery lively, and even suggested a temper. She was bright withoutattempting to be witty, but that she was deeply appreciative of witHamilton had soothing cause to know. And he had learned from theadmiring Troup that she was as intrepid as she was wholly and daintilyfeminine. Altogether, Hamilton's fate was sealed when he bent over herhand that night, although he was far from suspecting it, so heavily didduty press the moment he was alone in his rooms. 

On the following morning he asked for an interview with General Schuylerand several other military men whom he knew to be friendly toWashington, and they confirmed the advice of Troup. In the afternoon hewrote to Gates a letter that was peremptory, although dignified andcircumspect, demanding the addition of a superior brigade. He expressedhis indignation in no measured terms, and in more guarded phrases hisopinion of the flimsiness of the victorious General's arguments. Gatessent the troops at once, and despatched a volume of explanation toWashington. 

Hamilton set out immediately for New Windsor, Troup bearing him companythe greater part of the way, for he was feeling very ill. But he forgothis ailments when he arrived. To his fury he discovered that not aregiment had gone south. Two of the brigades, which had received no payfor eight months, had mutinied, and he was obliged to ask GovernorClinton to borrow $5000, with which to pay them off. He had thesatisfaction of despatching them, wrote a peremptory letter to Putnam, who had other plans brewing, another to Gates, asking for furtherreinforcements, then went to bed in Governor Clinton's house with feverand rheumatism. But he wrote to Washington, apprising him of a schemeamong the officers of the northern department to recover the city of NewYork, and denouncing Putnam in the most emphatic terms. Two days laterhe recovered sufficiently to proceed to Fishkill, where he wrestedtroops from Putnam, and ascertained that heavy British reinforcementshad gone from that neighbourhood to Howe. He wrote at once toWashington, advising him of his peril, and endeavoured to push on; buthis delicate frame would stand no more, and on the 15th he went to bedin Mr. Kennedy's house in Peekskill, with so violent an attack ofrheumatism that to his bitter disgust he was obliged to resign himselfto weeks of inactivity. But he had the satisfaction to receive a letterfrom Washington approving all that he had done. And in truth he hadsaved the situation, and Washington never forgot it. 

III

Hamilton rejoined the army at Valley Forge and soon recovered his healthand spirits. It was well that the spirits revived, for no one elseduring that terrible winter could lay claim to any. The Headquarterswere in a small valley, shut in by high hills white with snow and blackwith trees that looked like iron. The troops were starving and freezingand dying a mile away, muttering and cursing, but believing inWashington. On a hill beyond the pass Lafayette was comfortable inquarters of his own, but bored and fearing the worst. Laurens chafed atthe inaction; he would have had a battle a day. As the winter wore on, the family succumbed to the depressing influence of unrelieved monotonyand dread of the future, and only Hamilton knew to what depths ofanxiety Washington could descend. But despair had no part in Hamilton'screed. He had perfect faith in the future, and announced itpersistently. He assumed the mission of keeping the family in goodcheer, and they gave him little time for his studies. As for Washington, even when Hamilton was not at his desk, he made every excuse to demandhis presence in the private office; and Hamilton in his prayershumorously thanked his Almighty for the gift of a cheerful disposition. It may be imagined what a relief it was when he and Laurens, Meade, orTilghman raced each other up the icy gorge to Lafayette's, where theywere often jollier the night through than even a cheerful dispositionwould warrant. Hamilton, although he had not much of a voice, learnedone camp-song, "The Drum, " and this he sang with such rollicking abandonthat it fetched an explosive sigh of relief from the gloomiest breast. 

There were other duties from which Hamilton fled to the house on thehill for solace. Valley Forge harboured a heterogeneous collection offoreigners, whose enthusiasm had impelled them to offer swords andinfluence to the American cause: Steuben, Du Portail, De Noailles, Custine, Fleury, Du Plessis, the three brothers Armand, Ternant, Pulaski, and Kosciusko. They had a thousand wants, a thousandgrievances, and as Washington would not be bothered by them, their dailyrecourse was Hamilton, whom they adored. To him they could lament involuble French; he knew the exact consolation to administer to each, andwhen it was advisable he laid their afflictions before Washington or theCongress. They bored him not a little, but he sympathized with them intheir Cimmerian exile, and it was necessary to keep them in the countryfor the sake of the moral effect. But he congratulated himself on hiscapacity for work. 

"I used to wish that a hurricane would come and blow Cruger's store toHell, " he said one day to Laurens, "but I cannot be sufficientlythankful for that experience now. It made me as methodical as a machine, gave my brain a system without which I never could cope with this massof work. I have this past week dried the tears of seven Frenchmen, persuaded Steuben that he is not Europe, nor yet General Washington, andwithout too much offending him, written a voluminous letter to Gatescalculated to make him feel what a contemptible and traitorous ass heis, yet giving him no chance to run, blubbering, with it to theCongress, and official letters _ad nauseum_. I wish to God I were out ofit all, and about to ride into battle at the head of a company of myown. "

"And how many widows have you consoled?" asked Laurens. He was huddledin his cot, trying to keep warm. 

"None, " said Hamilton, with some gloom. "I haven't spoken to a woman forthree weeks. "

It was a standing joke at Headquarters that Washington always sentHamilton to console the widows. This he did with such sympathy and tact, such address and energy, that his friends had occasionally been forcedto extricate him from complications. But it was an accomplishment inwhich he excelled as long as he lived. 

"The Chief will never let you go, " pursued Laurens. "And as there is noone to take your place, you really should not wish it. Washington may bethe army, but you are Washington's brain, and of quite as muchimportance. You should never forget--"

"Come out and coast. That will warm your blood, " interrupted Hamilton. His own sense of duty was not to be surpassed, but he had rebelliousmoods, when preaching suggested fisticuffs. 

Outside they met a messenger from Lafayette, begging them to repair tohis quarters at once. There they found him entertaining a party ofcharming women from a neighbouring estate; and a half-hour later thedignity and fashion of Washington's family might have been seen coastingdown a steep hill with three Philadelphian exiles, who were asaccomplished in many ways as they were satisfying to look upon. 

It was one of those days when a swift freeze has come with a rain-storm. Hamilton had stood at the window of the office for an hour, early in theday, biting the end of his quill, and watching the water change to iceas it struck the naked trees, casing every branch until, when the suncame out, the valley was surrounded by a diamond forest, the mostradiant and dazzling of winter sights. The sun was still out, its lightflashed back from a million facets, the ground was hard and white, thekeen cold air awoke the blood, and the three young men forgot theirgrumblings, and blessed the sex which has alleviated man's burdens sooft and well. 

IV

In June the military ardours of this distinguished young trio weregratified to the point of temporary exhaustion. The British evacuatedPhiladelphia on the 18th, and proceeded up the Delaware in New Jersey. Captain Allan McLane had, as early as May 25th, reported to Washingtonthe enemy's intention to change their quarters for New York, andWashington's desire was to crush them by a decisive blow. At a councilof war, however, it was decided merely to hang upon the skirts of theretreating army and avoid an engagement. Lee was aggressive, almostinsulting, in counselling inaction, Washington, much embarrassed, buthesitating to ignore the decisions of the council, followed the enemy bya circuitous route, until he reached the neighbourhood of Princeton. TheBritish were in and about Allentown. Washington called another councilof war, and urged the propriety of forcing an engagement before theenemy could reach the Heights of Monmouth. Again Lee overruled, beingsustained by the less competent generals, who were in the majority. Assoon as the council broke up, Hamilton sought out General Greene and ledhim aside, Greene was white and dejected, but Hamilton's face was hot, and his eyes were flashing. 

"I believe that Lee is in the pay of the British or the Conway Cabal, "he exclaimed. "I've always believed him ready at any minute to turntraitor. It's a pity he wasn't left to rot in prison. Washington mustfight. His honour is at stake. If he lets the British walk off while wesit and whistle, his influence with the army will be gone, Europe willhave no more of him, the Conway Cabal will have the excuse it's beenwatching at keyholes for, and Gates will be Commander-in-chiefto-morrow. Will you come with me and persuade him to fight?"

"Yes, " said Greene. "And I believe he will. You are like a sudden coldwind on an August day. Come on. "

They walked rapidly toward Washington's tent. He was sitting on hiscamp-stool, but rose as they approached. 

"Gentlemen, " he said, "I anticipate the object of your visit. You wishme to fight. "

"Yes!" exclaimed Hamilton. "As much as you wish it yourself. Why shouldyou regard the councils of the traitorous and the timorous, who, foraught you know, may be in the pay of the Cabal? If the British retreatunmolested, the American army is disgraced. If Congress undertake tomanage it, the whole cause will be lost, and the British will bestronger far than when we took up arms--"

"Enough, " said Washington. "We fight"

He ordered a detachment of one thousand men, under General Wayne, tojoin the troops nearest the enemy. Lafayette was given the command ofall the advance troops--Lee sulkily retiring in his favour--whichamounted to about four thousand. Hamilton was ordered to accompany himand reconnoitre, carry messages between the divisions, and keepWashington informed of the movements of the enemy. There was but achance that he would be able to fight, but the part assigned to him wasnot the least dangerous and important at Washington's disposal. TheChief moved forward with the main body of the army to Cranbury. 

Clinton had no desire to fight, being encumbered with a train ofbaggage-wagons and bathorses, which with his troops made a line on thehighroad twelve miles long. It being evident that the Americans intendedto give battle, he encamped in a strong position near MonmouthCourt-house, protected on nearly all sides by woods and marshes. Hisline extended on the right about a mile and a half beyond theCourt-house, and on the left, along the road toward Allentown, for aboutthree miles. 

This disposition compelled Washington to increase the advance corps, andhe ordered Lee to join Lafayette with two brigades. As senior officer, Lee assumed command of the whole division, under orders to make thefirst attack. Both Lafayette and Hamilton were annoyed and apprehensiveat this arrangement. "Washington is the shrewdest of men in hisestimates until it is a matter of personal menace, " said Hamilton, "andthen he is as trusting as a country wench with a plausible villain. Ithought we had delivered him from this scoundrel, and now he hasdeliberately placed his fortunes in his hands again. Mark you, Lee willserve us some trick before the battle is over. "

Hamilton had been galloping back and forth night and day betweenLafayette's division and Headquarters, wherever they happened to be, and reconnoitring constantly. The weather was intensely hot, the soil sosandy that his horse often floundered. He had not had a full night'ssleep since Washington announced his decision to give battle, and hewould have been worn out, had he not been too absorbed and anxious toretain any consciousness of his body. Early on the morning of the 28th, a forward movement being observed on the part of the enemy, Washingtonimmediately put the army in motion and sent word to Lee to press forwardand attack. 

Lee looked uglier and dirtier than usual, and the very seat of hisbreeches scowled as he rode forward leisurely. In a few moments hehalted, word having been brought him that the main body of the Britishwas advancing. 

"If we could but court-martial him on the spot, " groaned Lafayette, whose delicate boyish face was crumpled with anxiety. 

"He meditates treason!" exclaimed Hamilton. "It is writ all over him. "

Having ascertained that the rumour was false, Lee consented to move onagain, and the division entered the forest, their advance covered fromthe British on the plains beyond. For a time Lee manoeuvred so cleverlythat Hamilton and Lafayette permitted themselves to hope. Under cover ofthe forest he formed a portion of his line for action, and with Wayne, Hamilton, and others, rode forward to reconnoitre. Concluding that thecolumn of the British deploying on the right was only a covering partyof two thousand, he manoeuvred to cut them off from the main army. Waynewas detached with seven hundred men to attack the covering party in therear. Lee, with a stronger force, was to gain its front by a road to theleft. Small detachments were concealed in the woods. At nine o'clock, the Queen's dragoons being observed upon an eminence near the wood, Leeordered his light-horse to decoy them to the point where Wayne wasposted. The dragoons appeared to fall into the trap, but upon beingattacked from the wood, galloped off toward the main column. Waynestarted in pursuit; his artillery was raking them, and he had ordered acharge at the point of the bayonet, when, to his amazement, he receivedan order from Lee to make but a feint of attack and pursuit. He had nochoice but to obey, brilliant as might be the victory wrested from him. Lee, meanwhile, dawdled about, although his troops were on one foot withimpatience. 

Suddenly Sir Henry Clinton, learning that the Americans were marching inforce on both his flanks, with the design of capturing his baggage, changed the front of his army by facing about in order to attack Waynewith such deadly fire that the enemy on his flanks would be obliged tofly to the succour of that small detachment. Lafayette immediately sawthe opportunity for victory in the rear of the enemy, and rode up to Leeasking permission to make the attempt. 

Lee swung his loose head about and scowled at the ardent youngFrenchman. "Sir, " he replied witheringly, "you do not know Britishsoldiers. We cannot stand against them. We certainly shall be drivenback at first. We must be cautious. "

"It may be so, General, " replied Lafayette, who would have given much tosee that head rolling on the sands; "but British soldiers have beenbeaten, and they may be again. At any rate, I am disposed to make thetrial. "

Lee shrugged his shoulders, but as Lafayette sat immovable, his clearhazel eyes interrogating and astonished, he reluctantly gave the Marquisthe order to wheel his column to the right and attack the enemy's left. He simultaneously weakened Wayne's detachment and went off toreconnoitre. He afterward claimed that he saw what looked to be theapproach of the entire army, and he ordered his right to fall back. Thebrigades of Scott and Maxwell on the left were already moving forwardand approaching the right of the Royal forces, when they received anorder from Lee to reënter the wood. At the same time an order was sentto Lafayette to fall back to the Court-house. With a face as flaming ashis unpowdered head, he obeyed. Upon reaching the Court-house he learnedthat a general retreat had begun on the right, under the immediatecommand of Lee. He had no choice but to follow. 

Hamilton, hardly crediting that his worst fears were realized in thisunwarranted retreat, galloped over to Lee and urged that possession betaken of a neighbouring hill that commanded the plain on which the enemywere advancing. But Lee protested violently that the Americans had not achance against that solid phalanx, and Hamilton, now convinced that hemeditated the disgrace of the American arms, galloped with all speed insearch of Washington. 

The retreat, by this, was a panic. The troops fled like an army ofterrified rabbits, with that reversion to the simplicity of their dumbancestors which induces the suspicion that all the manly virtues areartificial. In times of panic man seems to exchange his soul for a tail. These wretches trampled each other into the shifting sand, and crowdedmany more into the morass. The heat was terrific. They ran with theirtongues hanging out, and many dropped dead. 

Washington heard of the retreat before Hamilton found him. He waspushing on to Lee's relief when a country-man brought him word of thedisgraceful rout. Washington refused to credit the report and spurredforward. Halfway between the meeting-house and the morass he met thehead of the first retreating column. He commanded it to halt at once, before the panic be communicated to the main army; then made for Lee. Lee saw him coming and braced himself for the shock. But it was agreater man than Lee who could stand the shock of Washington's temper. He was fearfully roused. The noble gravity of his face had disappeared. It was convulsed with rage. 

"Sir, " he thundered, "I desire to know what is the reason of this?Whence arises this confusion and disorder?"

"Sir--" stammered Lee, "sir--" He braced himself, and added impudently:"I thought it best not to beard the enemy in such a situation. It wascontrary to my opinion--"

"_Your_ opinion!" And then the Chief undammed a torrent of profanityWashingtonian in its grandeur. 

He wheeled and galloped to the rallying of the troops. At this momentHamilton rode up. He had ridden through the engagement without a hat. Itseemed to him that he could hear the bubbling of his brain, that thevery air blazed, and that the end of all things had come. That day ofMonmouth ever remained in his memory as the most awful and hopeless ofhis life. An ordinary defeat was nothing. But the American arms brandedwith cowardice, Washington ignobly deposed, inefficient commandersfloundering for a few months before the Americans were become thelaughing-stock of Europe, --the whole vision was so hideous, and the dayso hopeless in the light of those cowardly hordes, that he gallopedthrough the rain of British bullets, praying for death; he had lost allsense of separate existence from the shattered American cause. He didnot perceive that Washington had reached the column, and resolved tomake one more appeal to Lee, he rode up to that withered culprit andexclaimed passionately:--

"I will stay with you, my dear General, and die with you! Let us all diehere, rather than retreat!"

Lee made no reply. His brain felt as if a hot blast had swept it. 

"At least send a detachment to the succour of the artillery, " saidHamilton, with quick suspicion. And Lee ordered Colonel Livingston toadvance. 

At the same moment some one told Hamilton that Washington was in therear, rallying the troops. He spurred his horse and found that theGeneral had rallied the regiments of Ramsay and Stewart, after a rebukeunder which they still trembled, and was ordering Oswald to hasten hiscannon to the eminence which his aide had suggested to Lee. Hamiltonhimself was in time to intercept two retreating brigades. He succeededin rallying them, formed them along a fence at hand, and ordered them tocharge at the point of the bayonet. He placed himself at their head, andthey made a brilliant dash upon the enemy. But his part was soon over. His horse was shot under him, and as he struck the ground he wasovercome by the shock and the heat, and immediately carried from thefield. But the retreat was suspended, order restored, and although thebattle raged all day, the British gained no advantage. The troops wereso demoralized by the torrid heat that at sunset both Commanders wereobliged to cease hostilities; and Washington, who had been in the saddlesince daybreak, threw himself under a tree to sleep, confident of avictory on the morrow. 

"I had a feeling as if my very soul were exploding, " said Hamilton toLaurens, as they bathed their heads in a stream in the woods, with thebodies of dead and living huddled on every side of them. "I had ahideous vision of Washington and the rest of us in a huge battlepicture, in which a redcoat stood on every squirming variety ofcontinental uniform, while a screeching eagle flew off with theDeclaration of Independence. But after all, there is somethingmagnificent in so absolutely identifying yourself with a cause that yougo down to its depths of agony and fly to its heights of exaltation. Iwas mad to die when the day--and with it the whole Cause--seemed lost. Patriotism surely is the master passion. Nothing else can annihilate theego. "

Laurens, who had performed prodigies of valour, sighed heavily. "I feltas you did while the engagement lasted, " he replied. "But I went intothe battle with exultation, for death this time seemed inevitable. Andthe only result is a headache. What humiliation!"

"You are morbid, my dear, " said Hamilton, tenderly. "You cannot persuademe that at the age of twenty-five naught remains but death--no matterwhat mistakes one may have made. There is always the public career--forwhich you are eminently fitted. I would begin life over again twentytimes if necessary. "

"Yes, because you happen to be a man of genius. I am merely a man ofparts. There are many such. Not only is my life ruined, but every day Idespair anew of ever attaining that high ideal of character I have setfor myself. I want nothing short of perfection, " he said passionately. "Could I attain that, I should be content to live, no matter howwretched. But I fall daily. My passions control me, my hatreds, myimpulses of the moment. When a man's very soul aches for a purity whichit is in man to attain if he will, and when he is daily reminded that heis but a whimperer at the feet of the statue, the world is no place forhim. "

"Laurens, " said Hamilton, warmly, "you refine on the refinements ofsensibility. You have brooded until you no longer are normal and capableof logic. Compare your life with that of most men, and hope. You are buttwenty-five, and you have won a deathless glory, by a valour andbrilliancy on these battlefields that no one else has approached. Yourbrain and accomplishments are such that the country looks to you as oneof its future guides. Your character is that of a Bayard. It is yourpassions alone, my dear, which save you from being a prig. Passion isthe furnace that makes greatness possible. If, when the mental energiesare resting, it darts out tongues of flame that strike in the wrongplace, I do not believe that the Almighty, who made us, counts them assins. They are natural outlets, and we should burst without them. If oneof those tongues of flame was the cause of your undoing, God knows youhave paid in kind. As a rule no one is the worse, while most are better. A certain degree of perfection we can attain, but absoluteperfection--go into a wilderness like Mohammed and fast. There is noother way, and even then you merely would have visions; you would not beyourself. "

Laurens laughed. "It is not easy to be morbid when you are by. Acquit mefor the rest of the night. And it is time we slept. There will be hotwork to-morrow. How grandly the Chief rallied! There is a man!"

"He was in a blazing temper, " remarked Hamilton. "Lee and Ramsay andStewart were like to have died of fright. I wish to God he'd strung thefirst to a gibbet!"

They sought out Washington and lay down beside him. The American armyslept as though its soul had withdrawn to another realm where repose isundisturbed. Not so the British army. Sir Henry Clinton did not shareWashington's serene confidence in the morrow. He withdrew his weary armyin the night, and was miles away when the dawn broke. 

Once Washington awoke, raised himself on his elbow, and listenedintently. But he could hear nothing but the deep breathing of his wearyarmy. The stars were brilliant. He glanced about his immediate vicinitywith a flicker of amusement and pleasure in his eyes. The young men ofhis household were crowded close about him; he had nearly planted hiselbow on Hamilton's profile. Laurens, Tilghman, Meade, even Lafayette, were there, and they barely had left him room to turn over. He knew thatthese worshipping young enthusiasts were all ready and eager to die forhim, and that in spite of his rigid formality they were quite aware ofhis weak spot, and did not hesitate to manifest their affection. For amoment the loneliest man on earth felt as warmly companioned as if hewere raising a family of rollicking boys; then he gently lifted Hamiltonout of the way, and slept again. He was bitterly disappointed nextmorning; but to pursue the enemy in that frightful heat, over a sandycountry without water, and with his men but half refreshed, was out ofthe question. 

The rest of the year was uneventful, except for the court-martialling ofLee and his duel with Laurens, who challenged him for his defamation ofWashington. Then came the eventful winter of 1779-80, when the army wentinto quarters at Morristown, Washington and his military family takingpossession of a large house belonging to the Widow Ford. 

V

"Alexander!" cried a musical but imperious voice. 

Hamilton was walking in the depths of the wood, thinking out hisfinancial policy for the immediate relief of the country. He started andfaced about. Kitty Livingston sat on her horse, a charming picture inthe icy brilliance of the wood. He ran toward her, ripped off herglove, kissed her hand, replaced the glove, then drew back and saluted. 

"You are a saucy boy, " said Miss Livingston, "and I've a mind to boxyour ears. I've brought you up very badly; but upon my word, if you werea few years older, I believe I'd marry you and keep you in order, something no other woman will ever be able to do. But I've a piece ofnews for you--my dear little brother. Betsey Schuyler is here. "

Alexander, much to his annoyance, blushed vividly. "And how can you knowthat I have ever even seen Miss Schuyler?" he asked, rather sulkily. 

"_She_ told me all about it, my dear. And I inferred from the younglady's manner that she lived but to renew the experience. She is down atSurgeon-General Cochraine's. Mrs. Cochraine is her aunt. Seriously, Iwant you to be a good little beau, and keep her here as long aspossible. She is a great addition to our society; for she is not onlyone of the belles of the country, accomplished and experienced, but shehas an amazing fine character, and I am anxious to know her better. Youare still too young to marry, _mon enfant_, but you are so precociousand Miss Schuyler is so charming--if you will marry at your absurd age, you could not do better; for you'll get fine parents as well as a wife, and I've never known a youth more in need of an entire family. "

Hamilton laughed. "If I accumulate any more parents, " he said, "I shallshare the fate of the cat. This morning Colonel Harrison--one of myfathers--almost undressed me to see if my flannels were thick enough, Mrs. Washington gave me a fearful scolding because I went out without amuffler, and even the General is always darting edged glances at thesoles of my boots. Yesterday, Laurens, who is two-thirds English, triedto force an umbrella into my hand, but at that I rebelled. If I marry, it will be for the pleasure of taking care of someone else. "

He escorted Miss Livingston out to the highroad, and returned toHeadquarters, his imagination dancing. He had by no means forgotten MissSchuyler. That merry roguish high-bred face had shone above many darkhorizons, illuminated many bitter winter nights at Valley Forge. He wasexcited at the prospect of seeing her again, and hastened to arrange adinner, to which she must be bidden. The young men did as they choseabout entertaining, sure of Washington's approval. 

"Ah, I know Miss Schuyler well, " exclaimed Tilghman, when Hamiltonremarked that they should immediately show some attention to thedaughter of so illustrious a man as General Schuyler. "I've fetched andcarried for her--in fact I once had the honour to be despatched by hermamma to buy her a pair of stays. I fell at her little feet immediately. She has the most lively dark good-natured eyes I ever saw--Good God, Hamilton, are you going to run me through?"

Hamilton for the moment was so convulsed with jealous rage that his veryfingers curved, and he controlled them from his friend's throat with aneffort. Tilghman's words brought him to his senses, and he laughedheartily. "I was as jealous as Othello, if you'll have the truth, andjust why, I vow I don't know, for I met this young lady only once, andthat a year ago. I was much attracted, but it's not possible I'm in lovewith her. "

"It's love, my dear boy, " said Tilghman, gravely. "Go and ask Steuben ifI am not right. Laurens and I will arrange the dinner. You attend toyour case immediately. "

Hamilton, much concerned, repaired to the house of Baron Steuben. Thisold courtier and rake was physician in ordinary to all the young men intheir numerous cardiacal complications. Hamilton found him in his littlestudy, smoking a huge meerschaum. His weather-beaten face grinned withdelight at the appearance of his favourite, but he shook his headsolemnly at the revelation. 

"I fear this time you are shot, my dear little Hamilton, " he said, withmuch concern. "Have you told me all?"

"All that I can think of. " Hamilton was sitting forward on the edge ofthe chair in considerable dejection. He had not expected thisintrication, had hoped the Baron would puff it away. 

"Has she a neat waist?"

Hamilton admitted, with some surprise, that her waist was exceptional. 

"And her eyes?--I have heard of them--benevolent, yet sparkling;--and adaughter of the Schuylers. Hamilton, believe me, there are worse thingsthan love. "

"But I have affairs of the utmost moment on hand at present. I'mrevolving a whole financial system, and the correspondence grows heavierevery day. I've no time for love. "

"My boy, " said the former aide to the great Frederick, with emphasis, "when you can work in the sun, why cling to the cold corner of a publichearth? Your brain will spin the faster for the fire underneath. Youwill write great words and be happy besides. Think of that. What acombination! Mein Gott! You will be terribly in love, my son, but yourbalance is so extraordinary that your brain will work on just the same. Otherwise I would not dare give such counsel, for without you GeneralWashington would give up, and your poor old Steuben would not have moneyfor tobacco. Give me just one half-sovereign, " he added coaxingly. 

Hamilton examined the big tobacco pouch and found it two-thirds full. "Not a penny, " he said gaily. "The day after to-morrow I will buy yousome myself, but I know where that last sovereign went to. "

Hamilton took care of the old spendthrift's money, and not only then butas long as he lived. "The Secretary of the Treasury is my banker, " saidSteuben, years after. "My Hamilton takes care of my money when he cannottake care of his own. "

Hamilton retired in some perturbation, and the result of much thinkingwas that he spent an unconscionable time over his toilet on the eveningof the dinner. In his nervousness he tore one of his lace ruffles. Laurens attempted to mend it, and the rent waxed. Hamilton was forced toknock at Mrs. Washington's door and ask her to repair the injury. Shewas already dressed, in a black lutestring, her hair flat and natural. She looked approvingly at Hamilton, who, not excepting Laurens, wasalways the most faultlessly dressed member of the family. To-night hewore dark green velvet, fitting closely and exquisitely cut, white silkstockings, and a profusion of delicate lace. His hair was worn in aqueue and powdered. It was not till some years later that he conformedto the prevailing fashion and wore a wig. 

Mrs. Washington mended the lace, retied the bow of his queue, kissed himand told him to forget the cares of war and correspondence, and enjoyhimself. Hamilton retired, much comforted. 

It was an imposing family which, a half-hour later, awaited the guestsin the drawing-room. Washington was in black velvet and silk stockings, his best white wig spreading in two symmetrical wings. It was a coldgrave figure always, and threw an air of solemnity over every scene itloomed upon, which only Hamilton's lively wit could dispel. Laurens woreplum-coloured velvet and much lace, a magnificent court costume. His ownfigure was no less majestic than Washington's, but his brown eyes andfull mouth were almost invariably smiling, despite the canker. He wore avery close wig. Tilghman was in blue, the other men in more sober dress. Lafayette some time since had departed for France, Hamilton havingsuggested that the introduction of a French military force of six orseven thousand troops would have a powerful effect upon the Americanarmy and people. 

Lady Sterling arrived with Lady Kitty--the bride of Colonel William Duersince July--her undistinguished homeliness enhancing the smartappearance of her daughter, who was one of the beauties of the time. Lady Kitty had a long oval face, correct haughty little features, and ageneral air of extreme high breeding. Her powdered hair was in a tower, and she had the tiniest waist and stood upon the highest heels of allthe belles. She wore white satin over an immense hoop, a flounce ofSpanish lace and a rope of pearls. Kitty Livingston wore yellow whichoutshone the light of the candles. Susan Boudinot and the other girlswere dressed more simply. Mr. Boudinot's eyes were as keen and as kindas ever, his nose seemed longer, and the flesh was accumulating beneathhis chin. 

The Cochraines and Miss Elizabeth Schuyler were the last to arrive. Thenorthern belle's wardrobe had been an object of much concern to theyoung ladies now cut off from New York shops, and lamenting thedemoralized condition of those in Philadelphia. In Albany all thingswere still possible. Miss Schuyler wore a pink brocade of the richestand most delicate quality, and a bertha of Brussels lace. The pointedbodice and large paniers made her waist look almost as small as KittyDuer's, and her feet were the tiniest in the world. She turned them inand walked with a slight shuffle. Hamilton had never seen a motion soadorable. Her hair was rolled out from her face on both sides as well asabove, and so thickly powdered that her eyes looked as black as GeneralWashington's coat, while her cheeks and lips were like red wine on paleamber. She blushed as Hamilton bowed before her and offered his arm, andthen she felt his heart thump. As for Hamilton, he gave himself up forlost the moment she entered the room, and with the admission, hisfeelings concentrated with their usual fiery impetuosity. As it was toosoon for an outlet, they rushed to his eyes and camped there, to MissSchuyler's combined discomfort and delight. 

For once Hamilton was content to listen, and Miss Schuyler was not loathto entertain this handsome young aide, of whom all the world wastalking, and who had haunted her dreams for a year. She had read Milton, Shenstone, and Dodsworth, "The Search after Happiness, " by Hannah More, the works of Madame de Genlis, the "Essay on Man, " and Shakespeare'slighter plays. Her learning was not oppressive, merely sufficient togive distinction to her mind, and Hamilton was enchanted once more; buthe found her most interesting when relating personal anecdotes ofencounters with savage warriors in that dark northern land where she hadbeen born and bred, of hideous massacres of which her neighbours hadbeen the victims, of adventurous journeys she had taken with her father, of painted chieftains they had been forced to entertain. She talkedwith great spirit and no waste of words, and it was evident that she wasboth sensible and heroic. Hamilton ate little and forgot that he was ina company of twenty people. He was recalled by an abraded shin. 

He turned with a jump and encountered Meade's agonized face thrustacross Susan Livingston, who sat between them. 

"For God's sake, Hamilton, come forth and talk, " said Meade, in a hoarsewhisper. "There hasn't been a word said above a mutter forthree-quarters of an hour. Tilghman gave out long ago. Unless you cometo the rescue we'll all be moaning in each other's arms in threeminutes. "

Hamilton glanced about the table. Washington, looking like himself on amonument, was making not a pretence to entertain poor Lady Sterling, whowas almost sniffling. Lord Sterling, having gratified, an hour since, Mrs. Washington's polite interest in his health, was stifling yawn afteryawn, and his chubby little visage was oblong and crimson. Tilghman, looking guilty and uncomfortable, --it was his duty to relieve Hamiltonat the table, --was flirting with Miss Boudinot. Lady Kitty and BaronSteuben always managed to entertain each other. Laurens and KittyLivingston were sitting back and staring at each other as they hadstared many times before. The others were gazing at their plates or atHamilton. It was, indeed, a Headquarters dinner at the worst. 

It has been remarked that Hamilton had a strong sense of duty. He felthimself unable, even with the most charming girl on the continent besidehim, to resist the appeal of all those miserable eyes, and launchedforth at once upon the possibilities of Lafayette returning with anarmy. Everybody responded, and he had many subjects of common interestto discourse brilliantly upon until the long meal finished. EvenWashington gave him a grateful glance, and the others reattacked theirexcellent food with a lost relish, now that the awful silence and senseof personal failure were dispelled by their "bright particular star, " asthe letters of the day from Morristown and the vicinity cleped ourhero. But with Miss Schuyler he had no further word that night, and heretired with the conviction that there were times when there was nosatisfaction whatever in doing one's duty. 

VI

But a few nights later there was a subscription ball in the commissarystorehouse, and Hamilton danced with Miss Schuyler no less than tentimes, to the merciless amusement of the family. The ball, the first ofany size since the war began, was a fine affair, and had been organizedby Tilghman, Meade, and several of the Frenchmen; they were determinedupon one gay season, at least. The walls were covered with flags andholly; the women wore their most gorgeous brocades; feathers and jewelswere on becoming white wigs or on the towers of powdered hair. All theforeigners were in full regimentals, Steuben, in particular, being halfcovered with gold lace and orders; the music and supper were admirable. Even Washington looked less careworn than usual, and as he stood apartwith Lord Sterling, General Knox, and General Greene, he shed noperceptible chill. Miss Schuyler wore white, with a twist of blackvelvet in her powdered hair and another about her throat, and would havebeen the belle of the party had Hamilton permitted other attentions. Butshe gave him all the dances he demanded, and although her bright mannerdid not lapse toward sentiment for a moment, he went home so elated thathe sat scribbling poetry until Laurens pelted him with pillows andextinguished the candle. 

The next day there was a sleighing party to Lord Sterling's, and hedrove Miss Schuyler, her aunt, and the wife of General Knox through thewhite and crystal and blue of a magnificent winter day. Mrs. Cochrainemade no secret of her pride in her niece's capture of Washington'scelebrated favourite, and assured him of a hearty welcome at her houseif he felt disposed to call. He promptly established the habit ofcalling every evening. 

But although he was seriously and passionately in love, and quite surethat Miss Schuyler loved him in return, he hesitated for the first timein his life before precipitating a desired consummation. That he had nomoney did not worry him in the least, for he knew himself capable ofearning any amount, and that the Republic, when free, would bristle withopportunities for young men of parts. But he was in honour bound to tellher of the irregularity of his birth. And in what manner would sheregard a possible husband with whose children she never could discusstheir father's parents? She was twenty-two, a small woman-of-the-world, not a romantic young miss incapable of reason. And the Schuylers? Theproudest family in America! Would they take him on what he had made ofhimself, on the promise of his future, or would their family pride provestronger than their common sense? He had moments of frantic doubt anddepression, but fortunately there was no time for protracted periods oflover's misery. Washington demanded him constantly for consultation uponthe best possible method of putting animation into the Congress andextracting money for the wretched troops. He frequently accompanied theGeneral, as at Valley Forge, in his visits to the encampment on themountain, where the emaciated tattered wretches were hutting with allpossible speed against the severity of another winter. The snow wasalready on the ground, and every prospect of a repetition of the horrorsof Valley Forge. The mere sight of Washington put heart into them, andHamilton's lively sallies rarely failed to elicit a smile in return. 

It so happened that for a fortnight the correspondence with Congress, the States, the Generals, and the British, in regard to the exchange ofprisoners, was so heavy, the consultations with Washington so frequent, that Hamilton saw nothing of Miss Schuyler, and had little time for theindulgence of pangs. When he emerged, however, his mind was the freer toseek a solution of the problem which had tormented him, and he quicklyfound it. He determined to write the truth to Miss Schuyler, and so savethe embarrassment he had dreaded for both. To think was to act. Herelated the facts of his birth and of his ancestry in the briefestpossible manner, adding a description of his mother which would leave noquestion of the place she held in his esteem. He then stated, with theemphasis of which he was master, that he distractedly awaited hisdismissal, or Miss Schuyler's permission to declare what he had soawkwardly concealed. 

He sent the letter by an orderly, and attacked his correspondence with adesire to put gunpowder on his quill. But Miss Schuyler was atender-hearted creature and had no intention that he should suffer. Shescrawled him a hasty summons to come to her at once, and bade theorderly ride as for his life. Hamilton, hearing a horse coming up theturnpike at runaway pace, glanced out of the window to see what neck wasin danger, then flung his quill to the floor and bolted. He was out ofthe house before the orderly had dismounted, and secured possession ofthe note. When he had returned to his office, which was in a logextension at the back of the building, he locked the door and read whathe could of Miss Schuyler's illegible chirography. That it was a commandto wait upon her at once he managed to decipher, but no more at themoment; and feeling as if the heavens had opened, he despatched a hastynote, telling her that he could not leave his work before night, when hewould hasten with the pent-up assurances of a love which had been historment and delight for many weeks. And then he answered a summons toWashington's office, and discussed a letter to the Congress as if therewere no such person in the world as Elizabeth Schuyler, as indeed forthe hour there was not, nor for the rest of the afternoon. 

But at eight o'clock he presented himself at the Cochraine quarters, andMiss Schuyler was alone in the drawing-room. It was some time beforethey arrived at the question which had weighed so heavily on Hamilton'smind. When, however, they came down to conversation, Miss Schuylerremarked:--

"I am sure that it will make no difference with my dear father, who isthe most just and sensible of men. I had never thought of your parentageat all. I should have said you had leapt down from the abode of thegods, for you are much too remarkable to have been merely born. But ifhe should object--why, we'll run away. "

Her eyes danced at the prospect, and Hamilton, who had vowed thatnothing should induce him to enter a family where he was not welcome, was by now so hopelessly in love that he was ready to order the chaiseand four at once. He remained until Mrs. Cochraine sent him home, thenwalked up the hill toward Headquarters, keeping to the road by instinct, for he was deep in a reverie on the happiness of the past hours. Hisdreams were cruelly shattered by the pressure of a bayonet against hisbreast. 

"What?" he demanded. "Oh, the countersign. " He racked his memory. It hadfled, terrified, from his brain under the rush of that evening'semotions. 

"I can't remember it, " he said haughtily; "but you know who I am. Let mepass. " The sentry stood like a fate. 

"This is ridiculous!" cried Hamilton, angrily, then the absurdity of thesituation overcame him, and he laughed. Once more he searched his brainfor the countersign, which he remembered having given to little Fordjust after dinner. Mrs. Ford and her son retained two rooms in thehouse, and Hamilton frequently gave the youngster the word, that hemight play in the village after dark. Suddenly he saw him approaching. He darted down the road, secured the password, and returned in triumphto the sentry. 

"Sir, " exclaimed the soldier, in dismay, "is this quite regular? Willyou give me your word, sir, that it is all right?"

"I vow that no harm shall come to you, " said Hamilton. "Shoulder yourmusket. " And there the incident ended, so far as the soldier wasconcerned, but young Ford carried the story to Headquarters, and it waslong before Hamilton heard the last of it. 

There was no sleep in him that night. He went to his office and labouredfor hours over a verse which should adequately express the loveconsuming him, and then he awoke Laurens and talked into thatsympathetic ear until it was time to break the ice and freshen himselffor work. 

His work that day was of a vastly different character from theimpassioned trifle of the night before. He obtained exemption from otherduty, and ordered luncheon and dinner brought to his office. One of themost remarkable examples of Hamilton's mature genius at this age oftwenty-three is his long and elaborate letter to Robert Morris on thefinancial condition of the country, written during the earliest periodof his love for Elizabeth Schuyler. As passionate and impatient as hewas tender, alive in every part of his nature to the joy of a realaffection and to the prospect of a lasting happiness, he yet was ablefor twelve hours at a time to shut his impending bride in the remotestcupboard of his mind, nor heed her sighs. But there was an older lovethan Elizabeth Schuyler: a ragged poverty-stricken creature by this, cowering before dangers within and without, raving mad at times, imbecile at others, filling her shattered body with patent nostrums, yetthroughout her long course of futilities and absurdities making adesperate attempt to shade the battered lamp of liberty from the fataldraught. Her name was the United States of America, and never was therea more satiric misnomer. If the States chose to obey the requisitions ofthe Congress, they obeyed them; but as a rule they did not. There was nopower in the land to enforce obedience; and they hated each other. Asthe Congress had demonstrated its inefficiency to the most inactive inpublic affairs, the contempt of the States is hardly to be wondered at. It is not too much to say that troops were recruited by Washington'sinfluence alone, and kept from mutiny by his immortal magnetism. Thefinances of the Revolution were in such a desperate condition that SirHenry Clinton built his hopes of success--now he had discovered that novictory gave him a permanent advantage--upon the dissolution of theAmerican army, possibly an internal war. With depreciated bills incirculation amounting to one hundred and sixty millions of dollars, apublic debt of nearly forty millions in foreign and domestic loans, theCongress had, in March, ordered a new emission of bills; the result hadbeen a season of crazy speculation and the expiring gasp of publiccredit. In addition to an unpaid army, assurances had been given to theFrench minister that not less than twenty-five thousand men should beready for the next campaign; and how to force the States to recruitthem, and how to pay them when in the field, was the present questionbetween Headquarters and Congress. 

From the time that Hamilton's mind had turned to finance, in hisnineteenth year, he had devoted the greater part of his leisure to thestudy and thought of it. Books on the subject were few in those days;the science of political economy was unborn, so far as Hamilton wasconcerned, for Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations, " published in 1776, hadnot made its way to America. He assimilated all the data there was to befound, then poured it into the crucible of his creative faculty, andgradually evolved the great scheme of finance which is the locomotive ofthe United States to-day. During many long winter evenings he had talkedhis ideas over with Washington, and it was with the Chief's fullapproval that he finally went to work on the letter embodying his schemefor the immediate relief of the country. It was addressed to RobertMorris, the Financier of the Revolution. 

The first part of the letter was an essay on inflated and depreciatedcurrency, applied personally, the argument based on the three followingpoints: There having been no money in the country, Congress had beenunable to avoid the issuance of paper money. The only way to obtain andretire this immense amount of depreciated paper money was to obtain realmoney. Real money could be obtained in one way only, --by a foreign loan. He then elaborately disposed of the proposed insane methods of applyingthis projected loan which were agitating the Congress. But he was anarchitect and builder as well as an iconoclast, and having shown thefutility of every financial idea ever conceived by Congress, heproceeded to the remedy. His scheme, then as ever, was a National Bank, to be called The Bank of the United States; the capital to be a foreignloan of two millions sterling. 

This letter, even in its details, in the knowledge of human nature itbetrays, and in its scheme to combine public and private capital thatthe wealthy men of the country should, in their own interests, becompelled to support the government, reads like an easy example inarithmetic to-day; but a hundred and twenty years ago it was so bold andadvanced that Morris dared to adopt several of its suggestions in partonly, and founded the bank of Pennsylvania on the greater plan, by wayof experiment. No one but Hamilton could carry out his own theories. 

Hamilton, who often had odd little attacks of modesty, signed theletter, James Montague; address, Morristown. He read it to Washingtonbefore posting. 

The Chief, whose men were aching, sighed heavily. 

"They will pick a few crumbs out of it, " he said. "But they will notmake a law of it in toto; the millennium is not yet come. But if itgives them one idea we should be thankful, it being a long and wearytime since they have experienced that phenomenon. If it does not, Idoubt if these men fight another battle. I wonder if posterity will everrealize the indifference of their three million ancestors to the warwhich gave them their independence--if we accomplish that end. I ask forsoldiers and am treated much as if I had asked for my neighbour's wife. I ask for money to keep them from starving and freezing and am made tofeel like an importunate beggar. "

"I had a letter from Hugh Knox not so long since, " said Hamilton, in hislightest tone; for Washington was on the verge of one of his attacks ofinfuriated depression, which were picturesque but wearing. "Heundertakes to play the prophet, and he is an uncommon clever man, sir:he says that you were created for the express purpose of deliveringAmerica, to do it single-handed, if necessary, and that my proud destinyis to be your biographer. The first I indorse, so does every thinkingman in the country. But for the second--alas! I am not equal to a postof such exalted honour. "

Washington smiled. "No one knows better than your old Chief that yourdestiny is no such ha'penny affair as that. But at least you wouldn'tmake an ass of me. God knows what is in store for me at the hands ofscribblers. "

"You lend yourself fatally well to marble and stone, sir, " saidHamilton, mischievously. "I fear your biographers will conceivethemselves writing at the feet of a New World Sphinx, and that itsfrozen granite loneliness will petrify their image of you. "

"I like the prospect! I am unhappily conscious of my power to chill anassemblage, but the cold formality of my manner is a safeguard, as youknow. My nature is one of extremes; if I did not encase myself, I shouldbe ramming every man's absurd opinions down his throat, and letting mycursed temper fly at each of the provocations which constantly beset me. I have not the happy gift of compromise; but I am not unhuman, and Ilike not the prospect of going down to posterity a wooden figureheadupon some emblematic battle-ship. Perhaps, my boy, you, who best knowme, will be moved by charity to be my biographer, after all. "

"I'll make it the business of my old age, sir; I pledge you my word, andno one loves you better nor can do you such justice as I. When my workin the National Family is done, then shall I retire with my literarylove, an old and pleasant love; and what higher subject for my pen?"

He spoke in a tone of badinage, for he was bent on screwing upWashington's spirits, but he made his promise in good faith, nevertheless, and Washington looked at him with deep affection. 

"My mind is certainly easier, " he said, in a tone that was almost light. "Go now and post your letter, and give your evening to Miss Schuyler. Present my compliments to her. "

"I became engaged to her last night, sir. "

"Ah! had you forgotten to tell me?"

"No, sir; I have but just remembered it. "

Washington laughed heartily. "Mind you never tell her that, " he said. "Women love the lie that saves their pride, but never an unflatteringtruth. You have learned your lesson young, --to put a tempting face asidewhen duty demands every faculty; it is a lesson which takes most menlongest to learn. I could tell you some amusing stories of rough andtumbles in my mind between the divine image of the hour and some affairof highest moment. But to a brain like yours all things are possible. "

He rose, and took Hamilton's hand and shook it warmly. 

"God bless you, " he said. "Your future unrolls to my vision, brilliantand happy. I deeply wish that it may be so. "

VII

The letter from General Schuyler, giving his consent to the engagement, has not been preserved; but some time after he had occasion to writeHamilton a business letter, in which the following passage occurs:--

 You cannot, my dear sir, be more happy at the connexion you have made with my family than I am. Until the child of a parent has made a judicious choice, his heart is in continual anxiety; but this anxiety was removed on the moment I discovered it was on you she had placed her affections. I am pleased with every instance of delicacy in those who are so dear to me; and I think I read your soul on the occasion you mention. I shall therefore only entreat you to consider me as one who wishes in every way to promote your happiness. 

General Schuyler was ordered by Congress to Morristown to confer withWashington. He took a house, sent for his family, and remained untillate in the summer. The closest friendship was formed between Schuylerand Hamilton, which, with common political interests and deepeningsympathy, increased from year to year. The good fairies of Nevis who hadattended Hamilton's birth never did better for him than when they gavehim Elizabeth Schuyler for wife and Philip Schuyler for father andfriend. And they had blasted the very roots of the chief impediment tosuccess, for he triumphed steadily and without effort over what haspoisoned the lives of many men; and triumphed in spite of the fact thatthe truth was vaguely known always, and kept in the quiver of hisenemies. 

As Hamilton was absent from Headquarters but seldom during GeneralSchuyler's sojourn, the lovers met almost every evening, andoccasionally Washington, who possessed certain sympathies based on longexperience, would give Hamilton a morning free, and suggest a ridethrough the woods. Never were two people happier nor more inherentlysuited. Hamilton's instinct had guided him safely past more brilliantwomen to one who willingly would fold herself round his energeticindividuality of many parts, fitting into every division and crevice. She was receptive, sympathetic, adaptive, with sufficient intelligenceto appreciate the superlative brain of the man whom she never ceased toworship and to regard as a being of unmortal clay. A brilliant ambitiouswife in the same house with Hamilton might have written a picturesquediary, but the domestic instrument would have twanged with discords. Hamilton was unselfish, and could not do enough for those he loved; buthe was used to the first place, to the unquestioned yielding of it tohis young high-mightiness by his clever aspiring friends, by the army ofhis common acquaintance, and in many ways by Washington himself. Had hemarried Angelica Schuyler, that independent, high-spirited, lively, adorable woman, probably they would have boxed each other's ears at theend of a week. 

Hamilton made the dash on Staten Island with Lord Sterling, and in Marchwent with General St. Clair and Colonel Carrington to negotiate with theBritish commissioners for the exchange of prisoners; before the battleof Springfield he was sent out to reconnoitre. Otherwise his days weretaken up bombarding the Congress with letters representing the necessityof drafting troops to meet the coming emergencies. 

He and Miss Betsey Schuyler had a very pretty plan, which was nothingless than that they should go to Europe on their wedding tour, Congressto find his presence necessary at the Court of France. The suggestionoriginated with Laurens, who had been asked to go as secretary toFranklin. He had no wish to go, and knowing Hamilton's ardent desire tovisit Europe and growing impatience with his work, had recommended hisname to the Congress. General Schuyler would have procured a leave ofabsence for his impending son-in-law, and sent the young couple toEurope with his blessing and a heavy wallet, but Hamilton would as soonhave forged a man's name as travelled at his expense. He hoped that theCongress would send him. He was keenly alive to the value of studyingEurope at first hand before he was called upon to help in the modellingof the new Republic, and the vision of wandering in historic lands withhis bride kept him awake at night. Moreover, he was desperately tired ofhis life at Headquarters. When the expedition to Staten Island was inquestion, he asked Washington, through Lafayette, to give him thecommand of a battalion which happened to be without a field-officer. Washington refused, partly from those motives of policy to which he evershowed an almost niggling adherence, but more because he could not sparehis most useful aide. Hamilton, who was bursting for action of any sort, retired to his detested little office in angry disappointment. But hewas a philosopher. He adjusted himself to the Inevitable, and dismissedthe matter from his mind, after registering a vow that he would takeadvantage of the first excuse which might offer to resign his position. 

The Schuylers returned to Albany. The French fleet arrived, and hoveredwell beyond the range of British guns, having no desire to risk anengagement until reinforced. Its Admiral, Count Rochambeau, having agrievance, Hamilton advised a personal conference. 

"We might suggest that he meet us halfway--say at Wethersfield, nearHartford, " he added. "That would save us something in travellingexpenses. "

Washington sighed heavily. "We are worse off than you think, " he said. "I might scrape together money enough for half the journey, but no more. Lafayette and his aide must go with us--to say nothing of the escort. Think of the innkeepers' bills, for ourselves and horses. What to do Iconfess I do not know, for I should confer with this Frenchman at once. "

"Go we must, sir, " said Hamilton, decidedly, "if we have to take up acollection--why not? If an object cannot be accomplished one way, tryanother. " He stood up and emptied the contents of his pockets on thetable. "Only five hundred beggarly continentals, " he said ruefully. "However, who knows what treasures may line more careful pockets thanmine? I know they will come forth as spontaneously. Have I yourpermission to try, sir?"

Washington nodded, and Hamilton ran downstairs, pressed Meade intoservice, and together they made the round of the officers' quarters. Hereturned at the end of an hour and threw a huge bundle of paper on thetable. "Only eight thousand dollars, sir, " he said. "It's the best thatany man could do. But I think it may carry us through. "

"It will have to, " said Washington. "Remind me, my dear boy, if you seeme eating too much. I have such an appetite!"

They set out on their journey a week later, having communicated withRochambeau, who agreed to meet them at Wethersfield. All went well, forthe wretched inns were not exorbitant, until they reached Hartford. Theyarrived late in the afternoon, weary and ravenous. After a bath and aglimpse of luxurious beds, they marched to the dining room and sat downto a sumptuous repast, whose like had greeted neither nostril nor palatefor many a day. The wines were mellow, the tobacco green, theconversation gay until midnight. Hamilton sang "The Drum, " and manyanother song rang among the rafters. Washington retired first, biddingthe youngsters enjoy themselves. The young men arose at their accustomedhour next morning, with appetites renewed, but waited in vain for theirChief. Hamilton finally knocked at his door. There was no response, anda servant told him that the General had gone out nearly an hour before. He went in search, bidding Lafayette and M'Henry remain behind. As hehad anticipated, he found Washington in a secluded nook, engaged inprayer. He waited a few moments, then coughed respectfully. Washingtonimmediately rose, his harassed face showing little relief. 

"Is anything wrong, sir?" asked Hamilton, anxiously. 

"Alas!" said the General, "I wonder that you, too, are not driven toprayer, to intercede for help in this distressing predicament. Think ofthat extravagant repast we consumed last night. God help me, but I wasso famished I never gave a thought to consequences. Unquestionably, thebreakfast will be on a like scale. _And we have but eight thousanddollars with which to pay the bill_!"

"It is true! I never gave the matter a thought--I am cursedlyextravagant. And we must get home! I suppose we shall have to fast allthe way. Well, we've fasted before, and the memory of last night'sdinner may sustain us--"

"But this man's bill! How are we to meet it?"

"Shall I speak to him, sir? Tell him unreservedly our predicament--thatthese wretched eight thousand dollars are all we have in the world?Perhaps he is a good patriot, and will call the account square. "

"Do, " said Washington, "and come here and tell me what he says. I am toomortified to show my face. I shall not enter the house again. "

Hamilton walked slowly to the house, little caring for his errand. Hereturned on a dead run. 

"We are saved, sir!" he cried, almost in Washington's arms. "GovernorTrumbull has sent word to all the hostelries that we are to be hisguests while we are in the state of Connecticut!"

Washington said his prayers again, and ate two chickens for breakfast. 

On the return from this conference, when approaching the house ofGeneral Benedict Arnold, opposite West Point, where they were invitedfor breakfast, Washington suddenly decided to accompany Lafayette, whowished to inspect some earthworks. 

"You need not come, " he said to Hamilton and M'Henry. "I know that you are both in love with Mrs. Arnold. Go on. We will joinyou presently. "

The young men were greeted with effusion by the pretty hostess, withabsent reserve by her husband. Mrs. Arnold left the room to order thatthe breakfast be delayed. While she was absent, a note was brought toArnold. He opened it, turned green, and rising hastily, announced thathis presence was demanded at West Point and left the room. The sound ofa smothered scream and fall came from above. A moment later the aidesheard the sound of galloping hoofs. 

Their suspicions aroused, they ran outside. A messenger, with a despatchfrom Colonel Jameson, awaited Washington's arrival. Hamilton tore openthe paper. It contained the news that a British spy had been capturedwithin the lines. In an instant Hamilton and M'Henry were on theirhorses and off in pursuit of the fugitive. That Arnold was a traitor andhad fled to the British war-ship, _Vulture_, hovering in Haverstraw Bay, a slower wit than Hamilton's would have assumed. The terrified scoundrelwas too quick for them. He had ridden over a precipice to the shorebelow, and under protection of a flag of truce was far down the riverwhen his pursuers sighted him. They returned with all speed. 

I shall not repeat the oft-told tale of André's capture, trial, anddeath. Nowhere has it been so well told as by Hamilton himself, in aletter to Laurens, printed at the time and universally read. It is onlynecessary here to allude to his share in that unhappiest episode of thewar. When Washington reached the house his aide was engaged in consolingMrs. Arnold, who was shrieking and raving, weeping and fainting;imposing on Hamilton a task varied and puzzling, even to one of hisschooling. But she was very young, very charming, and in a tragicplight. Washington himself wiped away a tear, and for a moment forgotthe barely averted consequences of her husband's treason, while heassisted Hamilton in assuaging a grief so bitter and so appealing. Assoon as was possible he sent her through the British lines. 

But Hamilton quickly forgot Mrs. Arnold in his sympathy and admirationfor the unfortunate André. He conceived a quick and poignant friendshipfor the brilliant accomplished young Englishman, with the dreamy softface of a girl, and a mettle which had brought him to destruction. Hamilton did all he could to save him, short of suggesting to André toask Sir Henry Clinton to offer Arnold in exchange. He enlisted thesympathy of the officers at West Point in the prisoner's behalf, gave uphis leisure to diverting André's mind, and persuaded Washington to delaythe execution and send an indirect suggestion to Clinton to offer theexchange himself. When all hope was over, he personally beggedWashington to heed André's request for a soldier's death, and notcondemn such a man to the gibbet. Washington gladly would have saved hisinteresting prisoner's life, and felt deeply for him, but again thosemotives of policy prevailed, and André was executed like a commonmalefactor. 

VIII

Washington was in temporary quarters--a cramped and wretched tavern--atLiberty Pole, New Jersey. The inaction being oppressive, Hamiltonconcentrated his thoughts on the condition and needs of the country. 

 I am sorry that the same spirit of indifference to public affairs prevails, [he wrote to Sears]. It is necessary we should rouse and begin to do our business in earnest, or we shall play a losing game. We must have a government with more power. We must have a tax in kind. We must have a foreign loan. We must have a bank on the true principles of a bank. We must have an administration distinct from Congress, and in the hands of single men under their orders. We must, above all things, have an army for the war. .. . We are told here there is to be a Congress of the neutral powers at the Hague for meditating of peace. God send it may be true. We want it; but if the idea goes abroad, ten to one if we do not fancy the thing done, and fall into a profound sleep till the cannon of the enemy waken us next campaign. This is our national character. 

Hamilton, the High Priest of Energy, had long since declared war againstthe genius of the American people, who believed in God and the art ofleisure. Hamilton believed in God and a cabinet of zealous ministers. Hewas already a thorn in the side of estimable but hesitant patriots, andin times to come his unremitting and remorseless energy was to be asubject of reproach by associates and enemies alike. Even Jefferson, that idol of the present as of the past democracy, had timidly declaredagainst separation in 1774, while Hamilton, a boy of seventeen, had beenthe first to suggest the resort to arms, and incessant in his endeavoursuntil the great result was accomplished. He had countless other schemes, and he knew that eventually he would succeed in driving the Americanpeople before the point of his quill. That his task would be long andarduous did not daunt him for a moment. By this time he knew every wantof the country, and was determined upon the reorganization of thegovernment. The energy which is one of the distinguishingcharacteristics of the American nation to-day was generated by Hamilton, might, indeed, be said to be the persistence and diffusion of his ego. For the matter of that, all that is greatest in this American evolutionof a century was typified in Hamilton. Not only his formidable energy, but his unqualified honour and integrity, his unquenchable optimism, hisextraordinary nimbleness of mind and readiness of resource, his gaygood-nature, high spirits, and buoyancy, his light philosophyeffervescing above unsounded depths, his inability to see when he wasbeaten, his remorseless industry, his hard common sense, combined with aversatile cleverness which makes for shallowness in another race, hiscareless generosity, his aptitude for detail and impatience of it, hisreckless bravery in war and intrepidity in peace, even his highly strungnerves, excitability, and obliging readiness at all times for a fight, raise him high above history as the genius of the American race. Thereverse side of the national character we owe to the greatest of hisrivals; as will be seen hereafter. 

During the sojourn at Liberty Pole, Washington and he sat through manynights discussing the imperative need of the reorganization of thegovernment, and the best methods by which it could be accomplished. Theresult was Hamilton's letter to James Duane, an important member of theCongress. 

This letter, no doubt the most remarkable of its kind ever written, andas interesting to-day as when Hamilton conceived it, is far too long tobe quoted. It began with an exhaustive analysis of the reasons for thefailure of Congress to cope with a situation which was becoming morethreatening every hour, and urged the example of the Grecian republicsand the Swiss cantons against the attempted confederation of the Stateswithout a strong centralized government. Lacking a common tie ofsufficient strength, the States would inevitably drift towardindependent sovereignty, and they had given signal proof in the matterof raising troops, contributing money, and in their everlasting disputesabout boundary lines, as to the absolute lack of any common publicspirit. His remedy, in brief, was a convention of the States for thepurpose of creating a Federal Constitution, the distributing of thepowers of government into separate departments, with Presidents of War, Marine, and Trade, a secretary of Foreign Affairs, and a Financier, defining their prerogatives; the States to have no privileges beyond aninternal police for the protection of the property and the rights ofindividuals, and to raise money by internal taxes; the army to berecruited on a permanent establishment. In addition, there was anelaborate system of taxation, by which the country could be supported inall its emergencies. His favourite plan of a National Bank waselaborated in minute detail, the immediate necessity for a foreign loandwelt upon with sharp reproof, and examples given of the recruiting ofarmies in European states. 

Out of a multitude of suggestions a few were adopted within a shorttime, but the great central suggestion, the calling of a convention forthe purpose of creating a Federal Constitution, was to be hammered atfor many weary years before jealous States and unconfident patriotscould be persuaded to a measure so monarchical and so bold. But theletter is on record, and nothing more logical, far-sighted, andcomprehensive ever was written. It contained the foundation-stones uponwhich this government of the United States stands to-day. Congress puton its spectacles and read it with many grunts, magnanimously expressingadmiration for a youth who had fearlessly grappled with questions whichaddled older brains; but its audacious suggestions of a governmentgreater than Congress, and of a bank which would add to their troubles, were not taken seriously for a moment. 

Hamilton also found time to write a good many love letters. Here is oneof them:--

 I would not have you imagine, Miss, that I write you so often to gratify your wishes or please your vanity; but merely to indulge myself, and to comply with that restless propensity of my mind which will not be happy unless I am doing something in which you are concerned. This may seem a very idle disposition in a philosopher and a soldier, but I can plead illustrious examples in my justification. Achilles liked to have sacrificed Greece and his glory to a female captive, and Anthony lost a world for a woman. I am very sorry times are so changed as to oblige me to go to antiquity for my apology, but I confess, to the disgrace of the present time, that I have not been able to find as many who are as far gone as myself in the laudable Zeal of the fair sex. I suspect, however, if others knew the charm of my sweetheart as I do, I could have a great number of competitors. I wish I could give you an idea of her. You can have no conception of how sweet a girl she is. It is only in my heart that her image is truly drawn. She has a lovely form and still more lovely mind. She is all goodness, the gentlest, the dearest, the tenderest of her sex. Ah, Betsey, how I love her!

His reiterated demand for a foreign loan, and the sending of a specialenvoy to obtain it, at last wrung a reluctant consent from Congress. Lafayette was his politic suggestion, and Congress would have indorsedit, but that adventurous young hero had not come to America to returnand beg money on his own doorstep. There was a prospect of fighting inthe immediate future, and he was determined to add to his renown. Thechoice then lay between Hamilton and Laurens, who had received thethanks of Congress for his distinguished services in the field, andwhose father had been a president of that body. Lafayette and all theFrenchmen were anxious that the mission be given to Hamilton. The formerwent to Philadelphia and talked to half the Congress. He offeredHamilton private letters which would introduce him to the best societyof Europe; adding, "I intend giving you the _key_ of the cabinet, aswell as of the societies which influence them. "

Laurens, by this time, was eager to go. His father, who had started forHolland as Minister Plenipotentiary, had been captured by the Britishand confined in the Tower of London; the foreign mission would give himan opportunity to attempt his liberation. Moreover, life was very dullat present, and he knew himself to be possessed of diplomatic talents. But he was also aware of Hamilton's ardent desire to visit Europe, allthat it would mean to that insatiate mind, his weariness of his presentposition. Washington would give his consent to the temporary absence ofHamilton, for the French money was the vital necessity of the Republic'slife, and he knew that his indomitable aide would not return without itTherefore Laurens wrote to Hamilton, who was in Albany awaiting hiswedding-day, that he should resign in his favour, and congratulated himon so brilliant and distinguished a honeymoon. 

The struggle in Hamilton's mind was brief. The prospect of sailing withhis bride on a long and delightful journey that could not fail to bringhim highest honour had made his blood dance. Moreover, in the previousmonth Washington had again refused his request for an independentcommand. It took him but a short time to relinquish this cherished dreamwhen he thought of the unhappy plight of Mr. Laurens, and remembered thedeep anxiety of the son, often expressed. He wrote to Laurens, withdrawing in the most decisive terms. Laurens was not to be outdone. He loved his father, but he loved Hamilton more. He pressed theappointment upon his friend, protesting that the affairs of the elderLaurens would be quite as safe in his hands. Hamilton prevailed, andCongress, having waited amiably while the two martial youths had it out, unanimously appointed Laurens. He could not sail until February, and assoon as the matter was decided obtained leave of absence and repaired inall haste to Albany, to be present at Hamilton's wedding. 

IX

The wedding of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler was the mostnotable private event of the Revolution. The immense social andpolitical consequence of the Schuylers, and the romantic fame of theyoung aide, of whom the greatest things possible were expected, broughtthe aristocracy of New York and the Jersies to Albany despite theinclement winter weather. The large house of the Schuylers gave aprolonged hospitality to the women, and the men lodged in thepatriarchal little town. But although Hamilton was glad to see theLivingstons, Sterlings, and Boudinots again, the greater number of theguests interested him far less than a small group of weather-beatensoldiers, of which this occasion was the happy cause of reunion. Troupwas there, full of youth and honours. He had received the thanks ofCongress for his services at Saratoga, and been appointed secretary ofthe Board of War. Recently he had resigned from the army, and wascompleting his law studies. Nicolas Fish came with Lafayette, whoselight artillery he commanded. He was known as a brave and gallantsoldier, and so excellent a disciplinarian that he had won the approvaland confidence of Washington. He still parted his little fringe in themiddle, and his face was as chubby as ever, his eyes as solemn. Lafayette, who had brought a box full of clothes that had dazzled Paris, embraced Hamilton with tears, but they were soon deep in conjectures ofthe next campaign. Laurens, looking like a king in exile, wrung manyhearts. Hamilton's brother aides, unfortunately, were the more closelybound by his absence, but they had despatched him with their blessingand much chaffing. 

The hall of the Schuyler mansion was about twenty feet square andpanelled in white. It was decorated with holly, and for three nightsbefore the wedding illuminated by hundreds of wax candles, while theyoung people danced till three in the morning. The Schuyler house, longaccustomed to entertaining, had never been gayer, and no one was morecontent than the chatelaine. Although she had been reasonably sure ofElizabeth, there was no telling at what moment the maiden might yield tothe romantic mania of the time, and climb out of her window at nightwhile Hamilton stood shivering below. Now all danger was past, and Mrs. Schuyler moved, large, placid, and still handsome, among her guests, beaming so affectionately whenever she met Mrs. Carter's flashing eyesthat Peggy and Cornelia renewed their vows to elope when the hour andthe men arrived. General Schuyler, once more on the crest of publicapproval, was always grave and stern, but he, too, breathed satisfactionand relief. He was a tall man of military appearance, powerful, muscular, slender; but as his nose was large and fleshy, and he wore aragged-looking wig with wings like Washington's, he could not be calledhandsome. It was a noble countenance, however, and his black eyesflashed and pierced. 

As for Hamilton and Miss Schuyler, who had a trunk full of charming newgowns, they were as happy as two children, and danced the night through. They were married on the 20th, in the drawing-room, in front of thesplendid mantel, which the housewives had spent much time in admiring. The bride wore the white which became her best, made with a long pointedbodice and paniers, and lace that had been worn by the wife of the firstpatroon. She had risen to the dignity of a wig, and her mass of blackhair was twisted mercilessly tight under the spreading white monstrosityto which her veil was attached. Hamilton wore a black velvet coat, asbefitting his impending state. Its lining and the short trousers were ofwhite satin. His shapely legs were in white silk, his feet in pumps withdiamond buckles, the present of Lafayette. He, too, wore a wig, --a closeone, with a queue, --but he got rid of it immediately after the ceremony, for it heated his head. 

Hamilton had then reached his full height, about five feet six. Hisbride was perhaps three inches shorter. The world vowed that never hadthere been so pretty a couple, nor one so well matched in every way. Both were the perfection of make, and the one as fair and fresh as aScot, the other a golden gipsy, the one all fire and energy, the otherdocile and tender, but with sufficient spirit and intelligence. It isseldom that the world so generously gives its blessing, but it mighthave withheld it, for all that Hamilton and his bride would have cared. 

Hamilton's honeymoon was brief. There was a mass of correspondenceawaiting him, and no place for a bride in the humble Dutch house at NewWindsor where Washington had gone into winter quarters. But the distancewas not great, and he could hope for flying leaves of absence. Washington was not unsympathetic to lovers; he had been known to unbendand advise his aides when complications threatened or a siege seemedhopeless; and he had given Hamilton the longest leave possible. Nevertheless, the bridegroom set forth, one harsh January morning, onhis long journey, over roads a foot deep in snow, and through solitarywinter forests, with any thing but an impassioned desire to see GeneralWashington again. Had he been returning to the command of a corps, witha prospect of stirring events as soon as the snow melted, he would havespurred his horse with high satisfaction, even though he left a bridebehind him; but to return to a drudgery which he hated the more forhaving escaped it for three enchanted weeks, made his spirit turn itsback to the horse's head. He resolved anew to resign if an opportunityoffered. Four years of that particular sort of devotion to the patriotcause were enough. He wished to demonstrate his patriotism in otherways. He had accomplished the primary object for which Washington hadpressed him into service, and he believed that the war was nearing itsfinish; there was nothing he could now do at Headquarters which theother aides could not do as well, and he wanted military excitement andrenown while their possibilities existed. 

X

The first task awaiting him upon his arrival at Headquarters was to drawup a letter of instruction for Laurens, a task which required minutecare; for on its suggestions, as much as on Laurens's brilliant talents, depended the strength of a mission whose failure might mean that of theAmerican arms. Laurens had requested the letter, and told Hamilton thathe should be guided by it. He did not anticipate a royal condition ofmind which would prompt him practically to carry off the Frenchmoney-bags under the king's astonished nose, and he knew Hamilton'scommand of every argument connected with the painful subject offinancial needs. Hamilton drew up a lucid and comprehensive letter, innine parts, which Laurens could study at his leisure on the frigate, _Alliance_; then attacked his accumulated duties. They left him littleleisure to remember he was a bridegroom, although he occasionallydirected his gaze toward the North with some longing. His freedomapproached, however, and it was swift and unexpected. 

It came on the 16th of February. His office was in his bedroom. He hadjust completed a letter containing instructions of an important naturefor the commissary, and started in search of Tilghman, whose duty it wasto see it safely delivered. On the stairs he passed Washington, whosebrow was heavy. The General, with that brevity which was an indicationof his passionate temper fighting against a self-control which he musthave knocked flat with great satisfaction at times, ejaculated that hewished to speak with him at once. Hamilton replied that he would waitupon him immediately, and hastened to Tilghman's office, wondering whathad occurred to stir the depths of his Chief. He was but a moment withTilghman, but on the stairs he met Lafayette, who was in search of himupon a matter of business. It is possible that Hamilton should not havepermitted himself to be detained, but at all events he did, for perhapstwo minutes. Suddenly he became conscious that Washington was standingat the head of the stairs, and wondering if he had awaited him there, heabruptly broke off his conversation with Lafayette, and ran upward. Washington looked as if about to thunder anathema upon the human race. He had been annoyed since dawn, and his passions fairly flew at thislast indignity. 

"Colonel Hamilton!" he exclaimed. "You have kept me waiting at the headof the stairs these ten minutes. I must tell you, sir, you treat me withdisrespect. "

Hamilton's eyes blazed and his head went back, but his quick brain leaptto the long-desired opportunity. He replied as calmly as if his heartwere not thumping, "I am not conscious of it, sir, but since you havethought it necessary to tell me so, we part. "

"Very well, sir!" replied Washington, "if it be your choice!" He turnedhis back and strode to his office. 

Hamilton went to his room with a light heart, feeling as if thepigeon-holes were marching out of his brain. The breach wasWashington's; he himself had answered with dignity, and could leave witha clear conscience. He had not kept Washington waiting above fourminutes, and he did not feel that an apology was necessary. 

"Oh, " he thought aloud, "I feel as if I had grown wings. " He wouldreturn to his bride for a few weeks, then apply once more for a command. 

There was a knock, and Tilghman entered. The young men looked at eachother in silence for a moment; Tilghman with an almost comical anxiety, Hamilton with alert defiance. 

"Well?" demanded Hamilton. 

"I come from the Chief--ambassador extraordinary. Look out of thewindow, or I shall not have courage to go on. He's put the devil to bedand is monstrous sorry this misunderstanding has occurred--"

"Misunderstanding?" snorted Hamilton. 

"You know my love of euphony, Hamilton. Pray let me finish. I'd ratherbe Laurens on my way to beg. What is a king to a lion? But seriously, mydear, the Chief is desperately sorry this has occurred. He has deputedme to assure you of his great confidence in your abilities, integrity, and usefulness, and of his desire, in a candid conversation, to heal adifference which could not have happened but in a moment of passion. Dogo and see him at once, and then we shall all sleep in peace to-night. "

But Hamilton shook his head decidedly. "You know how tired I am of allthis, " he said, "and that I can be as useful and far more agreeablyactive in the field. If I consent to this interview, I am lost. I havenever doubted the Chief's affection for me, but he is also the mostastute of men, and knows my weakness. If, arguments having failed, heputs his arm about my shoulders and says, 'My boy, _do_ not desert me, 'I shall melt, and vow that neither bride nor glory could beckon me fromhim. So listen attentively, mon ami, and deliver my answer as follows:1st. I have taken my resolve in a manner not to be revoked, 2d. As aconversation could serve no other purpose than to produce explanations, mutually disagreeable, though I certainly will not refuse an interviewif he desires it, yet I should be happy if he would permit me to declineit. 3d. That, though determined to leave the family, the same principleswhich have kept me so long in it will continue to direct my conducttoward him when out of it. 4th. That I do not wish to distress him orthe public business by quitting him before he can derive otherassistance by the return of some of the gentlemen who are absent. 5th. And that in the meantime it depends on him to let our behaviour to eachother be the same as if nothing had happened. "

Tilghman heaved a deep sigh. "Then you really mean to go?" he said. "Heartless wretch! Have you no mercy on us? Headquarters will be a tomb, with Washington reposing on top. Think of the long and solemnbreakfasts, the funereal dinners, the brief but awful suppers. Washington will never open his mouth again, and I never had the courageto speak first. If ever you deign to visit us, you will find that wehave lost the power of speech. I repeat that you have no heart in yourbody. "

Hamilton laughed. "If you did not know that I love you, you would notsit there and revile me. No family has ever been happier than ours. Infour years there has not been a quarrel until to-day. I can assure youthat my heart will ache when the time comes to leave you, but I reallyhad got to the end of my tether. I have long felt as if I could not goon another day. "

"'Tis grinding, monotonous work, " admitted Tilghman, "and we've allwondered how you have stood it as long as this--every bit of you wasmade for action. Well, I'll take your message to the Chief. "

Washington consented to waive the explanation and sent Hamilton anothermessage, thanking him for consenting to remain until Harrison and Meadereturned. 

XI

Little Mrs. Hamilton was delighted with the course affairs had taken, and pleaded for resignation from the army. But to this Hamilton wouldnot hearken. Anxious as he was for the war to finish, that he mightbegin upon the foundations of home and fortune, he had no intention ofdeserting a cause to which he had pledged himself, and in which therestill was a chance for him to achieve distinction. So far, his ambitionswere wholly military. If the profound thought he had given to thepresent and future needs of the Republic was not wholly impersonal; ifhe took for granted that he had a part to play when the Revolutionfinished, it was little more than a dream at present. His verytemperament was martial, the energy and impetuosity of his nature werein their element on the battlefield, and he would rather have been agreat general than the elder Pitt. But although there is no reason todoubt that he would have become a great general, had circumstancefavoured his pet ambition, yet Washington was a better judge of theusefulness of his several abilities than he was himself. Not only hadthat reader of men made up his mind that a brain like his favourite'sshould not be wasted on the battlefield, --left there, perhaps, whiledolts escaped, for Hamilton had no appreciation of fear or danger, --buthe saw in him the future statesman, fertile, creative, executive, commanding; and he could have no better training than at a desk in hisoffice. Phenomenally precocious, even mature, as Hamilton's brain hadbeen when they met that morning on the Heights of Harlem, these fouryears had given it a structural growth which it would not have acquiredin camp life, and to which few men of forty were entitled. Of this factHamilton was appreciative, and he was too philosophical to harbourregrets; but that period was over now, and he wanted to fight. 

On April 27th he wrote to Washington, asking for employment during theapproaching campaign, suggesting the command of a light corps, andmodestly but decidedly stating his claims. 

Washington was greatly embarrassed. Every arbitrary appointment caused aferment in the army, where jealousies were hotter than martial ardours. Washington was politic above all things, but to refuse Hamilton arequest after their quarrel and parting was the last thing he wished todo. He felt that he had no choice, however, and wrote at once, elaborating his reasons for refusal, ending as follows:--

 My principal concern rises from an apprehension that you will impute my refusal of your request to other motives than those I have expressed, but I beg you to be assured I am only influenced by the reasons I have mentioned. 

Hamilton knew him too well to misunderstand him, but he was deeplydisappointed. He retired into the library behind the drawing-room of theSchuyler mansion, and wrote another and a more elaborate letter toRobert Morris. He began with a reiteration of the impotence of Congress, its loss of the confidence of this country and of Europe, the necessityfor an executive ministry, and stated that the time was past to indulgein hopes of foreign aid. The States must depend upon themselves, andtheir only hope lay in a National Bank. There had been some diffidencein his previous letter. There was none in this, and he had a greatermastery of the subject. In something like thirty pages of close writing, he lays down every law, extensive and minute, for the building of aNational Bank, and not the most remarkable thing about this letter isthe psychological knowledge it betrays of the American people. Havingdespatched it, he wrote again to Washington, demonstrating that his casewas dissimilar from those the Chief had quoted. He disposed of each casein turn, and his presentation of his own claims was equallyunanswerable. Washington, who was too wise to enter into a controversywith Hamilton's pen, did not reply to the letter, but made up his mindto do what he could for him, although still determined there should beno disaffection in the army of his making. 

Meanwhile Hamilton received letters from Lafayette, begging him tohasten South and share his exile; from Washington, asking advice; andfrom members of the family, reminding him of their affection and regret. Tilghman's is characteristic:--

Headquarters, 27th April. 

 MY DEAR HAMILTON: Between me and thee there is a gulf, or I should not have been thus long without seeing you. My faith is strong, but not strong enough to attempt walking on the waters. You must not suppose from my dealing so much in Scripture phrase that I am either drunk with religion or with wine, though had I been inclined to the latter I might have found a jolly companion in my lord, who came here yesterday. We have not a word of news. .. . I must go over and see you soon, for I am not yet weaned from you, nor do I desire to be. I will not present so cold words as compliments to Mrs. Hamilton. She has an equal share of the best wishes of

 Your most affectionate

 TILGHMAN. 

The following was from Laurens:--

 I am indebted to you, my dear Hamilton, for two letters: the first from Albany, as masterly a piece of cynicism as ever was penned; the other from Philadelphia, dated the second March; in both you mention a design of retiring, which makes me extremely unhappy. I would not wish to have you for a moment withdraw from the public service; at the same time my friendship for you, and knowledge of your value to the United States, makes me most ardently desire that you should fill only the first offices of the Republic. I was flattered with an account of your being elected a delegate from New York, and am much mortified not to hear it confirmed by yourself. I must confess to you that at the present stage of the war, I should prefer your going into Congress, and from thence becoming a minister plenipotentiary for peace, to your remaining in the army, where the dull system of seniority, and the _tableau_, would prevent you from having the important commands to which you are entitled; but, at any rate, I will not have you renounce your rank unless you entered the career above mentioned. Your private affairs cannot require such immediate and close attention. You speak like a _paterfamilias_ surrounded with a numerous progeny. 

On the 26th of May he had an appreciative letter from Robert Morris, thanking him for his suggestions, and assuring him of theiracceptability. He promises a bank on Hamilton's plan, although with farless capital; still it may afterward be increased to any extent. 

The northern land was full of amenities, the river gay with pleasurebarges. The French gardens about the Schuyler mansion were romantic forsaunterings with the loveliest of brides; the seats beneath the greattrees commanded the wild heights opposite. Forty of the finest horses inthe country were in General Schuyler's stables, and many carriages. There was a constant stream of distinguished guests. But Hamilton, whocould dally pleasurably for a short time, had no real affinity foranything but work. There being no immediate prospect of fighting, heretired again to the library and began that series of papers called _TheContinentalist_, which were read as attentively as if peace had come. They examined the defects of the existing league of states, theirjealousies, which operated against the formation of a Federalgovernment, then proceeded to enumerate the powers with which such agovernment should be clothed. 

Hamilton did not wait with any particular grace, but even the desiredcommand came to him after a reasonable period of attempted patience. AtWashington's request he accompanied him to Newport to confer withRochambeau. Although the Chief did not allude to Hamilton's last letter, their intercourse on this journey was as natural and intimate as ever;and Washington did not conceal his pleasure in the society of this themost captivating and endearing of his many young friends. After theconference was over, Hamilton returned to Albany for a brief visit, thendetermined to force Washington to show his hand. He joined the army atDobbs Ferry, and sent the Chief his commission. Tilghman returned withit, express haste, and the assurance that the General would endeavour togive him a command, nearly such as he could desire in the presentcircumstance of the army, Hamilton had accomplished his object. Heretained his commission and quartered with General Lincoln. 

When Washington arrived at Dobbs Ferry and went into temporary quarters, he gave a large dinner to the French officers, and invited Hamilton topreside. 

 His graceful manners and witty speeches provoked universal admiration [runs the pen of a contemporary]. He was the youngest and smallest man present. His hair was turned back from the forehead, powdered, and queued at the back. His face was boyishly fair, and lighted up with intelligence and genius. Washington, grave, elegant and hospitable, sat at the side of the table, with the accomplished Count de Rochambeau on his right. The Duke de Luzerne occupied a seat opposite. General Knox was present, and so was Baron Steuben. 

Shortly afterward, Hamilton attended a council of war, at Washington'sinvitation. The squadron of De Grasse was approaching the coast ofVirginia. For the second time, Washington was obliged to give up hischerished scheme of marching on New York, for it was now imperative tomeet Cornwallis in the South. The Chief completely hoodwinked Clinton asto his immediate plans, Robert Morris raised the funds for moving thearmy, and Hamilton obtained his command. To his high satisfaction, Fishwas one of his officers. Immediately before his departure for the Southhe wrote to his wife. He had attained his desire, but he was too unhappyto be playful. A portion of the letter is as follows:--

 A part of the army, my dear girl, is going to Virginia, and I must, of necessity, be separated at a much greater distance from my beloved wife. I cannot announce the fatal necessity without feeling everything that a fond husband can feel. I am unhappy;--I am unhappy beyond expression. I am unhappy because I am to be so remote from you; because I am to hear from you less frequently than I am accustomed to do. I am miserable because I know you will be so; I am wretched at the idea of flying so far from you, without a single hour's interview, to tell you all my pains and all my love. But I cannot ask permission to visit you. It might be thought improper to leave my corps at such a time and upon such an occasion. I must go without seeing you--I must go without embracing you:--alas! I must go. 

The allied armies moved on the 22d of August and arrived within twomiles of the enemy's works at York Town, on the 28th of September. Hamilton's light infantry was attached to the division of Lafayette, whojoined the main army with what was left of his own. Laurens was also incommand of a company of light infantry in the young French general'sdivision. He had acquitted himself brilliantly in France, returning, inspite of all obstacles and the discouragement of Franklin, with two anda half million livres in cash, part of a subsidy of six millions oflivres granted by the French king; but he felt that to be in the fieldagain with Washington, Hamilton, Lafayette, and Fish was higher fortunethan successful diplomacy. 

The allied army was twelve thousand strong; Cornwallis had aboutseventy-eight hundred men. The British commander was intrenched in thevillage of York Town, the main body of his troops encamped on the opengrounds in the rear. York Town is situated on a peninsula formed by therivers York and James, and into this narrow compass Cornwallis had beendriven by the masterly tactics of Lafayette. The arrival of De Grasse'sfleet cut off all hope of retreat by water. He made but a show ofopposition during the eight days employed by the Americans in bringingup their ordnance and making other preparations. On the 9th the trencheswere completed, and the Americans began the bombardment of the town andof the British frigates in the river. It continued for nearlytwenty-four hours, and so persistent and terrific was the cannonading, that the British, being unfortunate in their embrasures, withdrew mostof their cannon and made infrequent reply. On the night of the 11th newtrenches were begun within two and three hundred yards of the Britishworks. While they were completing, the enemy opened new embrasures, fromwhich their fire was far more effective than at first. Two redoubtsflanked this second parallel and desperately annoyed the men in thetrenches. It was determined to carry them by assault, and the Americanlight infantry and De Viomenil's grenadiers and chasseurs were orderedto hold themselves in readiness for the attack. Laurens, with eightymen, was to turn the redoubt in order to intercept the retreat of thegarrison, but Hamilton, for the moment, saw his long-covetedopportunity glide by him. Washington had determined to give it to ourhero's old Elizabethtown tutor, Colonel Barber, conceiving that thelight infantry which had made the Virginia campaign was entitled toprecedence. Hamilton was standing with Major Fish when the news of thisarrangement was brought to him. He reached the General's tent in threebounds, and poured forth the most impetuous appeal he had ever permittedhimself to launch at Washington. But he was terribly in earnest, and theprospect of losing this magnificent opportunity tore down the barriersof his self-possession. "It is my right to attack, sir!" he concludedpassionately, "I am the officer on duty!" Washington had watched hisflushed nervous face and flashing eyes, which had far more command intheir glances than appeal, and he never made great mistakes: he knewthat if he refused this request, Hamilton never would forgive him. 

"Very well, " he said. "Take it. "

Hamilton ran back to Fish, crying: "We have it. We have it;" andimmediately began to form his troops. The order was issued to advance intwo columns, and after dark the march began, Hamilton leading theadvance corps. The French were to attack the redoubt on the right. 

The signal was a shell from the American batteries, followed by one fromthe French. The instant the French shell ascended, Hamilton gave theorder to advance at the point of the bayonet; then his impatience, toolong gnawing at its curb, dominated him, and he ran ahead of his men andleaped to the abatis. For a half moment he stood alone on the parapet, then Fish reached him, and together they encouraged the rest to come on. Hamilton turned and sprang into the ditch, Fish following. The infantrywas close behind, and surmounting the abatis, ditch, and palisades, leaped into the work. Hamilton had disappeared, and they feared he hadfallen, but he was investigating; he suddenly reappeared, and formed thetroops in the redoubt. It surrendered almost immediately. The attacktook but nine minutes, so irresistible was the impetuosity of theonslaught. Hamilton gave orders at once to spare every man who hadceased to fight. When Colonel Campbell advanced to surrender, one of theAmerican captains seized a bayonet and drew back to plunge it into theEnglishman's breast. Hamilton thrust it aside, and Campbell was madeprisoner by Laurens. Washington was delighted. "Few cases, " he said, "have exhibited greater proofs of intrepidity, coolness, and firmnessthan were shown on this occasion. " On the 17th, when Washington receivedthe proposition for surrender from Cornwallis, he sent for Hamilton andasked his opinion of the terms. To Laurens was given the honour ofrepresenting the American army at the conference before the surrender. Tilghman rode, express haste, to Philadelphia with the first news of thesurrender of Cornwallis and his army. 

Hamilton's description of his part in the conquest that virtually put anend to the war is characteristic. 

 Two nights ago, my Eliza [he wrote], my duty and my honour obliged me to take a step in which your happiness was too much risked. I commanded an attack upon one of the enemy's redoubts; we carried it in an instant and with little loss. You will see the particulars in the Philadelphia papers. There will be, certainly, nothing more of this kind; all the rest will be by approach; and if there should be another occasion, it would not fall to my turn to execute it. 

"It is to be hoped so, " she said plaintively to her mother. "Else shallI no longer need to wear a wig. "

XII

The next few years may be passed over quickly; they are not the mostinteresting, though not the least happy of Hamilton's life. He returnedhome on furlough after the battle of York Town and remained in hisfather-in-law's hospitable home until the birth of his boy, on the 22dof January. Then, having made up his mind that there was no further workfor him in the army, and that Britain was as tired of the war as theStates, he announced his intention to study for the bar. His friendsendeavoured to dissuade him from a career whose preparation was so longand arduous, and reminded him of the public offices he could have forthe asking. But Hamilton was acquainted with his capacity forannihilating work, and at this time he was not conscious of anyimmediate ambition but of keeping his wife in a proper style and offounding a fortune for the education of his children. His militaryambition had been so possessing that the sudden and brilliant finish atYork Town of his power to gratify it had dwarfed for a while any otherhe may have cherished. 

He took a little house in the long street on the river front, andinvited Troup to live with him. They studied together. He had been thegayest of companions, the most courted of favourites, since his returnfrom the wars. For four months even his wife and Troup had, save onSundays, few words with him on unlegal matters. His brain excluded everymemory, every interest. For the first time he omitted to write regularlyto Mrs. Mitchell, Hugh Knox, and Peter Lytton. All day and half thenight he walked up and down his library, or his father-in-law's, reading, memorizing, muttering aloud. His friends vowed that he marchedthe length and width of the Confederacy. He never gave a more strikingexhibition of his control over the powers of his intellect than this. The result was that at the end of four months he obtained a license topractise as an attorney, and published a "Manual on the Practice ofLaw, " which, Troup tells us, "served as an instructive grammar to futurestudents, and became the groundwork of subsequent enlarged practicaltreatises. " If it be protested that these feats were impossible, I canonly reply that they are historic facts. 

It was during these months of study that Aaron Burr came to Albany. 

This young man, also, was not unknown to fame; and the period of theRevolution is the one on which Burr's biographers should dilate, for itwas the only one through which he passed in a manner entirely to hiscredit. He was now in Albany, striving for admittance to the bar, buthandicapped by the fact that he had studied only two years, instead ofthe full three demanded by law. 

While Burr did not belong to the aristocracy of the country, his familynot ranking by any means with the Schuylers, Van Rensselaers, Livingstons, Jays, Morrises, Roosevelts, and others of that small andhaughty band, still he came of excellent and respectable stock. Hisfather had been the Rev. Aaron Burr, President of Princeton College, andhis mother the daughter of the famous Jonathan Edwards. He wasquick-witted and brilliant; and there is no adjective which qualifieshis ambition. He was a year older than Hamilton, about an inch taller, and very dark. His features were well cut, his eyes black, glittering, and cold; his bearing dignified but unimposing, for he bent hisshoulders and walked heavily. His face was not frank, even in youth, andgrew noticeably craftier. He and Hamilton were the greatest fops indress of their time; but while the elegance and beauty of attire satwith a peculiar fitness on Hamilton, seeming but the naturalcontinuation of his high-bred face and easy erect and graceful bearing, Burr always looked studiously well-dressed. In regard to their height, asimilar impression prevailed. One never forgot Burr's small stature, andoften commented upon it. Comment upon Hamilton's size was rare, hisproportions and motions were so harmonious; when he was on the platform, that ruthless test of inches, he dominated and controlled every brain inthe audience, and his enemies vowed he was in league with the devil. 

Burr brought letters to General Schuyler, and was politely given the runof the library. He and Hamilton had met casually in the army, but hadhad no opportunity for acquaintance. At this time the law was a subjectof common interest, and they exchanged many opinions. There was no shockof antagonism at first, and for that matter they asked each other todinner as long as Hamilton lived. But Hamilton estimated him justly atonce, although, as Burr was as yet unconscious of the depths of his ownworst qualities, the most astute reader of character hardly wouldsuspect them. But Hamilton read that he was artificial andunscrupulous, and too selfish to serve the country in any of her comingneeds. Still, he was brilliant and fascinating, and Hamilton asked himto his home. Burr, at first, was agreeably attracted to Hamilton, whoseradiant disposition warmed his colder nature; but when he was forced toaccept the astounding fact that Hamilton had prepared himself for thebar in four months, digesting and remembering a mountain of knowledgethat cost other men the labour of years, and had prepared a Manualbesides, he experienced the first convulsion of that jealousy which wasto become his controlling passion in later years. Indeed, he establishedthe habit with that first prolonged paroxysm, and he asked himselfsullenly why a nameless stranger, from an unheard-of Island, should havethe unprecedented success which this youth had had. Social victory, military glory, the preference of Washington, the respect and admirationof the most eminent men in the country, a horde of friends who talked ofhim as if he were a demi-god, an alliance by marriage with the greatestfamily in America, a father-in-law to advance any man's ambitions, afascination which had kept the women talking until he married, andfinally a memory and a legal faculty which had so astounded thebar--largely composed of exceptional men--that it could talk of nothingelse: it was enough for a lifetime, and the man was only twenty-five. What in heaven's name was to be expected of him before he finished? Themore Burr brooded, the more enraged he became. He had been brought up tothink himself extraordinary, although his guardian had occasionallybirched him when his own confidence had disturbed the peace; he wasintensely proud of his military career, and aware of his fitness for thebar. But in the blaze of Hamilton's genius he seemed to shrivel; and asfor having attempted to prepare himself for practice in four months, hemight as well have grafted wings to his back and expected them to grow. It was some consolation to reflect that, as aide and confidentialsecretary for four years to Washington, Hamilton had been a student ofthe law of nations, and that thus his mind was peculiarly fitted tograsp what confronts most men as a solid wall to be taken down stone bystone; also that himself acknowledged no rival where the affections ofwomen were concerned. But while he lifted the drooping head of hispride, and tied it firmly to a stake with many strong words, he chose toregard Hamilton as a rival, and the idea grew until it possessed him. 

In July Robert Morris, after some correspondence, persuaded Hamilton toaccept the office of Continental Receiver for a short time. 

 Your former situation in the army [he wrote], the present situation of that very army, your connexions in the state, your perfect knowledge of men and measures, and the abilities with which heaven has blessed you, will give you a fine opportunity to forward the public service. 

Hamilton, who had no desire to interrupt his studies, was placed in aposition which gave him no choice; his sense of public duty grewsteadily. 

 For my part [he wrote to Morris], considering the late serious misfortune to our ally, the spirit of reformation, of wisdom, and of unanimity, which seems to have succeeded to that of blunder and dissension in the British government, and the universal reluctance of these states to do what is right, I cannot help viewing our situation as critical, and I feel it the duty of every citizen to exert his faculties to the utmost. 

But in spite of the onerous and disagreeable duties of his position, hecontinued to pursue the course of study necessary for admission to thebar as a counsellor. He also found time to write a letter to Meade. Thefollowing extract will show that the severity of his great task wasover, and that he was once more alive to that domestic happiness towhich so large a part of his nature responded. 

 You reproach me with not having said enough about our little stranger. When I wrote last I was not sufficiently acquainted with him to give you his character. I may now assure you that your daughter, when she sees him, will not consult you about her choice, or will only do it in respect to the rules of decorum. He is truly a very fine young gentleman, the most agreeable in conversation and manners of any I ever knew, nor less remarkable for his intelligence and sweetness of temper. You are not to imagine by my beginning with his mental qualifications that he is defective in personal. It is agreed on all hands that he is handsome; his features are good, his eye is not only sprightly and expressive, but it is full of benignity. His attitude in sitting is, by connoisseurs, esteemed graceful, and he has a method of waving his hand that announces the future orator. He stands, however, rather awkwardly, and as his legs have not all the delicate slimness of his father's, it is feared he may never excel as much in dancing, which is probably the only accomplishment in which he will not be a model. If he has any fault in manners, he laughs too much. He has now passed his seventh month. 

Happy by temperament, Hamilton was at this time happier in hisconditions--barring the Receivership--than any vague, wistful, crowdeddream had ever presaged. His wife was adorable and pretty, sprightly andsympathetic, yet accomplished in every art of the Dutch housewife; andalthough he was far too modest to boast, he was privately convinced thathis baby was the finest in the Confederacy. He had a charming littlehome, and Troup, the genial, hearty, and solid, was a member of it. InGeneral and Mrs. Schuyler he had found genuine parents, who strove tomake him forget that he had ever been without a home. He had been forcedto refuse offers of assistance from his father-in-law again and again. He would do nothing to violate his strong sense of personalindependence; he had half of the arrears of his pay, Troup his share ofthe expenses of the little house. He knew that in a short time he shouldbe making an income. The cleverest of men, however, can be hoodwinked bythe subtle sex. The great Saratoga estate of the Schuylers furnished thelarder of the Hamiltons with many things which the young householder wasfar too busy to compare with his slender purse. 

He heard constantly from his friends in the army, and finally waspersuaded to sit for a portrait, to be the common property of six oreight of them. Money was desperately tight, they could not afford a copyapiece, but each was to possess it for two months at a time so long ashe lived; he who survived the others to dispose of it as he chose. ForHamilton to sit still and look in one direction for half an hour wasnothing short of misery, even with Betsey, Troup, and the Baby to amusehim; and only the head, face, stock, and front of the coat werefinished. But the artist managed to do himself justice with the massivespirited head, the deep-set mischievous eyes, whose lightnings neverwere far from the surface; the humour in the remarkable curves of themouth, the determination and suppressed energy of the whole face. It wasa living portrayal, and Betsey parted from it with tears. When she sawit again her eyes were dim with many tears. The last of its owners tosurvive fell far into poverty, and sold it to one of her sons. It isto-day as fresh, as alive with impatient youth and genius, as whenHamilton estimated portrait painters thieves of time. 

Meanwhile a compliment was paid to him which upset his plans, and placedhim for a short time in the awkward position of hesitating betweenprivate desires and public duty: he was elected by the New Yorklegislature, and almost unanimously, a delegate to Congress. Troupbrought him the news as he was walking on the broad street along theriver front, muttering his Blackstone, oblivious of his fellow-citizens. 

"Go to Congress!" he exclaimed. "Who goes to that ramshackle body thatis able to keep out of it? Could not they find someone else to send todistinguish himself by failure? I've my living to make. If a man inthese days manages to support his wife and child, there is nothing elsehe can do which so entitles him to the esteem of his fellow-citizens. "

"True, " said Troup, soothingly; "there certainly is nothing in that bodyof old women and lunatics, perpetually bickering with thirteensovereign, disobedient, and jealous States, to tempt the ambition of anyman; nor, ordinarily, to appeal to his sense of usefulness. But just atpresent there are several questions before it with which it is thoughtyou can cope more successfully than any man living. So I think you oughtto go, and so does General Schuyler. I know all that you will sacrifice, domestic as well as pecuniarily--but remember, you solemnly dedicatedyourself to the service of this country. "

"I'm not likely to forget it, and I am willing to sacrifice anything ifI am convinced of my usefulness in a given direction, but I see nochance of accomplishing aught in Congress, of doing this country anyservice until it is a nation, not a sack of scratching cats. "

Not only was great pressure brought to bear upon him, but he was notlong convincing himself that it was his duty to take his knowledge ofcertain subjects vexing the Confederation, to the decrepit body whichwas feebly striving to save the country from anarchy. He had givenlittle attention to the general affairs of the country during the pastsix months, but an examination of them fired his zeal. He accepted theappointment, and returned to his law books and his dispiriting strugglewith the taxes. 

In the autumn Hamilton received the second of those heavy blows by whichhe was reminded that in spite of his magnetism for success he was tosuffer like other mortals. Laurens was dead--killed in a petty skirmishwhich he was so loath to miss that he had bolted to it from a sick-bed. Hamilton mourned him passionately, and never ceased to regret him. Hewas mercurial only among his lighter feelings. The few people he reallyloved were a part of his daily thoughts, and could set his heartstringsvibrating at any moment. Betsey consoled, diverted, and bewitched him, but there were times when he would have exchanged her for Laurens. Theperfect friendship of two men is the deepest and highest sentiment ofwhich the finite mind is capable; women miss the best in life. 

In October Hamilton resigned the Receivership, having brought anhonourable amount of order out of chaos and laid down the law for theguidance of future officials. November came, and he set off forPhiladelphia philosophically, though by no means with a light heart. Thebaby was too young to travel; he was obliged to send his little familyto General Schuyler's, with no hope of seeing them again for months, anda receding prospect of offering them a home in New York. Hisfather-in-law, not unmindful that consolation was needed, drove himtwo-thirds of the distance, thus saving him a long ride, or itsalternative, the heavy coach. In Philadelphia he found sufficient workawaiting him to drive all personal matters out of his head. 

It was during this year of hard work and little result that he renewedan acquaintance with James Madison, Jr. , afterward fourth President ofthe United States, and Gouverneur Morris, one of the most brilliant anddisinterested young men in the country, now associated with RobertMorris in the Department of Finance. With the last the acquaintanceripened into a lifelong and intimate friendship; with Madison thefriendship was equally ardent and intimate while it lasted. Madison hadthe brain of a statesman, energy and persistence in crises, immenseindustry, facility of speech, a broad contempt for the pretensions andmean bickerings of the States, and a fairly national outlook. AsHamilton would have said, he "thought continentally. " But he lackedindividuality. He was too patriotic, too sincere to act against hisprinciples, but his principles could be changed by a more powerful andmagnetic brain than his own, and the inherent weakness in him demanded astronger nature to cling to. It happened that he and Hamilton, when theymet again in Congress, thought alike on many subjects, and they workedtogether in harmony from the first; nevertheless, he was soon in theposition of a double to that towering and energetic personality, andworshipped it. In their letters the two young men sign themselves, "yours affectionately, " "yours with deep attachment, " which betweenmen--I suppose--means something. So noticeable was Madison's devotion tothe most distinguished young man of the day, and a few years later soabsorbed was he into the huge personality of his early friend'sbitterest enemy, that John Randolph once exclaimed in wrath, "Madisonalways was some great man's mistress--first Hamilton's, thenJefferson's:" a remark which was safe in the days of our ancestors, whenlife was all work and no satiety. 

Gouverneur Morris had sacrificed home, inheritance, and ties in thecause of the Revolution, most of his family remaining true to the crown. His education was thorough, however, and subsequently he had nine yearsof Europe, of which he left to posterity an entertaining record. Tall, handsome, a wit, a beau, notable for energy in Congress, erratic, caustic, cynical, but the warmest of friends, he was a pet of society, adarling of women, and trusted by all men. He and Hamilton had much incommon, and to some degree he took Laurens's place; not entirely, forLaurens's idealism gave him a pedestal in Hamilton's memory which noother man but Washington ever approached; and Morris was brutal in hiscynicism, placing mankind but a degree higher than the beasts of theforest. But heart and brain endeared him to Hamilton, and no man had aloftier or more burning patriotism. As for himself, he loved and admiredHamilton above all men. He was as strong in his nationalism, believingUnion under a powerful central government to be the only hope of theStates. Both he and Madison were leaders; but both, even then, werewilling to be led by Hamilton, who was several years their junior. 

The three young enthusiasts made a striking trio of contrasts as theysat one evening over their port and walnuts in a private room of acoffee-house, where they had met to discuss the problems convulsing theunfortunate country. Madison had the look of a student, a taciturnintellectual visage. He spoke slowly, weightily, and with greatprecision. Morris had, even then, an expression of cynicism and contempton his handsome bold face, and he swore magnificently whenever his newwooden leg interfered with his comfort or dignity. Hamilton, with hisfair mobile face, powerful, penetrating, delicate, illuminated by eyesfull of fire and vivacity, but owing its chief attraction to a mouth assweet as it was firm and humorous, made the other men look almost heavy. Madison was carelessly attired, the other two with all the picturesqueelegance of their time. 

"A debt of $42, 000, 000, " groaned Morris, "interest $2, 400, 000; RobertMorris threatening to resign; delirious prospect of panic inconsequence; national spirit with which we began the war, a stinkingwick under the tin extinguisher of States' selfishness, stinginess, andindifference--caused by the natural reversion of human nature to firstprinciples after the collapse of that enthusiasm which inflates mankindinto a bombastic pride of itself; Virginia pusillanimous, Rhode Islandan old beldam standing on the village pump and shrieking disapproval ofeverything; Jay, Adams, and Franklin, after years of humiliatingmendicancy, their very hearts wrinkled in the service of the stupidestcountry known to God or man, shoved by a Congress not fit to black theirboots under the thumb of the wiliest and most disingenuous diplomatistin Europe--much France cares for our interests, provided we cut loosefrom Britain; Newburg address and exciting prospect, in these monotonoustimes, of civil war, while peace commission is sitting in London; justdemands of men who have fought, starving and naked, for a baresubsistence after the army disbands, modest request for arrears ofpay, --on which to relieve the necessities of their families turned outto grass for seven years, --pleasantly indorsed by the Congress, whichfeels safe in indorsing anything, and rejected by the States, calledupon to foot the bill, as a painful instance of the greed and depravityof human nature--there you are: no money, no credit, no government, nofriends, --for Europe is sick of us, --no patriotism; immediate prospects, bankruptcy, civil war, thirteen separate meals for Europe. What do youpropose, Hamilton? I look to you as your Islanders flee to a stone housein a hurricane. You are an alien, with no damned state roots to pull up, your courage is unhuman, or un-American, and you are the one man ofgenius in the country. Madison is heroic to a fault, a roaringBerserker, but we must temper him, we must temper him; and meanwhile wewill both defer to the peculiar quality of your mettle. "

Madison, who had not a grain of humour, replied gravely, his richsouthern brogue seeming to roll his words down from a height: "I have amodest hope in the address I prepared for the citizens of Rhode Island, more in Hamilton's really magnificent letter to the Governor. Nothingcan be more forcible--nay, beguiling--than his argument in that letterin favour of a general government independent of state machinery, andhis elaborate appeal to that irritating little commonwealth to consentto the levying of the impost by Congress, necessary to the raising ofthe moneys. I fear I am not a hero, for I confess I tremble. I fear theworst. But at all events I am determined to place on record that I leftno stone unturned to save this miserable country. "

"You will go down to posterity as a great man, Madison, if you are nevergiven the chance to be one, " replied the father of American humour andcoinage; "for it is not in words but in acts that we display the faiththat is not in us. Well, Hamilton?"

"I must confess, " said Hamilton, "that Congress appears to me, as anewcomer, rooted contentedly to its chairs, and determined to donothing, happy in the belief that Providence has the matter in hand andbut bides the right moment to make the whole world over. But I see nocause to despair, else I should not have come to waste my time. I fearthat Rhode Island is too fossilized to listen to us, but I shall urgethat we change the principle of the Confederation and vote to make theStates contribute to the general treasury in an equal proportion totheir means, by a system of general taxation imposed under continentalauthority. If the poorer States, irrespective of land and numbers, couldbe relieved, and the wealthier taxed specifically on land and houses, the whole regulated by continental legislation, I think that even RhodeIsland might be placated. It may be that this is not agreeable to thespirit of the times, but I shall make the attempt--"

"Considering there is no spirit _in_ the times, we might as well expectto inform its skull with genius by means of a lighted candle. You thinktoo well of human nature, my boy; expect nothing, that ye be notdisappointed, especially in the matter of revenue. "

"I have no exalted opinion of human nature, but if I did not think morehopefully of it than you do, I should yield up that enthusiasm withoutwhich I can accomplish nothing. You have every gift, but you will end asa dilettante because your ideal is always in the mud; and it is onlynow and again that you think it worth while to pick it up and give it abath. "

"Right, right, " murmured Morris, good-naturedly. "Would that I had yourunquenchable belief in the worth while. Allied to your abilities it willmake the new world over and upset the wicked plans of the old. Analystand disbeliever in man's right to his exaggerated opinion of himself, how do you keep enthusiasm abreast with knowledge of human kind? Tellme, Hamilton, how do you do it?"

"I fear 'tis the essence of which I am made. My energies will haveoutlet or tear me to pieces. When there is work to do, my nostrilsquiver like a war-horse's at the first roar and smoke--"

"Your modesty does you infinite honour; the truth is, you have the holyfire of patriotism in an abnormal degree. I have it, but I still amnormal. I have made sacrifices and shall make more, but my ego curls itslip. Yours never does. That is the difference between you and most ofus. Hundreds of us are doggedly determined to go through to the bitterend, sacrifice money, youth and health; but you alone are happy. That iswhy we love you and are glad to follow your lead. But, I repeat, how canyou labour with such undying enthusiasm for the good of human kind whenyou know what they amount to?"

"Some are worth working for, that is one point; I don't share youropinion of general abasement, for the facts warrant no such opinion. Andthe battle of ideas, the fight for certain stirring and race-makingprinciples, --that is the greatest game that mortals can play. And toplay it, we must have mortals for puppets. To create a new government, anew race, to found what may become the greatest nation on theearth, --what more stupendous destiny? Even if one were forgotten, itwould be worth doing, so tremendous would be the exercise of thefaculties, so colossal the difficulties. I would have a few men do itall; I have no faith in the uneducated. The little brain, half opened bya village schoolmaster, is pestilential; but in the few with sufficientpower over the many, --from whom will be evolved more and more to rankwith the first few, --in those I have faith, and am proud to work withthem. "

"Good. I'd not have a monarchy, but I'd have the next thing to it, witha muzzle on the rabble. Perhaps I, too, have faith in a few, --inyourself and George Washington; and in Madison, our own Gibraltar. Butthe pig-headed, selfish, swinish--well, go on with your present plans. 'Tis to hear those we met to-night, not to analyze each other. Tell usall, that we may not only hope, but work with you. "

"The army first. If retirement on half pay is impossible, then full payfor, say six years, --and the arrears, --paid upon the disbanding of thearmy. Washington, by the exercise of the greatest moral force, but one, that has appeared in this world, has averted a civil war--I am persuadedthat horror is averted, and I assume that the country does not careeternally to disgrace itself by letting its deliverers, who havesuffered all that an army can suffer, return to their ruined homeswithout the few dollars necessary for another start in life. I haveresigned my claim to arrears of pay, that my argument may not beweakened. Then a peace establishment. Fancy leaving our frontiers to themercy of state militia! I shall urge that the general government haveexclusive power over the sword, to establish certain corps of infantry, artillery, cavalry, dragoons, and engineers, a general system of landfortifications, establishment of arsenals and magazines, erection offounderies and manufactories for arms, of ports and maritimefortifications--with many details with which I will not bore you. Ishall urge the necessity of strengthening the Federal government throughthe influence of officers deriving their appointment directly fromCongress--always, always, the necessity of strengthening the centralgovernment, of centralizing power, and of putting the States where theybelong. It is federation or anarchy. Then--moderate funds permanentlypledged for the security of lenders. I have preached that since I havedared to preach at all, and that is the only solution of our presentdistress, for we'll never get another foreign loan--"

"We've accepted your wisdom, but we can't apply it, " interposed Morris. "Our only hope lies in your national government--but go on. "

"A moment, " said Madison. "This, in regard to the peace establishment:Do we apply a war congress to a state of peace, I fear we shall tooclearly define its limits. The States may refuse obedience, and then thepoor invalided body will fall into greater disrepute than ever. "

"I have thought of that, " replied Hamilton, "and if the worst comes tothe worst, I have a radical plan to propose, --that Congress publishfrankly its imperfections to the country--imperfections which make itimpossible to conduct the public affairs with honour to itself oradvantage to the United States; that it ask the States to appoint aconvention, with full powers to revise the Confederation, and to adoptand propose all necessary alterations--all to be approved or rejected, in the last instance, by the legislatures of the several States. Thatwould be the first step toward a national government. With that, allthings would be possible, --the payment of our foreign loan, of our army, duties on foreign goods, which is a source of revenue to which they areincredibly blind; the establishment of a firm government, under whichall will prosper that are willing to work, of a National Bank, of apeace army--"

"Of Utopia!" exclaimed Morris. "Hamilton, you are the least visionaryman in this country, but you are God knows how many years ahead of yourtimes. If we are ever on two legs again, you will put us there; but yourgolden locks will thin in the process, and that rosy boyish face we lovewill be lined with the seams of the true statesman. Only you couldcontemplate imbuing these fossilized and commonplace intellects, composing our Congress of the Confederation--mark the ring of it!--witha belief in its own impotency and worthlessness. You are not mortal. Ialways said it. When Duane gave me your letter to read, I remarked: 'Hewithdrew to heaven, and wrote that letter on the knee of the Almighty;never on earth could he have found the courage and the optimism. ' No, Hamilton, I would embrace you, did my wooden leg permit me to escapeyour wrath, but I can give you no encouragement. You will failhere--gloriously, but you will fail. Mark my words, the army will gohome cursing, and scratch the ground to feed its women. The States willhave no peace establishment to threaten their sovereign rights, we willpay nobody, and become more and more poverty-stricken and contemptiblein our own eyes, and in the eyes of Europe; we will do nothing that iswise and everything that is foolish--"

"And then, when the country is sick unto death, " interrupted Hamilton, "it will awake to the wisdom of the drastic remedy and cohere into anation. "

"Query, " said Madison, "would it not be patriotic to push things frombad to worse as quickly as possible? It might be a case of justifiableJesuitism. "

"And it might lead to anarchy and the jaws of Europe, " said Hamilton. "It is never safe to go beyond a certain point in the management ofhuman affairs. What turn the passions of the people may take can neverbe foretold, nor that element of the unknown, which is always under theinvisible cap and close on one's heels. God knows I have not muchpatience in my nature, and I do not believe that most of my schemes areso far in advance of even this country's development; but certainlessons must be instilled by slow persistence. I have no faith inrushing people at the point of the bayonet in times of peace. "

"I think you are right there, " said Morris. "But mark my words, you'llpropagate ideas here, and the result in time will be the birth of anation--no doubt of that; but you must rest content to live on hope forthe present. I was a fettered limb in this body too long. I know itsinertia. "

He knew whereof he spoke. Hamilton won little but additional reputation, much admiration, half resentful, and many enemies. The army went homeunpaid; the peace establishment consisted of eighty men; little ornothing was done to relieve the national debt or to carry on thebusiness of government. Even his proposition to admit the public to thegalleries of Congress, in the hope of interesting it in governmentalaffairs, only drew upon him the sneer that he could go out on thebalcony and make his speeches if he feared his eloquence was wasted. Hewas accused of writing the Newburg address inciting the officers tocivil war, because it was particularly well written, and of hurryingCongress to Trenton, when threatened by a mutinous regiment. But heworked on undaunted, leaving his indelible mark; for he taught theStates that their future prosperity and happiness lay in giving up tothe Union some part of the imposts that might be levied on foreigncommodities, and incidentally the idea of a double government; heproposed a definite system of funding the debts on continentalsecurities, which gradually rooted in the common sense of the Americanpeople, and he inveighed with a bitter incisiveness, which was temperedby neither humour nor gaiety, against the traitorous faction in the payof France. He dissuaded Robert Morris from resigning, and introduced aresolution in eulogy of Washington's management of his officers in themost critical hour of the Union's history. But his immediateaccomplishment was small and discouraging, although his foresight mayhave anticipated what George Ticknor Curtis wrote many years later:--

 The ideas of a statesman like Hamilton, earnestly bent on the discovery and inculcation of truth, do not pass away. Wiser than those by whom he was surrounded, with a deeper knowledge of the science of government than most of them, and constantly enunciating principles which extended far beyond the temporizing policy of the hour, the smiles of his opponents only prove to posterity how far he was in advance of them. 

The following extract from a letter of James M'Henry, Lafayette's formeraide, and a member of the Congress, is interesting as a commentary onthe difficulties of our hero's position while a member of that body. 

 DEAR HAMILTON: The homilies you delivered in Congress are still remembered with pleasure. The impressions they made are in favour of your integrity; and no one but believes you a man of honour and of republican principles. Were you ten years older and twenty thousand pounds richer, there is no doubt but that you might obtain the suffrages of Congress for the highest office in their gift. You are supposed to possess various knowledge, useful, substantial, and ornamental. Your very grave and your cautious, your men who measure others by the standard of their own creeping politics, think you sometimes intemperate, but seldom visionary: and that were you to pursue your object with as much cold perseverance as you do with ardour and argument, you would become irresistible. In a word, if you could submit to spend a whole life in dissecting a fly you would be, in their opinion, one of the greatest men in the world. Bold designs; measures calculated for their rapid execution; a wisdom that would convince from its own weight; a project that would surprise the people into greater happiness, without giving them an opportunity to view it and reject it, are not adapted to a council composed of discordant elements, or a people who have thirteen heads, each of which pay superstitious adorations to inferior divinities. 

 Adieu, my dear friend, and in the days of your happiness drop a line to your

 M'HENRY. 

At the end of 1783 Hamilton was convinced that he was of no furtherimmediate use to the country, and refused a reelection to the Congress, despite entreaty and expostulation, returning to the happiness of hisdomestic life and to his neglected law-books. The British havingevacuated New York, he moved his family there and entered immediatelyupon the practice of his profession. 

BOOK IV

"ALEXANDER THE GREAT"

INCLUDING THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITEDSTATES

I

It was the autumn of 1786. New York had risen from her charred andbattered ruins. There were cows on her meadows, a lake with woodedshores as merely traditional, groves, gardens, orchards, fields, andswamps; but her business houses and public buildings were ambitious oncemore, her spires more lofty and enduring, her new dwelling-houses, whether somewhat crowded in Wall Street and Broadway, or on the terracesof less busy streets, or along the river fronts and facing a wild andlovely prospect, were square, substantial, and usually very large. Andevery street was an avenue of ancient trees. Mrs. John Jay, with herexperience of foreign courts, her great beauty, and the prestige of herdistinguished husband, was the leader of society, holding weeklyreceptions, and the first to receive the many distinguished strangers. Although society was not quite as gay as it became three years later, under a more settled government and hopeful outlook, still there wasquiet entertaining by the Hamiltons, who lived at 58 Wall Street, theDuers, Watts, Livingstons, Clintons, Duanes, Jays, Roosevelts, VanCortlandts, and other representatives of old New York families, nowreturned to their own. Congress was come to New York and established inthe City Hall in Wall Street. It had given the final impetus to thecity, struggling under the burden of ruins and debt left by the British;and society sauntered forth every afternoon in all the glory of velvetand ruffles, three-cornered hats recklessly laced, brocades, hoopskirts, and Rohan hats, to promenade past the building where the moribund bodywas holding its last sessions. The drive was down the Broadway into theshades of the Battery, with the magnificent prospect of bay and woodedshores beyond. Politics, always epidemic among men and women alike, hadrecently been animated by Hamilton's coup at Annapolis, and the prospectof a general convention of the States to consider the reorganization ofa government which had reduced the Confederation to a conditionfearfully close to anarchy, the country to ruin, and brought upon thethirteen sovereign independent impotent and warring States the contemptof Europe and the threat of its greed. 

A group of men, standing on a corner of Wall Street and the Broadway, were laughing heartily: a watch was dragging off to jail two citizenswho had fallen upon each other with the venom of political antithesis;the one, a Nationalist, having called Heaven to witness that Hamiltonwas a demi-god, begotten to save the wretched country, the othervociferating that Hamilton was the devil who would trick the countryinto a monarchy, create a vast standing army, which would proclaim himking and stand upon the heads of a people that had fought and died forfreedom, while the tyrant exercised his abominable functions. 

The men in the group were Governor Clinton, Hamilton's bitterestopponent, but sufficiently amused at the incident; William Livingston, Governor of New Jersey, now with but a few hairs on the top of his headand a few at the base, his nose more penetrating, his eye moredisapproving, than ever; James Duane, Mayor of New York; John Jay, themost faultless character in the Confederation, honoured and unloved, hiscold eyes ever burning with an exalted fire; and John Marshall ofVirginia, munching an apple, his attire in shabby contrast to thefashionable New Yorkers, the black mane on his splendid head unpowderedand tossing in the ocean breeze. 

"I like your Hamilton, " he announced, "and I've come to the conclusionthat I think with him on all matters. He's done more to educate thepeople up to a rational form of government during the last seven yearsthan all the rest of us put together. He's shone upon them like a fixedstar. Other comets have come and gone, whirling them forward todestruction, but they have always been forced to turn and look at himagain and again, and he has always shone in the same place. "

"Sir, " exclaimed Clinton, who was flushed with rage, "are you aware thatI am present, and that I entirely disapprove of Mr. Hamilton's attemptto reduce the States to a condition of ignominious subserviency to anambitious and tyrannical central power?"

"I had heard of you, sir, " replied Marshall, meekly, "and I am glad tohave the opportunity to ask you what _your_ remedy is for the existingstate of things? You will admit that there must be a remedy, andquickly. If not a common government with a Constitution empowering it toregulate trade, imposts, reduce the debt, enter into treaties withforeign powers which will not be sneered at, administer upon a thousanddetails which I will not enumerate, and raise the country from itsslough of contempt, then what? As the personage who has taken the mostdecided stand against the enlightened and patriotic efforts of Mr. Hamilton, I appeal to you for a counter suggestion as magnificent ashis. I am prepared, sir, to listen with all humility. "

Clinton, whose selfish fear of his own downfall with that of Statesupremacy was so well known that a smile wrinkled across the politegroup of gentlemen surrounding him, deepened his colour to purple underthis assault, and stammered: "Sir, have I not myself proposed anenlargement of the powers of Congress, in order to counteract thedamnable policy of Britain? Did not your Hamilton harangue that crowd Isanctioned till he got nearly all he asked for?"

"But he knew better than to ask for too much, in the conditions, "replied Marshall, suavely. "May I suggest that you have not answered myhumble and earnest questions?"

"I answer no questions that I hold to be impertinent and unimportant!"said Clinton, pompously, and with a dignified attempt to recover hispoise. He swept his hat from his head; the New Yorkers were aspunctilious; Marshall lifted his battered lid from the wild massbeneath, and the popular Governor sauntered down the street, saluteddeferentially by Nationalists and followers alike. When he had occasionto sweep his gorgeous hat to his knees, the ladies courtesied to theground, their draperies taking up the entire pavement, and HisExcellency was obliged to encounter the carriages in the street. 

"If Clinton were sure of figuring as powerfully in a national governmentas he does in the state of New York, he would withdraw his opposition, "said Livingston, contemptuously. "He has been Governor for nine years. New York is his throne. He is a king among the common people, who willelect him indefinitely. Were it not for Hamilton, he would be New York, and the awful possibilities lying hidden in the kernel of change haunthis dreams at night. You embarrassed him in a manner that rejoiced myheart, Mr. Marshall. I beg you will do me the honour to dine with meto-night. I beg to assure you that your fame is as known to me as were Ia Virginian. "

"I'll accept the invitation with pleasure, " replied Marshall, whosemanners were all that his attire was not. "I shall be glad to talk withyou on many subjects. To-morrow I shall pay my respects to Mr. Hamilton. His has been a trying but not a thankless task. He has addressed himselfto the right class of men all over the country, winning them to hissound and enlightened views, giving them courage, consolidating themagainst the self-interested advocates of State sovereignty. That he hasso often neglected a legal practice which must bring him a large income, as well as sufficient personal glory, out of a sincere pity for andpatriotic interest in this afflicted country, gives New York deep causefor congratulation that she was in such close communication with thatIsland of his youth. I wish that fate had steered him to Virginia. "

"Surely you have enough as it is, " said Duane, laughing: "Washington, yourself, Patrick Henry, Jefferson, Madison, Randolph. Spare usHamilton. We shall need him badly enough. The Clinton faction is verystrong. That the Hamilton embraces the best spirits of the communitymeans that it is in the minority, and needs the unremitting exercise ofhis genius to counteract the disadvantage in numbers. "

"I think that what I admire most in Hamilton, " remarked a newcomer, asmall dark man of vivid personality, "are his methods of manipulation. He picks out his own men, Duer, Troup, Malcolm, has them sent to thelegislature, where they blindly and indefatigably obey his behest andgain the consent of that body to the convention at Annapolis, then seethat he is elected as principal delegate. He goes to Annapolisostensibly to attend a commercial convention: while its insufficientnumbers are drowsing, he springs upon them an eloquent proposal for anational convention for reforming the Union, and forces it throughbefore they know what they are about. Certainly Mr. Hamilton is a man ofgenius. "

"Do I understand. Mr. Burr, " said Jay, from his glacial height, "thatyou are impugning the purity of Mr. Hamilton's motives?"

"No, sir, " replied Burr, whom an archangel could not have rebuked. "Inthe present condition of things all methods are justifiable. Hamilton isgreat but adaptable. I respect him for that quality above all others, for he is quite the most imperious character in America, and his naturalinstinct is to come out and say, 'You idiots, fall into line behind meand stop twaddling. I will do your thinking; be kind enough not to delayme further. ' On the other hand, he is forced to be diplomatic, topersuade where he would command, to move slowly instead of charging atthe point of the bayonet. So, although I have no sympathy with hispronounced monarchical inclinations, I respect his acquired methods ofgetting what he wants. "

"What do you mean by pronounced monarchical inclinations?" snortedGovernor Livingston, who could not endure Burr. 

Burr gave his peculiar sardonic laugh. "Will you deny it, sir?"

"Deny it? I certainly am in Mr. Hamilton's confidence to no such extent, and I challenge you to indicate one sentence in his published writingswhich points to such a conclusion. "

"Ah, he is too clever for that; but his very walk, his whole personalityexpresses it, to say nothing of the fact that he never thinks of denyinghis admiration of the British Constitution. And did he not defend theTories after the evacuation, when no other lawyer would touch them? Iadmired his courage, but it was sufficient evidence of the catholicityof his sentiments. "

"Mr. Hamilton defended the abstract principle of right against wrong indefending the wretched Tories against the persecutions of anunmagnanimous public sentiment, " said Jay, witheringly. "I should adviseyou, young gentleman, to become a disciple of Mr. Hamilton. I canrecommend no course which would prove so beneficial. " And he turned onhis heel. 

He had hit Burr. The jealousy born in Albany had thriven with muchsustenance since. Hamilton was by far the most prominent figure at theNew York bar, and was hastening to its leadership. Burr was conspicuousfor legal ability, but never would be first while Hamilton was in therace. Moreover, although Hamilton had not then reached that dizzy heightfrom which a few years later he looked down upon a gaping world, he wasthe leader of a growing and important party, intelligently followed andworshipped by the most eminent men in the Confederation, many of themold enough to be his father; and he was the theme of every drawing-room, of every coffee-house group and conclave. His constant pamphlets on thesubject nearest to all men's hearts, his eloquent speeches on the sametheme upon every possible occasion, and the extraordinary brilliance ofhis legal victories, gave people no time to think of other men. When heentered a drawing-room general conversation ceased, and the companyrevolved about him so long as he remained. When he spoke, all the worldwent to hear. For an ambitious young man to be told to attach himself tothe train of this conquering hero was more than poor Burr could stand, and he replied angrily:--

"I have the privilege of being true to my own convictions, I suppose. They are not Mr. Hamilton's and never will be. I do not impugn thepurity of his motives, but I have no desire to see George Washingtonking, nor Hamilton, neither. I wish you good day, sirs, " and he strodeup Broadway to the Fields with dignity in every inch of him. 

"This constant talk of Hamilton's monarchical principles makes my gorgerise, " said Livingston. "Did he not fight as hard as he was permitted, to drive monarchy out of the country? Was he not the first to sound thecall to arms?"

"Hamilton's exact attitude on that question is not clearly understood, "replied Duane, soothingly, for the heat of Livingston's republicanismhad never abated. "I fancy it is something like this: So far noconstitution has worked so well as the British. Montesquieu knew whereofhe praised. The number of men in this country equal to the great problemof self-government are in a pitiful minority. The anarchic conditions ofthe States, the disgrace which they have brought upon us, theirinefficiency to cope with any problem, the contemptible depths of humannature which they have revealed to the thinking members of thecommunity--all these causes inspire Hamilton, incomparably the greatestbrain in the country, with a dread of leaving any power whatever intheir hands. He believes firmly in the few of tried brain andpatriotism. I very much doubt if he has considered the subject of actualmonarchy for a moment, for he is no dreamer, and he knows that even hisfollowers have been Republicans too long. But that he will fight for thestrongest sort of national government, with the least possible powervested in the States--oh, no doubt of that. "

"Our people are hopeless, I fear, " said Livingston, with a sigh. "Thisperiod of independency seems to have demoralized them when it shouldhave brought out their best elements. Well, Mr. Marshall, what say you?You have been modestly silent, and we have been rudely voluble when sodistinguished a guest should have had all the floor. "

"I have been deeply entertained, " replied Marshall, with a grin. "Myvisit to New York is by no means wasted. I envy Mr. Hamilton; but lethim look out for Mr. Burr. There are just five feet seven inches ofjealous hate in that well-balanced exterior, and its methods would besinuous, I fancy, but no less deadly. But Hamilton has had many escapes. What was that atrocious story I heard of a duelling cabal? When therolling stone of gossip reaches Virginia from New York, it has gatheredmore moss than you would think. "

"It would be difficult to exaggerate that story, " snorted Livingston. "Hamilton defended his course in regard to the Tories in two pamphlets, signed 'Phocion. ' They were answered by a Mr. Ledyard, who signedhimself 'Mentor, ' and was a conspicuous advocate of the damnable spiritof revenge possessing this country. It is a bold man indeed who entersinto a conflict of the pen with Hamilton, and 'Mentor' was left withouta leg to stand on. Forthwith, a club of Ledyard's friends andsympathizers, enraged by defeat, and fearing the growing ascendency ofHamilton over men's minds, deliberately agreed to challenge him in turnuntil he was silenced forever. This atrocious project would undoubtedlyhave been carried out, had not Ledyard himself repudiated it withhorror. Can you show me a greater instance of the depravity of humannature, sir?"

"We are in a ferment of bitter passions, " said Marshall, sadly, "and Ifear they will be worse before they are better. I only hope thatHamilton will not be swept into their current, for upon his keeping hisbalance depends the future greatness of this country. I am at yourservice, sir, for I will confess my two legs are tired. "

II

As the three men turned into Broadway they saluted a man who wasentering Wall Street. It was Hamilton, hastening home to his familyafter the day's work. He had lost his boyish slenderness; his figure hadbroadened and filled out sufficiently to add to his presence whiledestroying nothing of its symmetry or agile grace, and it was dressedwith the same care. His face was as gay and animated as ever, respondedwith the old mobility to every passing thought, but its lines andcontours showed the hard work and severe thought of the last four years. When he was taking a brief holiday with his friends, or tumbling aboutthe floor with his little brood, he felt as much a boy as ever, but noone appreciated more fully than he the terrible responsibility of hisposition in the Confederation. His abilities, combined with hispatriotism, had forced him to the head of the Nationalist Party, forwhose existence he was in greatest measure responsible; and he hardlydared to think of his personal ambitions, nor could he hesitate toneglect his lucrative practice whenever the crying needs of the countrydemanded it. He had also given much time to the creating andorganization of the Bank of New York. But Burr was not far wrong when heaccused him of impatience. His bearing was more imperious, his eyeflashed more intolerantly, than ever. To impute to him monarchicalambitions was but the fling of a smarting jealousy, but it is quite truethat he felt he knew what was best for the country, and would have likedto regulate its affairs without further hindrance. 

His house, beyond the dip of Wall Street and within sight of the bay, was of red brick, and as unbeautiful architecturally as other New Yorkhouses which had risen at random from the ruins. But within, it was verycharming. The long drawing-room was furnished with mahogany, androse-coloured brocade, with spindle-legged tables and many bibelots sentby Angelica Church, now living in London. The library was filling withvaluable books, and the panelled whiteness of the dining room glitteredwith silver and glass, which in quantity or value was not exceeded inthe home of any young couple in America; the world had outdone itself atthe most interesting wedding of the Revolution. Betsey's sitting roomwas behind the drawing-room, and there Hamilton found her counting themoments until his return. She had lost nothing of her slimness, andexcept on dress occasions wore her mass of soft black hair twisted in aloose knot and unpowdered. She looked younger and prettier than withpowder or wig, and Hamilton begged her to defy the fashion; but yieldingin all else, on this point she was inflexible. "I am wiser than you injust a few things, " she would say, playfully, for she firmly believedhim infallible; "my position would suffer, were I thought eccentric. Youcannot stand in rank without a uniform. I shall not yield to Sarah Jaynor even Kitty Duer. I am a little Republican, sir, and know my rights. And I know how to keep them. "

To-day, after her usual prolonged and unmitigated greeting, sheremarked: "Speaking of eccentric people, I met to-day, at LadySterling's, that curious person, Mrs. Croix, or Miss Capet, as some willcall her. Her hair was built up quite a foot and unpowdered. On top ofit was an immense black hat with plumes, and her velvet gown was atleast three yards on the floor. She certainly is the handsomest creaturein town, but, considering all the gossip, I think it odd Lady Sterlingshould take her up, and I believe that Kitty is quite annoyed. But LadySterling is so good-natured, and I am told that Dr. Franklin wentpersonally and asked her to give this lady countenance. He calls her hisFairy Queen, and to-day saluted her on the lips before all of us. Poordear Dr. Franklin is by now quite in the class with Caesar's wife, butstill I think his conduct rather remarkable. "

"Who is this woman?" asked Hamilton, indifferently. 

"Well!" exclaimed his wife, with a certain satisfaction, "you _arebusy_. She has been the talk of the town for quite three months, although she never went _anywhere_ before to-day. "

"I hear all my gossip from you, " said Hamilton, smiling from the hearthrug, "and considering the labours of the past three months--but tell meabout her. I believe I love you best when gossiping. Your effort to becaustic is the sweetest thing in the world. "

She threw a ball of wool at him, which he caught and pulled apart, thenshowered on her head. It was yellow wool, and vastly becoming on herblack hair. "You must have a yellow hat at once, with plumes, " he said, "but go on. "

"You shall wind that this evening, sir. Well, she came here about threemonths ago with Captain Croix of the British army, and rumour hath itthat he left a wife in England, and that this lady's right to the royalname of Capet is still unchallenged. The story goes that she was bornabout eighteen years ago, on a French frigate bound for the West Indies, that her mother died, and that, there being no one else of that royalname on board, the Captain adopted her; but that a baby and a ship beingmore than he could manage, he presented the baby to a humble friend atNewport, by the name of Thompson, who brought her up virtuously, butwithout eradicating the spirit of the age, and one fine day shedisappeared with Colonel Croix, and after a honeymoon which may havebeen spent in the neighbourhood of any church between here and RhodeIsland, or of none, they arrived in New York, and took the finestlodgings in town. I suppose Dr. Franklin was a friend of her humbleguardian, he is so philanthropic, and that he is willing to take mylady's word that all is well--and perhaps it is. I feel myself quitevicious in repeating the vaguest sort of gossip--active, though. Whoknows, if she had worn a wig, or an inch of powder, and employed theaccepted architect for her tower, she would have passed withoutquestion? Another pillar for my argument, sir. "

"As it is, you are even willing to believe that she is a daughter of thehouse of France, " said Hamilton, with a hearty laugh. "Would that theworld were as easily persuaded of what is good for it as of what ticklesits pettiness. Shall you ask this daughter of the Capets to the house?"

"I have not made up my mind, " said Mrs. Hamilton, demurely. 

The two older children, Philip and Angelica, came tumbling into theroom, and Hamilton romped with them for a half-hour, then flung themupon their mother, and watched them from the hearth rug. Betsey waslovely with her children, who were beautiful little creatures, andHamilton was always arranging them in groups. The boy and girl pulleddown her hair with the yellow wool, until all her diminutive figure andall her face, but its roguish black eyes, were extinguished; andHamilton forgot the country. 

Elizabeth Schuyler was a cleverer woman than her meed of credit has ledthe world to believe. She understood Hamilton very well even then, although, as his faults but added to his fascination in the eyes ofthose that loved him, the knowledge did not detract from her happiness. In many ways she made herself necessary to him; at that time she evenkept his papers in order. He talked to her freely on every subject thatinterested him, from human nature to finance, taxes, and the law, andshe never permitted a yawn to threaten. He read aloud to her every linehe wrote, and while she would not have presumed to suggest, her sympathywas one of his imperative needs. When his erratic fancy flashed him intoseductive meshes, she pulled a string and back he came. Perhaps this isthe reason why no specific account of his numerous alleged amours havecome down to us. He is vaguely accused of being the Lothario of histime, irresistible and indefatigable; but of all famous men whose namesare enlivened with anecdotes of gallantry in the vast bulk of theworld's unwritten history, he alone is the hero of much mysteriousaffirmation but of no particular romance. The Reynolds affair is openhistory and not a case in point. It is probable that, owing to inherentfickleness and Betsey's gentle manipulation, his affairs rarely lastedlong enough to attract attention. It is one of the accidents of lifethat the world barely knew of his acquaintance with Eliza Croix, she whohas come down to us as Madame Jumel; and such a thing could not happentwice. But whether or not he possessed in all their perfection theproclivities of so great and impetuous and passionate a genius, it iscertain that he loved his wife devotedly, and above all other women, solong as his being held together. His home was always his Mecca, and heleft it only when public duty compelled his presence in exile. 

III

In February he went to the Assembly to fight Clinton's opposition to theharassing need of conferring a permanent revenue upon Congress. He hadalready written a memorial, distributed over the State, setting forththe dangerous position of the country. But Clinton was lord of themasses, and their representatives in the Legislature had been trained tothink as he thought. They honoured him because he had made New York thegreatest State in the Union, not yet realizing that he had brought herinto disrepute at home and abroad, and that his selfish policy was nowhastening her to her ruin. To increase the power of Congress was toencourage the spirit of Nationalism, and that meant the sure decline ofthe States and of himself. The fight was hot and bitter. Clinton won;but the thinking men present took Hamilton's words home and ponderedupon them, and in time they bore fruit. 

After many delays the Convention was summoned to meet at Philadelphia onthe 14th of May. History calls it the Constitutional Convention, but itspromoters were careful to give the States-right people no such guide tocontravention. The violent oppositionists of all change slumberedpeacefully, while the representatives of the more enlightened wereappointed to the Convention under moderately worded and somewhat vagueresolutions; and some of them went as vaguely. Congress, after acharacteristic and selfish hesitation, and a thorough fright induced bythe Massachusetts rebellion, was finally persuaded to give her officialsanction to the proposed Convention. Hamilton secured his appointment asa delegate, --after a hard fight to have New York represented atall, --and found himself saddled with two Clintonians, Robert Yates andJohn Lansing, Jr. But the first great step for which he had struggled, since his Morristown letter to the Financier of the Revolution sevenyears before, was assured at last. 

Shortly before the Convention opened, Gouverneur Morris and JamesMadison, Jr. Met by appointment at Hamilton's house to discuss the planof campaign and make sure of their leader's wishes. General Schuylerand Robert Troup were also present. 

Morris was a delegate from Pennsylvania, but was about to return to NewYork, having bought the family estate at Morrisania from his brother, Staats Long Morris, and was involved in business enterprises whichresulted in a large fortune. He awaited the settlement of the country'saffairs before sailing for Europe in his private interests. Troup, now asuccessful lawyer at the New York bar, was an able politician anddevoted to Hamilton's interests. Philip Schuyler was entirely in hisson-in-law's confidence, working for and with him always, occupying thedouble position of adviser and follower. Madison, who had forced theConvention at Annapolis, had had his breath taken away by Hamilton'scoup, but now was delighted that he had been the instrument which madeit possible. He had composed his somewhat halting mind to thedetermination to concentrate his energies upon wringing from theConvention a national scheme of government after Hamilton's model, provided that model were not too extreme: he was no monarchist, and knewthe people very thoroughly. But he was deeply anxious to have Hamilton'sviews and plans for his guidance, even if modification were necessary. He knew Hamilton's complete mastery of the science of government, andthat his broad structure was bound to be right, no matter what itsfrills. 

The company assembled in the library, whose open windows overhung agarden full of lilacs, dogwood, and maples. There was a long table inthe room, about which the guests mechanically seated themselves, soaccustomed were they to the council table. Hamilton had greeted them inthe hall, and sent them on to the library, while he went to fetch somepapers his wife had promised to copy for him. 

"So this is the room in which the government of the United States is tobe born, " said Troup, glancing about at the familiar books and at thedesk stuffed with papers. "I shall always smell lilacs in the newConstitution. "

"If we get one, " observed Morris. "'Conceive' would be a better wordthan 'born, ' Twelve states, --for my part I am glad the refusal of RhodeIsland to send delegates makes one less, --each wanting its own way, andthe North inevitably pitted against the South: I confess that'still-born' strikes me as a better word than any. "

"We'll have a Constitution, " said Madison, doggedly, "I've made up mymind to that. There are a sufficient number of able and public-spiritedmen on their way to Philadelphia to agree upon a wise scheme ofgovernment and force it through--besides Hamilton and ourselves thereare Washington, Governor Randolph, William Livingston, Rufus King, RogerSherman, Dr. Franklin, James Wilson, George Wythe, the Pinckneys, HughWilliamson--to mention but a few. "

"They are not a bad lot, " admitted Morris, "if they had all seen more ofthe world and less of their native or adopted State--all this Statepatriotism makes me sick. Half were not born in the State theyvociferate about, are not certain of ending their days in it, nor ofwhich their children may adopt as intemperately. "

"Travel is not the only cure for provincialism, " said General Schuyler. "Dr. Franklin, I happen to know, is bent upon a form of governmentlittle firmer than the one now existing; and Hamilton, whose travels arelimited to campaigning in the different States, has a comprehensivegrasp of European political machinery, and the breadth of vision suchknowledge involves, which could gain nothing by personal contact. "

"Dr. Franklin was too long a mendicant at foreign courts not to bebesottedly in love with their antithesis, and Hamilton has a brain powerand an intellectual grasp which quite remove him from the odiums ofcomparison, " said Morris. "I think myself he is fortunate in neverhaving visited Europe, deeply as he may regret it; for with his facultyof divination he goes straight for what is best only--or most essential. Had he lived there, the details and disappointments might have blockedhis vision and upset the fine balance of his mind. There she is!"

He was at the window as quickly as he could have flung a book to thelilacs, despite his wooden leg; and he was followed by Troup andGeneral Schuyler, demanding "Who?"

"Mrs. Croix--there. Did anything so lovely ever dawn upon a distractedAmerican's vision? 'Tis said she is an unregistered daughter of thehouse of Capet, and I vow she looks every inch a princess. I stared ather so long last night in Vauxhall that she was embarrassed; and I neversaw such poise, such royal command of homage. How has she developed itat the age of eighteen? I half believe this tale of royal birth;although there are those who assert that she is nothing less than thedaughter of our highest in honour. "

"'Tis said that she had an opportunity to acquire her aplomb in thevillage of Rutland, Massachusetts, where for some years she enlivenedthe exile and soothed the domestic yearnings of many British officers, "said Troup. "One told me that he would vow she was none other than thefamous vagrant 'Betsey. '"

"But I am told that she comes of a respectable Rhode Island family namedBowen, " observed General Schuyler, who was not romantic. "That she waswayward and ran off with Colonel Croix, of whose other wife there is noproof, but that none of these fancy stories are true. "

"Then wherein lies her claim to the name of Capet?" demanded Morris. "'Twould be nothing remarkable were she a daughter of Louis V. , and I'mtold she signs her name Eliza Capet Croix. "

"I don't know, " said Schuyler, meekly. "'Tis easy enough to assume aname, if you have it not. I am told that Lady Sterling is assured of herrespectability. She certainly shines upon us like a star at this moment. I did not know that women had such hair. "

"Is this what we came here to discuss?" asked a voice, dropped to theregister of profound contempt. They turned about with a laugh and facedMadison's ascetic countenance, pale with disgust. "We have the mostimportant work to do for which men ever met together, and we stand atthe window and talk scandal about a silly woman and her hair. "

"You did not, my dear James, " said Morris, lightly; "and thereby youhave missed the truly divine stimulus for the day's work. Don't yourealize, my friend, that no matter how hard a man may labour, some womanis always in the background of his mind? She is the one reward ofvirtue. "

"I know nothing of the sort, " replied Madison, contemptuously. "I canflatter myself that I at least am independent of what appears to menlike you to be the only motive for living. "

"Right, my boy, but great as you are, you don't know what you might havebeen. "

The door opened, and Hamilton entered the room, his hands full ofpapers, his face as gay and eager as if he were about to read to hisaudience a poem or a lively tale. Perhaps one secret of his ascendencyover those who knew him best was that he never appeared to take himselfseriously, even when his whole being radiated power and imperiousdetermination. When he descended to the depths of seriousness and hisindividuality was most overwhelming, his unsleeping sense of humoursaved him from a hint of the demagogue. 

"While my wife was finishing, I heard you gossiping from the windowabove, " he said, "but I had by far the best view. The lilac bushes--"

"Do you know her?" asked Morris, eagerly. 

"Alas, I do not. It is incalculable months since I have had time to lookso long at a woman. What is the matter, Madison?"

"I am nauseated. I had thought that _you_--"

Here even General Schuyler laughed, and Hamilton hurriedly arranged hispapers. 

He sat down when he began to talk, but was quickly on his feet andshaking his papers over the table. To him, also, the council table wasthe most familiar article of furniture in his world, but he was usuallyaddressing those it stood for, and he was too ardent a speaker, evenwhen without the incentive of debate, to keep to his chair. 

"I know what you are wondering, " he said. "No, it is not the BritishConstitution. What I have done so distempered as to impress people withthe belief that I am blind to the spirit of this country, I am at a lossto conjecture. The British Constitution is the best form which the worldhas yet produced; in the words of Necker, it is the only government'which unites public strength with individual security, ' Nevertheless, no one is more fully convinced than I that none but a republicangovernment can be attempted in this country, or would be adapted to oursituation. Therefore, I propose to look to the British Constitution fornothing but those elements of stability and permanency which arepublican system requires, and which may be incorporated into itwithout changing its characteristic principles. There never has been, and there never will be, anything in my acts or principles inconsistentwith the spirit of republican liberty. Whatever my privatepredilections, it would be impossible for me, understanding the peopleof this country as I do, to fail to recognize the authority of thatpeople as the source of all political power. Therefore you will findmany departures from the British Constitution in the rough draft I amabout to read. I have neither the patience nor the temper to dogmatizeupon abstract theories of liberty, and our success will lie in adaptingto our particular needs such principles of government as have been triedand not found wanting, our failure in visionary experiments. The bestand wisest effort we can make will be a sufficient experiment, for whoseresult we must all tremble. 

"It is going to be difficult to persuade this Convention to unite uponany constitution very much stronger than the one Dr. Franklin willpropose, or to accomplish its ratification afterward. Nevertheless, Ihave prepared a draft of the strongest constitution short of monarchywhich it is possible to conceive, and which I shall propose to theConvention for reasons I will explain after I have read it to you. Doyou care to listen?"

"Hurry up!" exclaimed Morris. The audience leaned forward. Madison shookhis head all through the reading; Morris jerked his with emphaticapproval. 

The radical points in which Hamilton's constitution differed from thatunder which we live, was in the demand for a President, to be elected byproperty holders, and who should hold office during good behaviour;senators possessing certain property qualifications and elected on thesame principle; and governors of States appointed and removable by thePresident. Practically the author of the dual government, he believedemphatically in subserving the lesser to the greater, although endowingthe States with sufficient power for self-protection. The Executive wasto be held personally responsible for official misconduct, both he andthe senators subject to impeachment and to removal from office. Thewhole scheme was wrought out with the mathematical complexity andprecision characteristic of Hamilton's mind. 

"Would that it were possible, " exclaimed Morris, when Hamilton hadfinished. "But as well expect the Almighty to drive the quill. You willweaken your influence, Hamilton, and to no effect. "

"Ah, but I have calculated upon two distinct points, and I believe Ishall achieve them. I have not the most distant hope that this paperwill be acceptable to five men in the Convention, --three, perhaps, wouldround the number, --Washington, yourself, myself. Nevertheless, I shallintroduce it and speak in its favour with all the passion of which I ammaster, for these reasons: I believe in it; its energy is bound to givea tone that might be lacking otherwise; and--this is the principalpoint--_there must be something to work back from_. If I alarm with themere chance of so perilous a menace to their democratic ideals, theywill go to work in earnest at _something_ in order to defeat me, andthey will not go back so far in the line of vigour as if I had suggesteda more moderate plan; for, mark my words, they would infallibly inclineto weaker measures than _any_ firm government which should first beproposed. In the management of men one of the most important things tobear in mind is their proneness to work forward from the weak, andbackward from the strong. On the quality of the strength depends itsmagnetism over the weak. All reformers are ridiculed or outlawed, andtheir measures are never wholly successful; but they awaken men's mindsto something of approximate worth, and to a desire for a divorce fromthe old order of things. So, while I expect to be called a monarchist, Ihope to instil subtly the idea of the absolute necessity of a stronggovernment, and implant in their minds a distrust of one too weak. "

"Good, " said Morris. "And it is always a delight to see your revelationof yourself in a new light. I perceive that to your otheraccomplishments you add the cunning of the fox. "

"You are right to call it an accomplishment, " retorted Hamilton. "Wecannot go through life successfully with the bare gifts of the Almighty, generous though He may have been. If I find that I have need of cunning, or brutality, --than which nothing is farther from my nature, --or evennagging, I do not hesitate to borrow and use them. "

"Let us call this sagacity, " said Troup. "'Tis a prettier word. Or thecanniness of the Scot. But there is one thing I fear, " he addedanxiously. "You may injure your chances of future preferment. Yourambition will be thought too vaulting, particularly for so young a man, and, besides, you may be thought a menace to the commonwealth. "

"That is a point to be considered, Hamilton, " said General Schuyler. 

"I have an end to gain, sir, and I mean to gain it. Moreover, this is notime to be considering private interests. If this be not the day forpatriotism to stifle every personal ambition, then there is little hopefor human nature. I believe the result of this paper will be aconstitution of respectable strength, and I shall use all the influenceI wield to make the people accept it. So, if you worry, consider if thelater effort will not outweigh the first. "

"Hamilton, " said Madison, solemnly, "you are a greater man even than Ithought you. You have given me a most welcome hint, and I shall takeupon myself to engineer the recession from your constitution. I shallstudy its effect with the closest attention and be guided accordingly, Iam heart and soul in this matter, and would give my life to it ifnecessary. I never should have thought of anything so astute, " he added, with some envy, "but perhaps if I had, no one else would be sopeculiarly fitted as myself to work upon its manifold suggestions. Ihope I do not strike you as conceited, " he said, looking aroundanxiously, "but I _feel_ that it is in me to render efficient service inthe present crisis. "

Before Morris could launch his ready fling, Hamilton hastened to assureMadison of his belief that no man living could render services so great. He underrated neither Madison's great abilities nor the danger ofrankling arrows in that sensitive and not too courageous spirit. Theythen discussed a general plan of campaign and the best methods ofmanaging certain members of the Convention. Morris was the first torise. 

"Adieu, " he said. "I go to ruminate upon our Captain's diplomacy, and topursue the ankle of Mrs. Croix. Be sure that the one will not interferewith the other, but will mutually stimulate. "

The other gentlemen adjourned to the dining room. 

IV

The story of the Convention has been told so often that only the merestoutline is necessary here; those who have not before this read at leastone of the numberless reports, would be the last to wish itsmultigenerous details. To the students of history there is nothing newto tell, as may be the case with less exploited incidents of Hamilton'scareer. Someone has said that it was an assemblage of hostile camps, andit certainly was the scene of intense and bitter struggles, of aheterogeneous mass blindly striving to cohere, whilst a thousandsectional interests tugged at the more familiar of the dual ideal; ofcompromise after compromise; of a fear pervading at least one-half thatthe liberties of republicanism were menaced by every energeticsuggestion; of the soundest judgement and patriotism compelled totruckle to meaner sentiments lest they get nothing; of the picked men ofthe Confederacy, honourable, loyal, able, and enlightened, animated inthe first and last instance by a pure and common desire for the highestwelfare of the country, driven to war upon one another by the strengthof their conflicting opinions; ending--among the thirty-nine out of thesixty-one delegates who signed the Constitution--in a feeling as closelyresembling general satisfaction as individual disappointments wouldpermit. 

At first so turbulent were the conditions, that Franklin, who troubledthe Almighty but little himself, arose and suggested that the meetingsbe opened with prayer. After this sarcasm, and the submission of hismild compromise with the Confederation, he sat and watched the paintedsun behind Washington's chair, pensively wondering if the artist hadintended to convey the idea of a rise or a setting. Hamilton presentedhis draft at the right moment, and the startled impression it made quitesatisfied him, particularly as his long speech to the Committee of theWhole was received with the closest attention. Nothing could alter hispersonal fascination, and even his bitterest enemies rarely left theirchairs while he spoke. The small figure, so full of dignity andmagnetizing power that it excluded every other object from their vision, the massive head with a piercing force in every line of its features, the dark eyes blazing and flashing with a fire that never had been seenin the eyes of a mere mortal before, the graceful rapid gestures, andthe passionate eloquence which never in its most apparently abandonedmoments failed to be sincere and logical, made him for the hour theglory of friend and enemy alike, although the reaction wascorrespondingly bitter. Upon this occasion he spoke for six hourswithout the interruption of a scraping heel; and what the Convention didnot know about the science of government before he finished with them, they never would learn elsewhere. Although he made but this one speech, he talked constantly to the groups surrounding him wherever he moved. Tohis original scheme he had too much tact to make further allusion; buthis general opinions, ardently propounded, his emphatic reiteration ofthe demoralized country's need for a national government, and of thetyrannies inherent in unbridled democracies, wedged in many a chink. Nevertheless, he was disgusted and disheartened when he left for NewYork, at the end of May. The Convention was chaos, but he couldaccomplish nothing more than what he hoped he might have done; thematter was now best in the hands of Madison and Gouverneur Morris, andhis practice could no longer be neglected. 

But although he returned to a mass of work, --for he handled most of thegreat cases of the time, --he managed to mingle daily with the crowd atFraunces' and the coffee-houses, in order to gauge the public sentimentregarding the proposed change of government, and to see the leading menconstantly. On the whole, he wrote to Washington, he found that both inthe Jerseys and in New York there was "an astonishing revolution for thebetter in the minds of the people. "

Washington replied from the depths of his disgust:--

 . .. In a word I almost despair of seeing a favourable issue to the proceedings of the Convention, and do, therefore, repent having any agency in the business. The men who oppose a strong and energetic government are, in my opinion, narrow-minded politicians, or are under the influence of local views. The apprehension expressed by them that the _people_ will not accede to the form proposed, is the _ostensible_, not the real cause of the opposition; but admitting that _present_ sentiment is as they prognosticate, the question ought nevertheless to be, is it, or is it not, the best form? If the former, recommend it, and it will assuredly obtain, maugre opposition. I am sorry you went away; I wish you were back. 

To Washington, who presided over that difficult assemblage with asuperhuman dignity, to Hamilton who breathed his strong soul into it, toMadison who manipulated it, to Gouverneur Morris, whose sarcasticeloquent tongue brought it to reason again and again, and whoseaccomplished pen gave the Constitution its literary form, belong thehighest honours of the Convention; although the services rendered byRoger Sherman, Rufus King, James Wilson, R. R. Livingston, and CharlesCotesworth Pinckney entitle them to far more than polite mention. 

When Hamilton signed the Constitution, on the 17th of September, it wasby no means strong enough to suit him, but as it was incomparably betterthan the Articles of Confederation, which had carried the country to theedge of anarchy and ruin, and was regarded by a formidable number ofpeople and their leaders as so strong as to be a menace to the libertiesof the American citizen, he could with consistency and ardour exerthimself to secure its ratification. After all, it was built of hisstones, chipped and pared though they might be; had he not gone to theConvention, the result might have been a constitution for which his penwould have refused to plead. 

Manhattan Island, Kings and Westchester counties had long since acceptedhis doctrines, and they stood behind him in unbroken ranks; but thenorthern counties and cities of New York, including Albany, were stillunder the autocratic sway of Clinton. Hamilton's colleagues, Yates andLansing, had resigned their seats in the Great Convention. Among thesignatures to the Constitution his name stood alone for New York, andthe fact was ominous of his lonely and precarious position. Butdifficulties were ever his stimulant, and this was not the hour to findhim lacking in resource. 

"The Constitution terrifies by its length, complexity, frigidity, andabove all by its novelty, " he said to Jay and Madison, who met byappointment in his library. "Clinton, in this State, has persuaded hisfollowers that it is so many iron hoops, in which they would groan andstruggle for the rest of their lives. To defeat him and this perniciousidea, we must discuss the Constitution publicly, in the most lucid andentertaining manner possible, lay every fear, and so familiarize thepeople with its merits, and with the inseparable relation of itsadoption to their personal interests, that by the time the elections forthe State Convention take place, they will be sufficiently educated togive us the majority. And as there is so much doubt, even among membersof the Convention, as to the mode of enacting the Constitution, we mustsolve that problem as quickly as possible. My purpose is to publish aseries of essays in the newspapers, signed, if you agree with me, Publius, and reaching eighty or ninety in number, which shall expoundand popularize the Constitution of the United States; and if you willgive me your inestimable help, I am sure we shall accomplish ourpurpose. "

"If you need my help, I will give it to you to the best of my ability, sir, " said Jay, "but I do not pretend to compete with your absolutemastery of the complex science of government, and I fear that my weakerpen may somewhat counteract the vigour of yours; but, I repeat, I willdo my best with the time at my disposal. "

Hamilton laughed, "You know how anxious I am to injure our chances ofsuccess, " he said. "I hope all things from your pen. "

Jay bowed formally, and Hamilton turned to Madison. "I know you mustfeel that you have done your share for the present, " he said, "and thereis hard work awaiting you in your State Convention, but the subject isat your finger tips; it hardly can be too much trouble. "

"I am not very well, " said Madison, peevishly, "but I realize thenecessity, --and that the papers should be read as extensively inVirginia as here. I will write a few, and more if I can. "

But, as it came to pass, Madison wrote but fourteen separate papers ofthe eighty-five, although he collaborated with Hamilton on three others, and Jay wrote five only. The remaining sixty-three, therefore, of theessays, collected during and after their publication under the title of"The Federalist, " which not only did so much to enlighten and educatethe public mind and weaken the influence of such men as Clinton, butwhich still stand as the ablest exposition of the science of government, and as the parent of American constitutional law, were the work ofHamilton. 

"It is the fortunate situation of our country, " said Hamilton, a fewmonths later, at Poughkeepsie, "that the minds of the people areexceedingly enlightened and refined. " Certainly these papers are a greattribute to the general intelligence of the American race of a centuryand more ago. Selfish, petty, and lacking in political knowledge theymay have been, but it is evident that their mental _tone_ was high, thattheir minds had not been vulgarized by trash and sensationalism. Hamilton's sole bait was a lucid and engaging style, which would notpuzzle the commonest intelligence, which he hoped might instruct withoutweighing heavily on the capacity of his humbler readers. That he wasaddressing the general voter, as well as the men of a higher grade asyet unconvinced, there can be no doubt, for as New York State was stillseven-tenths Clintonian, conversion of a large portion of this scowlingelement was essential to the ratification of the Constitution. And yethe chose two men of austere and unimaginative style to collaborate withhim; while his own style for purity, distinction, and profunditycombined with simplicity, has never been excelled. 

Betsey was ailing, and her doors closed to society; the children rompedon the third floor or on the Battery. Hamilton wrote chiefly at night, his practice occupying the best of the hours of day, but he was sensibleof the calm of his home and of its incentive to literary composition; itnever occurred to him to open his office in the evening. Betsey, thewhile she knitted socks, listened patiently to her brilliant husband'sluminous discussions on the new Constitution--which she could haverecited backward--and his profound interpretation of its principles andprovisions. If she worried over these continuous labours she made nosign, for Hamilton was racing Clinton, and there was not a moment tolose. Clinton won in the first heat. After a desperate struggle in theState Legislature the Hamiltonians succeeded in passing resolutionsordering a State Convention to be elected for the purpose of consideringthe Constitution; but the result in April proved the unabated power andindustry of Clinton, --the first, and not the meanest of New York'spolitical "bosses, "--for two-thirds of the men selected were hisfollowers. The Convention was called for the 17th of June and it wasrumoured that the Clintonians intended immediately to move anadjournment until the following year. According to an act of Congressthe ratification of only nine States was necessary to the adoption ofthe Constitution. The others could come into the Union later if theychose, and there was a disposition in several States to watch theexperiment before committing themselves. Hamilton, who knew that such apolicy, if pursued by the more important States, would result in civilwar, was determined that New York should not behave in a manner whichwould ruin her in the present and disgrace her in history, and wrote onwith increasing vigour, hoping to influence the minds of theoppositionists elected to the Convention as well as the people at large. Even he had never written anything which had attracted so wide admiringand acrimonious attention. The papers were read in all the cities of theConfederation, and in such hamlets as boasted a mail-bag. When theyreached England and France they were almost as keenly discussed. Thatthey steadily made converts, Hamilton had cause to know, for hiscorrespondence was overwhelming. Troup and General Schuyler attended tothe greater part of it; but only himself could answer the frequentletters from leaders in the different states demanding advice. Hethought himself fortunate in segregating five hours of the twenty-fourfor sleep. The excitement throughout the country was intense, and it issafe to say that nowhere and for months did conversation wander from thesubject of politics and the new Constitution, for more than ten minutesat a time. In New York Hamilton was the subject of constant and viciousattack, the Clintonians sparing no effort to discredit him with themasses. New York City was nicknamed Hamiltonopolis and jingled inscurrilous rhymes. In the midst of it all were two diversions: thefourth of his children, and a letter which he discovered before GeneralSchuyler or Troup had sorted his mail. As the entire Schuyler familywere now in his house, and his new son was piercingly discontented withhis lot, he took refuge in his chambers in Garden Street, until Betseywas able to restore peace and happiness to his home. The postman hadorders to bring his mail-bag thither, and it was on the second morningof his exile that the perfume of violets caused him to make a hastyjourney through the letters. 

He found the spring sweetness coincidentally with a large square, flowingly superscribed. He glanced at the clock. His devoted assistantswould not arrive for half an hour. He broke the seal. It was signedEliza Capet Croix, and ran as follows:--

 MY DEAR SIR: Do you care anything for the opinion of my humble sex, I wonder? The humblest of your wondering admirers is driven beyond the bounds of feminine modesty, sir, to tell you that what you do not write she no longer cares to read. I was the first to detect--I claim that honour--such letters by Publius as were not by your hand, and while I would not disparage efforts so conscientious, they seem to me like dawn to sunrise. Is this idle flattery? Ah, sir! I too am greatly flattered. I do not want for admirers. Nor can I hope to know--to know--so great and busy a man. But my restless vanity, sir, compels me to force myself upon your notice. I should die if I passed another day unknown to the man who gives me the greatest pleasures of my life--I have every line you have had printed that can be found, and half the booksellers in the country searching for the lost copies of the _Continentalist_--I should die, I say, if you were longer ignorant that I have the intelligence, the ambition, and the erudition to admire you above all men, living or dead. For that is my pride, sir. Perchance I was born for politics; at all events you have made them my passion, and I spend my days converting Clintonians to your cause. Do not scorn my efforts. It is not every day that a woman turns a man's thoughts from love to patriotism; I have heard that 'tis oftenest the other way. But I take your time, and hasten to subscribe myself, my dear sir, Your humble and obd't servant

 ELIZA CAPET CROIX. 

The absence of superfluous capitals and of underscoring in this letter, alone would have arrested his attention, for even men of a less severeeducation than himself were liberal in these resources, and women wereprodigal. The directness and precision were also remarkable, and herecalled that she was but nineteen. The flattery touched him, no doubt, for he was very human; and despite the brevity of his leisure, he readthe note twice, and devoted a moment to conjecture. 

"She is cleverer, even, than Lady Kitty, or Susan and Kitty Livingston, by this, " he mused. "She would be worth knowing, did a driven mortal buthave the time to idle in the wake of so much intelligence--and beauty. Not to answer this were unpardonable--I cannot allow the lady to die. "He wrote her a brief note of graceful acknowledgement, which caused Mrs. Croix to shed tears of exultation and vexation. He acknowledged her butbreathed no fervid desire for another letter. It is not to be expectedthat maturest nineteen can realize that, although a busy man will findtime to see a woman if it be worth his while, the temptations to aromantic correspondence are not overwhelming. 

Hamilton tore up the letter and threw it into the waste basket. Itsperfume, delicate but imperious, intruded upon his brief. He dived intothe basket as he heard Troup's familiar whistle, and thrust the piecesinto a breast pocket. In a moment he remembered that Betsey's head wouldbe pillowed upon that pocket at five in the afternoon, and he hastilyextracted the mutilated letter, and applied a match to it, consigningwomen to perdition. Troup sniffed as he entered the room. 

"Violets and burnt paper, " remarked he. "'Tis a combination I havenoticed before. I wonder will some astute perfumer ever seize the idea?It would have its guilty appeal for our sex--perchance for t'other;though I'm no cynic like you and Morris. "

"Shut up, " said Hamilton, "and get to work if you love me, for I've notime to write to St. Croix, much less waste five seconds on any woman. "

That afternoon he wasted half an hour in search of a bunch of redolentviolets to carry home to his wife. He pinned three on his coat. 

V

When the 17th of June approached, Hamilton, John Jay, ChancellorLivingston, and James Duane, started on horse for Poughkeepsie, notdaring, with Clinton on the spot, and the menace of an immediateadjournment, to trust to the winds of the Hudson. General Schuyler hadpromised to leave even a day sooner from the North, and the majority ofFederal delegates had gone by packet-boat, or horse, in good season. 

The old post road between New York and Albany was, for the greater partof the way, but a rough belt through a virgin forest. Occasionally afarmer had cleared a few acres, the lawns of a manor house were open tothe sun, the road was varied by the majesty of Hudson and palisade for abrief while, or by the precipitous walls of mountains, so thickly woodedthat even the wind barely fluttered their sombre depths. Man was amoving arsenal in those long and lonely journeys, for the bear and thepanther were breeding undisturbed. But the month was hot, and thoseforest depths were very cool; the scenery was often as magnificent asprimeval, and a generous hospitality at many a board dispelled, for aninterval, the political anxiety of Hamilton and his companions. 

Hamilton, despite a mind trained to the subordination of privateinterests to public duty, knew that it was the crisis of his own destinytoward which he was hastening. He had bound up his personal ambitionswith the principles of the Federalist party--so called since thepublication in book form of the Publius essays; for not only was helargely responsible for those principles, but his mind was too wellregulated to consider the alternative of a compromise with a possiblyvictorious party which he detested. Perhaps his ambition was toovaulting to adapt itself to a restricted field when his imagination hadplayed for years with the big ninepins of history; at all events, it wasinseparably bound up with nationalism in the boldest sense achievable, and with methods which days and nights of severe thought had convincedhim were for the greatest good of the American people. Union meantWashington in the supreme command, himself with the reins of governmentin both hands. The financial, the foreign, the domestic policy of aharmonious federation were as familiar to his mind as they are to usto-day. Only he could achieve them, and only New York could give himthose reins of power. 

It is true that he had but to move his furniture over to Philadelphia tobe welcomed to citizenship with acclamation by that ambitious town; butnot only was his pride bound up in the conquest of New York fromClintonism to Federalism, but New York left out of the Union, dividingas she did New England from the South and North, of the highestcommercial importance by virtue of her central position and her harbour, meant civil war at no remote period, disunion, and the undoing of themost careful and strenuous labours of the nation's statesmen. That NewYork should be forced into the Union at once Hamilton was determinedupon, if he had to resort to a coup which might or might not meet withthe approval of the rest of the country. Nevertheless, he looked forwardto the next few weeks with the deepest anxiety. An accident, an illness, and the cause was lost, for he made no mistake in estimating himself asthe sole force which could bear Clinton and his magnificent organizationto the ground. Hamilton was no party manipulator. He relied upon hisindividual exertions, abetted by those of his lieutenants, --the mosthigh-minded and the ablest men in the country, --to force his ideas uponthe masses by their own momentum and weight. Indeed, so individual didhe make the management of the Federalist party, that years later, whenthe "Republican" leaders determined upon its overthrow, they aimed alltheir artillery at him alone: if he fell the party must collapse, on topof him; did he retain the confidence of the people, he would magnetizetheir obedience, no matter what rifts there might be in his ranks. 

He had established a horse-express between Virginia and Poughkeepsie, and between New Hampshire and the little capital. Eight States havingratified, the signature of New Hampshire, the next in order, would meanunion and a trial of the Constitution, a prospect which could not failto influence the thinking men of the anti-Federal party; but it was fromthe ratification of Virginia that he hoped the greatest good. This Stateoccupied much the same position in the South that New York did in theNorth, geographically, commercially, historically, and in theimportance of her public men. And she was as bitterly opposed to union, to what a narrow provincialism held to be the humiliation of the States. Patrick Henry, her most powerful and eloquent leader, not through theselfish policy of a Clinton, but in the limitations of a too narrowgenius, was haranguing with all his recuperated might against thesinister menace to the liberties of a people who had freed themselves ofone despotism so dearly; and even Randolph, with characteristichesitancy when approaching a point, was deficient in enthusiasm, although he intimated that he should vote for the unconditional adoptionof the Constitution he had refused to sign. He and Marshall wereMadison's only assistants of importance against the formidable opponentof union, and it was well understood among leaders that Jefferson, whowas then American minister in France, gave the Constitution but agrudging and inconsistent approval, and would prefer that it failed, were not amendments tacked on which practically would nullify itsenergies. But although Hamilton had such lieutenants as John Jay, PhilipSchuyler, Duane, and Robert Livingston, Madison had the inestimable, though silent, backing of Washington. The great Chief had, months since, forcibly expressed his sentiments in a public letter; and that colossalfigure, the more potent that it was invisible and mute, guided as manywills as Madison's strenuous exertions and unanswerable dispassionatelogic. 

But Washington, although sufficiently revered by New Yorkers, was nottheir very own, as was he the Virginians'; was by no means so impingingand insistent as his excellency, Governor Clinton, he whose powerfulwill and personality, aided by an enterprise and wisdom that were notalways misguided, for eleven years had compelled their gratefulsubmission. It was difficult to convince New Yorkers that such a man waswholly wrong in his patriotism, particularly when their own interestsseemed bound so firmly to his. It was this dominant, dauntless, resourceful, political nabob that Hamilton knew he must conquersingle-handed, if he conquered him at all; for his lieutenants, able asthey were, could only second and abet him; they had none of hisfertility of resource. As he rode through the forest he rehearsed everyscheme of counterplay and every method that made for conquest which hisfertile brain had conceived. He would exercise every argument likely toappeal to the decent instincts of those ambitious of ranking asfirst-class citizens, as well as to the congenital selfishness of man, which could illuminate the darker recesses of their Clintonizedunderstandings, and effect their legitimate conversion; then, if thesehigher methods failed, coercion. 

"What imperious method are you devising, Hamilton?" asked Livingston. "Your lips are set; your eyes are almost black. I've seen you like thatin court, but never in good company before. You look as if considering achallenge to mortal combat. "

Hamilton's brow cleared, and he laughed with that mercurial lightnesswhich did more to preserve the balance of what otherwise would have beenan overweighted mind than any other quality it possessed. 

"Well, am I not to fight a duel?" he asked. "Would that I could callClinton out and settle the question as easily as that. I disapprove ofduelling, but so critical a moment as this would justify anything shortof trickery. We'll leave that to Clinton; but although there is no vastdifference between my political and my private conscience, there arerecourses which are as fair in political as in martial warfare, and Ishould be found ingenuous and incapable did I fail to make use of them. "

"Well, you love a fight, " said Jay, without experiencing the humour ofhis remark. "I believe you would rather fight than sit down in goodcompany at any time, and you are notoriously convivial. But easyconquest would demoralize you. If I do not mistake, you have thegreatest battle of your career, past or present, immediately ahead ofyou--and it means so much to all of us--I fear--I fear--"

"I will listen to no fears, " cried Hamilton, who at all events had nomind to be tormented by any but his own. "Are we not alive? Are we notin health? Are not our intellectual powers at their ripest point ofdevelopment? Can Clinton, Melancthon Smith, Yates, Lansing, Jones, makea better showing?"

"We are nineteen against forty-six, " said Jay, with conceivable gloom. 

"True. But there is no reason why we should not shortly be forty-sixagainst nineteen. "

"We certainly are Right against the most unstatesman-like Selfishnessthe world has ever seen, " observed Duane. 

"Would that experience justified us in thinking well enough of the humanrace to gather courage from that fact, " replied Hamilton. "It is to theself-interest of the majority we shall have to appeal. Convince themthat there is neither career nor prosperity for them in an isolatedState, and we may drag them up to a height which is safer than theirmire, simply because it is better, or better because it is safer. Thisis a time to practice patriotism, but not to waste time talking aboutit. "

"Your remarks savour of cynicism, " replied Jay, "but I fear there ismuch truth in them. It is only in the millennium, I suppose, that weshall have the unthinkable happiness of seeing on all sides of us anabsolute conformity to our ideals. "

In spite of the close, if somewhat formal, friendship between Jay andHamilton, the latter was often momentarily depressed by the resemblanceof this flawless character to, and its rigid contrasts from, his deadfriend Laurens. Jay was all that Laurens had passionately wished to be, and apparently without effort; for nature had not balanced him with aredeeming vice, consequently with no power to inspire hate or love. Hadhe been a degree greater, a trifle more ambitious, or had circumstancesisolated him in politics, he would have been an even lonelier andloftier figure than Washington, for our Chief had one or two redeeminghumanities; as it was, he stood to a few as a character so perfect thatthey marvelled, while they deplored his lack of personal influence. Buthis intellect is in the rank which stands just beneath that of the menof genius revealed by history, and he hangs like a silver star of thetropics upon the sometimes dubious fields of our ancestral heavens. Nevertheless, he frequently inspired Hamilton with so poignant a longingfor Laurens that our impetuous hero was tempted to wish for an exchangeof fates. 

"In the millennium we will all tell the truth and hate each other, "answered Hamilton. "And we either shall all be fools, or those irritantswill be extinct; in any case we shall be happy, particularly if we havesomeone to hate. "

"Ah, now you jest, " said Duane, smiling. "For you are logical ornothing. _You_ may be happy when on the warpath, but the rest of us arenot. And you are the last man to be happy in a millennium by yourself. "

They all laughed at this sally, for Hamilton was seldom silent. Heanswered lightly:--

"Someone to fight. Someone to love. Three warm friends. Three hotenemies. A sufficiency of delicate food and wine. A West Indianswimming-bath. Someone to talk to. Someone to make love to. War. Politics. Books. Song. Children. Woman. A religion. There you have theessence of the millennium, embroider it as you may. "

"And scenery, " added Jay, devoutly. 

The road for the last quarter of an hour had led up a steep hill, abovewhich other hills piled without an opening; and below lay the Hudson. Asthey paused upon the bare cone of the elevation, the river looked like achain of Adirondack lakes, with dense and upright forests rising tierbeyond tier until lost in the blue haze of the Catskills. The mountainslooked as if they had pushed out from the mainland down to the water'sedge to cross and meet each other. So close were the opposite crags thatthe travellers could see a deer leap through the brush, the red of hiscoat flashing through the gloomy depths. Below sped two packet-boats ina stiff breeze. 

"Friends or enemies?" queried Livingston. "I wish I were with them, forI must confess the pleasures of horse travel for seventy-five miles mustbe the climax of a daily habit to be fully appreciated. It is all verywell for Hamilton, who is on a horse twice every day; but as I am tenyears older and proportionately stiffer, I shall leave patriotism to therest of you for a day or two after our arrival. "

Hamilton did not answer. He had become conscious of the delicate yetpiercing scent of violets. Wild violets had no perfume, and it was longpast their season. He glanced eagerly around, but without realizing whatprompted a quick stirring of his pulses. There was but one tree on thecrag, and he stood against it. Almost mechanically his glance sought itsrecesses, and his hand reached forward to something white. It was asmall handkerchief of cambric and lace. The other men were staring atthe scenery. He hastily glanced at the initials in the corner of thescented trifle, and wondered that he should so easily decipher a tangledE. C. C. But he marvelled, nevertheless, and thrust the handkerchief intohis pocket. 

They reached Poughkeepsie late in the afternoon. Main Street, which wasthe interruption of the post road, and East Street, which terminated theDutchess turnpike, were gaily decorated with flags and greens, thewindows and pavements crowded with people whose faces reflected thenervous excitement with which the whole country throbbed. The capitalfor ten years, the original village had spread over the hills into arambling town of many avenues, straight and twisted, and there werepretentious houses and a certain amount of business. Hamilton and hisparty were stared at with deep curiosity, but not cheered, for the townwas almost wholly Clintonian. The Governor had his official residence onthe Dutchess turnpike, a short distance from town; and this was hiscourt. Nevertheless, it was proudly conscious of the dignity incumbentupon it as the legislative centre of the State, and no matter what thesuspense or the issue, had no mind to make the violent demonstrations ofother towns. Nearly every town of the North, including Albany, hadburned Hamilton in effigy, albeit with battered noses, for he had hisfollowers everywhere; but here he was met with a refreshing coolness, for which the others of his party, at least, were thankful. 

They went first to Van Kleek's tavern, on the Upper Landing Road, notfar from the Court-house, to secure the rooms they had engaged; butfinding an invitation awaiting them from Henry Livingston to make use ofhis house during the Convention, repaired with unmixed satisfaction tothe large estate on the other side of the town. The host was absent, buthis cousin had been requested to do the honours to as many as he wouldask to share a peaceful retreat from the daily scene of strife. 

"And it has the advantage of an assured privacy, " said Hamilton. "Forhere we can hold conference nightly with no fear of eavesdropping. Moreover, to get a bath at Van Kleek's is as easy as making love toClinton. "

General Schuyler joined them an hour later. He had been in town all day, and had held several conferences with the depressed Federalists, who, between a minority which made them almost ridiculous, and uncomfortablelodgings, were deep in gloomy forebodings. As soon as they heard oftheir Captain's arrival they swarmed down to the Livingston mansion. Hamilton harangued them cheerfully in the drawing-room, drank with them, in his host's excellent wine, to the success of their righteous cause;and they retired, buoyant, confirmed in their almost idolatrous beliefin the man who was responsible for all the ideas they possessed. 

VI

Although Hamilton and Clinton had no liking for each other, they werefar from being the furious principals in one of those political hatredswhich the times were about to engender, --an intellectual cataclysm whichHamilton was to experience in all its blackness, of which he was to bethe most conspicuous victim. He had by no means plumbed his depths asyet. So far he had met with few disappointments, few stumbling blocks, never a dead wall. Life had smiled upon him as if magnetized. At home hefound perfect peace, abroad augmenting ranks of followers, sufficientwork to use up his nervous energies, and the stimulant of enmity andopposition that he loved. It was long since he had given way to rage, although he flew into a temper occasionally. He told himself he wasbecome a philosopher, and was far from suspecting the terrible passionswhich the future was to undam. His mother, with dying insight, haddivined the depth and fury of a nature which was all light on thesurface, and in its upper half a bewildering but harmoniousintermingling of strength, energy, tenderness, indomitability, generosity, and intense emotionalism: a stratum so large and sogenerously endowed that no one else, least of all himself, had suspectedthat primeval inheritance which might blaze to ashes one of the mostnicely balanced judgements ever bestowed on a mortal, should his enemiescombine and beat his own great strength to the dust. 

But when Hamilton and Clinton approached the Court-house from oppositedirections, on the morning of the 17th, they did not cross the street toavoid meeting, although they bowed with extreme formality and measuredeach other with a keen and speculative regard. Clinton was nowforty-nine years old, his autocratic will, love of power, and knowledgeof men, in their contemptuous maturity. He was a large man, with themilitary bearing of the born and finished martinet, a long hard nose, and an irritated eye. The irritation kindled as it met Hamilton's, whichwas sparkling with the eager determination of a youth which, althoughdesirable in itself, was become a presumption when pitted against thoseeighteen additional distinguished years of the Governor of New York. That there was a twinkle of amusement in the Federalist's eye was alsoto his discredit. 

"The young fop, " fumed Clinton, as he brushed a fleck of mud from hisown magnificent costume of black ducape, "he is the _enfant gâté_ ofpolitics, and I shall settle him here once for all. It will be a publicbenefaction. "

The Court-house, which stood halfway up the hill, on the corner of Mainand East streets, and was surrounded by the shade of many maples, was atwo-story building of rough stones welded together by a ruder cement. The roof sloped, and above was a belfry. The Convention was held in theupper story, which was unbroken by partition; and with the windows openupon what looked to be a virgin forest, so many were the ancient treesremaining in the little town, the singing of birds, the shrilling ofcrickets, the murmur of the leaves in an almost constant breeze, the oldCourt-house of Poughkeepsie was by no means a disagreeablegathering-place. Moreover, it was as picturesque within as it wasarcadian without; for the fine alert-looking men, with their powderedhair in queues, their elaborately cut clothes of many colours, made forthe most part of the corded silk named ducape, their lawn and ruffles, made up the details of a charming picture, which was far from appealingto them, but which gives us a distinct pleasure in the retrospect. 

Governor Clinton was elected the President of the Convention. On theright of the central table sat his forty-five henchmen, with MelancthonSmith, one of the most astute and brilliant debaters of the time, wellto the front. Opposite sat Hamilton, surrounded by General Schuyler, Jay, Duane, and Robert Livingston, the rest of his small following closeto the windows, but very alert, their gaze never ranging far from theirleader. Beyond the bar crowded the invited guests, many of them women inall the finery of the time. 

If the anti-Federalists had entertained the idea of an immediate andindefinite adjournment, they appear to have abandoned it without wasteof time; perhaps because long and tedious journeys in midsummer were notto be played with; perhaps because they were sure of their strength;possibly because Clinton was so strongly in favour of arrangingHamilton's destinies once for all. 

Certainly at the outset the prospects of the Federalists were almostludicrous. The anti-Federalists were two-thirds against one-third, fortified against argument, uncompromisingly opposed to union at theexpense of State sovereignty, clever and thinking men, most of them, devoted to Clinton, and admirably led by an orator who acknowledged norival but Hamilton. The latter set his lips more than once, and hisheart sank, but only to leap a moment later with delight in the meretest of strength. 

Clinton's first move was to attempt a vote at once upon the Constitutionas a whole, but he was beaten by Hamilton and many in his own ranks, whowere in favour of the fair play of free debate. The Governor was forcedto permit the Convention to go into a Committee of the Whole, whichwould argue the Constitution section by section. Hamilton had gained agreat point, and he soon revealed the use he purposed to make of it. 

It is doubtful if his own followers had anticipated that he would speakalmost daily for three weeks, receiving and repelling the brunt of everyargument; and certainly Clinton had looked for no such feat. 

The contest opened on the Clintonian side, with the argument that anamended Confederation was all that was necessary for the purposes of amore general welfare. The plan advanced was that Congress should begiven the power to compel by force the payment of the requisitions whichthe States so often ignored. Hamilton demolished this proposition withone of his most scornful outbursts. 

 Coerce the States! [he cried]. Never was a madder project devised! Do you imagine that the result of the failure of one State to comply would be confined to that State alone? Are you so willing to hazard a civil war? Consider the refusal of Massachusetts, the attempt at compulsion by Congress. What a series of pictures does this conjure up? A powerful State procuring immediate assistance from other States, particularly from some delinquent! A complying State at war with a non-complying State! Congress marching the troops of one State into the bosom of another! This State collecting auxiliaries and forming perhaps a majority against its Federal head! And can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself?--a government that can exist only by the sword? And what sort of a State would it be which would suffer itself to be used as the instrument of coercing another? . .. A Federal standing army, then, must enforce the requisitions or the Federal treasury will be left without supplies, and the government without support. .. . There is but one cure for such an evil--to enable the national laws to operate on individuals like the laws of the States. To take the old Confederation as the basis of a new system, and to trust the sword and the purse to a single assembly organized upon principles so defective, giving it the full powers of taxation and the national forces, would result in what--Despotism! To avoid the very issue which appears to be held in such abject terror, a totally different government from anything into which the old Confederation can be twisted, or fitted out with wings and gables, must be established with proper powers and proper checks and balances. 

His words created a palpable uneasiness. The outburst was the moreeffective for following and preceding close passionless and pointedreasoning, a trenchant review of other republics ancient and modern, andan elaborate argument in favour of the representation prescribed by thenew Constitution. 

Hamilton was not only the most brilliant, resourceful, and unanswerableorator of his time, but he was gifted with an almost diabolical powerover the emotions of men, which he did not hesitate to use. At thismomentous assembly he kept them in exercise; when he chose, he made hisaudience weep; and the Clintonians weakened daily. Had not many years oftrouble and anxiety made their emotions peculiarly susceptible, Hamiltonwould have attempted their agitation more sparingly; and had he beentheatrical and rhetorical in his methods, he would have lost his controlof them long before the end of the session. But he rarely indulged in atrope or a flight, never in bathos nor in bursts of ill-balanced appeal. Nothing ever was drier than the subjects he elucidated day after day forthree weeks: for he took the Constitution to pieces bit by bit, andcompelled them to listen to an analysis which, if propounded by another, would have bored them to distraction, vitally interested as they were. But he not only so illuminated the cold pages of the Constitution thatwhile they listened they were willing to swear it was more beautifulthan the Bible, but the torrent of his eloquence, never confusing, sosharp was every feature of the Constitution to his own mind, the magicof his personality, and his intense humanity in treating the driestsections of the document, so bewitched his audience that, even when hetalked for six hours without pausing on the subject of taxation, perhapsthe baldest topic which the human understanding is obliged to consider, there was not a sign of impatience in the ranks of the enemy. 

He by no means harrowed them daily; he was far too astute for that. There were days together when he merely charmed them, and they sat witha warm unconscious smile while he demolished bit by bit one ofMelancthon Smith's clever arguments, in a manner so courteous that evenhis victim could only shrug his shoulders, although he cursed himroundly afterward. Then, when his audience least expected an assault, hewould treat them to a burst of scorn that made them hitch their chairsand glance uneasily at each other, or to a picture of future miserywhich reduced them to pulp. 

Clinton was infuriated. Even he often leaned forward, forgetting his ownselfish ambitions when Hamilton's thrilling voice poured forth a rapidappeal to the passions of his hearers; but he quickly resumed theperpendicular, and set his lips to imprison a scarlet comment. He sawthat his men were weakening, and as much to the luminous expounding ofthe Constitution, to the logic of the orator, as to a truly sataniceloquence and charm. He held long private sessions at his mansion on theturnpike, where he was assisted by much material argument. But evenMelancthon Smith, who distinguished himself in almost daily debate, acknowledged more than once that Hamilton had convinced him; and othersasserted, with depression, that their minds, which they had supposed tobe their own, --or Clinton's, --seemed to be in a process of remaking. 

After all, for the most part, they were sincere and earnest; andalthough it is difficult for us of the present day to comprehend thatenlightened men ever could have been so mad as to believe that thecountry would prosper without union, that a mere State should have beenthought to be of greater importance than a Nation, or that a democraticconstitution, which permits us to coddle anarchists in our midst, andthe lower orders to menace the liberties of the upper, was ever anobject of terror to men of bitter republican ideals, yet the historicfacts confront us, and we wonder, when reading the astonishingarguments of that long and hard-fought contest, if Hamilton'sconstitution, had it passed the Great Convention, would not haveratified with a no more determined opposition. 

Melancthon Smith was one of the brightest and most conspicuous men ofhis time, but his name is forgotten to-day. He was sincere; he was, inhis way, patriotic; he was a clever and eloquent orator. Moreover, hewas generous and manly enough to admit himself beaten, as the sequelwill show. To insure greatness, must the gift of long foreknowledge beadded to brilliant parts and an honest character? If this be theessential, no wonder Melancthon Smith is forgotten. We have himasserting that in a country where a portion of the people live more thantwelve hundred miles from the centre, one body cannot legislate for thewhole. He apprehends the abolition of the State constitutions by aspecies of under-mining, predicts their immediate dwindling intoinsignificance before the comprehensive and dangerous power vested inCongress. He believes that all rich men are vicious and intemperate, andsees nothing but despotism and disaster in the Federal Constitution. 

But, like most of the speakers of that day, he was trenchant andunadorned, so that his speeches are as easy reading as they must havebeen agreeable to hear. It is a curious fact that the best speakers ofto-day resemble our forefathers in this respect of trenchant simplicity. Mediocrity for half a century has ranted on the stump, and givenforeigners a false impression of American oratory. Those who indulge inwhat may be called the open-air metaphor, so intoxicating is ourclimate, may find consolation in this flight of Mr. Gilbert Livingston, who had not their excuse; for the Court-house of Poughkeepsie was hotand crowded. He is declaiming against the senatorial aristocrats lurkingin the proposed Constitution. "What, " he cries, "what will be theirsituation in a Federal town? Hallowed ground! Nothing so unclean asState laws to enter there, surrounded as they will be by an impenetrablewall of adamant and gold, the wealth of the whole country flowing intoit!" "_What_? What WALL?" cried a Federal. "A wall of gold, of adamant, which will flow in from all parts of the continent. " The joyous roar ofour ancestors comes down to us. 

Hamilton's speech, in which he as effectually disposed of every argumentagainst the Senate as Roger Sherman had done in the Great Convention, istoo long to be quoted; but it is as well to give the precise words inwhich he defines the vital difference between republics and democracies. 

 It has been observed by an honourable gentleman [he said] that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position in politics is more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity. When they assembled, the field of debate presented an ungovernable mob, not only incapable of deliberation, but prepared for every enormity. In these assemblies the enemies of the people brought forward their plans of ambition systematically. They were opposed by their enemies of another party; and it became a matter of contingency, whether the people subjected themselves to be led blindly by one tyrant or another. 

Again he says, in reply to Melancthon Smith:--

 It is a harsh doctrine that men grow wicked as they improve and enlighten their minds. Experience has by no means justified us in the supposition that there is more virtue in one class of men than in another. Look through the rich and the poor of this community, the learned and the ignorant--Where does virtue predominate? The difference indeed consists not in the quantity, but kind of vices which are incident to various classes; and here the advantage of character belongs to the wealthy. Their vices are probably more favourable to the prosperity of the State than those of the indigent; and partake less of moral depravity. 

More than once Hamilton left his seat and went up to the belfry tostrain his eyes down the Albany post road or over the Dutchess turnpike, and every afternoon he rode for miles to the east or the south, hopingto meet an express messenger with a letter from Madison, or with thegood tidings that New Hampshire had ratified. Madison wrote every fewdays, sometimes hopefully, sometimes in gloom, especially if he were notfeeling well. Each letter was from ten to twelve days old, and it seemedto Hamilton sometimes that he should burst with impatience and anxiety. On the 24th of June, as he was standing in the belfry while ChancellorLivingston rained his sarcasms, he thought he saw an object movingrapidly down the white ribbon which cut the forest from the East. Infive minutes he was on his horse and the Dutchess turnpike. The objectproved to be the messenger from Rufus King, and the letter whichHamilton opened then and there contained the news of the adoption of theConstitution by New Hampshire. 

There was now a Nation, and nine States would be governed by the newlaws, whether New York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Rhode Islandsulked unprotected in the out-skirts, or gracefully entered the leaguebefore dragged in or driven. It was a glittering and two-edged weaponfor Hamilton, and he flashed it in the faces of the anti-Federalistsuntil they were well-nigh blinded. Nevertheless, he did not for a momentunderrate Clinton's great strength, and he longed desperately for goodnews from Virginia, believing that the entrance of that important Stateinto the Union would have more influence upon the opposition than allthe arts of which he was master. 

VII

And through it all Hamilton was sensible that someone was working forhim, and was not long attributing the influence to its proper source. Mysterious hints were dropped of political reunions in a house on athickly wooded hill, a quarter of a mile behind the Governor's, thefortunate guests to which enchanted abode being sworn to secrecy. Thatit was the nightly resort of Clintonians was an open secret, but thatFederalism was being intelligently interpreted, albeit with deepestsubtlety, was guessed by few of the visitors themselves, and Hamiltondivined rather than heard it. If converts were not actually made, theywere at least undergoing a process of education which would make themthe more susceptible to Hamilton's final effort. Even before he caught aglimpse of radiant hair among the maples, when riding one day along thelane at the foot of the hill, he suspected that Mrs. Croix had precededthe Convention with the deliberate intention of giving him the preciousassistance of a woman with a talent for politics and a genius for men. He was touched, interested, intrigued, but he resisted the temptation toprecipitate himself into the eddies of her magnetism. Croix was inEngland, but even before his departure, which among men was regarded asfinal, she had achieved a reputation as a lady of erratic impulse andimperious habit. That she was also the most brilliant and fascinatingwoman in America, as well as the most beautiful, were facts as publiclyestablished. Hamilton had resisted the temptation to meet her, thetemptation receiving no help from indifference on the part of the lady;he had answered more than one note of admirable deftness. But he had nointention of being drawn into an intrigue which would be public gossipin a day and ruin the happiness of his wife. To expect a man ofHamilton's order of genius to keep faith with one woman for a lifetimewould be as reasonable as to look for such genius without thetranscendent passions which are its furnace; but he was far from being aman who sought adventure. Under certain conditions his horizon abruptlycontracted, and life was dual and isolated; but when the opportunity hadpassed he dismissed its memory with contrite philosophy, and was socharming to Betsey that he persuaded himself, as her, that he wishednever to behold the face of another woman. Nor did he--overwhelmingtemptation being absent: he was the most driven man in the UnitedStates, with no time to run about after women, had such been hisproclivity; and his romantic temperament, having found high satisfactionin his courtship and marriage with one of the most bewitching andnotable girls in America, was smothered under a mountain of work anddomestic bliss. So, although well aware that his will must perish attimes in the blaze of his passions, he was iron against the temptationthat held itself sufficiently aloof. To an extreme point he was masterof himself. He knew that it would be no whirlwind and forgetting withthis mysterious woman, who had set the town talking, and yet whosesocial talents were so remarkable that she managed women as deftly asshe did men, and was a welcome guest in many of the most exclusivehouses in New York; the men were careful to do none of their gossipingat home, and the women, although they criticised, and vowed themselvesscandalized, succumbed to her royal command of homage and her air ofproud invincibility. That she loved him, he had reason to know, andalthough he regarded it as a young woman's romantic passion for a publicman focussing the attention of the country, and whom, from pressure ofaffairs, it was almost impossible to meet, still the passion existed, and, considering her beauty and talents, was too likely to communicateitself to the object, were he rash enough to create the opportunity. Hamilton's morals were the morals of his day, --a day when aristocratswere libertines, receiving as little censure from society as from theirown consciences. His Scotch foundations had religious shoots in theirgrassy crevices, but religion in a great mind like Hamilton's is anemotional incident, one of several passions which act independently ofeach other. He avoided temptation, not because he desired to shun atorment of conscience or an accounting with his Almighty, --to Whom hewas devoted, --but because he was satisfied with the woman he had marriedand would have sacrificed his ambitions rather than deliberately causeher unhappiness. Had she been jealous and eloquent, it is more thanprobable that his haughty intolerance of restraint would have driven himto assert the pleasure of his will, but she was only amused at hisoccasional divagations, and had no thought of looking for meanings whichmight terrify her. He was quite conscious of his good fortune and toowell balanced to risk its loss. So Mrs. Croix might be driven to resther hopes on a trick of chance or a _coup de théâtre_. But she was avery clever woman; and she was not unlike Hamilton in a quite phenomenalprecocity, and in the torrential nature of her passions. 

Having a considerable knowledge of women and some of Mrs. Croix, heinferred that sooner or later she would cease to conceal the light ofher endeavour. Nevertheless, he was taken aback to receive one day aparcel, which, in the seclusion of his room, he found to contain adainty scented handkerchief, the counterpart of the one hidden in thetree by the post road. 

"Can she have put it there on purpose?" he thought. "Did she take forgranted that I would pause to admire the scenery, and that I wouldrecognize the perfume of her violets? Gad! she's deeper than I thoughtif that be true. The wider the berth, the better!"

He gave no sign, and, as he had expected, a note arrived in due course. It ran:--

 THE MAPLES, 8th July--4 in the morning. 

 DEAR SIR: I fear I am a woman of little purpose, for I intended to flit here like a swallow and as noiselessly flit again, accomplishing a political trifle for you meanwhile, of which you never should be the wiser. But alas! I am tormented by the idea that you never _will_ know, that in this great crisis of your career, you think me indifferent when I understand so well your terrible anxieties, your need for stupendous exertion, and all that this convention means to this great country and to yourself; and heart and soul and brain, at the risk of my popularity, --that I love, sir, --and of a social position grudgingly acquired me, but which I demand by right of an inheritance of which the world knows less than of my elevation by Colonel Croix, --at the risk of all, I am here and working for you. Perhaps I love power. Perhaps this country with its strange unimaginable future. Perhaps I merely love politics, which you have glorified--perhaps--well, when we do meet, sir, you will avoid me no longer. Do you find me lacking in pride? Reflect how another woman would have pursued you with love-letters, persecuted you. I have exercised a restraint that has left its mark, not only out of pride for myself, but out of a deep understanding of your multitude of anxieties and interests; nor should I dare to think of you at all were I not so sure of my power to help you--now and always. Think, sir, of what such a partnership--of which the world should never be cognizant--would mean. I purpose to have a _salon_, and it shall be largely composed of your enemies. Not a secret but that shall yield to me, not a conspiracy but that you shall be able to forestall in time. I believe that I was born devoted to your interests. Heart and soul I shall be devoted to them as long as I live, and whether I am permitted to know you or not. I could ruin you if I chose. I feel that I have the power within me even for that. But God forbid! I should have gone mad first. But ask yourself, sir, if I could not be of vital assistance to your career, did we work in common. And ask yourself other things--and truthfully. E. C. C

 P. S. In a meeting held here last night the two generals poured vials of their own molten iron into the veins of the rank and file, belted them together in a solid bunch, vowed that you were a dealer in the black arts and reducing them to knaves and fools. Their words sank, no doubt of that. But I uprooted them, and blew them away. For I professed to be seized with an uncontrollable fit of laughter at the nonsense of forty-seven men--_the flower of the State_--terrified of a bare third, and of a man but just in his thirties. I rapidly recounted your failures in your first Congress, dwelling on them, harping on them; and then I stood up like a Chorus, and proclaimed the victories of C's career. C, who had scowled when I went off into hysterics, almost knelt over my hand at parting; and the rest departed secure in your fancied destiny, their waxen brains ready for your clever fingers. At least you will acknowledge the receipt of this, sir? Conceive my anxiety till I know it has not fallen into the wrong hands!

A messenger brought the note directly after breakfast, and Hamiltonhastily retreated with it to the privacy of his room. His horse awaitedhim, but he read the epistle no less than four times. Once he moveduneasily, and once he put his hand to his neck as if he felt a silkenhalter. He smiled, but his face flushed deeply. Her bait, her veiledthreat, affected him little. But all that was unsaid pulled him like apowerful magnet. He struggled for fully twenty minutes with thetemptation to ride to that paradise on the hill as fast as his horsewould carry him. But although he usually got into mischief when absentfrom Betsey, contradictorily he was fonder of his wife when she wasremote; moreover, her helplessness appealed to him, and he rejected theidea of deliberate disloyalty, even while his pulses hammered and thespirit of romance within him moved turbulently in its long sleep. Heglanced out of the window. Beyond the tree-tops gleamed the river; abovewere the hills, with their woods and grassy intervals. It was anexquisite country, green and primeval; a moderate summer, the air warmbut electric. The nights were magnificent. Hamilton dreamed for a time, then burned the letter in a fit of angry impatience. 

"I have nothing better to do!" he thought. "Good God!"

An answer was imperative. He took a long ride first, however, thenscrawled a few hasty lines, as if he had found just a moment in which toread her letter, but thanking her warmly for her interest andinformation; ending with a somewhat conscience-stricken hope for theinstructive delight of her personal acquaintance when he should find theleisure to be alive once more. So rested the matter for a time. 

VIII

That afternoon the very memory of Eliza Croix fled before a mountedmessenger, who came tearing into town with word of Virginia'sratification, of the great excitement in the cities of Richmond, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York, the processions in honour of thisimportant conquest. There were tales also of fray and bloodshed, inwhich the Federals had retained the field; but, on the whole, thecountry seemed wild with delight. 

But although this news did not produce the visible effect upon theopposition for which Hamilton had hoped, the anti-Federalist leaderswere as fearful of hurrying the matter to the final vote as theConstitutionalists. Clinton stood like a rock, but he feared defectionsat the last moment, was conscious that his dominance over the minds ofthe men who had come to the Convention believing implicitly in hisdoctrine that union was unnecessary, concurring in his abhorrence of thenew Constitution, was snapping daily, as Hamilton's arguments and acutelogic fermented in their clarifying brains. Many began to avoid theirchief. They talked in knots by themselves. They walked the forest roadsalone for hours, deep in thought. It was evident that Hamilton hadliberated their understandings from one autocrat, whether he had broughtthem under his own despotic will or not. 

There was no speaking, and little or no business for several days. A fewmore amendments would be suggested, then an adjournment. It was like thelull of the hurricane, when nervous people sit in the very centre of thestorm, awaiting the terrors of its final assault. 

Hamilton had much leisure for several days, but he was too deeplyanxious to give more than a passing thought to Mrs. Croix, although hewas grateful for the help he knew she was rendering him. "If we wereTurks, " he thought once, "she would be an invaluable member of a harem. She never could fill my domestic needs, which are capacious; mostcertainly I should never, at any time, have chosen her for the mother ofmy children; but as an intellectual and political partner, as aconfidante and counsellor, she would appeal to me very keenly. I talk toBetsey, dear child, because I must talk, because I have an egotisticalcraving for response, but I must bore her very often, and I am notconscious of ever having received a suggestion from her--however, Godknows I am grateful for her sympathy. As the children grow older I shallhave less and less of her; already I appreciate the difference. She willalways have the core of my soul and the fealty of my heart, but it israther a pity that man should be given so many sides with theircorresponding demands, if no one woman is to be found able to respond toall. As for this remarkable creature, I could imagine myself in a stateof mad infatuation, and seeking her constantly for the delight of mentalcompanionship besides; but the highest and best, if I have them--oh, no!Perhaps the Turks are wiser than we, after all, for their wives sufferonly from jealousy, while--most men being Turks on one plan oranother--the women of the more advanced races suffer from humiliation, and are wounded in their deepest sentiments. All of which goes to prove, that the longer I delay a meeting with this high-priestess the better. "

In a day or two he was hard at work again fighting the last desperatebattle. The oppositionists had brought forward a new form of conditionalratification, with a bill of rights prefixed, and amendments subjoined. This, it would seem, was their proudest achievement, and, in a long andadroit speech, Melancthon Smith announced it as their final decision. That was at midday. Hamilton rose at once, and in one of the mostbrilliant and comprehensive speeches he had yet made, demonstrated theabsurdity of conditional ratification, or the power of Congress toindorse it. It was a close, legal, and constitutional argument, and withthe retorts of the anti-Federalists occupied two days, during whichHamilton stood most of the time, alert, resourceful, master of everypoint of the vast subject, to which he gave an almost embarrassingsimplicity. On the third day occurred his first signal triumph and theconfounding of Clinton: Melancthon Smith stood up and admitted thatHamilton had convinced him of the impossibility of conditionalratification. Lansing immediately offered as a substitute for the motionwithdrawn, another, by which the State ratify but reserve to itself theright to secede after a certain number of years, unless the amendmentsproposed should previously be submitted to a general convention. 

Adjournment followed, and Hamilton and his leaders held a longconsultation at the Livingston mansion, as a result of which he wrotethat night to Madison, now in New York, asking his advice as to the sortof ratification proposed by the enemy. It was a course he by no meansapproved, but it seemed the less of two evils; for if, by hook or crook, the Constitution could be forced through, the good government whichwould ensue was bound to break up the party of the opposition. He had atrump, but he hesitated to resort to a coercion so high-handed andarbitrary. His supposed monarchical aspirations were hurled at himdaily, and he must proceed with the utmost caution, lest his futureusefulness be impaired at the outset. 

Madison replied at once that such a proposition could not be considered, for only unconditional ratification was constitutional; but before hisletter arrived Hamilton and Smith had had another hot debate, at the endof which the anti-Federalist leader declared himself wholly beaten, andannounced his intention to vote for the unconditional acceptance of theConstitution. 

But although there was consternation in the ranks of theanti-Federalists at this momentous defection, Clinton stood like an oldlion at bay, with his other leaders behind him, his wavering ranks stillcoherent under his practised manipulation. For several days more thebattle raged, and on the night before what promised to be the day of thefinal vote, Hamilton received a note from Mrs. Croix. 

 July 24. 

 DEAR SIR: The case is more desperate than you think. The weakening caused by the defection of the great Lieutenant has been counteracted in large measure by the General. His personal influence is enormous, his future like yours is at stake; he is desperate. It all rests with you. Make your great and final effort to-morrow. It is a wonderful responsibility, sir--the whole future of this country dependent upon what flows from your brain a few hours hence, but as you have won other great victories by efforts almost unprecedented, so you will win this. I am not so presumptuous as to write this to inspire you, merely to assure you of a gravity, which, after so long and energetic a contest, you might be disposed to underrate. 

Hamilton was very grateful for this note, and answered it more warmlythan had been his habit. His friends were deep in gloomyprognostications, for it was impossible to delay twenty-four hourslonger. He had made converts, but not enough to secure a majority; andhis followers did not conceive that even he could put forth an effortmore convincing or more splendid than many of his previous achievements. In consequence, his susceptible nature had experienced a chill, for hewas Gallic enough to compass greater things under the stimulus ofencouragement and prospective success; but this unquestioning belief inhim by a woman for whose mind he was beginning to experience a profoundadmiration, sent his quicksilver up to a point where he felt capable ofall things. She had scored one point for herself. He felt that it wouldbe unpardonable longer to accept such favours as she showered upon himunsought, and make no acknowledgment beyond a civil note: he expressedhis desire to call upon her when they were both in New York once more. "But not here in Arcadia!" he thought. "I'll call formally at herlodgings and take Troup or Morris with me. Morris will doubtless abducther, and that will be the end of it. "

IX

On the following day every shop was closed in Poughkeepsie. The men, even many of the women, stood for hours in the streets, talking little, their eyes seldom wandering from the Court-house, many of them crowdingclose to the walls, that they might catch a ringing phrase now andagain. By this time they all knew Hamilton's voice, and they confessedto a preference for his lucid precision. In front of the Court-house, under a tree, an express messenger sat beside his horse, saddled for awild dash to New York with the tidings. The excitement seemed the moreintense for the heat of the day, which half suppressed it, and alllonged for the snap of the tension. 

Within the upper room of the Court-house the very air vibrated. Clinton, who always grunted at intervals, and blew his nose stentoriously whenfervescent, was unusually aggressive. Beyond the bar men and womenstood; there was no room for chairs, nor for half that desiredadmittance. In the very front stood the only woman whose superb physiquecarried her through that trying day without smelling-salts or a friendlyshoulder. She was a woman with the eyes of an angel, disdainful of men, the mouth of insatiety, the hair and skin of a Lorelei, and a patricianprofile. Her figure was long, slender, and voluptuous. Every man withinthe bar offered her his chair, but she refused to sit while other womenstood; and few were the regrets at the more ample display of herloveliness. 

Hamilton and Lansing debated with a lively exchange of acrimonious wit. Smith spoke in behalf of the Constitution. Then Hamilton rose for whatall felt was to be a grand final effort, and even his friendsexperienced an almost intolerable excitement. On the other side mentrembled visibly with apprehension, not so much in fear of the result asof the assault upon their nervous systems. They hardly could have feltworse if on their way to execution, but not a man left his seat; thefascination was too strong to induce even a desire to avoid it. 

Hamilton began dispassionately enough. He went over the wholeConstitution rapidly, yet in so emphatic a manner as to accomplish theintelligent subservience of his audience. Then, with the unexaggeratedeloquence of which he was so consummate a master, he pictured thebeauty, the happiness, the wealth of the United States under the newConstitution; of the peace and prosperity of half a million homes; ofthe uninterrupted industry of her great cities, their ramifications tocountless hamlets; of the good-will and honour of Europe; of a vastinternational trade; of a restored credit at home and abroad, whichshould lift the heavy clouds from the future of every ambitious man inthe Republic; of a peace between the States which would tend to theelevation of the American character, as the bitter, petty, warring, andperpetual jealousies had incontestably lowered it; of, for the beginningof their experiment, at least eight years of harmony under GeorgeWashington. 

He spoke for two hours in the glowing terms of a prophecy and anoptimism so alluring, that load after load seemed to roll from theburdened minds opposite, although Clinton snorted as if about to thrustdown his head and paw the earth. When Hamilton had made his hearersthoroughly drunk with dreams of an ecstatic future, he advanced uponthem suddenly, and, without a word of warning transition, poured uponthem so terrible a picture of the consequences of their refusal to enterthe Union, that for the first few moments they were ready to leap uponhim and wrench him apart. The assault was terrific, and he plunged onremorselessly. He sketched the miseries of the past eleven years, thepoverty, the dangers, the dishonour, and then by the most precise andlogical deduction presented a future which, by the commonest natural andsocial laws, must, without the protection of a high and central power, be the hideous finish. The twilight came; the evening breeze wasrustling through the trees and across the sultry room. As Hamilton hadcalculated, the moment came when he had his grip on the very roots ofthe enemy's nerves. Chests were rising, handkerchiefs appearing. Womenfainted. Clinton blew his nose with such terrific force that themessenger below scrambled to his feet. Hamilton waited during abreathless moment, then charged down upon them. 

"Now listen, gentlemen, " he said. "No one so much as I wishes that thisConstitution be ratified to the honour of the State of New York; butupon this I have determined: that the enlightened and patriotic minorityshall not suffer for the selfishness and obstinacy of the majority. Itherefore announce to you plainly, gentlemen, that if you do not ratifythis Constitution, with no further talk of impossible amendments andconditions, that Manhattan Island, Westchester, and Kings counties shallsecede from the State of New York and form a State by themselves, leaving the rest of your State without a seaport, too contemptible tomake treaties, with only a small and possibly rebellious militia toprotect her northern boundaries from the certain rapacity of GreatBritain, with the scorn and dislike of the Union, and with no hope ofassistance from the Federal Government, which is assured, remember, nomatter what her straits. That is all. "

It was enough. He had won the day. The Constitution was ratified withoutfurther parley. 

X

Hamilton reëntered New York to the blaze of bonfires, the salute ofcannon, and the deafening shouts of a multitude that escorted him to hisdoorway. Betsey was so proud of him she hardly could speak for a day, and his library was flooded with letters of congratulation from allparts of the Union. For several days he shut himself up with his familyand a few friends, for he needed the rest; and the relaxation wasparadisal. He played marbles and spun tops with his oldest boys, anddressed and undressed Angelica's doll as often as his imperious daughtercommanded. Troup and Fish, now the dignified Adjutant-General of State, with his bang grown long and his hair brushed back, spent hours with himin the heavy shades of the garden, or tormenting a monkey on the otherside of the fence. Madison came at once to wrangle with him over thetemporary seat of government, and demanded the spare bedroom, protestinghe had too much to say to waste time travelling back and forth. He was awelcome guest; and he, too, sat on the floor and dressed Angelica'sdoll. 

The city was _en fête_, and little business was transacted except at thepublic houses. Bands of citizens awoke Hamilton from his sleep, shoutingfor "Alexander the Great. " Anti-Federalists got so drunk that theyembraced the Federalists, and sang on Hamilton's doorstep. The heroretreated to the back room on the top floor. The climax came on the 5thof August, in the great procession, with which, after the fashion ofother triumphant cities, New York was to demonstrate in honour of thevictory of the Constitution. 

But, unlike its predecessors, this procession was as much in honour ofone man as of the triumph of a great principle. To have persuaded NewYork, at that time, that Hamilton had not written the Constitution, andsecured its ratification in the eleven States of the Union by hisunaided efforts, would have been a dissipation of energy in August whicheven Clinton would not have attempted. To them Hamilton was theConstitution, Federalism, the genius of the new United States. And hewas their very own. "Virginia has her Madison, " they reiterated, "Massachusetts her Adamses--and may she keep them and be damned; otherStates may think they have produced a giant, and those that do not canfall back on Washington; but Hamilton is ours, we adore him, we are soproud of him we are like to burst, and we can never express ourgratitude, try as we may; so we'll show him an honour that no otherState has thought of showing to any particular man. "

And of the sixth of New York's thirty thousand inhabitants that turnedout on that blazing August day and marched for hours, that all theeager city might see, at least two-thirds bore a banner emblazoned withHamilton's portrait or name, held on high. The procession wasaccompanied by a military escort; and every profession, every trade, wasrepresented. A large proportion of the men who marched were gentlemen. Nicolas Fish was on the staff of the grand marshal, with six of hisfriends. Robert Troup and two other prominent lawyers bore, on acushion, the new Constitution, magnificently engrossed. Nicolas Cruger, Hamilton's old employer, again a resident of New York, led the farmers, driving a plough drawn by three yoke of oxen. Baron Polnitz displayedthe wonders of the newly perfected threshing-machine. John Watts, a manwho had grown gray in the highest offices of New York, before and sincethe Revolution, guided a harrow, drawn by horses and oxen. Thepresident, regents, professors, and students of Columbia College, all inacademic dress, were followed by the Chamber of Commerce and the membersof the bar. The many societies, led by the Cincinnati, followed, eachbearing an appropriate banner. 

And in the very centre of that pageant, gorgeous in colour and costume, from the green of the foresters to the white of the florists, was thegreat Federal ship, with HAMILTON, HAMILTON, HAMILTON, HAMILTON, emblazoned on every side of it. In the memory of the youngest presentthere was to be but one other procession in New York so imposing, andthat, too, was in honour of Hamilton. 

He stood on a balcony in the Broadway, with his family, Madison, BaronSteuben, and the Schuylers, bowing constantly to the salutes and cheers. Nicolas Cruger looked up and grinned. Fish winked decorously, and Troupattempted a salaam, and nearly dropped the Constitution. But Hamilton'smind served him a trick for a moment; the vivid procession, with hisface and name fluttering above five thousand heads, the compact mass ofspectators, proud and humble, that crowded the pavements and waved theirhandkerchiefs toward him, the patriotically decorated windows filledwith eager, often beautiful, faces, disappeared, and he stood in frontof Cruger's store on Bay Street, with his hands in his linen pockets, gazing out over a blinding glare of water, passionately wishing for thewar-ship which never came, to deliver him from his Island prison andcarry him to the gates of the real world beyond. He had been anambitious boy, but nothing in his imaginings had projected him to thedizzy eminence on which he stood to-day. He was recalled by the saluteof the Federal ship's thirteen guns to the president of the Congress andits members, who stood on the fort in the Battery. 

After all, perhaps it was the proudest and the happiest day of hiscareer, for the depths in his nature still slumbered, the triumph waswithout alloy; and he knew that there were other heights to scale, andthat he should scale them. It was the magnificent and spontaneoustribute of an intelligent people to an enlightened patriotism, to yearsof severe and unselfish thought; and hardly an enemy grudged him hisdeserts. The wild feeling of exultant triumph which surged behind hissmiling face receded before the rising swell of the profoundestgratitude he had ever known. 

The day finished with a great banquet at Mr. Bayard's country-seat, nearGrand Street, where tables were spread for six thousand persons, in apavilion surmounted by an image of Fame, and decorated with the coloursof the nations that had formed treaties with the United States. Later, there was a grand display of fireworks. 

XI

On the following day Hamilton went to Albany to march at the head of aFederal procession with General Schuyler, then returned to"Hamiltonopolis" and such legal work as he was permitted to accomplish;for not only were leaders consulting him on every possible question fromthe coming elections to the proper seat for the new government, and hisduties as a member of Congress pressing, but Edward Stevens, nowestablished as a doctor in Philadelphia, paid him a visit of a week, andthey talked the night through of St. Croix and old times. One of thepleasantest results of these years of supremacy was the unqualifieddelight of his Island friends. Hugh Knox was so proud of him, and ofhimself and the debt which Hamilton acknowledged, that he wroteexplosive reams describing the breathless interest of St. Croix in hiscareer, and of the distinguished gatherings at the Governor's when hearrived with one of their lost citizen's infrequent epistles. Mrs. Mitchell, poor soul, wrote pathetically that she would no longer regrethis loss could she love him less. Hamilton wrote to her as often as hecould find the time, and Betsey selected a present for her several timesa year. Gratitude is the privilege of a great soul, and Hamilton had afull measure of it. Even his father and brother wrote occasionally, respectfully, if with no great warmth; and if their congratulations wereusually accompanied by the experimental sigh of poverty, Hamilton wasglad to respond, for at this period he was making a good deal of money. 

His promised bow to Mrs. Croix he deferred from day to day, pleading tohimself the pressure of work, which was submerging; but while hereproached himself for ingratitude, he knew that he dreaded the meeting:the old spirit of adventure within him, long quiescent, tappedalluringly on the doors of his prudence. That she did not write again, even to congratulate him as other friends had done, but added to hisdiscomfort, for he knew that her pride was now in arms, and that shemust be deeply wounded. He heard of her constantly, and at theprocession in his honour he had seen her, leaning on the arm of GeneralKnox, a dazzling, but angelic vision in blue and white, at which eventhe bakers, wig-makers, foresters, tanners, and printers had turned tostare. One of the latter had leaped down from the moving platform onwhich he was printing a poem of occasion by William Duer, and begged heron his knee to deign to receive a copy. She held weekly receptions, which were attended by two-thirds of the leading men in town, andHamilton's intimate friends discoursed of her constantly. Croix wassupposed to have been seized with a passion for travelling in savagejungles, and it was the general belief that his death would beannounced as soon as the lady should find it convenient to go intomourning. It was plain to the charitable that he had left her withplenty of money, for she dressed like the princess she looked, and herentertainments lacked no material attraction. The gossip was morefurious than ever, but the most assiduous scandal-monger could connectno one man with her name, nor trace her income to other than its reputedsource. More than once Hamilton had passed her coach, and she had bowedgravely, with neither challenge nor reproach in her sweet haughty eyes. After these quick passings Hamilton usually gave her a few moments ofintense thought. He marvelled at her curious intimate knowledge of him, not only of the less known episodes of his career, but of more than oneof his mental processes. It is true, she might have led Troup or Fishinto gossip and analysis, but her sympathy counted heavily. She drew himby many strings, and sometimes the response thrilled him unbearably. Hefelt like a man who stood outside the gates of Paradise, bolting themfast. Still, he could quite forget her in his work; and it is probablethat but for chance he never would have met her, that one of thegreatest disasters in history would have been averted. 

Betsey, who had not been well for some time, went to the northernforests of her old home to strive for "spring" and colour. She took thechildren with her, and Hamilton, who hated to live alone, filled hisdeserted rooms with Troup, Fish, and Baron Steuben, whose claims he hadbeen pressing upon Congress for years, practically supporting himmeanwhile. The old soldier felt keenly the ingratitude of the country hehad served, but in time it made him ample compensation; meanwhile thedevotion of a few friends, and the lionizing of society, helped him tobear his lot with considerable fortitude. He spent hours in the nurseryof the little Hamiltons, and was frequently seen in the Broadway withone in his arms and the other three attached to his person. 

All the talk was of Washington and the first administration, Hamiltonhaving carried his point in Congress that New York should be thetemporary seat of government; there was jealousy and wrangling overthis, as over most other matters involving state pride, but Hamiltonbelieved that should the prize fall to Philadelphia, she would notrelinquish it as lightly as New York, which geographically was the moreunfit for a permanent gathering, and that the inconvenience to whichmost of the members, in those days of difficult travel over a vast area, would be subjected, would force them the sooner to agree upon a centraland commonly agreeable locality, --one, moreover, which would not meetwith the violent opposition of New York. Madison, who had been in favourof Philadelphia, finally acknowledged Hamilton's sagacity and gave himhis influence and vote. 

That point settled, all eyes were turned to Mount Vernon. The massestook for granted that Washington would respond to every call of duty thepublic chose to make, and it was inconceivable that anyone else shouldfill the first term of that great executive experiment. The universalconfidence in Washington and belief that he was to guide theConstitution over the more critical of its shoals, had operated morethan any other factor in the ratification of that adventurousinstrument. It was a point upon which Hamilton had harped continually. That a whole country should turn, as a matter of course, to a man whomthey revered for his virtues rather than for any brilliant parts he mayhave effectually hidden within his cold and silent exterior, theirharmonious choice unbroken by an argument against the safety and dignityof the country in the hands of such a man, certainly is a manifest ofthe same elevation of tone that we infer from the great popularity ofthe writings of Hamilton and the deference to such men as Jay and PhilipSchuyler. But although they had all the faults of human nature, ourforefathers, and were often selfish and jealous to a degree thatimperilled the country, at least they had the excuse, not only of beingmere mortals, but of living in an era of such changes, uncertainty, anddoubt, that public and private interests seemed hopelessly tangled. They were not debased by political corruption until Jefferson took themin hand, and sowed the bountiful crop which has fattened so vast and socurious a variation upon the original American. 

The Federal leaders by no means shared the confidence of the people inWashington's response to their call, and they were deeply uneasy. Theyknew that he had been bombarded with letters for a year, urging upon himthe acceptance of the great office which would surely be offered him, and that he had replied cautiously to each that he could not share theiropinion of his indispensability, that he had earned the repose he lovedafter a lifetime spent in the service of his country, and had no desireto return to public life. Hamilton, at least, knew the motive that laybehind his evasion; without ambition, he was very jealous of his fame. That fame now was not only one of the most resplendent in history, butas unassailable as it was isolated. He feared the untried field in whichhe might fail. 

One evening, late in September, as Hamilton and his temporary householdwere entering the dining room, Gouverneur Morris drove down Wall Streetin his usual reckless fashion, scattering dogs and children, and pullinghis nervous sweating horses almost to their haunches, as he reachedHamilton's door. As he entered the house, however, and received theenthusiastic welcome to which he was accustomed, his bearing was asunruffled as if he had walked down from Morrisania reading a breviary. 

"I grow desperately lonely and bored out on my ancestral domain, andlong for the glare and glitter, the intrigues and women, of Europe--oureducated ones are so virtuous, and the others write such shockinglyungrammatical notes, " he announced, as he took his seat at the board. "Educated virtue is beneficial for the country, but we will all admitthat politics are our only excitement, and my blood dances when I thinkof Europe. However, I did not come tearing through the woods on a hotnight to lament the virtue of the American woman. I've written toWashington, and he won't listen to me. We all know how many others havewritten, including Lafayette, I hear. And we all know what theconsequences will be if--say John or Sam Adams, Hancock, or Clintonshould be our first president. I long for Paris, but I cannot leave thecountry while she is threatened with as grave a peril as any that hasbeset her. Would that he had a grain of ambition--of anything that aperformer upon the various chords of human nature could impress. Isuppose if he were not so desperately perfect, we should not be in thequandary we are, but he would be far easier to manage. As I awoke frommy siesta just two hours ago, my brain was illuminated by the idea thatone man alone could persuade him; and that was Alexander Hamilton. Helikes us, but he loves you. If he has a weak spot, it has yearned overyou since you were our infant prodigy in uniform, with your curls inyour eyes. You must take him in hand. "

"I have mentioned it to him, when writing of other things. "

"He is only too glad of the excuse to evade a mere mention. You mustwrite to him as peremptorily as only you dare to write to that majesticpresence. Don't mince it. Don't be too respectful--I was, because he isthe one being I am afraid of. So are all the others. Besides, you havethe most powerful and pointed pen in this country. We have spoiled youuntil you are afraid of no one--if you ever were. And you know him as noone else does; you will approach him from precisely the right sides. Your duty is clear, and the danger is appalling. Besides, I want to goto Europe. Promise me that you will write to-night. "

"Very well, " said Hamilton, laughing. "I promise. " And, in truth, hismind had opened at once to the certainty that the time was come for himto make the final effort to insure Washington's acceptance. He had felt, during the last weeks, as if burrowing in the very heart of a mountainof work; but his skin chilled as he contemplated the opening of the newgovernment without Washington in the presidential Chair. 

Two hours after dinner Morris escorted him to the library and shut himin, then went, with his other friends, to Fraunces' tavern, and thehouse was quiet. Hamilton's thoughts arranged themselves rapidly, andbefore midnight he had finished his letter. Fortunately it has beenpreserved, for it is of as vital an interest as anything he ever wrote, not only because it was the determining factor in Washington'sacceptance of an office toward which he looked with reluctance anddread, but because of its consummate sagacity and of its peremptorytone, which no man but Hamilton would have dared to assume toWashington. 

It ran:--

 NEW YORK, September, 1788. 

 . .. I should be deeply pained, my dear sir, if your scruples in regard to a certain station should be matured into a resolution to decline it; though I am neither surprised at their existence, nor can I but agree in opinion, that the caution you observe in deferring an ultimate determination, is prudent. I have, however, reflected maturely on the subject, and have come to a conclusion (in which I feel no hesitation), that every public and personal consideration will demand from you an acquiescence in what will _certainly_ be the unanimous wish of your country. The absolute retreat which you meditated at the close of the late war was natural, and proper. Had the Government produced by the Revolution gone on in a _tolerable_ train, it would have been most advisable to have persisted in that retreat. But I am clearly of opinion that the crisis which brought you again into public view, left you no alternative but to comply; and I am equally clear in the opinion, that you are by that act _pledged_ to take a part in the execution of the Government. I am not less convinced, that the impression of this necessity of your filling the station in question is so universal, that you run no risk of any uncandid imputation by submitting to it. But even if this were not the case, a regard to your own reputation, as well as to the public good, calls upon you in the strongest manner, to run that risk. 

 It cannot be considered as a compliment to say, that on your acceptance of the office of President, the success of the new Government, in its commencement, may materially depend. Your agency and influence will be not less important in preserving it from the future attacks of its enemies, than they have been in recommending it, in the first instance, to the adoption of the people. Independent of all considerations drawn from this source, the point of light in which you stand at home and abroad will make an infinite difference in the respectability with which the Government will begin its operations, in the alternative of your being or not being at the head of it. I forbear to urge considerations which might have a more personal application. What I have said will suffice for the inferences I mean to draw. 

 First. In a matter so essential to the well being of society, as the prosperity of a newly instituted government, a citizen, of so much consequence as yourself to its success, has no option but to lend his services if called for. Permit me to say it would be inglorious, in such a situation, not to hazard the glory, however great, which he might have previously acquired. 

 Secondly. Your signature to the proposed system pledges your judgement for its being such an one as, upon the whole, was worthy of the public approbation. If it should miscarry (as men commonly decide from success, or the want of it), the blame will, in all probability, be laid on the system itself; and the framers of it will have to encounter the disrepute of having brought about a revolution in government, without substituting anything that was worthy of the effort. They pulled down one Utopia, it will be said, to build up another. This view of the subject, if I mistake not, my dear sir, will suggest to your mind greater hazard to that fame, which must be and ought to be dear to you, in refusing your future aid to the system, than in affording it. I will only add, that in my estimate of the matter, that aid is indispensable. 

 I have taken the liberty to express these sentiments, and to lay before you my view of the subject. I doubt not the considerations mentioned have fully occurred to you, and I trust they will finally produce in your mind the same result which exists in mine. I flatter myself the frankness with which I have delivered myself will not be displeasing to you. It has been prompted by motives which you could not disapprove. I remain, my dear sir, With the sincerest respect and regard, Your obedient and humble servant, A. HAMILTON. 

XII

Hamilton folded and sealed the letter, then determined to take it to thepost-office himself. The night was hot and his head was throbbing: hehad worked, dined, wined, talked, and written, since eight in themorning, with no interval for fresh air or exercise. He was not tired, but very nervous, and after he had disposed of his letter, he set offfor a stroll along the river front, and walked for two miles up thequiet road on the east side, listening to the lap of the water, andpausing to watch the superb effect of the moonlight on the brightripples and on the wooded heights of Long Island. The little village ofBrooklyn twinkled here and there for a time, then lay like a sombreshadow in the silences of her forest. As he returned, there was not alight anywhere, except now and again at a masthead, for it was verylate. The clock in Trinity steeple struck one as he reëntered the town. He moved through the narrow dark and crooked streets with a laggingstep, although he had walked briskly for the past hour. There seemed tobe no sleep in him, and the idea of his quiet room was an irritation. 

"That woman is on my nerves, " he thought. "I've written a letterto-night that may bridge this country over another crisis, and I shouldbe sleeping the sleep of the self-sufficient statesman, or at leastexcogitating upon weighty matters; and for the last hour I've given nothought to anything but an unknown woman, who has electrified myimagination and my passions. Is there, perhaps, more safety in meetingher and laying the ghost? Imagination plays us such damnable tricks. Shemay have a raucous voice, or too sharp a wit; or she may love another bythis. I'll ask Nick to take me there to-morrow. "

The drawing-room windows of the dwellings were but a few feet above theground, and many of them abutted on the pavement. The narrow street wasalmost dark, in spite of the moonlight, but Hamilton saw that some onesat at a lower window but a few feet ahead of him. It was a woman, forher arm hung over the sill There was nothing to arrest his attention inthe circumstance, beyond the vague beauty of the arm and hand, for onthese dog nights many sat at their windows until the chill of earlymorning; but he suddenly remembered that he was in Pearl Street. For amoment he meditated retreat; with no enthusiasm, however. He shruggedhis shoulders and walked on, but his breath was short. As he approachedhe could see that she was watching him, although her face was almostinvisible. He paused beneath the window, half in defiance, his eyesstriving to pierce the heavy shade of the room. The hand closed abruptlyabout the lower part of his face. It trembled, but there was as muchdetermination as warmth in the finger tips; and he seemed to have beentransported suddenly to a field of violets. 

XIII

"Nick, " said Hamilton, a few evenings later as they were peelingwalnuts, "This is the night on which Mrs. Croix receives, is it not? Doyou attend? I will go with you. The lady has kindly been at pains to letme know that I shall not be unwelcome. "

Troup pushed back his plate abruptly, and Baron Steuben burst into apanegyric. Fish replied that he had not intended to go, but shouldchange his mind for the sake of the sensation he must create with such alion in tow. He left the table shortly after, to dress, followed bySteuben, who announced his intention to make one of the party. The hostand Troup were left alone. 

"What is the matter?" asked Hamilton, smiling. "I see you disapprove ofsomething. Surely you have not lost your heart--"

"Nonsense, " exclaimed Troup, roughly, "but I have always hoped you wouldnever meet her. "

"_Have_ you?"

"If you want to know the truth she has pumped me dry about you. She didit so adroitly that it was some time before I discovered what she was upto. At first I wondered if she were a spy, and I changed my first mindto avoid her, determined to get to the bottom of her motives. I soonmade up my mind that she was in love with you, and then I began totremble, for she is not only a very witch of fascination, but she hasabout forty times more power of loving, or whatever she chooses to callit, than most women, and every mental attraction and fastidiousrefinement, besides. There is not a good woman in the country that couldhold her own against her. I have no wish to slander her, and have neverdiscussed her before; but my instincts are strong enough to teach methat a woman whose whole exterior being is a promise, will be driven bythe springs of that promise to redeem her pledges. And the talk of youbanishes all that regal calm from her face and lets the rest loose. Isuppose I am a fool to tell you this, but I've been haunted by the ideafrom the first that if you know this woman, disaster will come of it. Ido not mean any old woman's presentiment, but from what I know of hernature and yours. You do astonishingly few erratic things for a genius, but in certain conditions you are unbridled, and my only hope has beenthat the lightning in you would strike at random without doing muchharm--to you, at all events. But this volcano has a brain in it, andgreat force of character. She will either consume you, ruining yourcareer, or if you attempt to leave her she will find some way to ruinyou still. God knows I'm no moralist, but I am jealous for your geniusand your future. This has been a long speech. I hope you'll forgive it. "

Hamilton had turned pale, and he hacked at the mahogany with the pointof his knife. He made no attempt to laugh off Troup's attack, Troupwatched him until he turned pale himself. "You have met her, " he saidabruptly. 

Hamilton rose and pushed back his chair. "I promise you one thing, " hesaid: "that if I happen to lose my nethermost to Mrs. Croix, the worldshall never be the wiser. That I explicitly promise you. I dislikeextremely the position in which I put the lady by these words, but youwill admit that they mean nothing, that I am but striving to allay yourfears--which I know to be genuine. She will probably flout me. I shallprobably detest her conversation. But should the contrary happen, shouldshe be what you suspect, and should a part of my nature which has neverbeen completely accommodated, annihilate a resistance of many months, atleast you have my assurance that worse shall not happen. "

Troup groaned. "You have so many sides to satisfy! Would that you couldhave your truly phenomenal versatility of mind with a sweet simplicityof character. But we are not in the millennium. And as you have not thecustomary failings of genius, --ingratitude, morbidity, a disposition toprevaricate, a lack of common-sense, selfishness, andirresponsibility, --it is easy for us to forgive you the one inevitableweakness. Come to me if you get into trouble. She'd have no mercy at myhands. I'd wring her neck. "

Many people were at their country-seats, but politics kept a number ofmen in town, and for this political and wholly masculine _salon_ of Mrs. Croix, Gouverneur Morris drove down from Morrisania, Robert Livingstonfrom Clermont; Governor Clinton had made it convenient to remain a daylonger in New York. Dr. Franklin had been a guest of my lady for thepast two days. They were all, with the exception of Clinton, in thedrawing-room, when Hamilton, Steuben and Fish arrived; and several ofthe Crugers, Colonel Duer, General Knox, Mayor Duane, Melancthon Smith, Mr. Watts, Yates, Lansing, and a half-dozen lesser lights. Mrs. Croixsat in the middle of the room, and her chair being somewhat higher andmore elaborate than its companions, suggested a throne: Madame de Staëlset the fashion in many affectations which were not long travelling toAmerica. In the house, Mrs. Croix discarded the hoopskirt, and theclassic folds of her soft muslin gown revealed a figure as superb incontour as it was majestic in carriage. Her glittering hair was in atower, and the long oval of her face gave to this monstrous head-dressan air of proportion. Her brows and lashes were black, her eyes thedeepest violet that ever man had sung, childlike when widely opened, butinfinitely various with a drooping lash. The nose was small andaquiline, fine and firm, the nostril thin and haughty. The curves of hermouth included a short upper lip, a full under one, and a bend at thecorners. There was a deep cleft in the chin. Technically her hair wasauburn; when the sun flooded it her admirers vowed they counted twentyshades of red, yellow, sorrel, russet, and gold. Even under the softrays of the candles it was crisp with light and colour. The dazzlingskin and soft contours hid a jaw that denoted both strength andappetite, and her sweet gracious manner gave little indication of herimperious will, independent mind, and arrogant intellect. She looked tobe twenty-eight, but was reputed to have been born in 1769. For women soendowed years have little meaning. They are born with what millions oftheir sex never acquire, a few with the aid of time and experience only. Nature had fondly and diabolically equipped her to conquer the world, tobe one of its successes; and so she was to the last of her ninety-sixyears. Her subsequent career was as brilliant in Europe as it had been, and was to be again, in America. In Paris, Lafayette was her sponsor, and she counted princes, cardinals, and nobles among her conquests, anddied in the abundance of wealth and honours. If her sins found her out, they surprised her in secret only. To the world she gave no sign, andcarried an unbroken spirit and an unbowed head into a vault which looksas if not even the trump of Judgement Day could force its marble doorsto open and its secrets to come forth. But those doors closed behind herseventy-seven years later, when the greatest of her victims had beendust half a century, and many others were long since forgotten. To-night, in her glorious triumphant womanhood she had no thought ofvaults in the cold hillside of Trinity, and when Hamilton entered theroom, she rose and courtesied deeply. Then, as he bent over her hand:"At last! Is it you?" she exclaimed softly. "Has this honour indeed cometo my house? I have waited a lifetime, sir, and I took pains to assureyou long since of a welcome. "

"Do not remind me of those wretched wasted months, " replied Hamilton, gallantly, and Dr. Franklin nodded with approval. "Be sure, madam, thatI shall risk no reproaches in the future. "

She passed him on in the fashion of royalty, and was equally gracious toSteuben and Fish, although she did not courtesy. The company, which hadbeen scattered in groups, the deepest about the throne of the hostess, immediately converged and made Hamilton their common centre. WouldWashington accept? Surely he must know. Would he choose to be addressedas "His Serene Highness, " "His High Mightiness, " or merely as"Excellency"? Would so haughty an aristocrat lend himself agreeably tothe common forms of Republicanism, even if he had refused a crown, andhad been the most jealous guardian of the liberties of the Americanpeople? An aristocrat is an aristocrat, and doubtless he would observeall the rigid formalities of court life. Most of those present heartilyhoped that he would. They, too, were jealous of their liberties, but hadno yearning toward a republican simplicity, which, to their minds, savoured of plebianism. Socially they still were royalists, whatevertheir politics, and many a coat of arms was yet in its frame. 

"Of course Washington will be our first President, " replied Hamilton, who was prepared to go to Mount Vernon, if necessary. "I have had nocommunication from him on the subject, but he would obey the command ofpublic duty if he were on his death-bed. His reluctance is natural, forhis life has been a hard one in the field, and his tastes are those of acountry gentleman, --tastes which he has recently been permitted toindulge to the full for the first time. Moreover, he is so modest thatit is difficult to make him understand that no other man is to bethought of for these first difficult years. When he does, there is nomore question of his acceptance than there was of his assuming thecommand of the army. As for titles they come about as a matter ofcourse, and it is quite positive that Washington, although a Republican, will never become a Democrat. He is a grandee and will continue to livelike one, and the man who presumes to take a liberty with him is lost. "

Mrs. Croix, quite forgotten, leaned back in her chair, a smilesucceeding the puzzled annoyance of her eyes. In this house her wordswere the jewels for which this courtly company scrambled, but Hamiltonhad not been met abroad for weeks, and from him there was alwayssomething to learn; whereas from even the most brilliant of women--sheshrugged her shoulders; and her eyes, as they dwelt on Hamilton, gradually filled with an expression of idolatrous pride. The new delightof self-effacement was one of the keenest she had known. 

The bombardment continued. The Vice-President? Whom should Hamiltonsupport? Adams? Hancock? Was it true that there was a schism in theFederal party that might give the anti-Federalists, with Clinton attheir head, a chance for the Vice-Presidency at least? Who would beWashington's advisers besides himself? Would the President have acabinet? Would Congress sanction it? Whom should he want as confreres, and whom in the Senate to further his plans? Whom did he favour asSenators and Representatives from New York? Could this rage foramendments be stopped? What was to be the fate of the circular letter?Was all danger of a new Constitutional Convention well over? What aboutthe future site of the Capital--would the North get it, or the South?

All these, the raging questions of the day, it took Hamilton the greaterpart of the evening to answer or parry, but he deftly altered his orbituntil he stood beside Mrs. Croix, the company before her shrine. He hadencountered her eyes, but although he knew the supreme surrender ofwomen in the first stages of passion, he also understood the vanitiesand weaknesses of human nature too well not to apprehend a chill of theaffections under too prolonged a mortification. 

Clinton entered at midnight; and after almost bending his gouty knee tothe hostess, whom he had never seen in such softened yet dazzlingbeauty, he measured Hamilton for a moment, then laughed and held out hishand. 

"You are a wonderful fighter, " he said, "and you beat me squarely. We'llmeet in open combat again and again, no doubt of it, and I hope we will, for you rouse all my mettle; but I like you, sir, I like you. I can'thelp it. "

Hamilton, at that time of his life the most placable of men, had shakenhis hand heartily. "And I so esteem and admire you, sir, " he answeredwarmly, "that I would I could convert you, for your doctrines are boundto plunge this country into civil war sooner or later. The Constitutionhas given the States just four times more power than is safe in theirhands; but if we could establish a tradition at this early stage of thecountry's history that it was the duty of the States always to considerthe Union first and themselves as grateful assistants to a hard-workingand paternal central power, we might do much to counteract an evilwhich, if coddled, is bound to result in a trial of strength. "

"That is the first time I ever heard you croak, except in a publicspeech where you had a point to gain, " said Livingston. "Do you meanthat?"

"What of it?" asked Clinton. "Under Mr. Hamilton's constitution--for ifit be not quite so monarchical as the one he wanted, it has been saddledupon the United States through his agency more than through any otherinfluence or group of influences--I say, that under Mr. Hamilton'sconstitution all individualism is lost. We are to be but the componentparts of a great machine which will grind us as it lists. Had weremained thirteen independent and sovereign States, with a tribunal forwhat little common legislation might be necessary, then we might havebuilt up a great and a unique nation; but under what is little betterthan an absolute monarchy all but a small group of men are bound to liveand die nonentities. "

"But think of the excited competition for a place in that group, " saidHamilton, laughing. The disappointed Governor's propositions were notworthy of serious argument. 

"I do not think it is as bad as that, your Excellency, " said Dr. Franklin, mildly. "I should have favoured a somewhat looseConfederation, as you know, but the changes and the development of thiscountry will be so great that there will be plenty of room forindividualism; indeed, it could not be suppressed. And after a carefulstudy of this instrument that you are to live under--my own time is soshort that my only rôle now is that of the prophet--I fail to seeanything of essential danger to the liberties of the American people. Imay say that the essays of "The Federalist" would have reassured me onthis point, had I still doubted. I read them again the other week. Theproof is there, I think, that the Constitution, if rigidly interpretedand lived up to, must prove a beneficent if stern parent to those whodwell under it. "

Clinton shrugged his shoulders. "I would I could share your optimism, "he said. "What a picture have we! The most venerable statesman in thecountry finding some hope for individual liberty in this Constitution;the youngest, an optimist by nature and habit, sanguine by youth andtemperament, trembling for the powers it may confer upon a people toodemocratically inclined. This is true, sir--is it not?"

"Yes, " said Hamilton. "Democracy is a poison, just as Republicanism isthe ideal of all self-respecting men. I would do all I could to vitalizethe one and nullify the other. The spirit of democracy exists already, no doubt of it. If we could suppress it in time, we should also suppressthe aspirations of encouraged plebianism, --a dangerous factor in anyrepublic. It means the mixing of ignoble blood with good, a graduallowering of ideals until a general level of sordidness, individualism inits most selfish and self-seeking form, and political corruption, arethe inevitable results. You, your Excellency, are an autocrat. It is oddthat your principles should coincide so closely with the despotism ofdemocracy. "

"Oh, I can't argue with you!" exclaimed Clinton, impatiently. "No onecan. That is the reason you beat us when we clearly were in the right. What says Madam? She is our oracle. " "If she would but bring him underher foot!" he said to Yates. "She is heart and soul with us. I augurwell that he is here at last. "

"It is long since our fairy queen has spoken, " Franklin was saying;gallant to all women, he was prostrate before this one. "Her geniusdirects her to the most hidden kernels. "

"What do you wish?" she asked lightly. "A prophecy? I am no Cassandra. Unlike Dr. Franklin, I am too selfish to care what may happen when I amdead. At this date we are assured of two elements in government:unselfish patriotism and common-sense. There never has been a nobler nora more keenly intelligent group of men in public life than GeneralWashington will be able to command as assistants in forming agovernment. And should our Governor lead his own party to victory, " sheadded, turning to Clinton with so brilliant a smile that it dissipated agathering scowl, "it would be quite the same. The determined struggleof the weaker party for the rights which only supremacy can insure themis often misconstrued as selfishness; and power leads their higherqualities as well as their caution and conservatism to victory. I am aphilosopher. I disapproved the Constitution, and loved the idea ofthirteen little sovereignties; but I bow to the Inevitable and amprepared to love the Constitution. The country has too much toaccomplish, too much to recover from, to waste time arguing what mighthave been; it is sure to settle down into as complacent a philosophy asmy own, and adjust itself to its new and roomy crinoline. "

"Crinoline is the word, " growled Clinton, who accepted her choice ofwords as a subtle thrust at Hamilton. "It is rigid. Wherever you move itwill move with you and bound your horizon. "

"Oh, well, you know, " said Hamilton, who was tired of the conversation, "like a crinoline it can always be broken. "

XIV

Washington was President of the United States. He had come over grandlyfrom the Jersey shore in a magnificent barge manned by twelve oarsmen inwhite uniform, escorted by other barges but a shade less imposing. Aweek later he had taken the oath of office on the new Broad Streetgallery of Federal Hall, amidst the breathless silence of thousands, surrounded by the dignitaries of state and three personal friends, Hamilton, Steuben, and Knox. The anti-Federalists were crushed, nolonger of dignity as a party, although with ample resources forobstruction and annoyance. The country, after an interval of rejoicing, had settled down to another period of hope and anxiety. 

And Hamilton had incurred the dislike of Adams and the hostility of theLivingstons. He had thought it best to scatter the votes for theVice-President, lest there be the slightest risk of Washington's defeat;and Adams who thought quite as much of himself as he did of GeorgeWashington, and had expected to be elected with little less thanunanimity, instead of by a bare thirty-four votes, never forgaveHamilton the humiliation. "I have seen the utmost delicacy used towardothers, " he wrote to a friend, "but my feelings have never beenregarded. " He knew that Hamilton believed him to have been in sympathywith the Conway Cabal, --a suspicion of which he never clearedhimself, --and attributed to the Federal leader the motive of wishing tobelittle his political significance, lest he should endeavour to use hispower as President of the Senate to hamper and annoy the Administration. Perhaps he was right. Far be it from anyone to attempt a journey throughthe utmost recesses of Hamilton's mind. He was frank by nature andhabit, but he had resolved that the United States government shouldsucceed, and had no mind to put weapons into the hands of Washington'srivals. He believed in Adams's general integrity, patriotism, andfederalism, however, and brought him to power in his own fashion. Heachieved his objects with little or no thought of personal consequences;and although this has been characterized as one of the great politicalmistakes of his career, it must be remembered that it was a time fornervousness and exaggerated fears. Washington had enemies; no other manwas believed, by the men who did the thinking for the country, to beable to hold the United States together until they were past theirshoals, and the method of election was precarious: each elector castingtwo votes without specification, the higher office falling to thecandidate who received the larger number of votes. 

The Livingstons had desired a seat in the Senate of the new Congress forone of their powerful family, and Hamilton had given the prize to RufusKing. No gift could have been more justly bestowed; but the Livingstonsfelt themselves flouted, their great services to the country unrewarded. Their open hostility roused all the haughty arrogance of Hamilton'snature, and he made no effort to placate them. When the great office ofChief Justice of the United States was given to John Jay, instead of toRobert Livingston, they attributed the discrimination to Hamilton'sinfluence over Washington; and the time came when this strong andhostile faction lent themselves to the scheming of one of the subtlestpoliticians that has ever lived. 

The contest for the prizes of the two Houses had been hot and bitter, and Hamilton had never been more active. As a result, the Federalistscontrolled the Senate, and they had elected four of the sixRepresentatives. Philip Schuyler had drawn the short term in the Senate, and the antagonism of the Livingstons to Hamilton enabled Burr todisplace him two years later. The signal mistakes of Hamilton'spolitical career were in his party management. One of the greatestleaders in history, cool and wise, and of a consummate judgement in allmatters of pure statesmanship, he was too hot-headed and impetuous, tooobstinate when his righting blood was up, for the skilful manipulationof politics. But so long as the Federal party endured, no other leaderwas contemplated: his integrity was spotless, his motives unquestioned, his patriotism and stupendous abilities the glory of his party; by sheerforce of genius he carried everything before him, whether his methodswere approved by the more conservative Federalists or not. 

Madison, who mildly desired an office, possibly in the Cabinet, hedespatched South to get himself elected to Congress, for he must havepowerful friends in that body to support the great measures he had incontemplation; and that not unambitious statesman, after a hot fightwith Patrick Henry, was obliged to content himself with a seat in theHouse. Before he went to Virginia he and Hamilton had talked for longand pleasant hours over the Federal leader's future schemes. In allthings he was in accord with his Captain, and had warmly promised hissupport. 

It was some weeks before Hamilton had a private interview withWashington, although he had dined at his house, entertained him, andbeen present at several informal consultations on such minor questionsas the etiquette of the Administration. But delicacy held him fromembarrassing Washington in a familiar interview until he had beeninvited formally to a position in the contemplated cabinet. He knew thatWashington wished him to be Secretary of the Treasury, but he also knewthat that most cautious and conscientious of men would not trust to hisown judgement in so grave a matter, nor take any step without weeks ofanxious thought. The more deeply were Washington's affections or desiresengaged, the more cautious would he be. He was not a man of genius, therefore fell into none of the pitfalls of that terrible gift; he wasgreat by virtue of his superhuman moral strength--and it is safe to saythat in public life he never experienced a temptation--by a wisdom thatno mental heat ever unbalanced, by an unrivalled instinct for the bestand most useful in human beings, and by a public conscience to which hewould have unhesitatingly sacrificed himself and all he loved, were it aquestion of the nation's good. But Hamilton knew whom he would consult, and devoted himself to his legal work without a qualm for the future. Ashe had anticipated, Washington wrote to Robert Morris for advice, andthe reply of that eminent financier, that "Hamilton was the one man inthe United States competent to cope with the extreme difficulties ofthat office, " pleasantly ended the indecision of the President, and hecommunicated with Hamilton at once. 

Hamilton answered by letter, for Washington was wedded to theformalities, but he followed it with a request for a private interview;and after the lapse of eight years Washington and Hamilton met once morefor a purely personal colloquy. 

Washington was occupying temporarily the house of Walter Franklin, onthe corner of Cherry Street and Franklin Square, a country residence atwhich society grumbled, for all the world lived between the present siteof the City Hall and Battery Park. Hamilton rode up on horseback, andwas shown into the library, which overlooked a pleasant garden. ThePresident, in the brown suit of home manufacture which he had worn atthe inauguration, as graceful and erect as ever, although with a moreelderly visage than in the days of war, entered immediately, closed thedoor carefully, then took both Hamilton's hands in his enormous grasp. The austere dignity of his face relaxed perceptibly. 

"Oh!" he said. "I am glad to see you!"

"It is not a return to old times, alas!" said Hamilton, gaily; "for whatwe all had to do then was a bagatelle to this, and you have made thesupreme sacrifice of your life. "

Washington seated himself in an arm-chair, motioning Hamilton to oneopposite. "I wrote Knox, " he said, "that I felt as if setting out to myown execution; and I swear to you, Hamilton, that if it had not been foryou I doubt if my courage would not have failed me at the last moment. Ihad a moment of nervous dread this morning before I opened your letter, but I believed that you would not fail me. It is a colossal enterprisewe are embarked upon, this constructing of a great nation for all time. God knows I am not equal to it, and although I shall always reserve tomyself the final judgement, I expect a few of you to think for me--you, in particular. Then with the Almighty's help we may succeed, but I canassure you that it has cost me many wakeful nights--and cold sweats. "

He spoke with his usual slow impressiveness, but he smiled as he watchedHamilton's flashing eyes and dilating nostrils. "You look but littleolder, " he added. "Not that you still look a stripling, controlling yourtemper with both hands while I worked you half to death; but you havethe everlasting youth of genius, I suppose, and you look to me able tocope with anything. "

Hamilton laughed. "I am far older in many things, sir. I fear I oftenseemed ungrateful. I have blessed you many times, since, for thediscipline and the invaluable knowledge I gained in those years. "

"Ah!" exclaimed Washington. "Ah! I am very glad to hear you say that. Itis like your generosity, and I have had many anxious moments, wonderingif there might not still be a grudge. But not only were your peculiargifts indispensable to this country, but, I will confess, now that it isover, I mortally dreaded that you would lose your life. You and Laurenswere the most reckless devils I ever saw in the field. Poor Laurens! Ifelt a deep affection for him, and his death was one of the bitterestblows of the war. If he were here now, and Lafayette, how many pleasanthours I should look forward to; but I have you, and God knows I amgrateful. Lafayette, I am afraid, has undertaken too great a businessfor his capacity, which is admirable; but he is not strong enough to bea leader of men. "

"I wish he were here, and well out of it. "

"I have not sufficiently thanked you for the letter you wrote me lastSeptember. It was what I had earnestly hoped for. My position was mostdistressing. It was impossible for me not only to ask the advice ofanyone, but the temper of the public mind regarding myself. To assumethat I must be desired--but I need not explain to you, who know mebetter than anybody living, the extreme delicacy of my position, and thetorments of my mind. Your letter explained everything, told me all Iwished to know, made my duty clear--painfully clear. You divined what Ineeded and expressed yourself in your usual frank and manly way, withoutthe least hesitation or fear. I take this occasion to assure you againof my deep appreciation. "

"Oh, sir, " said Hamilton, who was always affected unbearably byWashington's rare moments of deep feeling, "I was merely the selectedinstrument to give you what you most needed at the moment; nothing more. This was your destiny; you would be here in any case. It is my pride, myreward of many years of thought and work, that I am able to be ofservice to your administration, and conspicuous enough to permit you tocall me to your side. Be sure that all that I have or am is yours, andthat I shall never fail you. "

"If I did not believe that, I should indeed be deep in gloomyforebodings. Jay will officiate as Secretary of State for the present;Knox, as Secretary at War. I contemplate inviting Randolph to act asAttorney-General, and Jefferson as permanent Secretary of State, if hewill accept; thus dividing the appointments between the North and theSouth. What do you think of the wisdom of appointing Mr. Jefferson? Heis a man of great abilities, and his long residence abroad should makehim a valuable Secretary of State, his conspicuous services acceptableto both sections of the country. It is the selection over which I havehesitated longest, for it is a deep and subtle nature, a kind I have nolove of dealing with, but so far as I know it is not a devious one, andhis talents command my respect. "

"I am unable to advise you, sir, for he is not personally known to me, "said Hamilton, who was not long wishing that he had had a previous andextensive knowledge of Thomas Jefferson. "Madison thinks well of him--isa close personal friend. He has rendered great services to the State ofVirginia, his experience is wide, and he possesses a brilliant andfacile pen--I can think of no one better fitted for the position. Hisrecord for personal bravery is not untarnished, but perhaps that willinsure peace in the Cabinet. "

Washington laughed. "Jefferson would slide under the table if youassaulted him, " he said. "It is you only that I fear, as it is you onlyupon whom I thoroughly rely, and not for advice in your own departmentalone, but in all. I think it would perhaps be better not to holdcollective meetings of the Cabinet, but to receive each of you alone. Itis as well the others do not know that your knowledge and judgement aremy chief reliance. "

XV

Hamilton, on his way home, stopped in at the chambers of Troup. 

"Bob, " he said, "you are to wind up my law business. I am to beSecretary of the Treasury. "

Troup half rose with an exclamation of impatience. "Good heavens!" heexclaimed. "Have you not an introductory line in your nature? It hasbeen bad enough to have been anticipating this, without having it gostraight through one like a cannon-ball. Of course it is no use toreason with you--I gave that up just after I had assumed that you were asmall boy whom it was the duty of a big collegian to protect, and younearly demolished my not too handsome visage with your astonishingfists for contradicting you. But I am sorry. Remain at the bar and youhave an immediate prospect of wealth, not too many enemies, and thehighest honours. Five years from now, and you would lead not only thebar of New York but of the whole country. Jay may be the first ChiefJustice, but you would be the second--. "

"Nothing would induce me to be Chief Justice. I should be bored todeath. Can you fancy me sitting eternally and solemnly in the middle ofa bench, listening to long-winded lawyers? While I live I shall haveaction--. "

"Well, you will have action enough in this position; it will burn youout twenty years before your time. And it will be the end of what peaceand happiness a born fighter could ever hope to possess; for you willraise up enemies and critics on every side, you will be hounded, youwill be the victim of cabals, your good name will be assailed--. "

"Answer this: do you know of anyone who could fill this office asadvantageously to the country as I?"

"No, " said Troup, unwillingly. "I do not. "

Hamilton was standing by the table. He laid his hand on a volume ofCoke, expanding and contracting it slowly. It was perhaps the mostbeautiful hand in America, and almost as famous as its owner. But asTroup gazed at it he saw only its superhuman suggestion of strength. 

"The future of this country lies there, " said Hamilton. "I know, and youknow, that my greatest gift is statesmanship; my widest, truestknowledge is in the department of finance; moreover, that nothing has sokeen and enduring a fascination for me. I could no more refuse thisinvitation of Washington's than I could clog the wheels of my mind toinaction. It is like a magnet to steel. If I were sure of personalconsequences the most disastrous, I should accept, and withouthesitation. For what else was the peculiar quality of my brain given me?To what other end have I studied this great question since I was a boyof nineteen--wild as I was to fight and win the honours of the field?Was ever a man's destiny clearer, or his duty?"

"I have no more to say, " said Troup, "but I regret it all the same. Have you heard from Morris--Gouverneur?"

"Oh, yes, I had a long screed, in almost your words, spiced with his ownparticular impertinence. Will you wind up my law business?"

"Oh, of course, " said Troup. 

The new Congress, made up, though it was, of many of the ablest men inthe country, had inherited the dilatory methods of the old, and did notpass an act establishing the Treasury Department until the 2d ofSeptember. Hamilton's appointment to this most important portfolio atthe disposal of the President was looked upon as a matter of course. Itcreated little discussion, but so deep a feeling of security, that evenbefore the reading of his famous Report business had revived to someextent. This Report upon the public credit was demanded of him at once, but it was not until the recess of Congress that he could workuninterruptedly upon it; for that body, floundering in its chaos ofinherited difficulties, turned to the new Secretary for advice on almostevery problem that beset it. I cannot do better here than to quote fromthe monograph on Hamilton by Henry Cabot Lodge, who puts with admirablesuccinctness a series of facts important to the knowledge of everyAmerican:--

 In the course of a year he was asked to report, and did report with full details, upon the raising, management, and collection of the revenue, including a scheme for revenue cutters; as to the estimates of income and expenditure; as to the temporary regulation of the chaotic currency; as to navigation laws, and the regulation of the coasting trade, after a thorough consideration of a heap of undigested statistics; as to the post-office, for which he drafted a bill; as to the purchase of West Point; on the great question of public lands and a uniform system of managing them; and upon all claims against the government. Rapidly and effectively the secretary dealt with all these matters, besides drawing up as a voluntary suggestion a scheme for a judicial system. But in addition to all this multiplicity of business there were other matters like the temporary regulation of the currency, requiring peremptory settlement. Money had to be found for the immediate and pressing wants of the new government before any system had been or could be adopted, and the only resources were the empty treasury and broken credit of the old confederacy. By one ingenious expedient or another, sometimes by pledging his own credit, Hamilton got together what was absolutely needful, and without a murmur conquered those petty troubles when he was elaborating and devising a far-reaching policy. Then the whole financial machine of the Treasury Department, and a system of accounting, demanded instant attention. These intricate problems were solved at once, the machine constructed, and the system of accounts devised and put into operation; and so well were these difficult tasks performed that they still subsist, developing and growing with the nation, but at bottom the original arrangements of Hamilton. These complicated questions, answered so rapidly and yet so accurately in the first weeks of confusion incident to the establishment of a new government, show a familiarity and preparation, as well as a readiness of mind of a most unusual kind. Yet while Hamilton was engaged in all this bewildering work, he was evolving the great financial policy, at once broad, comprehensive, and minute, and after the recess in January he laid his ground plan before Congress in his first report on public credit; a state paper which marks an era in American history, and by which the massive corner-stone, from which the great structure of the Federal government has risen, was securely laid. 

New York, meanwhile, had blossomed to her full. Houses had beenrenovated, and with all the elegance to be commanded. Many had been let, by the less ambitious, to the Members of Congress from other States, andall were entertaining. General Schuyler occupied a house close toHamilton, and his daughters Cornelia and Peggy--Mrs. Stephen VanRensselaer--were lively members of society. The Vice-President had takenthe great house at Richmond Hill, and General Knox as imposing a mansionas he could find. Washington, after a few months, moved to the McCombhouse in lower Broadway, one of the largest in town, with a receptionroom of superb proportions. Here Mrs. Washington, standing on a dais, usually assisted by Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Hamilton, received, with therigid formality of foreign courts, all who dared to attend her levees. She had discarded the simplicity of campaigning days, and attiredherself with a magnificence which was emulated by her "Court. " It wasyet too soon to break from tradition, and the Washingtons conductedthemselves in accordance with their strong aristocratic proclivities. Nor did it occur to anyone, even the most ardent Republican, thatdignity and splendour were inconsistent with a free and enlightenedRepublic, until Jefferson began his steady and successful system ofplebeianizing the country. 

Washington's levees were frigid; but I have not observed any specialwarmth at the White House upon public occasions in my own time. ThePresident, after the company had assembled, entered in full officialcostume: black velvet and satin, diamond knee-buckles, his hair in a bagand tied with ribbons. He carried a military hat under his arm, and worea dress sword in a green shagreen scabbard. He made a tour of the room, addressing each guest in turn, all being ranged according to their rank. At his wife's levees he attended as a private individual and mingledmore freely with the guests; but his presence always lowered every voicein the room, and women trembled with anxiety lest he should not engagethem in conversation, while dreading that he might. The unparalleleddignity, the icy reserve of his personality, had always affected thetemperature of the gatherings he honoured; but at this time, when to theheight of a colossal and unique reputation was added the firstincumbency of an office, bestowed by a unanimous sentiment, which was toraise the United States to the plane of the great nations of Europe, hewas instinctively regarded as superhuman, rather as a human embodimentof the Power beyond space. He was deeply sensitive to the depressingeffect he produced, and not a little bored by the open-mouthed curiosityhe excited. A youngster, having run after him for quite a block, oneday, panting from his exertions, Washington wheeled about suddenly, andmade a bow so profound and satirical that his pursuer fled with a yellof terror. 

The President was very fond of the theatre, and invited a party once aweek to accompany him to John Street. He entertained at tableconstantly, and dined out formally and intimately. Congress, he attendedin great state. He had brought to New York six white horses of thefinest Virginian breed, and a magnificent cream-coloured coach, ornamented with cupids and festoons. For state occasions the horses werecovered over night with a white paste, and polished next morning untilthey shone like silver. The hoofs were painted black. When Washingtondrove through the city on his way to Congress, attended by postilionsand outriders, it is little wonder that he had a royal progress throughproud and satisfied throngs. 

The Adamses, who had counselled all the usages of foreign courts, buthad been outvoted by Hamilton and Jay, entertained but little less thanthe President; and so did the Schuylers, Livingstons, Jays, and half thetown. The Hamiltons, of necessity, entertained far more simply; butBetsey received every Wednesday evening, when her rooms were a crush offashion and politics, eager for a glimpse of Hamilton and to do court toher popular self. They gave at least one dinner a week, but Betsey as arule went out with her parents, for her husband was too busy forsociety. 

The world saw little of Hamilton at this time, and Betsey but littlemore. He worked in his library or office for fourteen hours of the day, while the country teemed with conjectures of his coming Report. Adisposition to speculate upon it was already manifest, and more than onefriend endeavoured to gain a hint of its contents. Not even Madison, towhom he had talked more freely than to anyone, knew aught of the detailsof that momentous Report, what recommendations he actually should maketo Congress; for none knew better than he that a hint derived from himwhich should lead to profitable speculation would tarnish his good nameirretrievably. Careless in much else, on the subject of his private andpublic integrity he was rigid; he would not have yielded a point toretain the affection of the best and most valued of his friends. Fastidious by nature on the question of his honour, he knew, also, thatother accusations, even when verified, mattered little in the long run;a man's actual position in life and in history was determined by theweight of his brain and the spotlessness of his public character. Heworked in secret, with no help from anyone; nor could blandishmentsextract a hint of his purpose. Against the rock of his integrity passionavailed nothing. As for Betsey, between her growing children, thedelicacy which had followed the birth of her last child, and her heavysocial duties, she would have had little time to assist him had heconfided even in her. Moreover, to keep up a dignified position upon$3500 a year cost her clever little Dutch head much anxious thought. Itis true that some money had been put aside from the income of herhusband's large practice, but he was the most careless and generous ofmen, always refusing the fees of people poorer than himself, and with notalent for personal, great as was his mastery of political, economy. IfGeneral Schuyler often came to the rescue his son-in-law never knew it. Hamilton had a vague idea that Betsey could manage somehow, and was fartoo absorbed to give the matter a thought. Betsey, it would seem, hadher own little reputation, for it was about this time that M'Henryfinished a letter to Hamilton, as follows:--

 Pray present me to Mrs. Hamilton. I have learned from a friend of yours that she has, as far as the comparison will hold, as much merit as your treasurer as you have as treasurer of the wealth of the United States. 

XVI

Congress reassembled, and on the 2d of January Hamilton sent in hisReport on Public Credit. By this time excitement and anxiety, to saynothing of cupidity, were risen to fever pitch. All realized that theywere well in the midst of a national crisis, for the country wasbankrupt, and her foreign and domestic debts footed up to quite eightymillions of dollars--a stupendous sum in the infancy of a nation, whenthere was little specie in the country, and an incalculable amount ofworthless paper, with long arrears of interest besides. If Hamiltoncould cope with this great question, and if Congress, with itsdetermined anti-government party, would support him, the Union and itslong-suffering patriots would enter upon a season of prosperity andhappiness. If the one were inadequate to meet the situation, or theother failed in its national duty, the consequences must be deeperwretchedness and disaster than anything they yet had endured. Theconfidence in Hamilton was very widespread, for not only were his greatabilities fully recognized, but his general opinions on the subject hadlong been known, and approved by all but the politicians on the wrongside. The confidence had been manifested in a manner little to hisliking: speculators had scoured the country, buying up governmentsecurities at the rate of a few shillings on the pound, taking advantageof needy holders, who dwelt, many of them, in districts too remote fromthe centre of action to know what the Government was about. And evenbefore this "signal instance of moral turpitude, " the fact that so manyold soldiers who had gone home with no other pay than governmentsecurities, to be exchanged for specie at the pleasure of a governmentwhich nobody had trusted, had sold out for a small sum, was one of theagitating themes of the country; and opinion was divided upon the rightof the assignees to collect the full amount which the new governmentmight be prepared to pay, while the moral rights of the worthy andoriginal holder were ignored. It was understood, however, that Hamiltonhad given no more searching thought to any subject than to this. 

The public was not admitted to the galleries of Congress in those days, but a great crowd packed Wall and Broad streets while the Report wasreading and until some hint of its contents filtered through the guardeddoors. Hamilton himself was at home with his family, enjoying a day ofrest. It is one of the most curious incidents in his career, as well asone of the highest tributes to his power over men, that Congress, aftermature deliberation, decided that it would be safer to receive hisReport in writing than in the form of a personal address from a man whoplayed so dangerously upon the nerve-board of the human nature. Therehardly could be any hidden witchery in a long paper dealing with sounemotional a subject as finance; but no man could foresee what might bethe effect of the Secretary's voice and enthusiasm, --which wasperilously communicable, --his inevitable bursts of spontaneouseloquence. But Hamilton had a pen which served him well, when he wasforced to substitute it for the charm of his personality. It was sopointed, simple, and powerful, it classified with such clarity, itexpressed his convictions so unmistakably, and conveyed his subtleappeals to human passions so obediently, that it rarely failed toquiver like an arrow in the brain to which it was directed. And thisparticular report was vitalized by the author's overwhelming sense ofthe great crisis with which he was dealing. Reading it to-day, a hundredand eleven years after it was written, and close to the top of atwelve-story building, which is a symbol of the industry and progressfor which he more than any man who has ever dedicated his talents to theUnited States is responsible, it is so fresh and convincing, so earnest, so insistent, so courteously peremptory, that the great century whichlies between us and that empire-making paper lapses from the memory, andone is in that anxious time, in the very study of the yet more anxiousstatesman; who, on a tropical island that most of his countrymen neverwill see, came into being with the seed of an unimagined nation in hisbrain. 

To condense Hamilton is much like attempting to increase the density ofa stone, or to reduce the alphabet to a tabloid. I therefore shall makeno effort to add another failure to the several abstracts of thisReport. The heads of his propositions are sufficient. The Report isaccessible to all who find the subject interesting. The main points werethese: The exploding of the discrimination fallacy; the assumption ofthe State debts by the Government; the funding of the entire amount ofthe public debt, foreign, domestic, and State; three new loans, one tothe entire amount of the debt, another of $10, 000, 000, a third of$12, 000, 000; the prompt payment of the arrears and current interest ofthe foreign loan on the original terms of the contract; the segregatingof the post-office revenue, amounting to about a million dollars, for asinking fund, that the creation of a debt should always be accompaniedby the means of extinguishment; increased duties on foreign commodities, that the government might be able to pay the interest on her new debtsand meet her current expenses; and more than one admonition for promptaction, as the credit of the nation was reaching a lower level daily, besides sinking more hopelessly into debt through arrears of interest. The indebtedness he divided as follows: The foreign debt, $10, 070, 307, with arrears of interest amounting to $1, 640, 071. The liquidateddomestic debt, $27, 383, 917, with arrears of interest amounting to$13, 030, 168. The unliquidated part he estimated at $2, 000, 000, and theaggregate debt of the State at $25, 000, 000; making a total of nearly$80, 000. 000. 

He also hinted at his long-cherished scheme of a National Bank, and apossible excise law, and gave considerable space to the miserablecondition of landed property and the methods by which it might berestored to its due value. 

XVII

The talk in the drawing-room of Mrs. Croix that night was of little elsebut the Secretary's Report. Mrs. Croix, so said gossip, had concludedthat this was the proper time for the demise of her recalcitrantofficer, and had retired to weeds and a semi-seclusion while Mrs. Washington pondered upon the propriety of receiving her. Her court caredlittle for the facts, and vowed that she never had looked so fair or soproud; Hamilton, that she shone with the splendour of a crystal star onthe black velvet skies of the Tropics. She wore, this evening, a fewyards of black gauze which left bare a crescent of her shining neck andthe lower arms. Her bright hair was arranged in a mass of ringlets, after a fashion obtaining in Europe, and surmounted by a small turban ofgauze fastened with a diamond sun. Many of the men who visited herhabitually called her Lady Betty, for she was one of those women whoinvite a certain playful familiarity while repelling intimacy. Hamiltoncalled her, as the fancy moved him, Egeria, Boadicea, or Lady Godiva. 

Clinton came in fuming. "It is not possible, " he cried, "that theCongress can be so mad as to be hoodwinked by this deep political schemefor concentrating the liberties of the United States under the executiveheel. 'To cement more closely the union of the States and to add totheir security against foreign attack!' Forsooth! This assumption planis nothing more nor less than another of his dastardly schemes tosqueeze out of the poor States what little liberty he left them underthe Constitution. He could not obtain at Philadelphia all he wished for, but now that Washington has given him both reins, he laughs in ourfaces. I regret that I ever offered him my hand. "

"Then our party in Congress will fight him on political grounds?" askedMrs. Croix. 

"You may put it that way if you choose. It certainly will not be blindedby his speciousness and aid him in his subtle monarchism. 'Contribute inan eminent degree to an orderly, stable, and satisfactory arrangement ofthe Nation's finances!' 'Several reasons which render it probable thatthe situation of the State creditors will be worse than that of thecreditors of the Union, if there be not a national assumption of theState debts!' And then his plan of debit and credit, with 'little doubtthat balances would appear in favour of all the States against theUnited States!' My blood has boiled since I read that paper. I havefeared apoplexy. He is clever, that West Indian, --do they grow manysuch?--but he did not select a country composed entirely of fools tomachinate in. "

"My dearest Governor, " whispered Mrs. Croix, "calm yourself, pray. Onlyyou can cope with Mr. Hamilton. You must be the colossal spirit withoutthe walls of Congress to whom all will look for guidance. If you becomeill, the cause is lost. "

Clinton composed himself promptly, and asked Elbridge Gerry, ofMassachusetts, which, section of the Report he expected to attack first. There were no Federalists present. 

Gerry shrugged his shoulders and shot a narrow glance of contempt at theGovernor. "Give me time, your Excellency, pray. Mr. Hamilton's paper hasthe thought of a decade in it. It merits at least a week of thought onour part. I never could agree with him in all things, but in some I amat one with him; and I acknowledge myself deeply in his debt, insomuchas he has taught me, among thousands of others, to 'thinkcontinentally, ' I certainly agree with him that to pay to presentholders the full value of their certificates, without discrimination, isa matter of constitutional law, a violation of which would be a menaceto the new government. I shall support him on that point at the risk ofbeing accused of speculation. "

Stone, of Maryland, was striding up and down, but a degree less agitatedthan the Governor of New York. 

"The man is cleverer than all the rest of us put together!" heexclaimed. "Let us not forget that for an instant. A greater thoughtthan this of assumption has never been devised by man. If it be carriedinto execution, --which God forbid, --it will prove a wall of adamant tothe Federal government, impregnable to any attempt on its fabric oroperations. "

"Oh, is it so bad as that?" asked Gerry. "Every fort falls if the siegebe sufficiently prolonged. I apprehend no such disaster, and I confess Isee much promise in at least two of Mr. Hamilton's schemes. After all, the redemption of the country is what we must look to first. "

"You are a trimmer. Cannot you see that if the whole revenue of theStates be taken into the power of Congress, it will prove a band to drawus so close together as not to leave the smallest interstice forseparation?"

"But do you meditate separation?" asked Mrs. Croix. "Surely that wouldbe as great a crime as Mr. Hamilton's monarchical manoeuvres--if it betrue he practises such. "

"He is bold enough about them, " snorted Clinton. "I do the man justiceto recognize his insolent frankness. "

"Those I cannot say I have observed, " said Gerry. "Nor do I think thatwe meditate separation. We are struggling out of one pit. It would befolly to dig a deeper. And Massachusetts has a great debt, withdecreasing revenue for interest and redemption. I am not sure thatassumption would not be to her advantage. She stood the brunt of thewar. It is but fair that she should have relief now, even at the expenseof other States whose debt is insignificant; and she is able to takecare of herself against the Federal government--"

"The brunt of the war!" exclaimed the Attorney-General of the Cabinet, who, with the Speaker of the House, had just entered, and who hadcontrolled himself with difficulty for several seconds. "I beg to assureyou, sir, that Virginia may claim that honour. Her glorious patriotism, her contributions in men and money--they exceeded those of any State inthe Union, sir. "

Gerry laughed. "I have no means of comparison by which patriotism may bemeasured, Mr. Randolph, " he said. "But we can produce figures, ifnecessary, to prove our title to supremacy in the other matters youmention. As you have reduced your debt, however, by an almost totalrepudiation of your paper money--"

"How about Mr. Madison?" asked Mrs. Croix, hurriedly. "He is yourfellow-statesman, Mr. Randolph, but he is Mr. Hamilton's devoted friendand follower. Virginia may be sadly divided. "

"My fears have decreased on that point, " said Randolph, drily. "Mr. Madison's loyalty toward his State increases daily. "

"So does his ambition, " observed Muhlenberg. "If I am not mistaken, hehas begun to chafe at Hamilton's arrangement of his destinies--and anature like that is not without deep and sullen jealousies. To be aleader of leaders requires a sleepless art; to lead the masses is playby comparison. Hamilton is a magician, but he is arrogant and impatient. With all his art and control of men's minds, he will lose a follower nowand again, and not the least important would be--will be--Madison. "

"Have you proof?" asked Clinton, eagerly. "He would be of incomparablevalue in our ranks. By the way, Aaron Burr is working to the front. Heis a born politician, if I am not mistaken, and is in a rapid process ofeducation. I feel sure that I have attached him to our cause byappointing him Attorney-General of the Staite. He should make aninvaluable party man. "

"He will be attached to no cause, " said Gerry. "He is, as you say, apolitician. There is not a germ of the statesman in him; nor of thehonest man, either, unless I am deeply mistaken. He is the only man ofnote in the country who has not one patriotic act to his credit. Hefought, but so did every adventurous youth in the country; and had therebeen anything more to his interest to do at the time, the Revolutioncould have taken care of itself. But during all our trying desperateyears since--did he go once to Congress? Did he interest himself in theConstitution, either at Philadelphia or Poughkeepsie? What record did hemake in the State Legislature during his one term of infrequentattendance? While other men, notably Hamilton, of whom he betrays anabsurd jealousy, have been neglecting their private interests in thepublic cause, he has been distinguishing himself as a femalist, andthinking of nothing else but making money at the bar. I admit hisbrilliancy, his intrepidity, and the exquisite quality of his address, but I don't believe that an honest man who comes into contact with himinstinctively trusts him. "

"Oh, let us not indulge in such bitter personalities, " cried Mrs. Croix, who took no interest at that time in the temporary husband of her oldage. "Surely this coming legislation should compel every faculty. Whatof the other debts?--of funding? Or, if it is still too soon to talk ofthese matters with equilibrium, " she added hastily, as Clinton turnedpurple again, "pray tell me that the great question of deciding upon asite for the Capital is nearing a solution. It has been such a source ofbitter agitation. I wish it were settled. "

"The House may or may not pass this bill for ten years in Philadelphia, and the banks of the Potomac thereafter, " growled the Senator from NorthCarolina. "The Federalists have the majority, and they are determined tokeep the seat of government in the North, as they are determined to havetheir monarchical will in everything. Madison hopes for some fortuitouscoincidence, but I confess I hardly know what he means. "

Gerry laughed. "When Madison takes to verbiage, " he said, "I shouldresort to a plummet and line. "

"Sir!" cried Randolph, limping toward the door in angry haste. "Mr. Madison is one of the loftiest statesmen in the country!"

"Has been. Centrifugal forces are in motion. "

"How everybody in politics does hate everybody else!" said Mrs. Croix, with a patient sigh. 

XVIII

The next morning Mrs. Croix sent a peremptory summons to Hamilton. Although at work upon his "Additional Estimates, " he responded at once. The lady was combing her emotional mane in the sunshine before themirror of her boudoir when he arrived, and the maid had been dismissed. 

"Well, Egeria, " he said, smiling down upon this dazzling vision, "whatis it? What warning of tremendous import have you to deliver, that yourout a busy Secretary from his work at eleven in the morning? I darednot loiter, lest your capricious majesty refuse me your door upon mynext evening of leisure--"

"It is not I who am capricious!" cried Mrs. Croix. She poutedcharmingly. "Indeed, sir, I never am quite sure of you. You are allardour to-day, and indifference to-morrow. For work I am always putaside, and against your family demands I do not exist. "

"My dear Boadicea, " said Hamilton, drily, "I am a mere creature ofroutine. I met you after my habits of work and domesticity were wellestablished. You are the fairest thing on earth, and there are timeswhen you consume it, but circumstances isolate you. Believe me, I am avictim of those circumstances, not of caprice. "

"My dear Hamilton, " replied Mrs. Croix, quite as drily, "you have allthe caprice of a woman combined with all the lordly superiority of themale. I well know that although I bewitch you, I can do so at yourpleasure only. You are abominably your own master, both in your strengthand your weakness. But there is no one like you on earth, so I submit. And I work and burrow for you, and you will not even accept my preciousofferings. "

"I will not have you playing the rôle of spy, if that is what you mean. I do not like this idea of confessing my enemies when they thinkthemselves safe in your house, I prefer to fight in the open, and theyreveal themselves to me sooner or later. What should I think of myselfand you if I permitted you to act as a treacherous go-between. "

"You will not permit me to help you! And I could do much! I could tellyou so much now that would put you on your guard. I could help youimmeasurably. I could be your fate. But you care for nothing but mybeauty!" And she dropped dismally into her pocket-handkerchief. 

Hamilton was not one of those men who dread a woman's tears. He haddried too many. His immediate and practical consolation but appeared todeepen her grief, however, and he was obliged to resort to eloquence. 

"Where do I find such hours of mental companionship as here?" hedemanded. "I say nothing of art and literature; do I not discuss withyou the weightiest affairs of State--everything, in fact, upon which myhonour does not compel silence? Never have I thought of asking theadvice, the opinion, of a woman before. You are my Egeria, and I amdeeply grateful for you. If at times I remember nothing but your beauty, would you have it otherwise? I flatter myself that you would not. Haveyou really anything to reproach me for, because I will not hear of yourcommitting an act which I would not commit myself? I suppose it ishopeless to talk of honour to the cleverest of women, but you mustaccept this dictum whether you understand it or not: I will listen tonone of the confidences of your trusting anti-Federalists. Why cannotyou come out honestly and declare your true politics? You could do farmore good, and I leave you no excuse to perpetrate this lie. "

"I will not, " sobbed his Egeria, obstinately. "I may be able to be ofservice to you, even if you will not let me warn you of Madison'streachery. "

She had scored her point, and Hamilton sprang to his feet, his face aswhite as her petticoats. "Madison's treachery!" he exclaimed. "It istrue he comes near me but seldom this Congress. I had attributed hiscoldness to temperament. Can it be? So many forces would operate. Thereis much jealousy and ambition in him. He can never lead my party. Is hecapable of deserting that he might lead another? One expects that sortof thing of a Burr; but Madison--I have thought him of an almostdazzling whiteness at times--then I have had lightning glimpses ofmeaner depths. He is easily influenced. Virginia opposes me so bitterly!Will he dare to continue to defy her? Can he continue to rise if shecombines against him? Oh, God! If he only had more iron in his soul!"

It was characteristic of him that he had forgotten his audience. He wasthinking aloud, his thought leaping from point to point as they spranginto the brilliant atmosphere of his mind; or using its rapid diviningrod. He threw back his head. "I'll not believe it till I have proof!" heexclaimed defiantly. "Why, I should feel as if one of the foundations ofthe earth had given way. Madison--we have been like brothers. I haveconfided deeply in him. There is little in that Report of yesterday thatI have not discussed with him a hundred times--nothing but the ways andmeans, which I dared confide to no one. He has always been in favour ofassumption, of paying the whole debt. It is understood that he is tosupport me in Congress. I'll hear no more. Dry your tears. You haveaccomplished your object with a woman's wit. I believe you did but shedthose tears to enhance your loveliness, my Lady Godiva. "

XIX

The immediate consequences of Hamilton's Report were a rise of fifty percent in the securities of the bankrupt Confederation, and a bitterwarfare in Congress. All were agreed upon the propriety of paying theforeign loan, but the battle raged about every other point in turn. Oneof the legacies of the old Congress was the principle of repudiatingwhat it was not convenient to redeem, and the politicians of the countryhad insensibly fallen into the habit of assuming that they should startclear with the new government, and relegate the domestic debt to thelimbo which held so many other resources best forgotten. They were farfrom admitting the full measure of their inheritance, however, andopened the battle with a loud denouncement of the greedy speculator whohad defrauded the impoverished soldier, to whose needs they had beenindifferent hitherto. Most of this feeling concentrated in theopposition, but many Federalists were so divided upon the question ofdiscrimination that for a time the other great questions contained inthe Report fell back. Feeling became so bitter that those who supportedthe assignees were accused of speculation, and personalities were hotand blistering. Many of the strongest men, however, ranged withHamilton, and were in sight of victory, when Madison, who had hoped tosee the question settle itself in favour of the original holders withouthis open support, came out with a double bomb; the first symptom of hisopposition to the Federal party, and an unconstitutional propositionthat the holders by assignment should receive the highest market-priceyet reached by the certificates, by which they would reap noinconsiderable profit, and that the balance of the sum due, possiblymore than one-half, should be distributed among the original holders. For a time the reputation for statemanship which Madison had won wasclouded, for his admission of the claims of the assignees nullified anyargument he could advance in favour of the original holders. But he hadhis limitations. There was nothing of the business man in hiscomposition. One of the most notable and useful attributes of Hamilton'sversatile brain was excluded from his, beyond its comprehension. Hisproposition was rejected by thirty-six votes to thirteen. 

Then the hostile camps faced each other on the questions of the domesticdebt and assumption. In regard to the former, common decency finallyprevailed, but the other threatened to disrupt the Union, for theEastern States threw out more than one hint of secession did the measurefail. Madison, without further subterfuge, came forth at the head ofhis State as the leader of the anti-assumptionists. He offered noexplanation to his former chief and none was demanded. For a timeHamilton was bitterly disgusted and wounded. He shrugged his shoulders, finally, and accepted his new enemy with philosophy, though by no meanswith amiability and forgiveness; but he had seen too much of theselfishness and meanness of human nature to remain pained or astonishedat any defection. 

When June came, however, he was deeply uneasy. On March 29th theresolutions providing for the foreign debt and for paying in full theprincipal of the domestic debt to the present holders passed without adivision. So did the resolution in favour of paying the arrears ofinterest in like manner with the principal of the domestic debt. But theresolution in favour of assumption was recommitted. The next day thefriends of assumption had the other resolutions also recommitted, andthe furious battle raged again. Finally, on June 2d, a bill was passedby the House, which left the question of assumption to be settled by afuture test of strength. 

The anti-assumptionists were triumphant, for they believed the ideawould gain in unpopularity. But they reckoned without Hamilton. 

XX

Jefferson had arrived on March 21st, and entered at once upon his dutiesas Secretary of State. He disapproved of the assumption measure, but wasso absorbed in the perplexing details of his new office, incorrespondence, and in frequent conferences with the President on thesubject of foreign affairs, that he gave the matter little consecutivethought. Moreover, he was dined every day for weeks, all thedistinguished New Yorkers, from Hamilton down, vying with each other inattentions to a man whose state record was so enlightened, and whoseforeign so brilliant, despite one or two humiliating failures. He renteda small cottage in Maiden Lane, and looked with deep disapproval uponthe aristocratic dissipations of New York, the frigid stateliness ofWashington's "Court. " The French Revolution and the snub of the Britishking had developed his natural democratism into a controlling passion, and he would have preferred to find in even the large cities of the newcountry the homely bourgeois life of his highest ideals. 

No one accused him of inconsistency in externals. With his shaggy sandyhair, his great red face, covered with freckles, his long loose figure, clad in red French breeches a size too small, a threadbare brown coat, soiled linen and hose, and enormous hands and feet, he must haveastounded the courtly city of New York, and it is certain that he setWashington's teeth on edge. It is no wonder that when this vision risesupon the democratic horizon of to-day, he is hailed as a greater manthan Washington or Hamilton. 

Shortly after the final recommitment of the resolution in favour ofassumption, the Federalist leader met this engaging figure almost infront of Washington's door, and a plan which had dawned in his mind aday or two before matured on the instant. He had no dislike forJefferson at the time, and respected his intellect and diplomatictalents, without reference to differences of opinion. Jefferson grinnedas Hamilton approached, and offered his great paw amiably. He did notlike his brother secretary's clothes, and his hitherto avertedunderstanding was gradually moving toward the displeasing fact thatHamilton was the Administration; but he had had little time forreflection, and he succumbed temporarily to a fascination which fewresisted. 

Hamilton approached him frankly. "Will you walk up and down with me afew moments?" he asked. "I have intended to call upon you. You havereturned at a most opportune time. Do you realize, sir, that the wholebusiness of this nation is at a deadlock? There is nothing in this talkof the North seceding, but so great is the apprehension that theenergies of the country are paralyzed, and no man thinks of anything butthe possible failure of the Government. I am convinced that assumptionis not only necessary to permanent union, to the solution of thefinancial problem, but to the prosperity of the States themselves. " Hethen proceeded to convince Jefferson, who listened attentively, wondering, with a sigh, how any man could pour out his thoughts sorapidly and so well. "Will you turn this over in your mind, and let mesee you again in a day or two?" asked Hamilton, as he finished hisargument. "Let me reiterate that there is no time to lose. TheGovernment is at a standstill in all matters concerning theestablishment of the country on a sound financial basis, until thissubordinate matter is settled. "

"You alarm and deeply interest me, " said Jefferson. "I certainly willgive the matter my attention. Will you dine with me to-morrow? We canthen discuss this matter at leisure. I will ask one or two others. "

The next day, at Mr. Jefferson's epicureous board, Hamilton played histrump. Having again wrought havoc with his host's imagination, but by nomeans trusting to the permanence of any emotion, he proposed a bargain:if Jefferson would use his influence with the Virginians and otherSouthern anti-assumptionists in Congress, he and Robert Morris wouldengage to persuade obstinate Northerners to concede the Capital city tothe South. Hamilton made no sacrifice of conviction in offering thisproposition. There was no reason why the Government should not sit asconveniently on the banks of the Potomac as elsewhere, and if he did notcarry the Union through this new crisis, no one else would. All hisgreat schemes depended upon his bringing the hostile States to reason, and with his usual high-handed impatience he carried his object in hisown way. 

Jefferson saw much virtue in this arrangement. The plan was an almostimmediate success. White and Lee of Virginia were induced to changetheir votes, and assumption with some modifications passed into a law. The Government, after a ten years' sojourn in Philadelphia, would abidepermanently upon the Potomac. 

XXI

Mrs. Hamilton, albeit she had not a care in the world, sighed heavily. She was standing before her mirror, arrayed in a triumph of art recentlyselected by Mrs. Church, in London. On her head was an immense puff ofyellow gauze, whose satin foundation had a double wing in large plaits. The dress was of yellow satin, flowing over a white satin petticoat, andembellished about the neck with a large Italian gauze handkerchief, striped with white. Her hair was in ringlets and unpowdered. She was avery plate of fashion, but her brow was puckered. 

"What is it?" asked her husband, entering from his room. "You are avision of loveliness, my dear Eliza. Is there a rose too few, or a hoopawry?"

"No, sir, I am well enough pleased with myself. I am worrying lestGeneral Washington ask me to dance. It will be bad enough to go out withMr. Adams, who snaps at me every time I venture a remark, but he atleast is not a giant, and I do not feel like a dwarf. When the Presidentleads me out--that is to say, when he did lead me out at theInauguration ball, I was like to expire of mortification. I felt like alittle polar cub trotting out to sea with a monster iceberg. And henever opened his lips to distract my mind, just solemnly marched me upand down, as if I had done something naughty and were being exhibited. Isaw Kitty Livingston giggle behind her fan, and Kitty Duer drew herselfup to her full height, which is quite five feet six, and looked downupon me with a cruel amusement. Women are so nasty to each other. Thankheaven I have a new gown for to-night--anyhow!"

Hamilton laughed heartily; she always amused him, she was half his wife, half the oldest of his children. "And you are fresher far than any ofthem; let that console you, " he said, arranging her necklace. "I am sureboth the President and the Vice-President will take you out; they hardlywould have the bad taste not to. And you look very sweet, hanging on toWashington's hand. Don't imagine for a moment that you look ridiculous. Fancy, if you had to walk through life with either of them. "

Betsey shuddered and smoothed her brow. "It _would_ be a walk with thedear General, " she said. "I dare not dwell upon what it would be withMr. Adams--or anyone else! You are amazing smart, yourself, to-night. "

"This new costume depressed me for a moment, for it is very like oneLaurens used to wear upon state occasions, but I had not the courage towear the light blue with the large gilt buttons, and the pudding cravatMorris inconsiderately sent me; not with Jefferson's agonized eye toencounter. The poor man suffers cruelly at our extravagance andelegance. "

"He is an old fright, " quoth Betsey, "and I'd not dance with him, not ifhe went on his knees. "

She looked her husband over with great pride. He wore a coat ofplum-coloured velvet, a double-breasted Marseilles vest, white satinbreeches, white silk stockings, and pumps. There were full ruffles oflace on his breast and wrists. A man of to-day has to be singularlygifted by nature to shine triumphant above his ugly and uniform garb, whereas many a woman wins a reputation for beauty by a combination oftaste with the infinite range modern fashion accords her. In the days ofwhich we write, a man hardly could help looking his best, and while farmore decorative than his descendant, was equally useful. And as alldressed in varying degrees of the same fashion, none seemed effeminate. As for Hamilton, his head never looked more massive, his glance morecommanding, than when he was in full regalia; nor he more ready for afight. All women know the psychological effect of being superlativelywell dressed. In the days of our male ancestors' external vanities it isquite possible that they, too, felt unconquerable when panoplied intheir best. 

The ball that night was at Richmond Hill, the beautiful home of theVice-President and his wife, Abigail Adams, one of the wisest, wittiest, and most agreeable women of her time. This historic mansion, afterwardthe home of Aaron Burr during his successful years, was a countryestate where Varick Street now crosses Charlton in the heart of thecity. It stood on an eminence overlooking the Hudson, surrounded by apark and commanding a view of the wild Jersey shore opposite. TheAdamses were ambitious people and entertained constantly, with littleless formality than the President. The early hours of their receptions, indeed, were chilling, and many went late, after dancing was, begun orthe company had scattered to the card-tables. The Vice-President and hiswife stood at the head of the long drawing-room and said good evening, and no more, as the women courtesied to the ground, or the men bowed asdeeply as their varying years would permit. The guests then stood aboutfor quite an hour and talked in undertones; later, perhaps, the host andhostess mingled with them and conversed. But although Mrs. Adams wasvastly popular, her distinguished husband was less so; he was not alwaysto be counted upon in the matter of temper. This grim old Puritan, of anintegrity which makes him one of the giants of our early history, despite the last hours of his administration when he was beating aboutin the vortex of his passions, and always honest in his convictions, right or wrong, had not been gifted by nature with a pleasing address, although he could attach people to him when he chose. He was irascibleand violent, the victim of a passionate jealous nature, without thesaving graces of humour and liveliness of temperament. But his sturdyupright figure was very imposing; his brow, which appeared to end withthe tip of his nose, so bold was the curve, would have been benevolentbut for the youthful snapping eyes. His indomitability and his capacityfor hatred were expressed in the curves of his mouth. He was always welldressed, for although a farmer by birth, he was as pronounced anaristocrat in his tastes as Washington or Hamilton. At this time, although he liked neither of them, he was the staunch supporter of theGovernment. He believed in Federalism and the Constitution, insignificant as he found his rewards under both, and he was an ally ofinestimable value. 

When the Hamiltons entered his drawing-room to-night they found manypeople of note already there, although the minuet had not begun. ThePresident, his graceful six feet in all the magnificence of black velvetand white satin, his queue in a black silk bag, stood beside his lady, who was as brave as himself in a gown of violet brocade over an immensehoop. Poor dame, she would far rather have been at Mount Vernon inhomespun, for all this pomp and circumstance bored and isolated her. Shehedged herself about with the etiquette which her exalted positiondemanded, and froze the social aspirant of insufficient pretensions, buther traditions and her propensities were ever at war; she was a womanabove all things, and an extremely simple one. 

John Jay, now Chief Justice of the United States, was there, as ever themost simply attired personage in the Union. His beautiful wife, however, beaming and gracious, but no less rigid than "Lady Washington, " in hersocial statutes, looked like a bird of paradise beside a graven image, so gorgeous was her raiment. Baron Steuben was in the regalia of war anda breastplate of orders. Kitty Livingston, now Mrs. Matthew Ridley, hadalso received a fine new gown of Mrs. Church's selection, for the twowomen still were friends, despite the rupture of their families. LadyKitty Duer, so soon to know poverty and humiliation, was in a gown ofcelestial blue over a white satin petticoat, her lofty head surmountedby an immense gauze turban. General and Mrs. Knox, fat, amiable, andalways popular, although sadly inflated by their new social importance, were mountains of finery. Mrs. Ralph Izard, Mrs. Jay's rival in beauty, and Mrs. Adams's in wit, painted by Gainsborough and Copley, wore awhite gown of enviable simplicity, and a string of large pearls in herhair, another about her graceful throat. Mrs. Schuyler, stout andcareworn, from the trials of excitable and eloping daughters, clung tothe kind arm of her austere and silent husband. Fisher Ames, with hisnarrow consumptive figure and his flashing ardent eyes, his eloquenttongue chilled by this funereal assemblage, had retreated to an alcovewith Rufus King, where they whispered politics. Burr, the target of manyfine eyes, was always loyal to his wife in public; she was a charmingand highly respected woman, ten years his senior. Burr fascinated women, and adorned his belt with their scalps; but had it not been for thisvanity, which led him to scatter hints of infinite devilment andconquest, it is not likely that he would have been branded, in that eraof gallantry, a devirginator and a rake. All that history is concernedwith is his utter lack of patriotism and honesty, and the unscrupulousselfishness, from which, after all, he suffered more than any man. Hisdishonesties and his treasonable attempts were failures, but he left abitter legacy in his mastery of the arts of political corruption, and ina glittering personality which, with his misfortunes, has begodded himwith the shallow and ignorant, who know the traditions of history andnone of its facts. He was a poor creature, with all his gifts, for hislife was a failure, his old age one of the loneliest and bitterest inhistory; and from no cause that facts or tradition give us but the blindselfishness which blunted a good understanding to stupidity. Selfishnessin public life is a crime against one's highest ambitions. 

Mrs. Hamilton kept a firm hold on her husband's arm, and her glance shotapprehensively from Washington to the Vice-President. The latter couldnot dance at present; the former looked as if petrified, rooted in thefloor. Betsey had a clever little head, and she devised a scheme atonce. She was the third lady in the land, and although many yearsyounger than Mrs. Adams, had entertained from her cradle. No one elseimmediately following the entrance of her husband and herself, she didnot move on after her courtesy, but drew Mrs. Adams into conversation, and the good lady by this time was glad of a friendly word. 

"You will be detained here for an hour yet, " said Betsey, sweetly. "CanI help you? Shall I start the minuet? Dear Mr. Adams will be too tiredto dance to-night. Shall I choose a partner and begin?"

"For the love of heaven, do, " whispered Mrs. Adams. "Take out ColonelBurr. He matches you in height, and dances like a courtier. "

Other people entered at the moment, and Betsey whispered hurriedly toHamilton: "Go--quickly--and fetch Colonel Burr. I breathe freely for thefirst time since the clock struck six, but who knows what may happen?"

Hamilton obediently started in quest of Burr. But alas, Ames and Kingdarted at him from their hiding-place behind a curtain, and hedisappeared from his wife's despairing vision. Ten minutes later hebecame aware of the familiar strains of the minuet, and guiltily glancedforth. Betsey, her face composed to stony resignation lest she disgraceherself with tears, was solemnly treading the measure with the solemnestman on earth, clutching at his hand, which was on a level with herturban. A turn of her head and she encountered her husband's contriteeye. Before hers he retreated to the alcove, nor did he show himself inthe ball-room again until it was time to take his wife to their coach. 

He escaped from the room by a window, and after half the evening in thelibrary with a group of anxious Federalists, --for it was but a night ortwo after his dinner with Jefferson, --he retired to a small room at theright of the main hall for a short conference with the Chief Justice. Hewas alone after a few moments, and was standing before the half-drawntapestry, watching the guests promenading in the hall, when KittyLivingston passed on the arm of Burr. Their eyes met, and she cut him. His spirits dropped at once, and he was indulging in reminiscencestinged with melancholy, for he had loved her as one of the faithfulchums of his youth, niching her with Troup, Fish, and other enthusiasticfriends of that time, when to his surprise she entered abruptly, anddrew the tapestry behind her. 

"You wicked varlet!" she exclaimed. "What did you sow all thisdissension for, and deprive me of my best friends?" Then she kissed himimpulsively. "I shall always love you, though. You were the dearestlittle chap that ever was--and that is why I am going to tell yousomething to-night, although I may never speak to you again, Aaron Burris burrowing between my family and the Clinton faction. He hopes to makea strong combination, defeat General Schuyler at the next election, andhave himself elected senator in his place. Why, why did you alienate us?We are nine in public life--did you forget that?--and what was RufusKing to you or to the country compared with our combined strength? Whyshould John be preferred to Robert? You are as high-handed and arrogantas Lucifer himself; and generally you win, but not always. Burr has seenhis first chance for political preferment, and seized it with a cunningwhich I almost admire. He has persuaded both the Livingstons and theClintons that here is their chance to pull you down, and he is only toowilling to be the instrument--the wretched little mole! I shall hatemyself to-morrow for telling you this, for God knows I am loyal to mypeople, but I have watched you go up--up--up. I should feel like yourmother would if I saw you in the dust. I am afraid it is too late to doanything now. These two hostile parties will not let slip this chance. But get Burr under your foot when you can, and keep him there. He ismorbid with jealousy and will live to pull you down. "

"My dear girl, " exclaimed Hamilton, who was holding her hand betweenboth his own, "do not let your imagination run away with you. I am verywell with Burr, and he is jealous by fits and starts only. Why in thename of heaven should he be jealous? He has never given a thought to thewelfare of the country, and I have devoted myself to the subject sinceboyhood. If I reap the reward--and God knows the future is precariousenough--why should he grudge me a power for which he has never striven?I know him to be ambitious, and I believe him to be unscrupulous, andfor that reason I have been glad that he has hitherto kept out ofpolitics; for he would be of no service to the country, would nothesitate to sacrifice it to his own ends--unless I am a poor student ofcharacter. But as to personal enmity against me, or jealousy because Ioccupy a position he has never sought, --and he is a year older than I, remember, --I find that hard to believe, as well as this other; he is notpowerful enough to unite two such factions. "

"He has a tongue as persuasive from its cunning as yours is in itsimpetuosity, and he has convinced greater men than himself of hisusefulness. Believe me, Alexander, I speak of what I know, not of what Isuspect. Accept the fact, if you will not be warned. You alwaysunderrate your enemies. Your confidence in your own genius--a confidencewhich so much has occurred to warrant--blinds you to the power ofothers. Remember the old adage: Pride goeth before a fall--although Idespise the humble myself; the world owes nothing to them. But I haveoften trembled for the time when your high-handed methods and your scornof inferior beings would knock the very foundations from under yourfeet. Now, I will say no more, and we part for ever. Perhaps if you hadnot worn that colour to-night, I should not have betrayed myfamily--heaven knows! We women are compounded of so many contradictorymotives. Thank your heaven that you men are not half so complex. "

"My dear friend, " said Hamilton, drily, "you women are not half socomplex as men. You may lay claim to a fair share because yourintelligence is above the average, but that is the point--complexity isa matter of intelligence, and as men are, as a rule, far moreintelligent than women, with far more densely furnished brains--"

But here she boxed his ears and left the room. She returned in a moment. "You have not thanked me!" she exclaimed. "I deserve to be thanked. "

Hamilton put his arm about her and kissed her affectionately. 

"From the bottom of my heart, " he said. "I deeply appreciate theimpulse--and the sacrifice. "

"But you won't heed, " she said, with a sigh. "Good-by, Alexander! Ithink Betsey is looking for you. "

XXII

Hamilton for many months was far too busy with the reports he sent toCongress in rapid succession, above all with the one concerning theestablishment of a National Bank, to be presented at the opening of thenext Session, and with the routine of business connected with hisdepartment, to interfere in politics. He warned General Schuyler, however, and hoped that the scandal connected with the State lands, inwhich Burr was deeply implicated, would argue for the statesman in hiscontest with a mere politician. But Burr, in common with the othercommissioners, was acquitted, although no satisfactory explanation oftheir astounding transactions was given, and General Schuyler lost theelection as much through personal unpopularity as through the industryof Burr and the determined efforts of the Livingstons. Schuyler, thetenderest of men in his friendships, was as austere in his public manneras in his virtues, and inflexible in demanding the respect due to hisrank and position. Of a broad intelligence, and a statesman ofrespectable stature, he knew little of the business of politics andcared less. He took his defeat with philosophy, regretting it more forthe animosity toward his son-in-law it betokened than because it removedhim temporarily from public life, and returned with his family toAlbany, Hamilton was annoyed and disgusted, and resolved to keep his eyeon Burr in the future. While he himself was in power the United Statesshould have no set-backs that he could prevent, and if Burr realized hisreading of his character he should manage to balk his ambitions if theythreatened the progress of the country. Kitty Livingston he did not seeagain for many months, for her father died on July 25th. Hamilton heardof William Livingston's death with deep regret, for Liberty Hall wasamong the brightest of his memories; but events and emotions werecrowding in his life as they never had crowded before, and he had littletime for reminiscence. 

Congress adjourned on the 12th of August to meet in Philadelphia inDecember. New York followed Washington to the ferry stairs upon the dayof his departure, weeping not only for that great man's loss, but forthe glory that went with him. "That vile Philadelphia, " as AngelicaChurch, in a letter to Betsey of consolatory lament, characterized thecity where Independence was born, was to be the capital of the Nationonce more, New York to console herself with her commerce and thesuperior cleanliness of her streets. Those who could, followed the"Court, " and those who could not, travelled the weary distance over thecorduroy roads through the forests, and over swamps and rivers, as oftenas circumstances would permit. Of the former was Mrs. Croix, whoseparticular court protested it must have the solace of her presence in acity to which few went willingly. Clinton heaped her with reproaches, but she argued sweetly that he was outvoted, and that she should ever gowhere duty called. "She felt politics to be her mission, " and in truthshe enjoyed its intrigues, the double game she played, with all herfeminine soul. Hamilton would not help himself in her valuablestorehouse, but it pleased her to know that she held dangerous secretsin her hands, could confound many an unwary politician. And she had hermethods, as we have seen, of springing upon Hamilton many a useful bitof knowledge, and of assisting him in ways unsuspected of any. Sheestablished herself in lodgings in Chestnut Street, not unlike those inwhich she had spent so many happy hours for two years past, inasmuch asthey were situated on the first floor and communicated with a littlegarden. Her removal was looked upon as quite natural, and so admirablydid she deport herself that even Mrs. Washington received her in time. 

Philadelphia was a larger city than New York, with wide ill-keptstreets, good pavements, and many fine houses and public buildings. Chestnut Street was the great thoroughfare, shopping district, andpromenade. It was a city renowned for social activity and "crucifyingexpenses. " Naturally its press was as jubilant over the revival of itsancient splendour as that of disappointed New York was scurrilous andvindictive. When the latter was not caricaturing Robert Morris, staggering off with the Administration on its back, or "Miss Assumptionand her bastard brats, " its anti-Federal part was abusing Hamilton asthe arch-fiend who had sold the country, and applying to him everyadjective of vituperation that fury and coarseness could suggest. Therewere poems, taunts, jibes, and squibs, printed as rapidly as the pressand ingenuity could turn them out. If our ancestors were capable ofappreciating the literary excellence of their pamphleteers, as many ofthose who have replaced them to-day could not, it must be admitted thatwe do not rage and hate so violently. The most hysteric effusions of ouryellow press, or the caustic utterances of our reputable newspapers, aretame indeed before the daily cyclones of a time when everybody who didnot love his political neighbor hated him with a deadly virulence ofwhich we know little to-day. We may be improved, merely commercialized, or more diffuse in our interests. In those days every man was apolitician first and himself after. 

The violence of party feeling engendered once more by the debates overHamilton's Report spread over the country like a prairie fire, and rageduntil, in the North at least, it was met by the back fire of increasingprosperity. As the summer waned farmers and merchants beheld the pricesof public securities going up, heard that in Holland the foreign loanhad gone above par, and that two hundred and seventy-eight thousanddollars of the domestic debt had been purchased and cancelled at a costof one hundred and fifty thousand, saw trade reviving, felt their ownburdens lighten with the banishment of the State debt. To sing thepraises of the Assumption Bill was but a natural sequence, and fromthence to a constant panegyric of Hamilton. The anti-Federalist presswas drowned in the North by the jubilance of the Federal and itsincreasing recruits, but in the South everything connected with theGovernment in general and Hamilton in particular was unholy, and thelanguage in which the sentiment was expressed was unholier. 

Meanwhile, Hamilton was established in a little house in Philadelphia, at work upon his second Report on the Public Credit, and elaborating hisargument in favour of a National Bank. Betsey had been more fortunatethan many in getting her house in order within a reasonable time, forothers were camping in two rooms while the carpenters hammered over therest of the neglected mansions. Washington arrived in November and tookpossession of the stately home of Robert Morris, although he grumbledthat the stables would hold but twelve horses. It was a splendidmansion, however, and filled not only with the fine collections of therich merchant, but with many beautiful works of art that the Presidentbrought from Mount Vernon. Congress opened on the 6th of December. 

If Hamilton had given only an occasional half-amused, half-irritatedattention to the journalistic and pamphlet warfare in which he had beenthe target, he now found a domestic engagement confronting him whichcommanded his attentions and roused all the fighting Scotch blood in hiscomposition. Jefferson had done much and distressful thinking during thesummer recess. In the leisure of his extensive, not to say magnificent, Virginia estates, and while entertaining the neighbouring aristocracy, he had moved slowly to the conclusion that he approved of nothing in theAdministration, and that Hamilton was a danger to the Nation and acolossus in his path. Assumption he held to be a measure of the verydevil, and fumed whenever he reflected upon his part in itsaccomplishment. "I was made to hold a candle!" he would explainapologetically. "He hoodwinked me, made a fool of me. "

For a statesman of forty-seven, and one of the most distinguished andsuccessful men in the country, the literary author of The Declaration ofIndependence, the father of many beneficent and popular laws in his ownState, a minister to foreign courts and one of the deepest and subtleststudents of human nature of his century, to find himself fooled andplayed with by a young man of thirty-three, relegated by him to a secondplace in the Cabinet and country, means--meant in those days, atleast--hate of the most remorseless quality. Jefferson was like avolcano with bowels of fire and a crater which spilled over in thenight. He smouldered and rumbled, a natural timidity preventing thesplendour of fireworks. But he was deadly. 

He and Madison met often during these holidays, and an object of theirgrowing confidence was James Monroe, the new Senator from Virginia. Monroe was a fighter, and hatred of Hamilton was his religion. Moreover, he disapproved with violence of every measure of the new government, andeverybody connected with it, from Washington down, Jefferson excepted;Randolph he held to be a trimmer, and overlooked the fact that althoughhe himself had opposed the Constitution with all his words, he was oneof the first to take office under it. Jefferson needed but this youngerman's incentive to disapprove more profoundly not only assumption, butHamilton's design to establish a National Bank. That was the mostcriminal evidence of an ultimate dash for a throne which the Secretaryof the Treasury, whose place in the Cabinet should have been second tohis own, but who was the very head and front of the Administration, hadyet betrayed. And as for the triumphal progress of Washington throughthe States in the previous autumn, and again before leaving for MountVernon upon the close of the last Congress, a king could have done nomore. The new Republic was tottering on its rotten foundations, andJefferson and his able lieutenants vowed themselves to the rescue. Madison was the anti-government leader in the House, Monroe would abethim in the Senate, and Jefferson would undertake the fight in theCabinet. It cannot be said that he liked the prospect, for he read hisfellow-beings too well to mistake the mettle of Hamilton. He was apeaceable soul, except when in his study with pen in hand, but stem thismonarchical tide he would, and bury Hamilton under the dam. 

"We are three to one, " he said reassuringly to his coadjutors. "He isbrilliant. I do not deny it. But against a triple power--"

"He is worth any three men I ever knew, " said Madison, drearily. "Weshall have to work harder than he will. "

Jefferson lifted his pen, and squinted thoughtfully at its point. Monroe, who was the youngest of the trio, laughed aloud. 

And these were the forces of which Hamilton felt the shock shortly afterthe convening of Congress. 

XXIII

On the 13th of December Hamilton sent to the House of Representativeshis second Report on Public Credit--no longer a nomen of bittersarcasm--and the Report in favour of a National Bank. Congress was oncemore on edge. Since his first Great Report, it had considered andwrangled over his successive Reports on State Debits and Credits, WestPoint, Public Lands, Estimates, and Renewal of Certificates; and it hadlived through the hot summer on the prospect of the excitement which thebold and creative Secretary would surely provide. Even his enemies lovedHamilton in their way, for life was torpid when he rested on hislabours. 

The anti-Federalists, had they needed an additional incentive for thecoming battle, a condition to rouse all their strength and mettle, foundit in the rapidly increasing prosperity of the country, which had raisedHamilton to a height of popularity from which it would be an historictriumph to drag him down. He was, indeed, almost at the zenith of areputation which few men have achieved. From end to end of the Union hisname was on every lip, sometimes coupled with a hiss, but oftener withevery expression of honour and admiration that the language couldfurnish. Even in the South he had his followers, and in the North andEast it was hardly worth a man's nose to abuse him. He was a magician, who could make the fortunes of any man quick enough to seize hisopportunities, and the saviour of the national honour and fortunes. Hisfame obscured that of Washington, and abroad he was by far the mostinteresting and significant figure in the young country. No wonder theanti-Federalists trembled for the future, and with all the vigour ofhardened muscles fought his scheme for allying the moneyed classes withthe Government. 

Hamilton made no secret of his design so closely to attach the wealthymen of the country to the central Government that they must stand orfall with it, coming to its rescue in every crisis; and time hasvindicated his far-sighted policy. But when the National Bank was in thepreliminary stages of its journey, certain of its hosts in Congress sawbut another horrid menace to the liberties of the people, another steptoward the final establishment of a monarchy after the British pattern. The old arguments of subservience to British institutions in the matterof funding, and other successful pets of the Secretary, were draggedforth and wrangled over, in connection with this new and doublypernicious measure of a National Bank. 

Hamilton recommended that a number of subscribers should be incorporatedinto a bank, to be known as the Bank of the United States; the capitalto be ten million dollars; the number of shares twenty-five thousand;the par value of each share four hundred dollars; the Government tobecome a subscriber to the amount of two millions, and to require inreturn a loan of an equal sum, payable in ten yearly instalments of twohundred thousand dollars each. The rest of the capital stock would beopen to the public, to be paid for, one-quarter in gold and silver, andthree-quarters in the six or three per cent certificates of the nationaldebt. The life of the bank was to end in 1811. As an inducement forprompt subscriptions a pledge would be given that for twenty years tocome Congress would incorporate no other. 

It is odd reading for us, with a bank in every street, not only thoseold diatribes in Congress against banks of all sorts, but Hamilton'selaborate arguments in favour of banks in general, the benefits andconveniences they confer upon individuals as well as nations. But inthose days there were but three banks in the Union, and each had beenestablished against violent opposition, Hamilton, in particular, havingcarried the Bank of New York through by unremitting personal effort. Theaverage man preferred his stocking. Representatives from backwoodsdistricts were used to such circulating mediums as military warrants, guard certificates, horses, cattle, cow-bells, land, and whiskey. Theylooked askance at a bank as a sort of whirlpool into which wealth woulddisappear, and bolt out at the bottom into the pockets of a fewindividuals who understood what was beyond the average intellect. But byfar the most disquieting objection brought forward against this plan ofthe Secretary's was its alleged unconstitutionality. 

Monroe, although a new man, and speaking seldom, exerted a systematicopposition in the Senate, and Madison, in the House, argued, withlucidity and persistence, that the Constitution had no power to grant acharter to any such institution as the Secretary proposed. Others arguedthat the success of this new scheme would infringe upon the rights ofthe States, and still others thundered the everlasting accusations ofmonarchical design. Nevertheless, the bill for granting the requiredcharter passed both Houses by a handsome majority. The able Federalistshad contemptuously dissected the arguments against it with greater skillthan even Madison could command; and confidence in Hamilton, by thistime, practically was a religion. The bill was sent to Washington tosign or veto, and the anti-Federalists, disconcerted and alarmed bytheir signal defeat in Congress, rested their final hope on Jefferson. 

The President, according to law, had but ten days in which to sign orveto a bill: if he hesitated but a moment beyond the constitutionallimit, the bill became a law without his signature. It may safely besaid that these ten days were the most miserable of Washington's life sofar, although they were but the forerunner of many to come. 

By this time the Cabinet had acquired the habit of assembling forconference about a council table in the President's house. Washingtonsat at the head of the table, with Hamilton on his left, and Jeffersonon his right. Knox, who would have frowned upon the Almighty had hecontradicted Hamilton, sat beside his Captain. Randolph sat opposite, his principles with Jefferson, but his intellect so given tohair-splitting, that in critical moments this passion to weigh everyside of a proposition in turn frequently resulted in the wrench of aconcession by Hamilton, while Jefferson fumed. As time went on, Washington fell into the habit of extending his long arms upon the tablein front of him, and clasping his imposing hands in the manner of arampart. 

Jefferson began a tentative showing of his colours while the bill wasfighting its stormy way through Congress, and Hamilton was a brief whileperceiving his drift and appreciating his implacable enmity. The firsttime that Jefferson encountered the lightning in Hamilton's eye, thequivering of his nostril, as he half rose from his chair under thesudden recognition of what he was to expect, his legs slid forwardlimply, and he turned his head toward the door. Washington suppressed asmile, but it was long before he smiled again, Hamilton would have nohints and innuendoes; he forced his enemy to show his hand. But althoughhe wrung from Jefferson his opposition to the Bank and to every schemethe Secretary of the Treasury had proposed, he could not drag him intothe open. Jefferson was deprecating, politely determined to serve thecountry in his own way, lost in admiration of this opponent's intellect, but forced to admit his mistakes--the mistakes of a too ardent mind. Themore bitter and caustic the sarcasms that leaped from Hamilton's tongue, the more suave he grew, for placidity was his only weapon ofself-preservation; a war of words with Hamilton, and he would be maderidiculous in the presence of his colleagues and Washington. Occasionally the volcano flared through his pale eyes, and betrayed suchhate and resentment that Washington elevated his hands an inch. ThePresident sat like a stoic, with a tornado on one side of him and agrowling Vesuvius on the other, and exhibited an impartiality, in spiteof the fact that Jefferson daily betrayed his hostility to theAdministration, which revealed but another of his superhuman attributes. But there is a psychological manifestation of mental bias, no matterwhat the control, and some men are sensitive enough to feel it. Jefferson was quite aware that Washington loved Hamilton and believed inhim thoroughly, and he felt the concealed desire to side openly with theSecretary to whom, practically, had been given the reins of government. Washington, rather than show open favouritism, even to Hamilton, to whomhe felt the profoundest gratitude, would have resigned his high office;but the desire was in his head, and Jefferson felt it. The campaignopen, he kept up a nagging siege upon Washington's convictions in favourof his aggressive Secretary's measures, finding constant excuses to bealone with the President. Hamilton, on the other hand, dismissed thesubject when left alone with Washington, unless responding to a demand. He frequently remained to the midday meal with the family, and was asgay and lively as if Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe were in the limbo towhich he gladly would have consigned them. His nature was mercurial inone, at least, of its essences, and a sudden let-down, followed bycongenial company, restored his equilibrium at once. But Washingtonwatched the development of the blackness and violence of his deeperpassions with uneasiness and regret, finally with alarm. 

Hamilton, in truth, was roused to his dregs. The sneaking retreat ofMadison from his standard and affections, the rancorous enmity ofMonroe, with whom he had fought side by side and been well with wheneverthey had been thrown together in the bitter winters of inaction; theslow, cool, determined, deadly opposition of Jefferson, whom herecognized as a giant in intellect and despised as a man with that hotcontempt for the foe who will not strip and fight in the open, whichwhips a passionate nature to the point of fury, had converted Hamiltoninto a colossus of hate which, as Madison had intimated, far surpassedthe best endeavours of the powerful trio. He hated harder, for he hadmore to hate with, --stronger and deeper passions, ampler resources inhis intellect, and an energy of temperament which Jefferson and Madison, recruited by Monroe, could not outweigh. He saw that he was in for thebattle of his life, and that its finish might be deferred for years;for he made no such mistake as to underrate the strength and resourcesof this triple enemy; he knew that it would last until one or the otherwere worn out. Hamilton had no thought of defeat; he never contemplatedit for a moment; his faith in himself and in the wisdom of his measureswas absolute; what he looked forward to with the deepest irritation wasthe persistent opposition, the clogging of his wheels of progress, theconstant personal attacks which might weaken him with the country beforehis multitudinous objects should be accomplished. He suggested resourceafter resource to his faithful and brilliant disciples in Congress, andhe determined to force Jefferson to leave the Cabinet. 

"If he only would take himself out of that room with a defiant admissionthat he intended to head the opposite party and fight me to the death!"he exclaimed to Mrs. Croix, one day. "What right has he to sit there atWashington's hand, a member of his Cabinet, ostensibly in its firstplace, and at war with every measure of the Administration? He cannotoppose me without involving the President, under whom he holds office, and if he had a grain of decent feeling he would resign rather thanoccupy such an anomalous position. "

"He intends to force you to resign. "

"You don't mean to say that he is coming here?" asked Hamilton, indisgust. "Who next?"

"Mr. Jefferson succumbed quite three weeks ago, " said Mrs. Croix, gaily. "He amuses me, and I am instilling the conviction that no human beingcan force you to do anything you don't want to do, and that the soonerhe retreats gracefully the better. "

Hamilton shrugged his shoulders and made no answer. He had ceasedremonstrance long since. If it pleased her to think she was fighting thebattles he was forced to fight with undiminished vigour himself, heshould be the last to interfere with her amusement. She was a bornintrigante, and would have been miserable freckling her complexion inthe open sunlight. He was too grateful to her at this time to risk aquarrel, or to condemn her for any of her violations of masculinestandards. It was to her he poured out his wrath, after an encounterwith Jefferson which had roused him too viciously for reaction atWashington's board or at his own. His wife he spared in every way. Notonly was her delicate health taxed to the utmost with social dutieswhich could not be avoided, the management of her household affairs, andan absorbing and frequently ailing family, but he would have controlledhimself had he burst, before he would have terrified her with a glimpseof passions of whose existence she had not a suspicion. To her and hisfamily he was ever the most amiable and indulgent of men, giving themevery spare moment he could command, and as delighted as a schoolboywith a holiday, when he could spend an hour in the nursery, an eveningwith his wife, or take a ramble through the woods with his boys. He tooka deep pride in his son Philip, directed his studies and habits, and wasas pleased with every evidence of his progress as had he seen Madisonriding a rail in a coat of tar and feathers. He coddled and petted theentire family, particularly his little daughter Angelica, and theyadored him, and knew naught of his depths. 

But Mrs. Croix knew them. In her management of Hamilton she made fewmistakes, passionately as she loved him. It was in her secluded presencehe stormed himself cool, was indignantly sympathized with first, thenadvised, then soothed. He was made to understand that the more herevealed the black and implacable deeps of his nature, the more was heworshipped, the more keen the response from other and not dissimilardeeps. His wife was necessary to him in many ways, his Egeria in manymore. Although he would have sacrificed the last to the first, had itcome to an issue, he would have felt as if one-half of him had beencruelly divorced. Few women understand this dual nature in men, and feware the men who do not. It has been known to exist in those who make nopretensions to genius, and in Hamilton was as natural as the versatilityof his intellect. When with one he locked the other in the recesses ofhis mind as successfully as when at college he had accomplishedherculean feats of mental accumulation by keeping but one thing beforehis thought at a time. What he wanted he would have, so long as hisfamily were in no way affected; and had it not been for Mrs. Croix atthis time, it might have been worse for Betsey. She cooled his fevers;her counsel was always sound. And her rooms and herself were beautiful. She had her way of banishing the world by drawing her soft blue curtainsand lighting her many candles. Had she been a fool, Hamilton would havetired of her in a month; as it was, he often thought of her as the mostconfidential and dispensing of his friends, and no more. 

During the preceding two years of their acquaintance there had been manyquarrels, caused by furious bursts of temper on the part of the lady, when Hamilton forgot her for a month or more. There were times when shewas the solitary woman of Earth, and others when she might have reignedon Mars. He was very busy, and he had countless interests to absorb timeand thought. He never pretended to more than a romantic passion for her, and deep as was her own infatuation, it was sometimes close to hate; forshe was a woman whose vanity was as strong as her passions. At thistime, however, he felt a frequent need of her, and she made the most ofthe opportunity. 

XXIV

Meanwhile, Washington, deeply disturbed by the arguments in the pressand Congress against the constitutionality of the National Bank, hadprivately asked for the written opinions of Jefferson and Randolph, andfor a form of veto from Madison. They were so promptly forthcoming thatthey might have been biding demand. Washington read them carefully, then, too worried and impatient for formalities, carried them himself toHamilton's house. 

"For God's sake read them at once and tell me what they amount to, " hesaid, throwing the bundle of papers on the table. "Of course you mustprepare me an answer in writing, but I want your opinion at once. I willwait. "

Long years after, when Betsey was an old woman, someone asked her if sheremembered any incidents in connection with the establishment of thegreat Bank. She replied, "Yes, I remember it all distinctly. One dayGeneral Washington called at the house, looking terribly worried. Heshut himself up in the study with my husband for hours, and they talkednearly all the time. When he went away he looked much more cheerful. That night my husband did not go to bed at all, but sat up writing; andthe next day we had a Bank. "

Hamilton's answer, both verbally and in a more elaborate form, was soable and sound a refutation of every point advanced by the enemy thatWashington hesitated no longer and signed the bill during the lastmoments remaining to him. Years later, when the same question was raisedagain, Chief Justice Marshall, the most brilliant ornament, by commonconsent, the Supreme Court of the United States has had, admitted thathe could add nothing to Hamilton's argument. It must, also, haveconvinced Madison; for while President of the United States, and hisopportunity for displaying the consistencies of his intellect, unrivalled, he signed the charter of the Second National Bank. Monroe, whose party was in power, and able to defeat any obnoxious measure ofthe Federalists, advocated; the second Bank as heartily as he had cursedthe first. His defence of his conduct was a mixture of insolentfrankness and verbiage. He said: "As to the constitutional objection, itformed no serious obstacle. In voting against the Bank in the firstinstance, I was governed essentially by policy. The construction I gaveto the Constitution I considered a strict one. In the latter instance itwas more liberal but, according to my judgement, justified by itspowers. " If anyone can tell what he meant, doubtless his own shade wouldbe grateful. 

Hamilton's second Report on the Public Credit had beer buffeted aboutquite as mercilessly as the Report in favour of a bank. The customsofficers had, during the past year collected $1, 900, 000, which sufficedto pay two-thirds of the annual expenses of the Government. There wasstill a deficit of $826, 000, and to meet future contingencies of asimilar nature, the Secretary of the Treasury urged the passage of anExcise Bill. 

Even his enemies admired his courage, for no measure could be moreunpopular, raise more widespread wrath. It was regarded as a deliberateattempt to deprive man of his most cherished vice; and every argumentwas brought forth in opposition, from the historic relation of whiskeyto health and happiness, to the menace of adopting another Britishmeasure. The bill passed; but it was a different matter to enforce it, as many an excise officer reflected, uncheerfully, whilst riding a rail. On the 28th of January Hamilton sent in his Report in favour of theestablishment of a mint, with details so minute that he left the framersof the necessary bill little excuse for delay; but it had the sameadventurous and agitated experience of its predecessors, and only limpedthrough, in an amended form, after the wildest outburst of democraticfanaticism which any of the measures of Hamilton had induced. Theproposition to stamp the coins with the head of the President wasconclusive of an immediate design to place a crown upon the head ofWashington. Doubtless the leaders of the Federal party, under the abletuition of their despot, had their titles ready, their mine laid. Jefferson, in the Cabinet, protested with such solemn persistenceagainst so dangerous a precedent, and Hamilton perforated him with sucharrows of ridicule, that Washington exploded with wrath, and demanded toknow if neither never intended to yield a point to the other. 

During this session of Congress, Hamilton also sent in Reports on Tradewith India and China, and on the Dutch Loan. He was fortunate in beingable to forget his enemies for days and even weeks at a time, when hisexistence was so purely impersonal that every capacity of his mind, savethe working, slept soundly. By now, he had his department in perfectrunning order; and his successors have accepted his legacy, with itsinfinitude of detail, its unvarying practicality, with gratitude andtrifling alterations. When Jefferson disposed himself in the Chair ofState, in 1801, he appointed Albert Gallatin--the ablest financier, after Hamilton, the country has produced--Secretary of the Treasury, andbegged him to sweep the department clean of the corruption amidst whichHamilton had sat and spun his devilish schemes. Gallatin, after athorough and conscientious search for political microbes, informed hisChief that in no respect could the department be improved, that therewas not a trace of crime, past or present. Jefferson was disconcerted;but, as a matter of fact, his administrations were passed complacentlyamidst Hamilton legacies and institutions. Jefferson's hour had come. Hecould undo all that he had denounced in his rival as monarchical, aristocratical, pernicious to the life of Democracy. But theadministrations of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, ran from first tolast on those Federal wheels which are still in use, protected withinand without by Federal institutions. But their architect was sent to hisgrave soon after the rise of his arch-enemy to power, was beyondhumiliation or party triumph; it would be folly to war with a spirit, and greater not to let well enough alone. But that is a far cry. Meanwhile the Bank was being rushed through, and its establishment wasanticipated with the keenest interest, and followed by a season of crazyspeculation, dissatisfaction, and vituperation. But this Hamilton hadexpected, and he used his pen constantly to point out the criminal follyand inevitable consequences of speculation. 

XXV

Congress adjourned while the excitement was at its height. Washingtonwent to Mount Vernon, the Cabinet scattered, and there was an intervalof peace. Philadelphia in summer was always unhealthy, and liable to anoutbreak of fever at any moment. Hamilton sent his family to theSchuyler estate at Saratoga. Mrs. Croix had gone as early as May to theNew England coast; for even her magnificent constitution had felt thestrain of that exciting session, and Philadelphia was not tooinvigorating in winter. Hamilton remained alone in his home, glad of theabundant leisure which the empty city afforded to catch up with thearrears of his work, to design methods for financial relief against thetime to apply them, and to prepare his Report on Manufactures, a paperdestined to become as celebrated and almost as widespread in itsinfluence as the great Report on Public Credit. It required days andnights of thinking, research, correspondence, comparison, and writing;and how in the midst of all this mass of business, this keen anxietyregarding the whirlwind of speculation--which was involving some of theleading men in the country, and threatening the young Government with anew disaster; how, while sitting up half the night with his finger onthe public pulse, waiting for the right moment to apply his remedies, hemanaged to entangle himself in a personal difficulty, would be aninscrutable mystery, were any man but Alexander Hamilton in question. 

I shall not enter into the details of the Reynolds affair. No intriguewas ever less interesting. Nor should I make even a passing allusion toit, were it not for its political ultimates. A couple of blackmailerslaid a trap for the Secretary of the Treasury, and he walked into it, asthe wisest of men have done before and since, when the woman has beensufficiently attractive at the right moment. This woman was common andsordid, but she was young and handsome, and her affectation of violentattachment, if ungrammatical, was plausible enough to convince any manaccustomed to easy conquest; and the most astute of men, provided hispassions be strong enough, can be fooled by any woman at once designingand seductive. Ardent susceptibility was in the very essence ofHamilton, with Scotland and France in his blood, the West Indies themould of his youthful being, and the stormy inheritance of his parents. 

But although Hamilton might succumb to a woman of Mrs. Reynold's type, she could not hold him. After liberally relieving the alleged pecuniarydistress of this charmer, and weary of her society, he did his best toget rid of her. She protested. So did he. It was then that he was madeaware of the plot The woman's husband appeared, and announced that onlya thousand dollars would heal his wounded honour, and that if it werenot immediately forthcoming, he would write to Mrs. Hamilton. 

Hamilton was furious. His first impulse was to tell the man to do hisworst, for anything in the nature of coercion stripped him for the frayat once. But an hour of reflection cooled his blood. No one was to blamebut himself. If he had permitted himself to be made a fool of, it wasbut just that he should take the consequences, and not cruelly wound thewoman he loved the better for his vagaries. Moreover, such a scandalwould seriously affect the high office he filled, might indeed force himto resignation; not only thwarting his great ambitions, but deprivingthe country of services which no other man had the ability or the willto render. And a few moments forecast of the triumph of his enemies, notonly over himself but possibly over his party, in case of his downfall, was sufficient in itself to force him to terms. Few are the momentousoccasions in which men are governed by a single motive. Hamilton'sambitions were welded into the future happiness and glory of the countryhe had so ardently adopted. And if love of power was his ruling passion, it certainly was directed to the loftiest of ends. To desire to create anation out of the resources of a vast understanding, controlled bywisdom and honour, is an ambition which should be dignified with ahigher name. Small and purely personal ambitions were unknown toHamilton, his gifts were given him for the elevation of the human race;but he would rather have reigned in hell than have sunk toinsignificance on earth. As he remarked once to Kitty Livingston, thecomplexity of man so far exceeds that of the average woman, complexitybeing purely a matter of brain and having no roots whatever in sex, thatit were a waste of valuable time to analyze its ramifications, and thecrossings and entanglements of its threads. Hamilton paid the money, yielded further to the extent of several hundred dollars, then thepeople disappeared, and he hoped that he had heard the last of them. Fortunately his habits were methodical, the result of his mercantiletraining on St. Croix, and he preserved the correspondence. 

XXVI

Hamilton looked forward to the next Congressional term with nodelusions. He polished his armour until it was fit to blind hisadversaries, tested the temper of every weapon, sharpened every blade, arranged them for immediate availment. In spite of the absorbing anddisconcerting interests of the summer, he had followed in thought themental processes of his enemies, kept a sharp eye out for their newmethods of aggression. Themselves had had no more intimate knowledge oftheir astonishment, humiliation, and impotent fury at the successivevictories of the invulnerable Secretary of the Treasury, than hadHamilton himself. He knew that they had confidently hoped to beat him bytheir combined strength and unremitting industry, and by the growingpower of their party, before the finish of the preceding term. TheFederalists no longer had their former majority in Congress upon allquestions, for many of the men who, under that title, had been devotedadherents of the Constitution, were become alarmed at the constant talkof the monarchical tendencies of the Government, of the centralizingaristocratic measures of the Secretary of the Treasury, at the"unrepublican" formalities and elegance of Washington's "Court, " at histriumphal progresses through the country, and at the enormous one-manpower as exhibited in the person of Hamilton. Upon these mindsJefferson, Madison, and Monroe had worked with unremitting subtlety. Itwas not so much that the early Federalists wished to see Hamiltondragged from his lofty position, for they admired him, and were willingto acknowledge his services to the country; but that the idea grewwithin them that he must be properly checked, lest they suddenly findthemselves subjects again. They realized that they had been running tohim for advice upon every matter, great and insignificant, since the newCongress began its sittings, and that they had adopted the greater partof his counsels without question; they believed that Hamilton wasbecoming the Congress as he already was the Administration; andoverlooked the fact that legislative authority as against executive hadno such powerful supporter as the Secretary of the Treasury. But it wasnot an era when men reasoned as exhaustively as they might have done. They were terrified by bogies, and the blood rarely was out of theirheads. "Monarchism must be checked, " and Hamilton for some months pasthad watched the rapid welding of the old anti-Federalists and the timidFederalists into what was shortly to be known, for a time, as theRepublican party. That Jefferson had been at work all summer, as duringthe previous term, with his subtle, insinuating, and convincing pen, hewell knew, and for what the examples of such men as Jefferson andMadison counted--taking their stand on the high ground of stemming themenace to personal liberties. The Republican party was to be strongerfar than the old anti-Federal, for it was to be a direct and constantappeal to the controlling passion of man, vanity; and Hamilton believedthat did it obtain the reins of power too early in the history of theNation, confusion, if not anarchy, would result: not only was it toosoon to try new experiments, diametrically opposed to those now inoperation, but, under the tutelage of Jefferson, the party was in favourof vesting more power in the masses. Hamilton had no belief inentrusting power to any man or body of men that had not brains, education, and a developed reasoning capacity. He was a Republican butnot a Democrat. He recognized, long before the rival party saw theirmistake in nomenclature, that this Jefferson school marked thedegeneracy of republicanism into democracy. Knowing how absurd andunfounded was all the hysterical talk about monarchism, and that timewould vindicate the first Administration and its party as Republican inits very essence, he watched with deep, and often with impersonal, uneasiness the growth of a party which would denationalize thegovernment, scatter its forces, and interpret the Constitution in afashion not intended by the most protesting of its framers. Hamilton hadin an extraordinary degree the faculty which Spencer callsrepresentativeness; but there were some things he could not foresee, andone was that when the Republicans insinuated themselves to power theywould rest on their laurels, let play the inherent conservatism of man, and gladly accept the goods the Federal party had provided them. Thethree men who wrote and harangued and intrigued against Hamilton foryears, were to govern as had they been the humblest of Hamiltonians. Butthis their great antagonist was in unblest ignorance of, for he, too, reasoned in the heat and height and thick of the fray; and he madehimself ready to dispute every inch of the ground, checkmate every move, force Jefferson into retirement, and invigorate and encourage his ownranks. The majority in both Houses was still Federal, if diminished, andhe determined that it should remain so. 

As early as October his watching eye caught the first flash in thesunlight of a new blade in the enemies' armoury. One Freneau had come totown. He had some reputation as a writer of squibs and verses, andHamilton knew him to be a political hireling utterly without principle. When, therefore, he heard incidentally that this man had lately been incorrespondence and conference with the Virginian junta, and particularlythat he had been "persuaded by his old friend Madison to settle inPhiladelphia, " had received an appointment as translating clerk in theDepartment of State, and purposed to start a newspaper called the_National Gazette_ in opposition to Fenno's Administration organ, _TheUnited States Gazette_, he knew what he was to expect. Fenno's paper wasdevoted to the Administration, and to the Secretary of the Treasury inparticular; it was the medium through which Hamilton addressed most ofhis messages to the people. Naturally it was of little use to hisenemies; and that Jefferson and his aides had realized the value of anorgan of attack, he divined very quickly. He stated his suspicions toWashington immediately upon the President's arrival, and warned him toexpect personal assault and abuse. 

"There is now every evidence of a strong and admirably organized cabal, "he added. "And to pull us down they will not stop at abuse of even you, if failure haunts them. I shall get the most of it, perhaps all. I hopeso, for I am used to it. "

He laughed, and quite as light-heartedly as ever; but Washington lookedat him with uneasiness. 

"You are a terrible fighter, Hamilton, " he said. "I have never seen ordreamed of your equal. Why not merely oppose to them a massiveresistance? Why be continually on the warpath? They give you a tentativescratch, and you reply with a blow under the jaw, from which they risewith a sullener determination to ruin you, than ever. When you are alonewith your pen and the needs of the country, you might have the wisdom ofa thousand years in your brain, and I doubt if at such times youremember your name; you are one of the greatest, wisest, cooleststatesmen of any age; but the moment you come forth to the open, you arenot so much a political leader as a warlike Scot at the head of hisclan, and readier by far to make a dash into the neighbouring fastnessthan to wait for an attack. Are you and Jefferson going to fightstraight through this session?--for if you are, I shall no longer yearnso much for the repose of Mount Vernon as for the silences of the tomb. "

Washington spoke lightly, as he often did when they were alone, and hehad returned from Virginia refreshed; but Hamilton answeredcontritely:--

"We both behaved abominably last year, and it was shocking that youshould bear the brunt of it. I'll do my best to control myself in theCabinet--although that man rouses all the devil in me; but not to fightat the head of my party. Oh! Can the leopard change his spots? I fear Ishall die with my back against the wall, sir, and my boots on. " "Ihaven't the slightest doubt of it. But be careful of giving too free andconstant a play to your passions and your capacity for rancour, or yourcharacter will deteriorate. Tell me, " he added abruptly, narrowing hiseyes and fixing Hamilton with a prolonged scrutiny, "do you not feel itseffects already?"

By this time the early, half-unwilling, half-magnetized affection whichthe boy in Hamilton had yielded to his Chief had given place to aconsistent admiration for the exalted character, the wisdom, justice, and self-control of the President of the United States, and to a devotedattachment. The bond between the two men grew closer every day, and onlythe end of all things severed it. Hamilton, therefore, replied asfrankly as if Washington had asked his opinion on the temper of thecountry, instead of probing the sacred recesses of his spirit:--

"There have been times when I have sat down and stared into myself withhorror; when I have felt as if sitting in the ruins of my nature. I havecaught myself up again and again, realizing where I was drifting. I havelet a fiend loose within me, and I have turned upon it at times with adisgust so bitter and a terror so over-mastering that the mildness whichhas resulted has made me feel indifferent and even amiable to mineenemies. Whether this intimate knowledge of myself will save me, Godknows; but when some maddening provocation comes, after reaction has runits course, I rage more hotly than ever, and only a sense of personaldignity keeps me from using my fists. I am two-thirds passion, and I amafraid that in the end it will consume me. I live so intensely, in mybest and my worst! I would give all I possess for your moderation andbalance. "

"No, you would not, " said Washington. "War is the breath of yournostrils, and peace would kill you. Not that the poise I have acquiredbrings me much peace in these days. "

Hamilton, who had spoken dejectedly, but with the deep relief whichevery mortal feels in a moment of open and safe confession, sprang tohis feet, and stood on the hearth rug, his eyes sparkling with humour. "Confess, sir, " he cried gaily. "You do not like Jefferson any betterthan I do. Fancy him opposite to you day after day, stinging you withhoneyed shafts and opposing you with obstacle after obstacle, whileleering with hypocrisy. Put yourself in my place for an instant, andblame me if you can. "

"Oh, " said Washington, with a deep growl of disgust, "o-h-h!" But hewould not discuss his Secretary of State, even with Hamilton. 

XXVII

The bombardment from Freneau's _Gazette_ opened at once. It began with ageneral assault upon the Administration, denouncing every prominentmember in turn as a monarchist or an aristocrat, and every measure assubversive of the liberties of the country. Vice-President Adamsreceived a heavy broadside, his "Discourses on Davila, " with theiranimadversions upon the French Revolution in particular and Democracy ingeneral, being regarded as a heinous offence against the spirit of hiscountry, and detrimental to the political morals of the American youth. But although the _Gazette_ kept up its pretence of being ananti-Administration organ, publishing in the interests of a deludedpeople, it soon settled down to abuse of Hamilton. 

That a large number of the articles were from Jefferson's damning penfew of the Republican leader's friends denied with any warmth, and thenatural deductions of history would have settled the question, had notFreneau himself confessed the truth in his old age. What Jefferson didnot write, he or Madison inspired, and Freneau had a lively pen of hisown. They had promising material in General St. Clair's recent anddisastrous defeat by the Indians, which, by a triumph of literaryingenuity, was ascribed to the ease and abundance with which theSecretary of the Treasury had caused money to circulate. But a farstronger weapon for their malignant use was the ruinous speculationwhich had maddened the country since the opening of the Bank of theUnited States. It was not enough that the Bank was a monarchicalinstitution, a machine for the corruption of the Government, a club ofgrasping and moneyed aristocrats, but it had been purposely designed forthe benefit of the few--the "corrupt squadron, " namely, the Secretaryand his friends--at the expense of the many. The subsequent failure for$3, 000, 000 of one of these friends, William Duer, gave them no pause, for his ruin precipitated a panic, and but added distinction to hispatron's villany. 

For a time Hamilton held his peace. He had enough to do, steering thefinancial bark through the agitated waters of speculation, withoutwasting time on personal recrimination. Even when, before the failure, he was accused of being in secret partnership with Duer, he did notpause for vindication, but exerted himself to alleviate the generaldistress. He initiated the practice, followed by Secretaries of theTreasury at the present moment, of buying Government loan certificatesin different financial centres throughout the country, thus easing themoney market, raising the price of the certificates, and strengtheningthe public credit. He used the sinking-fund for this purpose. 

There was comparative peace in the Cabinet, an armed truce being, perhaps, a more accurate description of an uneasy psychologicalcondition. Hamilton had made up his mind not only to spare Washingtonfurther annoyance, if possible, but to maintain a dignity which he waskeenly conscious of having relinquished in the past. The two antagonistsgreeted each other politely when they met for the first time in theCouncil Chamber, although they had crossed the street several timespreviously to avoid meeting; and if Jefferson discoursed unctiously andat length, whenever the opportunity offered, upon the lamentableconsequences of a lamentable measure, and indulged in melancholyprognostications of a general ruin, in which the Government woulddisappear and be forgotten, Hamilton replied for a time with but anoccasional sarcasm, and a change of subject. One day, however, along-desired opportunity presented itself, and he did not neglect it. Hewas well aware that Jefferson had complained to Virginia that he hadbeen made to hold a candle to the wily Secretary of the Treasury in thematter of assumption, in other words, that his guileless understanding, absorbed in matters of State, had been duped into a bargain of whichVirginia did not approve, despite the concession to the Potomac. 

About two months after Congress opened, Washington, as his Cabinetseated itself, was detained in his room with a slight indisposition, butsent word that he would appear presently. For a time, Randolph and Knoxtalked feverishly about the Indian troubles, while Hamilton looked oversome notes, and Jefferson watched his antagonist covertly, as ifanticipating a sudden spring across the table. Hamilton was not in agood humour. He was accustomed to abuse in Congress, and that it wasagain in full tide concerned him little, for he was sure of ultimatevictories in both Houses; and words which were powerless to result in adefeat for himself, or his party, he treated with the scorn whichimpotence deserved. But it was another matter to have his privatecharacter assailed day after day in the press, to watch a subtle peninsinuate into the public mind that a woman imperilled her reputation inreceiving him, and that he was speculating in secret with the recklessfriend whom he had warned over and over, and begged to desist. Freneausent him three copies of the _Gazette_ daily, lest he miss something, and he had that morning left Betsey in tears. Fenno was fighting theSecretary's battles valiantly; but there was only one pen in Americawhich could cope with Jefferson's, and that was Hamilton's own. Butaside from his accumulating cares, it was a strife to which he did notcare to descend. To-day, however, he needed but a match, and Jefferson, who experienced a fearful fascination in provoking him, applied it. 

"I hear that Duer is on the verge of failure, " he remarked sadly. 

"Yes, " said Hamilton; "he is. "

"I hold it to be a great misfortune that he has been connected with theAdministration in any way. "

"His connection was quite distinct from your department. I alone wasresponsible for his appointment as my assistant. There is no necessityfor you to shed any hypocritical tears. "

"What concerns the honour of the Administration naturally concerns theSecretary of State. "

"There is no question of honour. If Duer fails, he will fail honourably, and the Administration, with which he is no longer connected, will in noway be involved. "

"Of those facts of course I am sure, but I fear the reflections in thepress. "

"Keep your own pen worthily employed, and the Administration will takecare of itself. "

"I do not understand you, sir, " said Jefferson, with great dignity. 

"I am quite ready to be explicit. Keep your pen out of Freneau'sblackguard sheet, while you are sitting at Washington's right hand, atall events--"

Jefferson had elevated both hands. "I call Heaven to witness, " he cried, "this black aspersion upon my character is, has been, entirely aproduction of the imagination of my enemies. I have never written norinspired a line in Mr. Freneau's paper. "

Hamilton laughed and returned to his notes. 

"You do not believe me, sir?" demanded Jefferson, the blood boilingslowly to his large face. 

"No, " said Hamilton; "I do not. "

Jefferson brought his mighty fist down upon the table with a bang. "Sir!" he exclaimed, his husky voice unpleasantly strained, "I have stoodenough from you. Are you aware that you have called me a liar, sir? Ihave suffered at your hands since the day I set foot in this country. Ileft the peace and retirement that I love, to come forth in response toa demand upon my duty, a demand I have ever heeded, and what has been myreward? The very first act I was tricked into committing was a crimeagainst my country--"

"Were you in your dotage, sir?" thundered Hamilton, springing to hisfeet, and bringing his own hand down with such violence that the lead inhis cuff dented his wrist. "Was your understanding enfeebled with age, that you could not comprehend the exhaustive explanation I made of thecrisis in this country's affairs? Did I not give you twenty-four hoursin which to think it over? What were you doing--muddling your brainswith French wines?--that you could not reason clearly when relieved ofmy baleful fascination? Were you not protected on the following day bytwo men, who were more your friends than mine? I proposed astraightforward bargain, which you understood as well then as you donow. You realized to the full what the interests of the countrydemanded, and in a rare moment of disinterested patriotism you agreed toa compromise in which you saw no detriment to yourself. What you did notanticipate was the irritation of your particular State, and theannoyance to your vanity of permitting a younger man to have his way. Now let me hear no more of this holding a candle, and the tricking of anopen mind by a wily one, unless you are willing to acknowledge that yourbrain was too weak to grasp a simple proposition; in which case you hadbetter resign from public office. "

"I know that is what you are trying to force me to do, " gaspedJefferson, almost speechless between rage and physical fear; forHamilton's eyes were flashing, his body curved as if he meditatedimmediate personal violence. "But I'll not do it, sir, any more than Ior anyone else will be deluded by the speciousness of your language. Youare an upstart. You have no State affinities, you despise them for avery good reason--you come from God knows where--I do not even know thename of the place. You are playing a game. You care nothing for thecountry you were not born in. Unless you can be king, you would treat itas your toy. "

"For your absurd personalities I care nothing, " said Hamilton, reseatinghimself. "They are but the ebullitions of an impotence that would ruinand cannot. But take heed what you write, for in injuring the Secretaryof the Treasury you injure the prosperity of the country; and if youpush me too far, I'll expose you and make you infamous. Here comes thePresident. For God's sake bottle your spite for the present. "

The two men did not exchange a remark during the rest of the sitting, but Jefferson boiled slowly and steadily; Hamilton's words had raisedwelts under which he would writhe for some time to come. When theCabinet adjourned he remained, and followed Washington into the library, under cover of a chat about seeds and bulbs, a topic of absorbinginterest to both. When their legs were extended before the fire, Jefferson said, as abruptly as if the idea had but just presenteditself:--

"Mr. President, we are both Virginians, and had cut our wisdomteeth--not that for a moment I class myself with you, sir--while youngHamilton was still in diapers. "

"Children do not wear diapers in the West Indies, " interruptedWashington, in his gravest accents. "I spent some months on the Islandof Barbadoes, in the year seventeen hundred and fifty-one. "

"Was he born In the West Indies? I had never heard. But, if I maycontinue, I have therefore summoned up my courage to speak to you on asubject close to my heart--for no subject can be so close as the welfareof a country to which we have devoted our lives. "

He paused a moment, prepared with an answer, did the President haughtilywarn him not to transgress the bounds of etiquette; but Washington wasstaring at the fire, apparently recalling the scenery of the Tropics. 

Jefferson continued: "In the length and breadth of this Union there isnot a man, not even the most ardent Republican, who has not implicitfaith in the flawless quality of your patriotism and in your personalwisdom; but, and possibly unknown to you, sir, the extreme andhigh-handed measures, coupled with the haughty personal arrogance, ofour Secretary of the Treasury have inspired a widespread belief, whichis permeating even his personal friends, that he entertains subtle andinsidious monarchical designs, is plotting to convert our littleRepublic into a kingdom. Personally, I do not believe this--"

"I should hope not. You have always seemed to me to be a man ofsingular wisdom and good sense. Therefore I feel sure that you are asheartily sick of all this absurd talk about monarchism as I am. There isnot a word of truth in Mr. Hamilton's 'monarchical designs'; it isimpossible that you should not know this as well as I do. You must alsobe as well aware that he has rendered services to this country whichwill be felt as long as it remains united. It is doubtful if anyone elsecould have rendered these same services, for, to my knowledge at least, we have no man in the country who combines financial genius with anunexampled boldness and audacity. He has emphatically been the man forthe hour, abruptly transferred from his remote birthplace, it has seemedto me, by a special intervention of Providence; free of all localprejudices, which have been, and will continue to be, the curse of thiscountry, and with a mettle unacted upon by years of doubt andhesitation. I do no other man in public life an injustice in my warmadmiration of Mr. Hamilton's genius and absolute disinterestedness. Eachhas his place, and is doing his part bravely and according to hislights, many of them rendering historic services which Mr. Hamilton'swill not overshadow. His are equally indisputable. This unfortunateresult of establishing a National Bank was doubtless inevitable, andwill quickly disappear. That the Bank is a monarchical device, you, ofall men, are too wise to believe for a moment. Leave that for suchsensational scoundrels as the editors of this new _Gazette_ and of otherpapers. I regret that there is a personal antipathy between you and Mr. Hamilton, but I have not the least doubt that you believe in hisintegrity as firmly as I do. "

Jefferson was scowling heavily. "I am not so sure that I do, sir, " hesaid; inconsistent often in his calmest tempers, passion dissipated hispower of consecutive thought. "When Mr. Hamilton and I were on friendlyterms--before he took to annoying me with a daily exhibition of personalrancour, from which I have been entirely free--he has often at my owntable avowed his admiration of the British Constitution, deprecated theweakness of our own admirable instrument, tacitly admitted his regretthat we are a republic and not a kingdom. I have his very words in mydiary. He is committed out of his own mouth. I not only believe but knowhim to be a lover of absolute monarchy, and that he has no faith thatthis country can continue to exist in its present shape. It is for thatreason I hold him to be a traitor to the country with which he is merelyamusing himself. "

"Sir, " said Washington, turning to Jefferson an immobile face, in whichthe eyes were beginning to glitter, "is a man to be judged by hisprivate fancies or by his public acts? I know nothing of Mr. Hamilton'ssecret desires. Neither, I fancy, do you. We do know that he hasresigned a brilliant and profitable practice at the bar to guide thisunfortunate country out of bankruptcy and dishonour into prosperity andevery promise of a great and honourable future. Pray let the matter restthere for the present. If Mr. Hamilton be really a liar and a charlatan, rest assured he will betray himself before any great harm is done. Everyman is his own worst enemy. I was deeply interested in what you weresaying when we entered this room. Where did you say you purchased thoselily bulbs? My garden is sadly behind yours, I fear. I certainly shallenter upon an amiable rivalry with you next summer. "

And Jefferson knew better than to persist. 

XXVIII

On January 28th Hamilton sent to Congress his Report on Manufactures, and how anybody survived the fray which ensued can only be explained bythe cast-iron muscles forged in the ancestral arena. Hamilton had noabstract or personal theories regarding tariff, and would have been thefirst to denounce the criminal selfishness which distinguishesProtection to-day. The situation was peculiar, and required theapplication of strictly business methods to a threatening and immediateemergency. Great Britain was oppressing the country commercially byevery method her council could devise. Defensive legislation wasimperative. Moreover, if the country was to compete with the nations ofthe world and grow in independent wealth, particularly if it wouldprovide internal resources against another war, it must manufactureextensively, and its manufactures must be protected. Such, in brief, wasthe argument of one of the ablest State papers in any country, for whoseexhaustive details, the result of two years of study and comparison, ofresearch into the commercial conditions of every State in Europe, thereis no space here. The battle was purely political, for the measure waspopular with the country from the first. It was opposed by the planters, with Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe in the lead. They argued that themeasure would burden the people at large; that the country was tooremunerative not to be able to take care of itself; that progress shouldbe natural and not artificial; that the measure was unconstitutional;above all, as the reader need hardly be told, that no proposition hadyet been advanced by the monarchical Secretary of the Treasury so"paternal, " so conclusive of his ultimate designs. "To let the thirteenStates, bound together in a great indissoluble union, concur in erectingone great system, superior to the control of transatlantic force andinfluence, and able to dictate the connection between the old and thenew world, " was but another subtle device to consolidate the States forsudden and utter subversion when Hamilton had screwed the last pointinto his crown. That in the Twentieth Century the United States would bean object of uneasiness daily approaching to terror in the eyes of GreatBritain and Europe, as a result of this Report, even Hamilton himselfdid not foresee, much less the planters; nor that it would carry throughthe War of 1812 without financial distress. Above all, did no oneanticipate that the three Virginians, in their successive incumbenciesof the Executive Chair, would pursue the policy of protection inunhesitating obedience to the voice of the people. The first result ofthis Report was the great manufacturing interests of Paterson, NewJersey, which celebrated their centennial a few years ago. Paterson wasHamilton's personal selection, and it still throbs with something of hisown energy. 

Meanwhile he was being elected an honorary member of colleges andsocieties of arts and letters, and persecuted by portrait painters andsculptors. Every honour, public and private, was thrust upon him, andeach new victory was attended by a public banquet and a burst of popularapplause. He was apparently invulnerable, confounding his opponents andenemies without effort. Never had there been such a conquering hero;even the Virginian trio began to wonder uneasily if he were but mortal, if he were not under some mighty and invisible protection. As for theFederalists, they waxed in enthusiasm and devotion. His career was atits zenith. No man in the United States was--nor has been since--soloved and so hated, both in public and in private life. EvenWashington's career had not been more triumphant, and hardly soremarkable; for he was an American born, had always had a larger measureof popular approval, and never had discovered the faculty of raisingsuch bitter and powerful enemies. Nor had he won an extraordinaryreputation until he was long past Hamilton's present age. Certainly hehad never exhibited such unhuman precocity. 

But although Hamilton had, by this time, extancy to suffice any man, andwas hunted to his very lair by society, he had no thought of resting onhis labours. He by no means regarded himself as a demi-god, nor thecountry as able to take care of itself. He prepared, and sent toCongress in rapid succession, his Reports on Estimates for Receipts andExpenditures for 1791-92, on Loans, on Duties, on Spirits, on AdditionalSupplies for 1792, on Remission of Duties, and on the Public Debt. 

Nor did his labours for the year confine itself to reports. On August4th, his patience with the scurrilities of Freneau's _Gazette_ came toan end, and he published in Fenno's journal the first of a series ofpapers that Jefferson, in the hush of Monticello, read with thesensations of those forefathers who sat on a pan of live coals for theamusement of Indian warriors. Hamilton was thorough or nothing. He hadheld himself in as long as could be expected of any mortal lessperfected in his self-government than George Washington: but when, finally, he was not only stung to fury by the constant and systematiccalumnies of Jefferson's slanting art, but fearful for the permanence ofhis measures, in the gradual unsettling of the public mind, he took offhis coat; and Jefferson knew that the first engagement of the finalbattle had begun in earnest, that the finish would be the retirement ofone or other from the Cabinet. 

Hamilton began by mathematically demonstrating that Freneau was the toolof Jefferson, imported and suborned for the purpose of depressing thenational authority, and exposed the absurdity of the denials of both. When he had finished dealing with this proposition, its day for being asubject of animated debate was over. He then laid before the publiccertain facts in the career of Jefferson with which they wereunacquainted: that he had first discountenanced the adoption of theConstitution, and then advised the ratification of nine of the Statesand the refusal of four until amendments were secured, --a proceedingwhich infallibly would have led to civil war; that he had advocated thetransfer of the debt due to France to a company of Hollanders in thesewords: "If there is a _danger_ of the public debt _not being punctual_, I submit whether it may not be better, that _the discontents which wouldthen arise_ should be _transferred_ from a _court_ of whose _good-willwe have so much need_ to the _breasts_ of a _private company_"--anobviously dishonourable suggestion, particularly as the company in viewwas a set of speculators. It was natural enough, however, in a man whosekink for repudiation in general led him to promulgate the theory thatone generation cannot bind another for the payment of a debt. Hamilton, having disposed of Jefferson's attempts, under the signature ofAristides, to wriggle out of both these accusations, discoursed upon thedisloyal fact that the Secretary of State was the declared opponent ofevery important measure which had been devised by the Government, andproceeded to lash him for his hypocrisy in sitting daily at the righthand of the President while privately slandering him; of exercising allthe arts of an intriguing mind, ripened by a long course of Europeandiplomacy, to undermine an Administration whose solidity was the onlyguaranty for the continued prosperity and honour of the country. Hamilton reminded the people, with a pen too pointed to fail ofconviction, of the increase of wealth and happiness which had ensuedevery measure opposed by the Secretary of State, and drew a warningpicture of what must result were these measures reversed by a partywithout any convictions beyond the determination to compass the downfallof the party in power. He bade them choose, and passed on to arefutation of the several accusations hurled at the Administration, andat himself in particular. 

He wrote sometimes with temperance and self-restraint, at others withstinging contempt and scorn. Jefferson replied with elaborate denials, solemn protests of disinterested virtue, and counter accusations. Hamilton was back at him before the print was dry, and the battle ragedwith such unseemly violence, that Washington wrote an indignant letterto each, demanding that they put aside their personal rancours and acttogether for the common good of the country. The replies of the two menwere characteristic. Hamilton wrote a frank and manly letter, barelyalluding to Jefferson, and asserting that honour and policy exacted hischarges and refutations. He would make no promise to discontinue hispapers, for he had no intention of laying down his pen until Jeffersonwas routed from the controversial field, and the public satisfied of thetruth. Jefferson's letter was pious and sad. It breathed a ferventdisinterestedness, and provided as many poisoned arrows for his rival asits ample space permitted. It was a guinea beaten out into an acre ofgold leaf and steeped in corrosive sublimate. 

But during that summer of 1792 Hamilton had little time for personalexplosions except in brief. The Presidential elections approached, andthe greater part of his time was given to party management and counsel. Washington's renomination and election were assured. The only obstacleencountered had been Washington himself, but his yearning for peace hadagain retired before duty. The parties were arrayed in a desperatestruggle for the Vice-Presidency, the issue to determine thevindication or the condemnation of the measures of Hamilton. Adamshimself was unpopular in the anti-Federalist ranks, on account of hisaristocratic tastes and his opposition to the French Revolution; but thetime was propitious for a tremendous trial of strength with theomnipotent Secretary of the Treasury, and any candidate of his wouldhave been opposed as bitterly. 

Jefferson and Burr were each suggested for the office, but Hamiltonbrought down his heavy hand on both of them promptly, and the fightsettled into a bitter struggle between Adams and Clinton. The latter'sstrength in the State of New York was still very great, and he was ashardy a fighter as ever. But his political past was studded withvulnerable points, and the Federalists spared him not. 

It is impossible, whatever one's predilections, not to admire Clintonfor his superb fighting qualities. He was indomitable, and in abilityand resourcefulness second only to Hamilton himself, in party managementfar superior; for he had greater patience, a tenderer and more intimateconcern for his meaner followers, and less trust in his own unaidedefforts and the right of his cause. Hamilton by no means was blind tothe pettier side of human nature, but he despised it; instead oftruckling and manipulating, he would scatter it before him or grind itto pulp. There is no possible doubt that if Hamilton had happened into acountry at war with itself, but with strong monarchical proclivities, hewould have seized the crown and made one of the wisest and kindest ofautocrats. His lines cast in a land alight from end to end withrepublican fires, he accepted the situation with his inherentphilosophy, burned with a patriotism as steady as Washington's own, butruled it in his own way, forced upon it measures in whose wisdom heimplicitly believed, and which, in every instance, time has vindicated. But his instinct was that of the amiable despot, and he had noconciliation in him. 

His opponents saw only the despot, for time had not given them range ofvision. Therefore, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Clinton, and his otherformidable enemies have a large measure of excuse for their conduct, especially as they were seldom unstung by mortifying defeat. It isdoubtful if the first three, at least, ever admitted to themselves oreach other that they hated Hamilton, and were determined for purelypersonal reasons to pull him down. Every man knows how easy it is topersuade himself that he is entirely in the right, his opponent, or evenhe who differs from him, entirely in the wrong. The Virginian trio hadby this, at all events, talked themselves into the belief that Hamiltonwas a menace to the permanence of the Union, and that it was their piousduty to relegate him to the shades of private life. That in public lifehe would infallibly interfere with their contemplated twenty-four yearsChair Trust may have been by the way. They were all men with aconsciousness of public benefits to their credit, and some disinterestedpatriotism. If their ignoble side is constantly in evidence in theirdealings with Hamilton, it by no means follows that two, at least, ofour most distinguished Presidents--Monroe was a mere imitationist--hadno other. Had that been the case, they would have failed as miserably asBurr, despite their talents, for the public is not a fool. But thattheir faults were ignoble, rather than passionate, their biographershave never pretended to deny. In many instances no apology is attempted. On the other hand, the most exhaustive research among the records offriends and enemies has failed to bring to light any evidence of meanand contemptible traits in Hamilton. No one will deny his faults, hismistakes; but they were the mistakes and faults of passion in everyinstance; of a great nature, capable of the extremest violence, of thedeadliest hate and maddest blows, but fighting always in the open; ingreat crises unhesitatingly sacrificing his personal desires or hatredsto the public good. Even his detractors--those who count inletters--have admitted that his nature and his methods were toohigh-handed for grovelling and deceit, that the mettle of his couragewas unsurpassed. Jefferson and Madison had the spirit of the mongrel incomparison; Monroe was a fighter, but cowardly and spiteful. In point ofmettle alone, Adams and Clinton were Hamilton's most worthy opponents. 

Burr had not shown his hand as yet. He was at war with Clinton himself, and an active and coruscating member of the Senate. But Hamilton, bythis, knew him thoroughly. He read his lack of Public spirit in everysuccessive act of his life, recognized an ambition which would nothesitate to sacrifice his best friend and the country he was using, anda subtlety and cunning which would, with his lack of principle andproperty, make him the most dangerous man in America should he contriveto grasp the reins of power. Therefore he checkmated his every move, careless of whether he made another powerful enemy or not. 

Hamilton attempted no delusions with himself. He knew that he hatedJefferson with a violence which threatened at times to submerge all thegood in him, horrified him when he sat down and looked into himself. Onthe other hand, he knew himself to be justified in thwarting andhumiliating him, for the present policy of the country must be preservedat any cost. But he was too clear and practised an analyst to fail toseparate his public from his personal rancour. He would drive Jeffersonfrom public office for the public good, but he would experience thekeenest personal pleasure in so doing. Such was Hamilton. Could a geniuslike his be allied in one ego with a character like Washington's, weshould have a being for which the world has never dared to hope in itsmost Biblical moments. But genius must ever be imperfect. Life is notlong enough nor slow enough for both brain and character to grow side byside to superhuman proportions. 

XXIX

The following political year was a lively one for Hamilton, perhaps theliveliest of his career. As it approached, those interested in publicaffairs had many subjects for constant and excited discussion: thepossible Vice-President, whose election was to determine the futurestatus of the Secretary of State, and cement or weaken the centralizedpowers of the Administration; the battle in the two _Gazettes_, withthe laurels to Hamilton, beyond all controversy, and humiliation forJefferson and Madison; the growing strength of the "Republican" partyunder Madison's open and Jefferson's literary leadership; the probablepolicy of the Administration toward the French Revolution, withJefferson hot with rank Democracy, and Hamilton hotter with contempt forthe ferocity of the Revolutionists; the next move of the Virginians didHamilton win the Vice-Presidency for the Administration party; and thevarious policies of the Secretary of the Treasury and their results. Atcoffee-houses, at public and private receptions, and in Mrs. Croix'sdrawing-room, hardly another subject was broached. 

"A fool could understand politics in these days, " said Betsey, oneevening in December, with a sigh. "Not a word does one hear of clothes, gossip, husbands, or babies. Mrs. Washington told me the day after shereturned that she had deliberately thought of nothing but butter andpatchwork during the entire recess, that her poor brain might be able tostand the strain of the winter. Shall you have to work harder thanever?"

"I do not know, " replied Hamilton, and at that moment he did not. He wascorrecting a French exercise of his son's, and feeling domestic andhappy. Jefferson and he had made no pretence at formal amiability thisseason; they did not speak at all, but communicated on paper when thebusiness of their respective departments required an interchange ofopinion. He had vanquished his enemy in print, made him ridiculous inthe eyes of all who read the _Gazettes_. Moreover, Washington, disturbedduring the summer by the constant nagging of Jefferson and his agents, respecting the "monarchical schemes" and "corrupt practices" of theSecretary of the Treasury, had formulated the accusations and sent themto Hamilton for refutation. The vindication, written without passion, ascold, clear, consistent, and logical, as if dealing with an abstractproposition, had convinced, and finally, all to whom it was shown; withthe exception of Jefferson, who had no intention of being convinced. Hamilton was conscious that there was no vulnerable point in his publicarmour. Of his private he was not so sure; Reynolds was in jail, forattempting, in company with one Clingman, to suborn a witness to commitperjury, and had appealed to him for aid. He had ignored him, determinedto submit to no further blackmail, be the consequences what they might. But he was the last man to anticipate trouble, and on the whole he wasin the best of humours as the Christmas holidays approached, with hisboys home from their school on Staten Island, his little girl growinglovelier and more accomplished, and his wife always charming and pretty;in their rare hours of uninterrupted companionship, piquant anddiverting. He had gone out with her constantly since Congress assembled, and had enjoyed the recreations of society after his summer of hard workand angry passions. Everywhere he had a triumphal progress; men andwomen jostled each other about him, eager for a word, a smile, makinghim talk at length, whether he would or not. The confidence in him wasstronger than ever, but his enemies were the most powerful, collectivelyand individually, that had ever arrayed against a public man: Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, with the South behind them; the Livingstons and theClinton faction in New York; Burr, with his smiling subterraneanindustry; the growing menace of the Republican party. Pamphlets werecirculating in the States warning voters against all who supported theSecretary of the Treasury. It was one man against odds of appallingstrength and resource; for by common consent both of friends and enemiesHamilton was the Federal party. Did he fall, it must go; all blows wereaimed at him alone. Could any one man stand for ever an impregnablefortress before such a battery? Many vowed that he would, for "he wasmore than human, " but others, as firm in their admiration, shruggedtheir shoulders. The enemy were infuriated at the loss of theVice-Presidency, for again Hamilton had been vindicated and Adamsreflected. What would be their next move?

Betsey knew that her husband had enemies, but the fact gave her littleconcern; she believed Hamilton to be a match for the allied forces ofdarkness. She noticed when his hair was unpowdered that it was turninggray and had quite lost its boyish brightness; here and there work andcare had drawn a line. But he was handsomer, if anything, and of thescars on his spirit she knew nothing. In the peace and pleasantdistractions of his home his mercurial spirits leaped high above hisanxieties and enmities, and he was as gay and happy, as interested inthe manifold small interests of his family, as were he a private man offortune, without an ambition, an enemy, or a care. When most absorbed orirritated he never victimized his household by moods or tempers, notonly because they were at his mercy, but because his naturespontaneously gave as it received; his friends had his best always, hisenemies the very worst of which his intense passionate nature wascapable. Naturally his family adored him and studied his happiness. 

Betsey continued her somewhat rambling remarks, "The only variety is theFrench Revolution. "

"By the way, Washington has had a distressing letter from MadameLafayette. She begs him to receive her boy--George Washington--and keephim until the trouble is over. The Chief fears that in the presenttemper of the public his reception of Lafayette's son would be given anembarrassing significance, and yet it is impossible to refuse such arequest, --with Lafayette in an Austrian dungeon, his wife in dailydanger of prison or guillotine, and this boy, his only son, with no onebut a tutor to protect him. I offered at once to receive the child intomy family--subject, of course, to your approval. Should you object? Itwould add to your cares--"

"I have no cares, sir. I shall be delighted; and he can talk French withthe children. "

"I shall send him to Staten Island with Philip and Alex. Washington willmake him a liberal allowance for school and clothing. I confess I amanxious to receive him, more than anxious to show that my old friendshipis undiminished. I fear to open every packet from Europe, lest I hear ofLafayette's death. Fortunately, Morris was able to render someassistance to Madame Lafayette. Morris is a source of sufficient worryhimself, for he is much too independent and bold for a foreign envoy inthe thick of mob rule, mad with blood. "

"I hate to think of old friends in trouble, " said Betsey, removing atear. "Poor Kitty Duer! I had another letter from her to-day. It ispitiful to think of her and the poor little children, with nothing butwhat Lady Sterling, who has so little, and Lady Mary can give them. Isthere no way of getting Colonel Duer out of Debtor's prison?"

"I've moved heaven and earth, but certain of his creditors areinexorable. Still, I hope to have him out and on his feet before long. You are not to worry about other people this evening, for I amparticularly happy. Philip is really remarkable, and I believe thatAngelica is going to turn out a musical genius. What a delight it is tohave one person in the world to whom one can brag about one's offspringwithout apology. "

"Why, of course they are the most remarkable children in the world--allfive of them, " said Betsey, placidly. 

Edward Stevens came in and threw himself on the sofa. "What a relief tocome into this scene of domestic tranquillity, after the row outside!"he exclaimed. "All the world is in the streets; that is to say, all thedaft American world that sympathizes with that bloody horror in France. The news that the allied armies have been beaten and the Duke ofBrunswick was in full retreat when the packets sailed, has apparentlydriven them frantic with joy. They are yelling 'Ça ira, ' bonfires areflaring everywhere, and bells ringing. All of the men are drunk, andsome of the women. And yet the statesman who must grapple with thisportentous problem is gossiping with his wife, and looking as if he hadnot a care in the world. Thank Heaven!"

"I can do nothing to-night, " said Hamilton, smiling. "I have had toomuch experience as a practical philosopher not to be happy while I can. "

"You have the gift of eternal youth. What shall you do in this Frenchmatter, Alexander the Great? All the world is waiting to know. I shouldworry about you if I had time in this reeking town, where it is a wonderany man has health in him. Oh, for the cane-fields of St. Croix! Buttell me, what is the policy to be--strict neutrality? Of course thePresident will agree with you; but fancy Jefferson, on his other side, burning with approval for the very excesses of the Revolution, sincethey typify democracy exultant. And of course he is burrowing in thedark to increase his Republican party and inspire it with his fanaticalenthusiasm for those inhuman wretches in France. I believe he wouldplunge us into a war to-morrow. "

"No, he is an unwarlike creature. He would like to trim, keep thiscountry from being actually bespattered with blood, but coax theAdministration to give the Revolutionists money and moral support. Hewill do nothing of the sort, however. The policy of this remote countryis absolute, uncompromising, neutrality. Let Europe keep her hands offthis continent, and we will let her have her own way across the water. The United States is the nucleus of a great nation that will spreadindefinitely, and any further Europeanizing of our continent would be amenace which we can best avoid by observing from the beginning astrictly defensive policy. To weaken it by an aggressive inroad intoEuropean politics would be the folly of schoolboys not fit to conduct anation. We must have the Floridas and Louisiana as soon as possible. Ihave been urging the matter upon Washington's attention for three years. Spain is a constant source of annoyance, and the sooner we get her offthe continent the better--and before Great Britain sends her. We needthe Mississippi for navigation and must possess the territories that arethe key to it. How idiotic, therefore, to antagonize any old-worldpower!"

"You _are_ long-headed!" exclaimed Stevens. "Good heavens! Listen tothat! The very lungs of Philadelphia are bellowing. Our people must bemad to see in this hideous French Revolution any resemblance to theirown dignified and orderly struggle for freedom. "

"It is so easy to drive men mad, " said Hamilton, contemptuously. "Particularly when they are in constant and bitter opposition to theparty in power, and possess a leader as subtle and venomous as ThomasJefferson--'Thomas, ' as he signed a letter to Washington the other day. You may imagine the disgust of the Chief. "

"Not another word of politics this night!" exclaimed Mrs. Hamilton. "Ihave not uttered a word for just twenty-five minutes. Alexander, go andbrew a beaker of negus. "

XXX

The next morning Hamilton was sitting in his office when the cards ofJames Monroe, F. A. Muhlenberg, and A. Venable were brought in. 

"What on earth can they want?" he thought. "Monroe? We have not bowedfor a year. Two days ago he turned into a muddy lane and splashedhimself to his waist, that he might avoid meeting me. "

His first impulse was to excuse himself, on the plea of the pressingnature of his work; but curiosity triumphed, and he told his page toadmit the men. 

Muhlenberg was again Speaker of the House; Venable was a Representativefrom Virginia. Hamilton was not friendly with either, but nodded whenthey passed him. He greeted them amiably as they entered to-day, andexchanged a frigid bow with Monroe. The Senator from Virginia took achair in the rear of the others, stretched his long legs in front ofhim, and folded his arms defiantly. He looked not unlike a greyhound, his preference for drab clothing enhancing the general effect of apointed and narrow leanness. 

There was a moment of extreme awkwardness. Muhlenberg and Venablehitched their chairs about. Monroe grinned spasmodically, and rubbed hisnose with his upper lip. 

"Well, gentlemen, " said Hamilton, rapping his fingers on the table. "What can I do for you?" He scented gun-powder at once. 

"I am to be the spokesman in this delicate matter, I believe, " saidMuhlenberg, who looked red and miserable, "and I will, with yourpermission, proceed to my unpleasant task with as little delay aspossible. "

"Pray do, " replied Hamilton. "The daily assaults of my enemies forseveral years have endowed me with a fortitude which doubtless willcarry me through this interview in a creditable manner. "

"I assure you, sir, that I do not come as an enemy, but as a friend. Itis owing to my appeal that the matter was not laid directly before thePresident. "

"The President?" Hamilton half rose, then seated himself again. His eyeswere glittering dangerously. Muhlenberg blundered on, his own gazeroving. The Federal term of endearment for Hamilton, "The Little Lion, "clanged suddenly in his mind, a warning bell. 

"I regret to say that we have discovered an improper connection betweenyourself and one Reynolds. " He produced a bundle of letters and handedthem to Hamilton. "These are not in your handwriting, sir, but I aminformed that you wrote them. "

Hamilton glanced at them hastily, and the angry blood raced through hisarteries. 

"These letters were written by me, " he said. "I disguised my handwritingfor purposes of my own. What is the meaning of this unwarrantableintrusion into a man's private affairs? Explain yourself at once. "

"That is what we have come for, sir. Unfortunately we cannot regard itas a private affair, but one which concerns the whole nation. "

"The whole nation!" thundered Hamilton. "What has the nation to do withan affair of this sort? Why cannot you tell the truth and say that yougloat in having discovered this wretched affair, --a common enoughepisode in the lives of all of you, --in having another tid-bit forFreneau? Why did you not take it to him at once? What do you mean bycoming here personally to take me to task?"

"I think there is some misapprehension, sir, " said Muhlenberg. "Itwould be quite impossible for any one present to have misconductedhimself in the manner in which the holder of those letters, Mr. Reynolds, accuses you of having done. And surely the whole country isintimately concerned in the honesty--or the dishonesty--of the Secretaryof the Treasury. "

The words were out, and Muhlenberg sat with his mouth open for a moment, as if to reinhale the air which was escaping too quickly for calmspeech. Then he set his shoulders and braced himself to meet theSecretary's eyes. Hamilton was staring at him, with no trace of passionin his face. His eyes looked like steel; his whole face had hardenedinto a mask. He had realized in a flash that he was in the meshes of aplot, and forced the heat from his brain. "Explain, " he said. "I amlistening. "

"As you are aware, sir, this James Clingman, who has been arrested withReynolds, was a clerk in my employ. You will also recall that when heapplied to me to get him out, I, in company with Colonel Burr, waited onyou and asked your assistance. You said that you would do all that wasconsistent, but we did not hear from you further. Clingman refunded themoney, or certificates, which they had improperly obtained from theTreasury, the action was withdrawn, and he was discharged to-day. Whilethe matter was pending I had several conversations with Clingman, and hefrequently dropped hints to the effect that Reynolds had it in his powermaterially to injure the Secretary of the Treasury, as he knew ofseveral very improper transactions of his. At first I paid no attentionto these hints, but when he went so far as to assert that Reynolds hadit in his power to hang the Secretary of the Treasury, that the latterwas deeply concerned in speculation with Duer, and had frequentlyadvanced him--Reynolds, I mean--money with which to speculate, then Iconceived it my duty to take some sort of action, and yesterdaycommunicated with Mr. Monroe and Mr. Venable. They went at once to callon Reynolds--whom I privately believe to be a rascal, sir--and heasserted that he was kept in prison by your connivance, as you fearedhim; and promised to put us in possession of the entire facts thismorning. When we returned at the hour appointed, he had absconded, having received his discharge. We then went to his house and saw hiswife, who asserted, after some circumlocution, that you had beenconcerned in speculations with her husband, that at your request she hadburnt most of the letters you had written to herself and her husband, and that all were in a disguised hand--like these few which she hadpreserved. You will admit that it is a very serious charge, sir, andthat we should have been justified in going directly to the President. But we thought that in case there might be an explanation--"

"Oh, there is an explanation, " said Hamilton, with a sneer. "You shallhave it at my pleasure. I see that these notes implicate me to theextent of eleven hundred dollars. Strange, that a rapacious Secretary ofthe Treasury, handling millions, and speculating wildly with a friend oflarge resources, should have descended to such small play as this. Moreespecially strange that he should have deliberately placed himself inthe power of such a rascal as this Reynolds--who seems to impress everyone he meets with his blackguardism--and communicated with him freely onpaper; you will have observed that I acknowledged these notes withouthesitation. What a clumsy knave you must think me. I resent theimputation. Perhaps you have noticed that in one of these notes I statethat on my honour I cannot accommodate him with the three hundreddollars he demands, because it is quite out of my power to furnish it. Odd, that a thieving Secretary, engaged in riotous speculation, couldnot lay his hand on three hundred dollars, especially if it werenecessary to close this rascal's mouth. I doubt, gentlemen, if you willbe able to convince the country that I am a fool. Nevertheless, Irecognize that this accusation must be met by controverting proof; andif you will do me the honour to call at my house to-night at nineo'clock, I shall, in the presence of the Comptroller of the Treasury, furnish these proofs. "

He rose, and the others pushed back their chairs and departed hastily. Muhlenberg's red face wore a look of relief, but Monroe scowled. Neitherhad failed to be impressed by the Secretary's manner, and the Speaker ofthe House, ashamed of his part in the business, would gladly havelistened to an immediate vindication. 

Hamilton sat motionless for some moments, the blood returning to hisface, for he was seething with fury and disgust. 

"The hounds!" he said aloud, then again and again. He was alone, and henever had conquered his youthful habit of muttering to himself. "I cansee Monroe leaping, not walking, to the jail, the moment he learned of achance to incriminate me. The heels at the end of those long legs musthave beaten the powder from his queue. And this is what a man is toexpect so long as he remains in public life--if he succeeds. He resignsa large income, reduces his family almost to poverty, works himself halfto death, rescues the country from contempt, launches it upon the sea ofprosperity; and his public rewards are more than counterbalanced by thepersecutions of his enemies. I have been on the defensive from themoment I entered public life. Scarcely a week but I have been obliged toparry some poisoned arrow or pluck it out and cauterize. The dreams ofmy youth! They never soared so high as my present attainment, butneither did they include this constant struggle with the vilestmanifestations of which the human nature is capable. " He brought hisfist down on the table. "I am a match for all of them, " he exclaimed. "But their arrows rankle, for I am human. They have poisoned every hourof victory. "

He caught up his hat and went out into the air. The solace of Mrs. Croixin his blacker moods occurred to him; and he walked down Chestnut Streetas rapidly as he could, in the crowd, lifting his hat now and again tocool his head in the frosty air. It was a brilliant winter's day; driftsof snow hid the dead animals and the garbage in the streets; and all theworld was out for Christmas shopping. As it was one of the seasons fordisplay, everybody was in his best. The women wore bright-colouredtaffetas or velvets, over hoops flattened before and behind, muskmelonbonnets or towering hats. They whisked their gowns about, that theirsatin petticoats be not overlooked. The men wore the cocked hat, heavilylaced, and a long coat, usually of light-coloured cloth, with adiminutive cape, the silver buttons engraved with initials or crest. Their small clothes were very short, but heavy striped stockingsprotected their legs; on their feet were pointed shoes, with immensesilver buckles. Hamilton was dressed with his usual exquisite care, hiscuffs carefully leaded. But his appearance interested him little to-day. For the moment, however, he forgot his private annoyance in the portenton every side of him. Few of the seekers after gifts had entered theshops. They blocked the pavements, even the street, talking excitedly ofthe news of the day before. Fully half the throng sported thetri-coloured cockade, the air hissed with "Citizen, " "Citess, " or rangwith a volley of "Ça ira! Ça ira!"

Hamilton set his teeth. "It _is_ the next nightmare, " he thought. "TheCabinet is quiet at present--Jefferson, mortified and beaten, is coaxingback his courage for a final spring. When the time comes to determineour attitude there will be Hell, nothing less. " But his nostrilsquivered. He might rebel at poisoned arrows, but he revelled in thefight that involved the triumph of a policy. 

His mind was abstracted, the blood was still in his brain as he enteredMrs. Croix's drawing-room. For a moment he had a confused idea that hehad blundered into a shop. The chairs, the sofas, the floor, werecovered with garments and stuffs of every hue. Hats and bonnets wereperched on every point. Never had he seen so much gorgeous raiment inone space before. There were brocades, taffetas, satins, lutestrings, laces, feathers, fans, underwear like mist. While he was staring abouthim in bewilderment, Mrs. Croix came running in from her bedroom. Herhair was down and tangled, her dressing sacque half off, her faceflushed, her eyes sparkling. She looked half wanton, half like a giddygirl darting about among her first trunks. 

"Hamilton!" she cried. "Hamilton!" She flew at him much as his childrendid when excited. "Look! Look! Look! Is this not magnificent? This isthe happiest day of my life!"

"Indeed? Are you about to set up a shop?"

"A shop? I am about to deck myself once more in the raiment that I love. Have I not drooped in weeds long enough, sir? I am going to be beautifulagain! I am going to wear all those lovely things--all! all! And I amgoing to Lady Washington's to-morrow night. Mrs. Knox will take me. ButI vow I do not care half so much for that as for my beautiful things. They arrived by the London packet yesterday, but have only now beendelivered. I ordered them long since, and hardly could control myimpatience till they came. I am so happy! I feel like a bird that hasbeen plucked for years. "

Hamilton looked at her in amazement, and despair. More than once he hadcaught a glimpse of the frivolous side of her nature, but that it couldspread and control her he never had imagined. Her intelligence, herpassions, her inherited and accumulated wisdom, were crowded into somesubmerged cell. There was nothing in her at the present moment for him, and he turned on his heel without a word and left the house. She rappedsharply on the window as he passed, but he did not look up. He wasfilled with that unreasoning anger peculiar to man when woman for oncehas failed to respond. He consigned her and her clothes to the devil, and looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to one. His dinner hour wastwo o'clock. He would go home to his wife, where he should have gone inthe first place. She never had failed him, or if she had he could notrecall the occasion. Her little dark face rose before him, innocent andadorable. He could not tell her of the cause of his annoyance, --itsuddenly occurred to him that the less of that matter confided to Mrs. Croix the better, --but then he never worried her with his troubles. Hewould merely go and bask in her presence for an hour, confess to aheadache, and receive her sweet ministrations. 

As he entered his own house, and, relieved of his coat and hat by thewaiting black, ran up the stair, he thought he heard a soft babble ofvoices. Knowing that his wife would, if he desired it, dismiss at onceany company she might have, he knocked confidently at her door andentered. For a moment he felt inclined to rub his eyes, and wondered ifhe were the victim of delirium. The bed was covered with bandboxes, thesofa with new frocks. Betsey was sitting before the mirror, trying on acap, and her sisters, Peggy and Cornelia, were clapping their hands. Angelica was perched on the back of a chair, her eyes twice theirnatural size, Hamilton attempted instant retreat, but Betsey saw hisreflection in the mirror. 

"You?" she cried. "What a surprise and pleasure. Come here, sir, atonce. "

Meanwhile his two sisters-in-law, whose expected visit he had quiteforgotten, ran forward and kissed him effusively. With the desire in hisheart to rend the Universe in twain he went forward and smiled down intohis wife's eager face. 

"Angelica has sent me so many things!" she exclaimed. Her face wasflushed, her eyes sparkling. She looked sixteen. "And this cap is themost bewitching of all. You came just at the right moment; it is quitesingular. Read--". 

She thrust a letter from Mrs. Church into his hand, and he read wherehis wife pointed. "Someone who loves you will tell you if it is becomingor not. " And on the following page. "Kiss my saucy Brother for me. Icall him my Brother with an air of pride. And tell him, _Il est l'hommele plus aimable du monde_. "

"It is charming, " said Hamilton, pinching his wife's chin. "It is like aframe. You never looked half so sweet. "

Betsey cooed with delight. Hamilton, having done his duty, was about toretire in good order, when he met his little daughter's eyes. They haddismissed the wonderful cap and were fixed on him with an expressionthat gave him a sudden thrill. It was not the first time he had seen inAngelica so strong a resemblance to his mother that he half believedsome fragment of Rachael Levine had come back to him. Her eyes weredark, but she had a mane of reddish fair hair, and a skin as white asporcelain, a long sensitive nose, and a full mobile mouth. She had noneof his mother's vitality and dash, however. She was delicate and rathershrinking, and he knew that Rachael at her age must have been a marvelof mental and physical energy. It was only occasionally, when he turnedsuddenly and caught Angelica staring at him, that he experienced the oddsensation of meeting his mother's eyes, informed, moreover, with anexpression of penetrating comprehension--an expression he recalledwithout effort. The child idolized him. She sat outside his study whilehe wrote, crawling in between the legs of anyone who opened the door? tosit at his feet; or, if he dismissed her, in another part of the roomuntil he left it. She watched for his daily returns, and usually greetedhim from the banister post. Amiable, intelligent, pretty, affectionate, and already putting forth the tender leaves of a great gift, her fatherthought her quite perfect, and they had long conversations whenever hewas at leisure in his home. She demanded a great deal of petting, and hewas always ready to humour her, the more as she was the only girl, andthe one quiet member of his little family--although she had been knownto use her fists upon occasion. Her prettiness and intelligencedelighted him, her affection was one of the deepest pleasures of hislife, and he was thankful for the return to him of his mother'sbeautiful and singular features. To-day the resemblance was so strikingthat he contracted his eyelids. Angelica straightened herself, gave aspring, and alighted on his chest. 

"Take me downstairs and talk to me, " she commanded. "'Tis nearly an hourto dinner. "

Hamilton swung her to his shoulder, and went downstairs. On the way helaughed out loud. The past half-hour tossed itself into the foregroundof his mind, clad in the skirts of high comedy. Tragedy fled. Theburden in his breast went with it. Far be it from him to cherish agrudge against the sex that so often reduced the trials of public lifeto insignificance. Women were delicious irresponsible beings; man was aningrate to take their shortcomings seriously. 

"Why do you laugh?" asked his daughter, whose arm nearly strangled him. "You were very angry when you came into mamma's room. "

"Indeed?" said Hamilton, nettled. "Was I not smiling?"

"Yes, sir; but you often smile when you would like to run thecarving-knife into somebody. "

They had reached the library. Hamilton sat the child on the edge of histable and took a chair closely facing her. "What do you mean, you littlewitch?" he demanded. "I am always happy when I am at home. "

"Almost always. Sometimes you are very angry, and sometimes you are sad. Why do you pretend? Why don't you tell us?"

"Well, " said Hamilton, with some confusion. "I love you all very much, you see, and you do make me happy--why should I worry you?"

"I should feel better if you told me--right out. It gives me a painhere. "

She laid her hand to her head, and Hamilton stared at her in deepeningperplexity. Another child--anything feminine, at least--would haveindicated her heart as the citadel of sorrow. "Why there?" he asked. "Doyou mean a pain?"

"Yes, a pain, but not so bad as when I am in Albany or Saratoga and youare here. Then I worry all the time. "

"Do you mean that you are ever unhappy?"

"I am unhappy whenever you are, or I am afraid that you are. I know thatyou are very big and the cleverest man in the world, and that I am toolittle to do you any good, and I don't know why I worry when I am away. ""But, my dear child, what in Heaven's name do you mean? Have you everspoken to your mother of this?"

Angelica shook her head. Her eyes grew larger and wiser. "No; I shouldonly worry Betsey, and she is always happy. She is not clever like youand me. "

Hamilton rose abruptly and walked to the window. When he had composedhis features he returned. "You must not criticise your mother in thatway, my dear. She is a very clever little woman, indeed. "

Angelica nodded. "If she were clever, you would not say 'little. ' Nobodysays that you are a very clever little man. When I'm big, I'll not becalled little, either. I love our dear Queen Bess, but I'm _all yours_. Why were you so angry to-day?"

"I couldn't possibly tell you, " replied her father, turning cold. "Youmust not ask too many questions; but I am very grateful for yoursympathy. You are my dear little girl, and you make me love you more andmore, daily. "

"And will you tell me whenever you are not feeling like what you aremaking the rest believe?"

"If it will make you any happier, I will whisper it into your pinklittle ear. But I think I should be a very bad father to make youunhappy. "

"I told you, sir, that I am more unhappy when I imagine things. It isjust like a knife, " and again she pointed to her head. 

Hamilton turned pale. "You are too young to have headaches, " he said. "Perhaps you have been studying too hard. I am so ambitious for mychildren; but the boys have taken to books as they have to kites andfisticuffs. I should have remembered that girls--" His memory gave upthe stories of his mother's precocity. But this child, who was sostartlingly like the dead woman, was far less fitted to carry suchburdens. So sensitive an intelligence in so frail a body might suddenlyflame too high and fall to ashes. He resolved to place her in classes ofother little girls at once, and to keep her in the fields as much aspossible. None knew better than he how close the highly strungunresting brain could press to madness. He had acquired a superhumancontrol over his. If this girl's brain had come out of his own, it mustbe closely watched. She had not inherited his high light spirits, butthe melancholy which had lain at the foundations of his mother's nature;she would require the most persistent guarding. He took her face betweenhis hands and kissed it many times. 

"Very well, " he said, "we will have our little secrets. I will tell youwhen I am disturbed, and you will sit close beside me with your dolluntil I feel better. But remember, I expect as much confidence inreturn. You will never have a care nor a terror nor an annoyance thatyou will not confide it to me directly. "

She nodded. "I'm always telling you things to myself. And I won't cryany more in the night, when I think you have felt badly and could nottell anyone. It will all go away if you talk to me about it, " she addedconfidently. 

Hamilton swung her to his shoulder again and started for the diningroom. 

"The child is uncanny, " he thought. "Can there be anything in that oldtheory that tormented and erring souls come back to make their lastexpiation in children? That means early death!" He dismissed the thoughtpromptly. 

XXXI

After dinner he called on Oliver Wolcott, the Comptroller, one of hisclosest friends, and related the scene of the morning, adding theexplanation. Wolcott was a Puritan, and did not approve of the maritaldigressions of his friends. But in this case the offence was so muchless than the accusation that he listened with frequent ejaculations ofcontent. He agreed at once to call at Hamilton's house at eight o'clock, look over the papers, and read them aloud when the trio arrived. 

"And may the devil damn them, " he added. "It will be one of the keenestpleasures of my life to confound them. The unpatriotic villains! Theyknow that in disgracing you they would discredit the United States, andin their hearts they know that your measures are the only wheels forthis country to run on; but to their party spite they would sacrificeeverything. I'll be there. "

And when the men called that night at nine o'clock, he read them thecorrespondence from beginning to end--Reynold's letters, and those ofthe woman. More than once Muhlenberg begged him to desist, but he wasmerciless. When he had finished, Hamilton explained that he haddisguised his handwriting lest the man forge or make other use of it. 

The three rose as soon as the ordeal was over. "It is no use for me toattempt to express my regret or my humiliation, " said Muhlenberg, "Ishall be ashamed of this as long as I live. "

"I feel like an ass and a spy, " exclaimed Venable. "I heartily beg yourpardon, sir. "

"Your mistake was justifiable. Are you satisfied?"

"More than satisfied. "

Hamilton turned to Monroe. 

"I made a mistake, " said the Senator from Virginia. "I beg your pardon. "

"And I shall hear no more of this?"

He received the solemn promise of each, then let them go. But he lockedthe letters carefully in their drawer again. 

"Are you going to keep those things?" asked Wolcott. "It must have madeyou sick to listen to them. "

"It did. Perhaps I shall keep them for penance, perhaps because I do nottrust Monroe. "

XXXII

Hamilton was not long kept in ignorance of the next tactics of hisenemies. They made their deadliest assault soon after Christmas. Immediately upon the assembling of Congress it was suggested that theSecretary of the Treasury be asked to furnish a plan for reducing thepublic debt. Madison arose and fired the first gun. What Congresswanted was not a plan, but a statement of the national finances. TheFederalists replied that the information would come in due course, andthat the House was in duty bound to ask the Secretary to furnish ascheme. The Republicans, led by Madison, protested that already too muchpower had been invested in the Secretary of the Treasury, that it hadexceeded constitutional limits. Moreover, he overwhelmed them withvolumes, deliberately calculated to confuse their understandings. OneGiles, who did the dirty work of the party, announced that the Secretarywas not fit to make plans, and added the numerous and familiardenunciations. But the Republicans were outvoted, and the suggestionswere called for. Hamilton furnished them immediately. His plan to reducethe debt was met by so strenuous an opposition from the Republicans thatit was defeated, and by the party which had been most persistent intheir detestation of the obnoxious burden. Rather than add to thelaurels of Hamilton, they would shoulder it with equanimity. But thisdefeat was but an incident. The Secretary of the Treasury, as the resultof a series of resolutions, was bidden to lay before Congress an accountof the moneys borrowed at Antwerp and Amsterdam; the President tofurnish a statement of the loans made by his authority, their terms, what use had been made of them, how large was the balance; the chiefs ofdepartments to make a return of the persons employed and their salaries. Hamilton, by this time, was fully alive to the fact that he was about tobe subjected to fresh persecution, and the agility of his enemies couldnot keep pace with his. He furnished the House with an itemizedlist--which it took the Committee days to plod through--of hisbookkeepers, clerks, porters, and charwomen, and the varying emolumentsthey had received since the Department was organized, three years and ahalf before. He further informed them that the net yield of the foreignloan was eighteen millions six hundred and seventy-eight thousandflorins, that the loans were six in number, that three bore five percent interest, two four and a half, and one four per cent The enemy wasdisconcerted but not discouraged. Five fresh resolutions were movedalmost immediately. Impartial historians have agreed that Jeffersonsuggested these shameful resolutions, and that Madison drew them up. Giles brought them forward. In a vociferous speech he asserted that noman could understand the Secretary's report, that his methods andprocesses were clothed in a suspicious obscurity. It was his painfulduty to move the adoption of the following resolutions: That copies ofthe papers authorizing the foreign loans should be made; that the namesof the persons to whom and by whom the French debt had been paid be sentto Congress; that a statement of the balances between the United Statesand the Bank be made; that an account of the sinking-fund be rendered, how much money had come into it and where from, how much had been usedfor the purchase of the debt and where the rest was deposited. The fifthdemanded an account of the unexpended revenue at the close of thepreceding year. Giles charged that a serious discrepancy existed betweenthe report of the Secretary and the books of the Bank--not less than amillion and a half. It had been the purpose of Jefferson and Madison tobring forward the resolutions with an air of comparative innocence. Butthe vanity of Giles carried him away, and his speech informed Congress, and very shortly the country, that the honesty of the Secretary of theTreasury had been impeached, and that he was called upon to vindicatehimself. 

In crises Hamilton never lost his temper. The greater the provocation, as the greater the danger, the colder and more impersonal he became. Norwas it in his direct impatient nature to seek to delay an evil momentany more than it was to protect himself behind what the American ofto-day calls "bluff. " In this, the severest trial of his public career, he did not hesitate a moment for irritation or protest. He called uponhis Department to assist him, and with them he worked day and night, gathering, arranging, elaborating all the information demanded byCongress. When he was not directing his subordinates, he was shut up inhis library preparing his statements and replies. His meals were takento him; his family did not see him for weeks, except as he passed themon his way to or from the front door. He sent in report after report toCongress with a celerity that shattered his health, but kept his enemieson the jump, and worked them half to death. The mass of manuscript hesent would have furnished a modest bookstore, and the subjects andaccounts with which he was so familiar drove Madison and others, tooopposed to finance to master the maze of it, close upon the borders offrenzy. It had been their uncommunicated policy to carry the matter overto the next session, but Hamilton was determined to have done with themby adjournment. 

And in the midst of this tremendous pressure arrived George WashingtonLafayette. 

It was on the first Saturday of his retirement into the deep obscurityof his library, with orders that no one knock under penalty of drivinghim from the house, that Hamilton, opening the door suddenly with intentto make a dash for his office, nearly fell over Angelica. She wasstanding just in front of the door, and her face was haggard. 

"How long have you been here?" demanded her father. 

"Three hours, sir. "

"Three! Have you stood all that time?"

Angelica nodded. She was determined not to cry, but she was wise enoughnot to tax the muscles of her throat. 

Hamilton hesitated. If the child fidgeted, she would distract hisattention, great as were his powers of concentration; but anothersearching of her eyes decided him. 

"Very well, " he said. "Go in, but mind you imagine that you are a mouse, or you will have to leave. "

When he returned, she was sitting in a low chair by his desk, almostrigid. She had neither doll nor book. "This will never do, " he thought. "What on earth shall I do with the child?" His eye fell upon the chaosof his manuscript. He gathered it up and threw it on the sofa. "There, "he said, "arrange that according to the numbers, and come here everyfive minutes for more. "

And Angelica spent two hours of every day in the library, useful andhappy. 

One day Hamilton was obliged to attend a Cabinet meeting, and to spendseveral hours at his office just after. Returning home in the earlywinter dusk, he saw two small white faces pressed against the hallwindow. One of them was Angelica's, the other he had never seen. As heentered, his daughter fell upon him. 

"This is George Washington Lafayette, " she announced breathlessly. "Hecame to-day, and he doesn't speak any English, and he won't go nearBetsey or anyone but me, and he won't eat, and I know he's miserable andwretched, only he won't cry. His tutor's ill at the Inn. "

The little Frenchman had retired to the drawing-room. Angelica dartedafter him and dragged him forward into the light. He was small for hisage, but his features had the bold curious outline of his father's. Hecarried himself with dignity, but it was plain that he was terrified andunhappy. Hamilton gave him a warm embrace, and asked him severalquestions in French. The boy brightened at once, answered rapidly andintelligently, and took firm possession of his new friend's hand. 

"I am more happy now, " he announced. "I don't like the other peoplehere, except this little girl, because they do not speak French, but youare a Frenchman, and I shall love you, as my father said I should--longago! I will stay with you day and night. "

"Oh, you will?" exclaimed Hamilton. "I am going to send you to schoolwith my boys. "

"Oh, not yet, sir! not yet!" cried the boy, shrilly. "I have seen somany strangers on that dreadful ship, and in France--we hid here, there--moving all the time. I wish to live with you and be your littleboy. "

"And so you shall, but I am uncommonly busy. "

"He is a very quiet little boy, " interposed Angelica, who was threeyears his junior. "He would not move if he sat in your room, and I willtake him for a walk every day. He will die if he has to sit in a room byhimself all day. "

"I shall sleep with you, sir, I hope?" asked young Lafayette, eagerly. "I have thought all day of the dark of to-night. I have seen suchterrible things, sir!"

"Good Heaven!" thought Hamilton, "is it not enough to be dry nurse to anation?" But he could not refuse, and during the few hours he snatchedfor sleep he was half strangled. By day the boy sat quietly in a cornerof the library, and studied the text-books his guardian bought him. Betsey did all she could to win him, but he had no faith in people whocould not speak his language. Angelica, like all of Hamilton's children, knew something of French, and he liked her and accepted her motherlyattentions; but Hamilton he adored. The moment his absorbed friend madefor the front door he was after him, and Hamilton let him run at hisheels, lest he get neither air nor exercise. He had no time at presentto take him to call on his august godfather, and, in truth, he dreadedthe prospect. Washington knew nothing of children, and his diminutivenamesake would probably be terrified into spasms. 

XXXIII

The three long and exhaustive reports, accounting honourably for everypenny entrusted to the Secretary of the Treasury, and justifying everypayment, measure, and investment, had gone to the Congress. Nine dayslater Giles brought forward nine resolutions of censure against theSecretary of the Treasury. But by this time Congress had made up itsmind, and many of the Republicans were disgusted and humiliated. TheFederalists were triumphant, and amused themselves with Giles, drawinghim on, to confound him with ridicule and proof of the absurdity of hischarges. Madison, desperate, lost his head and the respect of many ofhis colleagues, by asserting hysterically that the House was impotent tochange the truth of the accusations, and that in the tribunal of publicopinion the Secretary would be condemned. But Hamilton was triumphantlyvindicated by Congress and the Nation at large. His house was in a stateof siege for weeks from people of all parts of the country, come tocongratulate him; his desk obliterated by letters he had no time toread. The Federals were jubilant. Their pride in Hamilton was so greatthat a proclamation from above would not have disturbed their faith, andthey were merciless to the discomfited enemy. In truth, the Virginiantrio and their close adherents were mortified and confounded. In theirhearts they had not believed Hamilton guilty of dishonesty, but they hadbeen confident that his affairs were in chaos, that large sums must haveescaped, not conceiving that any mortal could at the same time creategigantic schemes, and be as methodical as a department clerk in everydetail of his great office. 

Although Hamilton had commanded his brain to dwell exclusively upon thevindication and its means, the deeps below were bitter and hot. When thework was over, and exhausted in body and mind he went about his dutiesmechanically, or attempted to find distraction in his family, he felt asif the abundant humanity in him were curdled; and he longed for a war, that he might go out and kill somebody. It was small compensation thatthe Virginian ring were grinding their teeth, and shivering under dailyshafts of humiliation and ridicule. So terrible was the position inwhich they had placed him, so immeasurably had they added to the sum ofhis contempt for human kind, that individually they occupied, for atime, but a corner of his thought. 

His only solace during this trial had been Washington; he had been toobusy and too frozen for Mrs. Croix. But that closest of his friends, although forced by his high office to a position of stern neutrality, did all he could in private to convince Hamilton of his unalteredaffection and regard. As soon as the vindication was complete he fellinto the habit of finishing his daily walk with an hour in Hamilton'slibrary. But if his visits were a pleasure to his Secretary, they werewretchedness unleavened for two other members of the family. ThePresident never failed to ask for Angelica and George WashingtonLafayette; and upon their prompt but unwilling advent he would solemnlyplace one on either knee, where they remained for perhaps half an hourin awe-stricken misery. They had orders to show no distress, and theybehaved admirably; but although young Lafayette was rapidly learningEnglish, the fact did not lessen his fear of this enormous man, whospoke so kindly, and looked as if he could have silenced the Terror withthe awful majesty of his presence. Angelica, being an independent littleAmerican, was less overwhelmed, but she was often on the verge ofhysterics. It was the short session of Congress, and in March, George, with scalding but dignified tears, accompanied his godfather to MountVernon, whence he wrote Hamilton a daily letter of lament, until habittempered his awe; from that point he passed with Gallic bounds into anardent affection for the great man, who, if of an unearthly dignity, wasalways kind, and, when relieved of the cares of State, uniformly genial. 

The respite in Philadelphia was brief. In April came the first news ofthe beheading of the French king; and the same tardy packets broughtword that France was at war with England and Spain. Hamilton sent thenews, express haste, to Washington, and dismissed every considerationfrom his brain but the terrible crisis forced upon the United States, and the proper measures to save her from shipwreck. In the early stagesof the French Revolution he had predicted the developments with suchaccuracy to Henry Walter Livingston that the new Secretary of Legation, upon his arrival in Paris, told Gouverneur Morris--United Statesminister since 1792--that to his astonishment he found nothing tosurprise him. Therefore the prophet had long been determined upon thepolicy the United States should pursue when this crisis shot out of theeastern horizon; he had now but to formulate it in such a manner thatevery point could be grasped at once by the Cabinet, and acted upon. When Washington arrived in Philadelphia and summoned his advisers, Hamilton presented twelve questions for discussion, the most pressing ofwhich were: Shall a proclamation issue for the purpose of preventinginterferences of the citizens of the United States in the war betweenFrance and Great Britain, etc. ? Shall it contain a declaration ofneutrality? Shall a minister from this Republic of France be received?Jefferson was in a far less enviable position than Hamilton. He neitherwished for war, nor dared he machinate for it; but with all hisdemocratic soul he loved the cause which was convulsing the world fromits ferocious centre in France. Had Jefferson come of stout yeomanstock, like John Adams, or of a long line of patrician ancestors, likeHamilton, and, to a lesser degree, like Washington, he might, judgingfrom certain of his tastes, and his love of power, have become, or been, as aristocratic in habit and spirit as were most men of his wealth, position, and importance in the young country. But the two extremes metin his blood. The plebeianism of his father showed itself in theungainly shell, in the indifference to personal cleanliness, and in themongrel spirit which drove him to acts of physical cowardice for whichhis apologists blush. But his mother had belonged to the aristocracy ofVirginia, and this knowledge induced a sullen resentment that he shouldbe so unlike her kind, so different in appearance from the courtly menof his State. Little was wanting to accelerate his natural desire tolevel his country to a plane upon which with his gifts he easily couldloom as a being of superior mould; but when a British sovereign publiclyturned his back upon him, and the English court, delighted with its cue, treated him with an unbearable insolence, nothing more was needed tostart the torrent of his hate against all who stood for aristocracy. Democracy rampant on all sides of him, during his sojourn in France, found in him not only an ardent sympathizer, but a passionate advocate. He quite overlooked the fact that he failed to persuade the country ofhis enthusiasm to accord the United States fair commercial treatment: itembodied and demonstrated his ideal of liberty, equality, fraternity, and he was its most devoted friend, unresting until he had insinuatedhis own admiration into the minds of his followers in America, and madeJacobinism a party issue. 

To turn his back upon France, therefore, to help her neither in moneynor moral support, was a policy he had no intention to pursue, could heavoid it; but knowing his weakness in the Cabinet, he suggested an extrasession of Congress. It would then be an easy matter to throw theresponsibility upon his followers in both Houses, while he stood to thecountry as working consistently and harmoniously in his great office. 

But Hamilton, who understood him thoroughly, would listen to noproposition which would involve weeks of delay, inflame further thepublic mind, and give Jefferson an opportunity to make politicalcapital. Moreover, he would have no such confession of weakness go outfrom the Administration. He prevailed, and in that first meetingJefferson was forced to consent also to the immediate issue of aproclamation to the people. He argued with such fervour, however, against the use of the word "neutrality, " declaring that the Executivehad no constitutional authority so far to commit the people, thatWashington, to humour him, omitted the word, while declaringauthoritatively for the substance. It was also agreed that Genet, thenew Minister from France, sent by the Revolutionists to succeed M. Ternant, should be received. The first meeting closed tranquilly, forboth Hamilton and Jefferson had tacitly admitted that it was no time forpersonal recrimination. 

But the Cabinet met daily, and other subjects, notably Hamilton'scontention that their treaties made with a proper French government nolonger existed, came up for elaborate discussion; Hamilton had anexhaustive report prepared on each of them. The two Secretaries, whohated each other as two men hardly have hated before or since, and whorealized that they had met for their final engagement in official life, soon dismissed any pretence at concord, and wrangled habitually--withcutting sarcasm or crushing force on Hamilton's part, with mild butdeadly venom on Jefferson's; until he too was maddened by a jagged dartwhich momentarily routed his tender regard for his person. Jeffersonwrenched one victory from the Cabinet despite Hamilton's determinedopposition: Genet's reception should be absolute. But on all otherimportant points the Secretary of the Treasury scored, and stone bystone built up the great policy of neutrality which prevailed until theyear 1898; impressed into the Government the "Doctrine"--he hadformulated it in "The Federalist"--which was to immortalize the name ofa man who created nothing. Hamilton, with all the energy and obstinacyof his nature, was resolved that the United States should not have somuch as a set-back for the sake of a country whose excesses filled himwith horror, much less run the risk of being sucked into the whirlpoolof Europe; and he watched every move Jefferson made, lest his secretsympathies commit the country. When, after a triumphal processionthrough miles of thoughtless enthusiasts, who remembered only theservices of France, forgot that their friends had been confined entirelyto the royalty and aristocracy that the mob was murdering, and wereintoxicated by the extreme democracy of the famous Secretary of State, Genet arrived in Philadelphia, inflated and bumptious, his brain halfcrazed by the nervous excitement of the past two years, and was receivedwith frigid politeness by Washington, Hamilton was not long discoveringthat Jefferson was in secret sympathy and intercourse with thisdangerous fire-brand. The news had preceded and followed the newminister that he had been distributing blank commissions to all whowould fit out privateers to prey upon British commerce, openingheadquarters for the enlistment of American sailors into the Frenchservice, and constituting French consuls courts of admiralty for thetrial and condemnation of prizes brought in by French privateers. 

As soon as he arrived in Philadelphia he demanded of Hamilton thearrears of the French debt, which the Secretary had refused to pay untilthere was a stable government in France to receive it. Hamilton laughed, locked the doors of the Treasury, and put the key in his pocket. ToGenet's excited volubility and pertinacity he paid as little attentionas to Jefferson's arguments. Moreover, he reversed all Citizen Genet'sperformances in the South; and in course of time, even the capturedBritish ships, to the wrath and disgust of Jefferson, were returned totheir owners. 

Freneau's _Gazette_ supported the Secretary of State with thedesperation of an expiring cause; in this great final battle, wereJefferson driven from the Cabinet, his faithful organ must scurry to thelimbo of its kind. It assailed the Administration for ingratitude andmeanness, then turned its attention almost exclusively to the Secretaryof the Treasury. It accused him of abstracting the moneys due to France, of plundering the industrious farmer with the Excise Law, destroying themorals of the people by Custom House duties; resurrected the olddiscrimination cry and asserted vehemently that he, and he alone, hadrobbed the poor soldiers. It raked every accusation, past and present, from its pigeon holes. Jefferson, on the other hand, was held up as amodel of the disinterested statesman, combining virtues before whichthose falsely attributed to Washington paled and expired; and as theonly man fit to fill the Executive Chair. Genet accepted all this asgospel, fortunately, perhaps, for the country; for his own excesses andimpudence, his final threat to appeal from the President to the people, ruined him with the cooling heads of the Republican party, and finallylost him even the support of Jefferson. 

Meanwhile, after stormy meetings of the Cabinet, Hamilton, in the peaceof his library, with Angelica sorting his pages, --until she went to theNorth, --had written a series of papers defending the proclamation. Theywere so able and convincing, so demonstrable of the treasonable effortsof the enemy to undermine the influence of the Administration, so cooland so brilliant an exposition of the rights and powers of theExecutive, that on July 7th Jefferson wrote to Madison: "For God's sake, my dear sir, take up your pen. Select the most striking heresies, andcut him to pieces in the face of the public. "

Madison hastened to obey his chief in a series of papers which tickledthe literary nerve, but failed to convince. That the laurels were toHamilton was another bitter pill which Jefferson was forced to swallow. Nevertheless, Hamilton, despite his victories, felt anything butamiable. He was so exhausted that he was on the verge of a collapse, andtriumphs were drab under the daily harassment of Jefferson, Genet, andFreneau. Matters came to a climax one day in August, shortly before theoutbreak of yellow fever. 

XXXIV

Hamilton laid down a copy of Freneau's _Gazette_, whose editorialcolumns were devoted, as usual, to persuading the people of the UnitedStates that they were miserable, and that they owed their misery to theSecretary of the Treasury. It also contained a shameful assault upon thePresident. As he lifted another paper from the pile on his librarytable, his eyes fell on the following address to himself:--

 O votary of despotism! O abettor of Carthaginian faith! Blush! Can you for a moment suppose that the hearts of the yeomanry of America are becoming chilled and insensible to the feelings of insulted humanity like your own? Can you think that gratitude, the most endearing disposition of the human heart, is to be argued away by your dry sophistry? Do you suppose the people of the United States prudently thumb over Vattel and Pufendorf to ascertain the sum and substance of their obligations to their generous brethren, the French? No! no! Each individual will lay his hand on his heart and find the amount there. He will find that manly glow, both of gratitude and love, which animated his breast when assisted by this generous people in establishing his own liberty and shaking off the yoke of British despotism!

In the _Aurora_ he was denounced as the foe of France and the friend ofGreat Britain and Spain, the high priest of tyranny, the bitterest enemyof the immortal French trio, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité; the subtleand Machiavellian adviser of Washington, who, relieved of thispernicious influence, would acknowledge the debts of gratitude andfollow the will of the American people. 

"Are they mad?" he thought, flinging the entire pile into thewaste-basket. "Or are they merely so eager for power and our ruin thatthey are indifferent to the fact that the Administration, and thefoundations upon which it stands, never has needed the support of thepeople more than now? Can only the party in power afford to bepatriotic? What a spectacle is this, that I, an alien born, am wearingout my life and sacrificing my character, to save from themselves apeople who pant for my ruin! Has the game been worth the candle? Debt, my family crowded into a house not half large enough to hold them, myhealth almost gone, my reputation, in spite of repeated vindications, undermined by daily assault--for the fools of the world believe whatthey are told, and I cannot compromise my dignity by replying to suchattacks as these; above all, a sickening and constant disgust for lifeand human nature! _Is_ the game worth the candle? Had I remained at thebar, I should have given my family abundance by now; with only the kindand quantity of enemies that stimulate. It is only politics that rousethe hellish depths in the human heart. It is true that I have saved thecountry, made it prosperous, happy, and honoured. But what guaranty haveI that this state will last beyond the administration of Washington?With the Republicans in power the whole edifice may be swept away, thecountry in a worse plight than before, and the author of its briefprosperity forgotten with his works. I shall have lived in vain, andleave my sons to be educated, my family to be supported, by myfather-in-law. "

He was in no mood to see the reverse side of the picture; and indeed hiscares were so many and overwhelming at this time that it is littlewonder he believed he had lost for ever the gay buoyancy of his spirits. In addition to the predominating trials, financial matters weredemanding all the leisure he should have given to rest, heavy failuresin England having seriously affected the money concerns of the UnitedStates; and the rebellions in the West against the Excise Law weresounding a new alarm. Moreover, his constant efforts to obtain Duer'srelease were unavailing; he could get no word of Lafayette; and the lastpacket had brought a rumour of the murder of Gouverneur Morris by themob. Altogether, he may be excused for forgetting that he was still themost dazzling figure in America, in the full tide of actual success, andan object of terrified hatred to a powerful ring who could reach theirzenith over his political corpse, and by no other means whatever. 

He picked up his hat, and went forth reluctantly to a Cabinet meeting. It was early, and he saw Washington for a few moments alone in thelibrary. The President was in a no more cheerful or amiable frame ofmind than himself. His responsibilities in this terrible crisis wore onhis spirits and temper; and the daily fear that his Secretaries wouldcome to blows, --for Jefferson was in the worst humour of thequintette, --to say nothing of the assaults of the press, made him openlyregret the hour he was persuaded into the Executive Chair. But hisentire absence of party spirit, despite his secret sympathy with everymeasure of Hamilton's, his attitude of stern neutrality, never emergedmore triumphantly from any trial of his public career; nor did he everexhibit the magnanimity of his character more strikingly than in hisundisturbed affection for Hamilton, while daily twitted with being thetool of his "scheming and ambitious Secretary. "

Hamilton saw a copy of Freneau's _Gazette_ in the waste-basket, but bycommon consent they ignored the subjects which would be unavoidable in afew moments, and spoke of the stifling heat, of the unhealthy state ofPhiladelphia, the menace of the San Domingo refugees pouring into thecity, of the piles of putrid coffee and hides on the wharves at the footof Mulberry Street, and of the carcasses of rotting hogs and horseswhich lay everywhere. 

"Thank Heaven, we can get our women and children out of it, " said thePresident. "And unless we can finish this business in another week, Ishall take the Government to the country. I suppose we are entitled toescape with our lives, if they leave us nothing else. "

They entered the Council Chamber and found the others in theiraccustomed seats. Jefferson's brow was corrugated, his weak and mincingmouth pressed out of shape. He had just finished reading the last ofHamilton's "No Jacobin" papers, published that morning, in which Genet'sabominable breaches of decorum, violation of treaties, and deliberateinsults to the Executive--and through him to the American people--hadbeen set forth in so clear pointed and dispassionate a manner, that nothinking Republican who read could fail to be convinced of thefalseness of his position in supporting this impudent and ridiculousFrenchman. Furthermore, the Secretary of State had been forced, throughthe exigencies of his position, to sign despatch after despatch, letterafter letter, in violation of his private sympathies. He was feeling notonly as angry as a cornered bull, but extremely virtuous. He hated whathe firmly believed to be the cold and selfish policy of theAdministration, as he hated every other policy it had executed; and theknowledge that he had sacrificed his personal feelings to save hiscountry from discord, made him feel a far better man than the Secretaryof the Treasury, who had a diabolical talent for getting his own way. Hehad some reason to be pleased with his conduct, and with his share incontributing to a series of measures which later on won for the Cabinetat that crucial period the encomiums of history; and when time hadabated the fevers, Hamilton would have been the first to acknowledgethat Jefferson not only was the brake which the Administration needed atthat time, but that, owing to his popularity with the French and themasses of the United States, he reduced the danger of a popularuprising. 

As Hamilton took his seat this morning, however, the blood was in hishead, and he and Jefferson exchanged a glance of sullen hate which madeWashington extend his long arms at once. All went well until thePresident, with a premonitory sigh, introduced the dynamic name, Genet. Hamilton forgot his debility, and was all mind, alert and energetic. Jefferson, who had come to hate Genet as an intolerable nuisance, wouldhave been the first at another moment to counsel the demand for recallwhich he knew was now inevitable, but he was in too bad a humour to-dayto concur in any measure agreeable to Hamilton. 

The latter had replied promptly to Washington's remark that the time hadcome to take definite action with regard to the light-headed Frenchman, who continued to fit out and despatch privateers, and was convulsing thecountry generally. 

"Pray send him home, bag and baggage, sir. He is not entitled to thedignity or consideration of the usual formalities. Moreover, he is thetrigger of the United States so long as he remains at liberty in it. Iestimate that there is a new Jacobin club formed daily. At any moment hemay do something which will drive these fools, under their red caps andcockades, mad with admiration. "

Jefferson brought his brows down to the root of his nose. "'Fools' isnot the word for an honest enthusiasm for liberty, sir. I regret thepresent excitement--its manifestations at this moment--as much asanyone--"

"Indeed? I am amazed. Who, then, is responsible for them?"

"Not I, sir. "

"Oh, let us have no more hypocrisy, at all events, " said Hamilton, contemptuously. He had his wrath under control, but he suddenlydetermined to force the climax. "If you had employed your secret pen tobetter purpose, or not employed it at all, there would not be a Jacobinclub in the country; this ridiculous Frenchman, unencouraged by yourprivate sympathy, by your assurances of my inability to withhold theresidue of the debt, would have calmed down long since. I accuse youhere, deliberately and publicly, instead of writing private letters tothe public, both because I have not your commanding talent for patientand devious ways, and because I wish you to declare, unequivocally, whether or not you purpose to continue this policy of obstruction. Timepresses. We must act at once with regard to this Frenchman. Reservesubterfuge for some more opportune time, and let us know what you intendto do. "

Jefferson looked with appeal at Washington, who usually interposed whenhis Secretaries arrived at personalities. But Washington, although hisface was as immobile as stone, was so sick with anger and disgust overthe whole situation, at what appeared to be the loss of the popularfaith in himself, and the ridicule and abuse which had filled thecolumns of Freneau's paper that morning, that it was a relief to him tohear Hamilton explode. 

"I repudiate every word you have said, sir, " growled Jefferson. "More Iwill not say. As to Citizen Genet, with whom I have never had a word ofprivate intercourse--" Here, even Washington lifted his head, andHamilton laughed outright. Jefferson continued, determined uponmartyrdom rather than rouse the terrible passions opposite: "As toCitizen Genet, if the Cabinet agree that it is best he leave thiscountry. I shall demand that his recall be requested in the regularmanner, in accordance with every principle of international courtesy. Hemay be imprudent, intoxicated with the glorious wine of liberty, but heis a Frenchman, a distinguished citizen of the great country that cameso nobly to our rescue, and I protest against the base ingratitude whichwould fling insults in the teeth of an unfortunate people. "

Hamilton threw back his head impatiently, and drummed with his fingerson the table. "The primary motive of France for the assistance she gaveus was, obviously, to enfeeble a hated and powerful rival. A secondmotive was to extend her relations of commerce in the new world, and toacquire additional security for her possessions there, by forming aconnection with this country when detached from Great Britain. Toascribe to her any other motives, to suppose that she was actuated byfriendship toward us, is to be ignorant of the springs of action whichinvariably regulate the cabinets of princes. A despotic court aid apopular revolution through sympathy with its principles! For the matterof that, if you insist upon American statesmen being sentimental fools, the class that assisted us has been murdered by the rabble, which Irefuse to recognize as France. And if it be your object to reduce thiscountry to a similar position that you may climb over maddened brains topower--"

"Hear!" roared Jefferson, justly indignant. "I? Never a man loved peaceas I do. My life has been hell since you have forced me into dailyconflict, when, God knows, I perish with desire for the peace of myhomely life in Virginia. Power! I scorn it, sir. I leave that torestless upstarts like yourself--"

He stopped, choking. Hamilton laughed contemptuously. "You are at workwith your pen day and night, strengthening your misnamed party, andpreparing the way by which you can lift yourself to a position where youcan undo all that the party you hate, because it is composed ofgentlemen, has accomplished for the honour and prosperity of yourcountry. You are perfectly well aware that Genet was sent here to stirup a civil war, and embroil us with Europe at the same time, and youhave secretly sympathized with and encouraged him. I cannot make up mymind whether you are a villain, or merely the victim of a sublimated andparadoxical imagination. But in either case, I wish to be placed onrecord as asserting that you are the worst enemy the United States iscursed with to-day. "

This was too much for Jefferson, who had convinced himself that he was ahigh-minded and self-sacrificing statesman, stooping to devious ways forthe common good. He forgot his physical fear, and shouted, pounding thetable with his fist:--

"How dare you, sir? How dare you? It is you who are ruining, corrupting, and dishonouring this unhappy country, with your Banks, your devilishmethods to cement the aristocracy, your abominable Excise Law--"

"Oh, but you have counteracted that so effectively! I was coming to thatpoint. I conceived a measure by which to meet an imperative financialdemand, and you, by your agents, by your secret machinations, have beenthe author of insurrection after insurrection, of the most flagrantbreaches of the laws of your country. You have cost innumerable men, engaged in the pursuit of plain duty, their self-respect, and in severalcases their lives. Another hideous problem is approaching--one, I ampersuaded, that can be solved by arms and bloodshed alone; and to yourpen, to your deliberate unsettling of men's minds, to the hatred youhave inspired for the lawful government of this country, to you, and toyou alone--"

"It's a lie! a lie!" shouted Jefferson. "You are speaking to anhonourable man, sir! one who occupies a position in this country both bybirth and breeding that you would give your soul--you adventurer!--topossess. Go back to your Islands! You have no place here among men ofhonourable birth. It's monstrous that this country should be ruled by aforeign bastard--!"

For a moment, every one present had a confused idea that a tornado wasin the room. Then two doors were wrenched open, Jefferson fled down thestreet, with Randolph, bearing his hat, in pursuit; Knox was holdingHamilton firmly in his arms; and Washington, who had risen some momentssince, and stood staring in grim disgust, awaiting the end, was dividedbetween a desire to laugh, and to give way to a burst of fury himself. 

Hamilton had made no attempt to struggle when Knox caught him, but henow withdrew from the relaxing arms, and the Secretary of War left theroom hastily. Hamilton, to Washington's astonishment, flung himself intoa chair, and dropped his head on his arms. In a moment, he began to sobconvulsively. A malignant fever was breeding in his depressed system;the blood still surged in his head. He had a despairing sense that hischaracter was in ruins; he was humiliated to his depths; he despisedhimself so bitterly that he forgot the existence of Jefferson. 

The humour and anger died out of Washington. He went forward hastily andlocked the door. Then he stooped over Hamilton, and pressed him closelyin his arms. 

"My dear boy!" he said huskily. "My dear boy!"

XXXV

That was the last of Hamilton's battles in the Cabinet. Jeffersonresigned; although, in order that the Administration might, until thecrisis was past, preserve an unbroken front to the country, hereluctantly consented to withhold his resignation until the assemblingof Congress. He retired to Monticello, however; and apologized to theSecretary of the Treasury. 

Hamilton, almost immediately, was taken down with yellow fever, whichbroke out suddenly and raged with a fearful violence. To the ordinaryodours of carcasses and garbage, were added those of vinegar, tar, nitre, garlic, and gunpowder. Every disinfectant America had ever heardof was given a trial, and every man who possessed a shot-gun fired itall day and all night. The bells tolled incessantly. The din and thesmells were hideous, the death carts rattled from dawn till dawn; manywere left unburied in their houses for a week; hundreds died daily; andthe city confessed itself helpless, although it cleaned the streets. Hamilton had a very light attack, but Dr. Stevens dropped in frequentlyto see him; he privately thought him of more importance than allPhiladelphia. 

Lying there and thinking of many things, too grateful for the rest tochafe at the imprisonment, and striving for peace with himself, Hamiltonone day conceived the idea of immersing yellow-fever patients inice-water. Microbes were undiscovered, but Hamilton, perhaps with aflashing glimpse of the truth, reasoned that if cold weather invariablyrouted the disease, a freezing of the infected blood should produce thesame result. He succeeded in convincing Stevens, with the issue thatwhen the scourge was over, the young West Indian doctor had so manycures to his credit, where all other physicians had failed, that theCity Council presented him with a silver tankard, gratefully inscribed, and filled with golden coins. Hamilton's fecund brain, scattering itscreations, made more than one reputation. 

Meanwhile, he awoke one day to find Mrs. Croix sitting beside his bed. She had left town in June, and usually did not return until late inSeptember. She wore a white frock and a blue sash, and looked like anangel about to do penance. 

"I have come back to take care of the sick, including yourself, " sheannounced, "I was born to be a nurse, and I felt that my place was here. I have come to see you first, and I shall call daily, but otherwise I amin Dr. Stevens's hands. "

Hamilton stared at her. He was not surprised, for she was kind heartedin her erratic imperious fashion, and much beloved by the poor; nor wasshe afraid of anything under heaven. But she was the last person he hadwished to see; she was for his triumphant hours, or his furious, not forhelpless invalidism. He had longed consistently for his wife, andwritten to her by every packet-boat, lest she suspect his illness andreturn to the plague-stricken city. He was filled with a suddenresentment that any other woman should presume to fill her chair. Toforget her under overwhelming provocation he had reconciled to hisconscience with little difficulty, for his extenuations were many, andpuritanism had not yet invaded the national character; but to permitanother woman to ministrate to him when ill, he felt to be anunpardonable breach of his Eliza's rights, and his loyalty rebelled. So, although he treated Mrs. Croix with politeness while she remained, hegave orders to Dr. Stevens to keep her away upon any pretext he chose. "I am too nervous to be bothered with women, " he added; and Stevensobeyed without comment. 

Hamilton's convalescence was cheered by two facts: the revival of hisspirits and equilibrium, and frequent assurances from his wife that forthe first time in five years she was entirely well. She wrote that shehad regained all her old colour, "spring, " vivacity, and plumpness, andfelt quite ten years younger. Hamilton was delighted; for her couragehad so far exceeded her strength that he had often feared a collapse. Although she detested the sight of a pen, she was so elated with herrecovered health that she wrote to him weekly. Suddenly, and withoutexplanation, the letters stopped. Still, he was quite unprepared forwhat was to follow, and on the first of October, his health improved bya short sojourn in the country, he went to the wharf to meet thepacket-boat which invariably brought his family; his pockets full ofsweets, and not a misgiving in his mind. 

As he stood on the wharf, watching the boat towed slowly to dock, hisfour oldest children suddenly appeared, waving their hats and shoutinglike young Indians. James, who was as broad as he was long, and waswedged firmly between Angelica and Philip lest he turn over, swelled achorus which excited much amusement among by-standers. To Hamilton'ssurprise his wife did not occupy her usual place behind thatenthusiastic group, but as the boat touched the pier, and all fourprecipitated themselves upon him at once, --the three oldest about hisneck, and James upon his pockets, --he forgot her for the moment in thedelight of seeing and embracing his children after three months ofseparation. He emerged from that wild greeting, dishevelled andbreathless, only to disappear once more within six long arms and acircle of sunburned faces. Hamilton received from his children an almostfrantic affection; indeed, few people merely liked him; it was eitherhate or a love which far transcended the bounds of such affection as theaverage mortal commands. The passion he inspired in his children costone his life, another her reason, and left its indelible mark on athird; but for what they gave, they received an overflowing measure inreturn; no man was ever more passionately attached to his brood, nortook a greater delight in its society. 

Suddenly, through the web of Angelica's flying locks, he saw that hiswife had appeared on deck and was about to land. He disentangled himselfhastily and went forward to greet her. In a flash he noted that she wasprettier than ever, and that she was affected by something far moreextraordinary than an increase of health. She threw back her head, andher black eyes flashed with anger as he approached with the assurance ofthirteen years of connubial ownership; but she greeted him politely andtook his arm. No explanation was possible there; and he escorted her andthe children to the coach as quickly as possible. Philip, Angelica, andAlexander were sensible at once of the chasm yawning between the seats;they redoubled their attentions to their father, and regarded theirmother with reproving and defiant eyes. Poor Betsey, conscious that shewas entirely in the right, felt bitter and humiliated, and sought tofind comfort in the indifference of James, who was engaged with acornucopia and blind to the infelicity of his parents. 

When they reached the house, Hamilton dismissed the children and openedthe door of his library. 

"Will you come in?" he said peremptorily. 

Mrs. Hamilton entered, and sat down on a high-backed chair. She was verysmall, her little pigeon toes were several inches above the floor; butno judge on his bench ever looked so stern and so inexorable. 

"Now, " said Hamilton, who was cold from head to foot, for he had anawful misgiving, "let us have an explanation at once. This is our firstserious misunderstanding, and you well know that I shall be in miseryuntil it is over--"

"I have not the least intention of keeping you in suspense, " interruptedBetsey, sarcastically. "I am too thankful that you did not happen tocome to Saratoga when _I_ was prostrated with misery. I have gonethrough everything, --every stage of wretchedness that the human heart iscapable of, --but now, thank Heaven, I am filled with only a justindignation. Read that!"

She produced a letter from her reticule and flipped it at him. Evenbefore he opened it he recognized the familiar handwriting, the profusecapitals, of Mrs. Reynolds. Fortunately, he made no comment, for thecontents were utterly different from his quick anticipation. Itcontained a minute and circumstantial account of his visits during thepast year to Mrs. Croix, with many other details, which, by spying andbribing, no doubt, she had managed to gather. Failing one revenge, thewoman had resorted to another, and fearing that it might be lost amongthe abundant and surfeiting lies of the public press, she had aimed atwhat he held most dear. The letter was so minute and circumstantial thatit would have convinced almost any woman. 

There was but one thing for Hamilton to do, and he lied with hisunsurpassable eloquence. When he paused tentatively, his wiferemarked:--

"Alexander, you are a very great man, but you are a wretchedly poorliar. As Mr. Washington would say, your sincerity is one of the mostvaluable of your gifts, and without it you could not convince a child. As if this were not enough, only yesterday, on the boat, I overheard twoof your intimate friends discussing this intrigue as a matter of course. There was not a word of censure or criticism; they were merely wonderingwhen you would add to your enemies; for as this woman was desperately inlove with you, she was bound to hate you as violently when you tired ofher. I think men are horrors!" she burst out passionately. "When, unableto bear this terrible affliction any longer, and unwilling to worry mypoor mother, I took that letter and my grief to my father--what do yousuppose he said? After he had tried to convince me that the story was abase fabrication, and that an anonymous communication should bedestroyed unread--as if any woman living would not read an anonymousletter!--he said, crossly, that women did not understand men and nevermade allowances for them; and he went on to make as many excuses for youas if he were defending himself; and then wound up by saying that he didnot believe a word of it, and that the letter was written by someone youhad flouted. But it seemed to me in those awful days that I was awakefor the first time, that for the first time I understood you--and yourhorrid sex, in general--I do! I do!"

She looked so adorable with her flashing eyes, the hot colour in hercheek, and the new personality she exhibited, that Hamilton would haveforegone a triumph over his enemies to kiss her. But he dared not make afalse move, and he was terribly perplexed. 

"I can only reiterate, " he said, "that this letter is a lie frombeginning to end. It is written by a woman, who, with her husband, hasblackmailed me and jeopardized my reputation. I treated them as theydeserved, and this is their next move. As for Mrs. Croix, I repeat, sheis a most estimable person, whose brilliant wit and talent for politicsdraw all public men about her. There is hardly one among them who mightnot be victimized by a similar attack. I doubt if I have called half asoften as many others. As for the friends whom you heard discussing myvisits--you know the love of the human mind for scandal. Please bereasonable. You have made me the most wretched man on earth, I shall beunfit for public duty or anything else if you continue to treat me inthis brutal manner. I hardly know you. No woman was ever more loved byher husband or received more devotion. "

Betsey almost relented, he looked so miserable. But she replied firmly:"There is one condition I have a right to make. If you agree to it, Iwill consider if I can bring myself to believe your denial and yourprotestations. It is that you never enter Mrs. Croix's house again, norsee her willingly. "

Hamilton knew what the promise would mean, but his mind worked with therapidity of lightning in great crises, and never erred. He repliedpromptly:

"I will see her once, and once only--to give her a decent reason for notcalling again--that I understand I am compromising her good name, orsomething of the sort. I have accepted too much hospitality at her handsto drop her brusquely, without a word of explanation. "

"You can write her a letter. You can merely send polite excuses when sheinvites you. You are very busy. You have every excuse. Gradually, shewill think no more about you--if it be true that she is nothing to you. You have your choice, sir! Either your promise, or I return by the nextpacket to Albany. "

But Hamilton, always considerate of women, and despising the weaknessand brutality which permits a man to slink out of an amour, would notretreat, and Betsey finally settled herself in her chair, and said, withunmistakable determination:--

"Very well, go now. I shall not move from this room--this chair--untilyou return. "

Hamilton caught his hat and left the house. Although he was possessed bythe one absorbing desire to win back his wife, who had never been sodear as to-day, when for the first time she had placed him at arm'slength and given him a thorough fright, still his brain, accustomed tosee all sides of every question at once, and far into the future, spokeplainly of the hour when he would regret the loss of Mrs. Croix. Hemight forget her for weeks at a time, but he always reawakened to asense of her being with a glowing impression that the world was morealive and fair. The secret romance had been very dear and pleasant. Theend was come, however, and he was eager to pass it. 

His eye was attracted to a chemist's window, and entering the shophastily, he purchased a bottle of smelling salts. The act reminded himof Mrs. Mitchell, and that he had not heard from her for several months. He resolved to write that night, and permitted his mind to wander to thegreen Island which was almost lost among his memories. The respite wasbrief, however. 

To his relief he found Mrs. Croix in her intellectual habit. The lady, who was reading in the door of her boudoir above the garden steps, exclaimed, without formal greeting:--

"I am transported, sir. Such descriptions never were written before. Listen!"

Hamilton, who hated descriptions of scenery at any time, and was in hismost direct and imperative temper, stood the infliction but a moment, then asked her attention. She closed the book over her finger and smiledcharmingly. 

"Forgive me for boring you, " she said graciously. "But you know mypassion for letters; and if truth must be told, I am a little piqued. Ihave not laid eyes on you for a fortnight. Not but that I am used toyour lapses of memory by this time, " she added, with a sigh. 

Hamilton went straight to the point. He told her the exact reason forthe necessary breach, omitting nothing but the episode of Mrs. Reynolds;one cause of reproach was as much as a man could be expected to furnishan angry woman. 

For Mrs. Croix was very angry. At first she had pressed her hand againsther heart as if about to faint, and Hamilton had hastily extracted thesalts; but the next moment she was on her feet, towering and expandinglike an avenging queen about to order in her slaves with scimitars andchargers. 

"Do you mean, " she cried, "that I am flouted, flung aside like an oldcravat? I? With half the men in America in love with me? Good God, sir!I have known from the beginning that you would tire, but I thought to beon the watch and save my pride. How dare you come like this? Why couldyou not give me warning? It is an outrage. I would rather you had killedme. "

"I am sorry I have blundered, " said Hamilton, humbly. "But how inHeaven's name can a man know how a woman will take anything? I had suchrespect for your great intelligence that I thought it due you to treatyou as I would a man--"

"A man?" exclaimed Mrs. Croix. "Treat me like a man! Of all thesupremely silly things I ever heard one of your sex say, that is thesilliest. I am not a man, and you know it. "

Hamilton hastened to assure her that she was deliberately averting herintelligence from his true meaning. "You have never doubted my sincerityfor a moment, " he added. "You surely know what it will cost me never tosee you again. There is but one cause under heaven that could havebrought me to you with this decision. You may believe in my regret--touse a plain word--when you reflect upon all that you have been to me. "

He was desperately afraid that her anger would dissolve in tears, and hebe placed in a position from which he was not sure of emerging with aclear conscience, --and he dared take home nothing less. But Mrs. Croix, however she might feel on the morrow, was too outraged in her pride andvanity to be susceptible either to grief or the passion of love. Shestormed up and down the room in increasing fury, her eyes flashing bluelightning, her strong hands smashing whatever costly offering theyencountered. "Wives! Wives! Wives!" she screamed. "The little fools!What are wives for but to keep house and bring up babies? They are aclass apart. I have suffered enough from their impertinent interference. Am I not a woman apart? Will you assert that there is a 'wife' inAmerica who can hold her own with me for a moment in anything? Was I notcreated to reveal to men--and only the ablest, for I waste no time onfools--the very sublimation of my sex--a companionship they will findin no silly little fool, stupid with domesticity? Am I to submit, then, to be baulked by a sex I despise--and in the greatest passion that everpossessed a woman?" She stopped and laughed, bringing her lashestogether and moving forward her beautiful lips. "What a fool I am!" shesaid. "You will come back when the humour seizes you. I had forgot thatyour family returned to-day. You are in your most domestic mood--and Ihave been inflicted with that before. But there will come an hour whenneither your wife nor any other mortal power will keep you away from me. Is it not true?"

Hamilton had turned pale; his ready imagination had responded with apresentiment of many desperate struggles. He rose, and took her handforcibly. 

"No, " he said. "I shall not return. Believe me, that is the hardestsentence I have ever pronounced upon myself. And forgive me if I havebeen rude and inconsiderate. It was the result of the desire to have theagony over as quickly as possible. I should have found the anticipationunbearable, and I do not believe it would have been more soothing toyou. There is no reason why your pride should be wounded, for this isnot the result of satiety on my part, but of an imperative necessity. Shake hands with me. "

She wrenched her hand free and, seizing a vase, flung it into a mirror. Hamilton retreated. 

XXXVI

He had been gone just thirty-five minutes, Betsey received him withstern approval and announced that she had implicit faith in his promiseto avoid Mrs. Croix in the future. But it was quite evident that hispunishment was unfinished, and with due humility and some humour hebided her pleasure. Between the two women he had a lively month. Mrs. Croix wrote him a letter a day. At first it was evident that she hadtaken herself in hand, that her pen was guided by her marvellousintelligence. She apologized charmingly for her exhibition of temper, and for any reflection she might have made upon the most estimable ofwomen, who (with a sigh) had the happiness to be the wife of AlexanderHamilton. She ignored his ultimatum and asked him to come at once, andtalk the matter over calmly. Hamilton replied with the gracefulplayfulness of which he was master, but left no doubt of his continuityof purpose. After the interchange of several letters of this complexion, in which Mrs. Croix was quite conscious of revealing the ample resourcesof her wit, spirit, and tact, she broke down and went through everycircumstance of a despairing woman fighting to recover the supremehappiness of her life. At times she was humble, she prostrated herselfat his feet. Again she raved with all the violence of her nature. Herpride, and it was very great, was submerged under the terrible agony ofher heart. Even passion was forgotten, and she was sincere for themoment when she vowed that she had no wish beyond his mere presence. 

Hamilton was horribly distressed. He would rather she had turned uponhim at once with all her tigerish capacity for hate. But he had givenhis word to his wife, and that was the end of it. He answered everyletter, but his gallantry and kindness were pitch and oil, and it waswith profound relief that he watched the gradual stiffening of herpride, the dull resentment, even although he knew it meant that anenemy, subtle, resourceful, and venomous, was in the process of making. In her final letter she gave him warning--and a last opportunity. But ofthis he took no notice. 

Meanwhile, Betsey had led him a dance. Naturally bright, but heretoforetoo sheltered and happy, too undisturbed in her trust, she had donelittle thinking, little analysis, felt nothing but amusement for thehalf-comprehended vagaries of men. But jealousy and suffering give awoman, in a week, a fill of knowledge and cunning that will serve her alifetime. Betsey developed both coquetry and subtlety. She knew that ifshe obtained command of the situation now, she should hold it to theend, and she was determined that this crisis should result in a closeand permanent union. If she finally believed his denial, she was muchtoo shrewd to give him the satisfaction of regaining his former masteryof her mind; but she ceased to speak of it. Meanwhile, he was devotinghis energies to winning her again, and he had never found life sointeresting. She radiated a new bewitchment, and he had always thoughther the most adorable woman on the planet. He divined a good many of hermental processes; but if he was a trifle amused, he was deeplyrespectful. She was sufficiently uncertain in this new character totorment him unbearably, and when she occasionally betrayed that she wasinterested and fascinated, he was transported. When she finallysuccumbed, he was more in love than he had ever been in his life. 

XXXVII

The next seven years of Hamilton's life must be reviewed very rapidly. Interesting as they might be made, space diminishes, and after all theywere but the precursor of the last great battle of the giants. 

In the spring of 1794 the Virginian ring rallied for their final assaultin Congress. Their spokesman this time was a worthless man, namedFraunces, and he brought forth a charge against the Secretary of theTreasury of unfaithfulness in office. Hamilton promptly demanded anotherinvestigation. The result may be found in the following letters fromeminent Federals in Virginia. The first is from Colonel Carrington, dated Richmond, July 9th. 

 I do not write this letter as congratulatory upon the final issue of the Inquiry into the Treasury Department, as I never conceived you exposed to receive injury therefrom. I write to express my most sincere wishes that you will not suffer the illiberality with which you have been treated to deprive the public of your services, at least until the storm which hangs over us, and is to be dreaded, not less from our own follies and vices than the malignance and intrigues of foreigners, blows over. It is true you have been abused, but it has been and still is, the fate of him who was supposed out of the reach of all slander. It is indeed the lot, in some degree, of every man amongst us who has the sense or fortitude to speak and act rationally, and such men must continue so to speak and act if we are saved from anarchy. 

On July 20th, Thomas Corbin wrote to Hamilton deploring the politicalconditions in Virginia created by Thomas Jefferson, in which thesesignificant passages occur:--

 Calumny and misrepresentation are the only weapons made use of by the faction of Virginia. By a dexterous management of these they have brought into popular disrepute, and even into popular odium, some of the wisest and best characters in the United States. 

 War is waged by this faction against every candidate who possesses the union of requisites. Independent fortune, independent principles, talents, and integrity are denounced as badges of aristocracy; but if you add to these good manners and a decent appearance, his political death is decreed without the benefit of a hearing. In short, with a few exceptions everything that appertains to the character of a gentleman is ostracized. That yourself and Mr. Jay should be no favorites in Virginia, is not to be wondered at. But all those whose good opinion is worth your acceptance entertain for you both the same veneration and esteem, and hear the aspersions of your enemies with the same indignation that I do; who, after the closest examination, and the purest conviction can conscientiously subscribe myself etc. 

In the autumn the whiskey disturbances in western Pennsylvania assumedsuch serious proportions that Hamilton insisted upon recourse to arms. With his usual precision he had calculated the numbers of theinsurgents, and the amount of troops necessary to overwhelm them. Washington issued requisitions for fifteen thousand men, and set outwith the troops, his first intention being to command in person. Hamilton accompanied him, and upon the President's return toPhiladelphia, assumed the general superintendence of the army, whosecommander, Henry Lee, was one of his devoted adherents. Many motiveshave been ascribed to Hamilton for this exceptional proceeding, andWashington was bitterly assailed for "not being able to move without hisfavourite Secretary at his elbow, " and for giving additionalconspicuousness to a man whose power already was a "menace to Republicanliberties. " Randolph, then the nominal Secretary of State, but quiteaware that while Hamilton remained in the Cabinet he was but afigurehead, was so wroth, that later, in his futile "Vindication, "following what practically was his expulsion from the Cabinet, heanimadverted bitterly upon a favour which no one but Hamilton wouldhave presumed to ask. Fauchet, the successor of Genet, in theintercepted letter to his government, which brought about the fall ofRandolph, convicting him of corruption and treachery, has this to say:--

 The army marched; the President made known that he was going to command it; Hamilton, as I have understood, requested to follow him; the President dared not refuse him. It does not require much, penetration to divine the object of this journey. In the President it was wise, it might also be his duty. But in Mr. Hamilton it was a consequence of the profound policy which directs all his steps; a measure dictated by a perfect knowledge of the human heart. Was it not interesting for him, for his party, tottering under the weight of events without and accusations within, to proclaim an intimacy more perfect than ever with the President, whose very name is a sufficient shield against the most formidable attacks? Now, what more evident mark could the President give of his intimacy than by suffering Mr. Hamilton, whose name, even, is understood in the west as that of a public enemy, to go and place himself at the head of the army which went, if I may use the expression, to cause his system to triumph against the opposition of the people? The presence of Mr. Hamilton with the army must attach it more than ever to his party. 

There were depths in Hamilton's mind which no wise mortal will everattempt to plumb. It is safe to say he did nothing without one eye on afar-reaching policy; and aside from the pleasure of being in the saddleonce more, riding over the wild Alleghanies in keen October weather, after four years of the stenches and climatic miseries of Philadelphia, aside from his fear of Governor Miffin's treachery, and his lack ofimplicit confidence in Lee's judgement, it is quite likely that he hadsome underlying motive relative to the advantage of his party, which hadbeen weakened by the incessant assaults upon himself. By going with thearmy he not only demonstrated the perfect confidence reposed in him byWashington, and his determination that his laws should be enforced, buthe gave emphasis to his belief that the resistance to the Excise Law hadbeen deliberately instigated by the Republicans under the leadership ofhis avowed enemies. In this connection the following extract fromFauchet's letter is highly interesting, intimate as he was with theRepublican leaders. 

 Such therefore were the parts of the public grievance, upon which the western people most insisted. Now, these complaints were systematizing by the conversations of influential men, who retired into those wild countries, and who from principle, or from a series of particular heart-burnings, animated discontents already too near to effervescence. At last the local explosion is effected. The western people calculated on being supported by some distinguished characters in the east, and even imagined they had in the bosom of the government some abettors, who might share in their grievance or their principle. 

The rioters, sobered by the organized force and its formidable numbers, surrendered without bloodshed. 

In January of the following year Hamilton resigned from the Cabinet. Thepressing need of his services was over, and he had many reasons forretiring from office: his health was seriously impaired, he had agrowing family of boys to educate; he expected his father by every shipfrom the Windward Islands, to spend his last years in the home to whichhis son had so often invited him; Mrs. Mitchell was now a widow andalmost penniless; and his disgust of office was so uncompromising thatno consideration short of an imperative public duty would have inducedhim to continue. But his principal reason, as he wrote to Mrs. Church, was that he wished to indulge his domestic happiness more freely. Washington let him go with the less reluctance because he promisedimmediate response to any demand the President might make upon him. Hewent with his wife, Angelica, and the younger children to Albany and theSaratoga estate, where he remained until the first of June, endeavouringto regain his health in the forest and on the river. Young Lafayettelived with him until his return to France, in 1798. 

Upon Hamilton's return to New York he immediately engaged in practice, which he supplemented by coaching students; but he continued to beWashington's chief adviser, and the correspondence was continuous uponevery problem which confronted the harassed President. Indeed, when onereads its bulk, one wonders if the Cabinet did anything but executeHamilton's suggestions. Randolph kicked his heels in impotent wrath, andhis successor's correspondence with Hamilton was almost as voluminousas Washington's. So was Wolcott's, who hardly cancelled a bond withouthis former chief's advice; William Smith, the auditor-general, wasscarcely less insistent for orders. Hamilton wrote at length to all ofthem, as well as to the numerous members of Congress who wanted advice, or an interpretation of some Constitutional provision hitherto on theshelf. What time he had for his practice and students would remain amystery, were it not for the manifest price he paid in the vigours ofall but will and brain. 

During the summer of 1794 Talleyrand visited the United States. Hebrought a package from Mrs. Church to Mrs. Hamilton, and a cordialletter from the same important source to the statesman whom he rankedhigher than any man of his time. "He improves upon acquaintance, " wroteMrs. Church to her sister; "I regret that you do not speak French. " Buther sister's husband spoke French better than any man in America, andafter the resignation from the Cabinet, Talleyrand spent most of histime in the little red brick house at 26 Broadway, where Hamilton wasworking to recover his lost position at the bar. "I have seen the eighthwonder of the world, " wrote the Frenchman, one morning, after a ramblein the small hours, which had taken him past the light in Hamilton'sstudy, "I have seen the man who has made the fortune of a nation, toiling all night to supply his family with bread. " The men found greatdelight in each other's society. Hamilton was the most accomplished andversatile man in America, the most brilliant of conversationists, themost genial of companions, and hospitable of hosts. Talleyrandepitomized Europe to him; and the French statesman had met no one in hiscrowded life who knew it better. If he gave to Hamilton the concentratedessence of all that ardent brain had read and dreamed of, of all thatfate had decreed he never should see in the mass, Talleyrand placed onrecord his tribute to Hamilton's unmortal powers of divination, andloved and regretted him to the close of his life. 

Different as the men were in character, they had two points incommon, --a passionate patriotism, and the memory of high ideals. Publiclife had disposed of Talleyrand's ideals, and Hamilton, after aneducation in the weakness and wickedness of human nature which leftnothing to be desired, would have been equally destitute, had it notbeen for his temperamental gaiety and buoyant philosophy. There weretimes when these deserted him, and he brooded in rayless depths, but hisCeltic inheritance and the vastness of his intellect saved him fromdespair until the end. Talleyrand was by no means an uncheerful soul;but his genius, remarkable as it was, flowed between narrower lines, andwas unwatered by that humanity which was Hamilton's in such volume. Bothmen had that faculty of seeing things exactly as they are, which theshallow call cynicism; and those lost conversations appeal to theimagination of the searcher after truth. 

Jay's treaty was the most formidable question with which Hamilton wascalled upon to deal before the retirement of Washington to private life, and it gave him little less trouble than if he had remained in theCabinet. 

It had been his idea to send a special envoy to England to remonstratewith the British Government for her abominable oppressions andaccumulating outrages, decide if possible upon a treaty with her whichwould soothe the excitement in the United States, --as wild in the springof 1794 as the Jacobin fever, --and avert war. It was the desire ofWashington and the eminent Federalists that this mission be undertakenby Hamilton, for he had an especial faculty for getting what he wanted:however obstinate he might be, his diplomacy was of the first order whenhe chose to use it. But he believed that, having suggested the mission, he could not with propriety accept it, and that his services could begiven more effectively in the Cabinet. Moreover, the violent oppositionwhich the proposal immediately raised among the Republicans, notablyRandolph and Monroe, --the latter so far transcending etiquette as towrite to Washington, denouncing his Secretary of the Treasury, --made itprobable that his enemies would defeat his confirmation in the Senate. He suggested the name of Chief Justice Jay; and after the usual bitterpreliminaries, that exalted but not very forcible personage sailed forEngland in the latter part of April, 1794. Negotiations were very slow, for Britain still felt for us a deep and sullen resentment, nourished byour Jacobin enthusiasms. In January, however, news came that the treatywas concluded; and Hamilton, supposing that the matter was settled, resigned from the Cabinet. It has been asserted that when he read thisfamous instrument, he characterized it as "an old woman's treaty, " andit is very probable that he did. Nevertheless, when, after a stormypassage through the Senate, it was launched upon the country, and, systematically manipulated by the practised arts of Jacobinism, carriedthe United States almost to the verge of civil war, Hamilton acceptedthe treaty as the best obtainable, and infinitely preferable to furthertroubles. He took up his pen, having previously been stoned whileattempting to speak in its defence, and in a series of papers signed"Catullus, " wrote as even he had not done since the days of "TheFederalist. " Their effect was felt at once; and as they continued toissue, and Hamilton's sway over the public mind, his genius for mouldingopinion, became with each more manifest, Jefferson, terrified andfurious, wrote to Madison:--

 Hamilton is really a Colossus to the anti-Republican party. Without numbers he is a host in himself. They have got themselves into a defile where they might be finished; but too much security on the Republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose him. In truth when he comes forward there is no one but yourself can meet him. .. . For God's sake take up your pen and give a fundamental reply to "Curtius" and "Camillus. "

But Madison had had enough of pen encounter with Hamilton. "He who putshimself on paper with Hamilton is lost, " Burr had said; and Madisonagreed with him, and entered the lists no more. The excitement graduallysubsided. It left ugly scars behind it, but once more Hamilton had savedhis party, and perhaps the Union. In connection with the much disputedauthorship of the Farewell Address I will merely quote a statement, heretofore unpublished, made by Mrs. Hamilton, in the year 1840. 

 Desiring that my children shall be fully acquainted with the services rendered by their father to our country, and the assistance rendered by him to General Washington during his administrations, for the one great object, the independence and stability of the government of the United States, there is one thing in addition to the numerous proofs which I leave them, and which I feel myself in duty bound to state: which is that a short time previous to General Washington's retiring from the Presidency, in the year 1796, General Hamilton suggested to him the idea of delivering a farewell address to the people on his withdrawal from public life, with which idea General Washington was well pleased, and in his answer to General Hamilton's suggestion, gave him the heads of the subject on which he would wish to remark, with a request that Mr. Hamilton would prepare a draft for him. Mr. Hamilton did so, and the address was written principally at such times as his office was seldom frequented by his clients and visitors, and during the absence of his students to avoid interruption; at which times he was in the habit of calling me to sit with him, that he might read to me as he wrote, in order, as he said, to discover how it sounded upon the ear, and making the remark, "My dear Eliza, you must be to me what old Molière's nurse was to him. "

 The whole or nearly all the "address" was read to me by him, as he wrote it, and the greater part if not all was written in my presence. The original was forwarded to General Washington, who approved of it with the exception of one paragraph; of, I think, from four to five lines, which, if I mistake not, was on the subject of the public schools; which was stricken out. It was afterward returned to Mr. Hamilton who made the desired alteration, and was afterward delivered to General Washington, and published in that form, and has since been known as "General Washington's Farewell Address. " Shortly after the publication of the address, my husband and myself were walking in Broadway when an old soldier accosted him with the request of him to purchase General Washington's farewell address, which he did, and turning to me said, "That man does not know he has asked me to purchase my own work. "

 The whole circumstances are at this moment so perfectly in my mind that I can call to mind his bringing General Washington's letter to me, who returned the address, and remarked on the only alteration which he (General Washington) had requested to be made. 

 New York, Aug. 7th, 1840. 

 ELIZABETH HAMILTON. JAMES A. WASHINGTON. JA. R. MACDONALD. 

In 1797 Hamilton was forced by treachery and the malignancy ofJacobinism into the most painful and mortifying act of his publiccareer. He had been hailed by certain enthusiastic Federalists as thelegitimate successor of Washington. It was a noble ambition, and thereis no doubt that Hamilton would have cherished it, had he been less of aphilosopher, less in the habit of regarding a desire for the impossibleas a waste of time. Not only were older men in the direct line ofpromotion, but he knew that as the author of the Excise Law he was hatedby one section of the Commonwealth, and that as the parent of themanufacturing interest, to say nothing of the Assumption measure, he hadincurred the antagonism of the entire South. Lest these causes fordisqualification be obscured by the brilliancy of his reputation, Jefferson's unresting and ramifying art had indelibly impressed thepublic mind with the monarchical-aristocratical tendencies and designsof the former Secretary of the Treasury, and of his hatred for a belovedcause overseas. Hamilton had given an absolute negative to everysuggestion to use his name; but one at least had found its way intoprint, and so terrified the enemy that they determined upon one morepowerful blow at his good name. Monroe had a fresh cause for hatred inhis humiliating recall from France, which he ascribed to the influenceof Hamilton. No doubt the trio were well satisfied for a time with theircarefully considered scheme. The pamphlet published in 1797, called "TheHistory of the United States for 1796, " and edited by a disreputable mannamed Callender, was the concentrated essence of Jacobinical fury andvindictiveness against Alexander Hamilton. It surpassed any attack yetmade on him, while cleverly pretending to be an arraignment of theentire Federalist party; shrieking so loudly at times againstWashington, Adams, and Jay, that the casual reader would overlook thesole purport of the pamphlet. "It is ungenerous to triumph over theruins of declining fame, " magnanimously finished its attack uponWashington. "Upon this account not a word more shall be said!"

It omitted a recital of the two Congressional attacks upon Hamilton'sfinancial integrity, as to refrain from all mention of the vindicationswould have been impossible; but it raked up everything else for whichit had space, sought to prove him a liar by his defence of the Jaytreaty in the Camillus papers, and made him insult Washington inlanguage so un-Hamiltonian that to-day it excites pity for thedesperation of the Virginians. When it finally arrived at the pith andmarrow of the assault, however, it was with quite an innocent air. Thiswas a carefully concocted version of the Reynolds affair. Callender hadobtained possession of the papers which Monroe, Muhlenberg, and Venablehad prepared to submit to the President, before hearing Hamilton'sexplanation. He asserted that this explanation was a lie, and that theSecretary of the Treasury had not only speculated with the public funds, but that he had made thirty thousand pounds by the purchase of armycertificates. It was also alleged that Hamilton ordered his namewithdrawn as a Presidential candidate, in consequence of a threat thatotherwise these same papers would be published. 

It is a curious instance of the fatuity of contemporaries, thatHamilton's enemies reckoned upon a sullen silence, in the face ofdamning assault, from the greatest fighter of his time. Indubitably, they argued that he would think it best to pass the matter over; no mancould be expected to give to the public the full explanation. But theyreckoned with an insufficient knowledge of this host, as they had donemany a time before. Hamilton had no desire to hold office again, but hewas still the great leader of a great party, as determined as ever thatat no cost should there be a stain on his public honour. He consultedwith his closest friends, among them his wife. As the sin was now fiveyears old--and the woman a derelict--Mrs. Hamilton found it easier toforgive than an unconfessed liaison with the most remarkable woman ofher time. Although she anticipated the mortification of the exposurequite as keenly as her husband, she cherished his good name no lesstenderly, and without hesitation counselled him to give the facts to thepublic. This he did in a pamphlet which expounded the workings of the"Jacobin Scandal Club, " told the unpleasant story without reserve, andwent relentlessly into the details of the part played in it by Monroe, Muhlenberg, and Venable. He forced affidavits from those bewilderedgentlemen, the entire correspondence was published, and the pamphletitself was a masterpiece of biting sarcasm and convincing statement. Itmade a tremendous sensation, but even his enemies admired his courage. The question of his financial probity was settled for all time, althoughthe missile, failing in one direction, quivered in the horrified brainsof many puritanical voters. Mrs. Reynolds, now living with Clingman, made no denial, and it is doubtful if even she would have echoed the oneanimadversion of the discomfited enemy, --that Hamilton had given thename of a mistress to the public. It is a weak and dangeroussentimentalism which would protect a woman of commerce against the goodname of any man. The financial settlement makes her a party in acontract, nothing more, and acquits the payer of all furtherresponsibility. She has no good name to protect; she has asked fornothing but money; she is a public character, whom to shield would be athankless task. When this Reynolds woman added the abomination ofblackmail to her trade, and further attempted the ruin of the man whohad shown her nothing but generosity and consideration, it need hardlybe added that Hamilton would have been a sentimental fool to havehesitated on any ground but detestation of a public scandal. 

He never traced the betrayal of a secret which all concerned hadpromised to keep inviolate, but he had his suspicions. Mrs. Croix, nowliving in a large house on the Bowling Green, was the animated andresourceful centre of Jacobinism. She wore a red cap to the theatre anda tri-coloured cockade on the street. Her _salon_ was the headquartersof the Republican leaders, and many a plot was hatched in her inspiringpresence. The Virginian Junta were far too clever to put themselves inthe power of a drunkard like Callender, but they were constantly incollusion with Mrs. Croix. They knew that she feared nothing underheaven, and that she had devoted herself to Hamilton's ruin. Callenderdrew upon her for virus whenever his own supply ran down, and wouldhave hailed the Reynolds concoction, even had it gone to him naked andbegging. Hamilton saw the shadow of a fair hand throughout the entirepamphlet, and, indeed, could have traced many an envenomed shaft, since1793, to a source which once had threatened to cloy him with itssweetness. 

Meanwhile John Adams had been elected President of the United States, and Thomas Jefferson, Vice-President. Hamilton had made no secret of thefact that he should prefer to see Thomas Pinckney succeed Washington, for he contemplated the possibility of Adams in the Executive Chair, with distrust and uneasiness. In spite of that eminent statesman'sintrepidity, integrity, and loyal Federalism, he was, in Hamilton'sopinion, too suspicious, jealous of influence, and hot headed, to be asafe leader in approaching storms. With Pinckney as a brilliant andpopular figurehead, Hamilton well knew that his own hand would remain onthe helm. With the irascible old gentleman from Massachusetts in theChair, his continued predominance was by no means certain. Washingtononce said of Hamilton that he undoubtedly was ambitious, but that hisambition was of that laudable kind which prompts a man to excel inwhatever he takes in hand; adding that his judgement was intuitivelygreat. The truth was that Hamilton regarded the United States as hischild. He had made her wealthy and respected, he foresaw a futureimportance for her equal to that of any state in Europe. "I anticipate, "he wrote to Rufus King, "that this country will, ere long, assume anattitude correspondent with its great destinies--majestic, efficient, and operative of great things. A noble career lies before it. " The firstof the "Imperialists, " he had striven for years to awaken the Governmentto the importance of obtaining possession of Louisiana and the Floridas, and he also had his eye on South America. Naturally, he wanted nointerruption; the moment the security of the country was threatened, hewas as alert and anxious as if his nursery were menaced with an Indianinvasion. Without conceit or vanity no man ever was more conscious ofhis great powers; moreover, no American had made such sacrifices as he. Washington and almost all the leading men possessed independentfortunes. Hamilton had manifested his ability from the first to equalthe income of the wealthiest, did he give his unbroken services to thepursuit of his profession. But he had lived for years upon a pittance, frequently driven to borrow small sums from his friends, that he mightdevote his energies entirely to his country. And no man ever gave moregenerously or with less thought of reward; although he would have beenthe last to deny his enjoyment of power. For a born leader of men tocare little whether he had a few trusted friends or an army at his back, would merely indicate a weak spot in his brain. 

It was quite natural, therefore, that he thought upon John Adams'sidiosyncrasies with considerable disquiet. Nevertheless, with the highpriest of Jacobinism in the field, his first object was to secure theoffice for the Federalist party. The race was too close for seriousconsideration of any other ultimate. He counselled every Federalist tocast his vote for Adams and Pinckney; better a tie, with the victory toAdams, than Thomas Jefferson at the head of the Nation. Of course therewas a hope that Pinckney might carry the South. But the Adamsenthusiasts dreaded this very issue, and threw away their votes for theVice-Presidency. Pinckney's followers in the South pursued the samepolicy. The consequence was that Adams won by three votes only. Againhis pride was bruised, and again he attributed his mortification toHamilton. If he had disliked him before, his dislike in a constant stateof irritation through the ascendency and fame of the younger man, hehated him now with a bitterness which formed a dangerous link betweenhimself and the Republican leaders. The time came when he was ready tohumiliate his country and ruin his own chance of reelection, to dethronehis rival from another proud eminence and check his upward course. Another source of bitterness was Hamilton's continued leadership of theFederalist party, when himself, as President, was entitled to thatdistinction. But that party was Hamilton's; he had created, developedit, been its Captain through all its triumphant course. Even had hebeen content to resign his commission, --which he did not contemplate fora moment, --the great majority of the Federalists would have forced itinto his hand again. Adams declared war. Hamilton, always ready for afight, when no immediate act of statesmanship was involved, took up thegauntlet. Adams might resist his influence, but the Cabinet was his, andso were some of the most influential members of Congress, includingTheodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts, the president pro tem. Of theSenate. It was some time before Adams realized the full extent of thisinfluence; but when he did discover that his Secretary of State, TimothyPickering, his Secretary of the Treasury, Oliver Wolcott, and hisSecretary of War, James M'Henry, were in the habit of consultingHamilton upon every possible question before giving the President theirvaluable opinions, and that upon one occasion, at least, a letter ofHamilton's had been incorporated by the Secretary of War into aPresidential Message, he was like to die of apoplexy. He wrote, in hiswrath:--

 Hamilton is commander-in-chief of the Senate, of the House of Representatives, of the heads of departments, of General Washington, and last, and least, if you will, of the President of the United States!

But the President's advisers were free to seek advice without theCabinet if they chose, and Washington had encouraged them to go toHamilton. Hamilton was at liberty to give it, and Adams could find noevidence that he had counselled rebellion against himself; nor that hehad used his great influence for any purpose but the honour of thecountry. 

And never had the country needed his services more. When Adams, grim andobstinate, stepped forward as head of the Nation, he found himselfconfronted with the menace of France. In retaliation for Genet'sdisgrace, the Revolutionists had demanded the recall of GouverneurMorris, whose barely disguised contempt, and protection of more than oneroyalist, had brought him perilously near to the guillotine. Burr haddesired the vacant mission, and his pretensions were urged by Monroe andMadison. Washington recognized this as a device of the Opposition toembarrass him, and he had the lowest opinion of Burr's rectitude andintegrity. Pressure and wrath produced no effect, but he offered toappoint Monroe. It might be wise to send a Jacobin, and the Presidenthoped that ambition would preserve this one from compromising thecountry. He made the mistake of not weighing Monroe's mental capacitymore studiously. The least said of the wild gallop into diplomacy of ourfifth President the better. He was recalled, and Charles CotesworthPinckney sent in his place. The French, who had found Monroe entirely totheir taste, refused to receive the distinguished lawyer and soldier. Toescape indignity he was forced to retire to Holland. The new Republicviolated her treaties with increasing insolence, and Bonaparte wasthundering on his triumphant course. France was mocking the world, andin no humour to listen to the indignant protests of a young and distantnation. To dismember her by fanning the spirit of Jacobinism, and, atthe ripe moment, --when internal warfare had sufficiently weakenedher, --reduce her to a French colony, was a plot of which Hamilton, RufusKing, then minister to England, and other astute statesmen more thansuspected her. But although Hamilton abhorred France and was outraged ather attitude, the spirit of moderation which had regulated all his actsin public life suffered no fluctuation, and he immediately counselledthe sending of a commission to make a final attempt before recourse toarms. War, if inevitable, but peace with honour if possible; it was notfair to disturb the prosperity of the young country except as a lastresort. For once he and Adams were agreed. Hamilton suggested Jeffersonor Madison as a sop to the Revolutionists, with two Federalists to keephim in order. But the President would have his own commissioners ornone. He despatched Marshall and Gerry and ordered C. C. Pinckney to jointhem. Talleyrand refused them official reception, and sent to them, insecret, nameless minions--known officially, later on, as X. Y. Z. --whomade shameful proposals, largely consisting of inordinate demand fortribute. Marshall and Pinckney threw up the commission in disgust. TheOpposition in Congress demanded the correspondence; and Adams, with hisgrimmest smile, sent it to the Senate. It was a terrible blow to theJacobins, not only the manner in which France had prejudiced herinterests in this country; some of the disclosures were extremelypainful to ponder upon. "Perhaps, " one of the backstairs ambassadors hadremarked, "you believe that, in returning and exposing to yourcountrymen the unreasonableness of the demands of this Government, youwill unite them in resistance to those demands. You are mistaken. Youought to know that the diplomatic skill of France, and the means shepossesses in your country, are sufficient to enable her, with _theFrench party in America_, to throw the blame, which will attend therupture, on the Federalists, as you term yourselves, but the Britishparty, as France terms you; and you may assure yourselves this will bedone. " Jefferson retired to weep alone. Several of the faction resignedfrom Congress. Hamilton published his pamphlets, "The Stand, " "France, "and "The Answer, " and the whole country burst into a roar of vengeance, echoing Pinckney's parting shot: "Millions for defence, not a cent fortribute!" "Hail Columbia" was composed, and inflamed the popularexcitement. Federalist clubs paraded, wearing a black cockade, and onestreet riot followed another. Brockholst Livingston had his nose pulled, and killed his man. With the exception of the extreme Jacobins, whonever swerved from their devotion to France and the principles she hadpromulgated with the guillotine, the country was for war to a man, andthe President inundated with letters and memorials of encouragement. Theimmediate result was the augmentation of the Federalist party, and thedecline of Jacobinism. 

For a long while past, Hamilton had been urging naval and militarypreparations. A bold front, he thought, would be more effective thandiplomacy; and the sequel proved his wisdom. When the crisis came a billfor a Provisional Army was passed at once, another for the increase ofthe Navy, and liberal appropriations were made. The proposed alliancewith Great Britain, Hamilton effectually opposed, for he was almost asexasperated with England as with France; in her fear that the Frenchparty in the United States would triumph and declare war upon her, shehad renewed her depredations upon our commerce. 

Few believed that Washington would serve again, and the Nation turnednaturally to Hamilton as its General-in-chief. He had manifestly beenborn to extricate them from difficulties. Even the Presidential factionput their pride in their pockets, and agreed that he was the one man inthe country of matchless resource and military genius; they passed overthe veterans of the war without controversy. But there was one man whonever put his pride in his pocket, and that was John Adams. Rather thanpresent to Alexander Hamilton another opportunity for distinction andpower, he would himself cull fresh laurels for George Washington; thesupply of his old rival was now so abundant that new ones would addnothing. Hamilton already had written to Washington as peremptorily asonly he dared, urging that he must come forth once more and withouthesitation. Washington replied that he would as cheerfully go to thetombs of his ancestors, but admitted the obligation, and asked Hamiltonwould he serve with him? Hamilton answered that he would on conditionthat he be second in command to himself; he would make no furthersacrifice for an inconsiderable reward. When Washington, therefore, received Adams's invitation, he made his acceptance conditional uponbeing given the power to appoint his generals next in rank. Adams, meanwhile, without waiting for his answer, had sent his name to theSenate, and it had been confirmed as a matter of course. Washington wasirritated, but persisted in his condition, and sent in the names ofAlexander Hamilton for Inspector-General, with the rank ofMajor-General, C. C. Pinckney and Knox for Major-Generals, and a list ofBrigadiers and Adjutant-Generals. Adams, fuming, sent the names to theSenate, and they were confirmed in the order in which Washington hadwritten them; but when they came back, jealousy and temper mastered him, and he committed the intemperate act which tolled the death-knell of theFederalist party: he ordered the commissions made out with Hamilton'sname third on the list. Knox and Pinckney, he declared, were entitled toprecedence; and so the order should stand or not at all. He had notanticipated an outcry, and when it arose, angry and determined, he wasstartled but unshaken. The leading men in Congress waited upon him; hereceived a new deluge of letters, and the most pointed of them was fromJohn Jay. Hamilton alone held his peace. He saw the terrible mistakeAdams had made, and dreaded the result. He wrote to Washington that heshould be governed entirely by his wishes, that he should not embarrasshim in any manner, and that it never should be said of himself that hisambition or interest had stood in the way of the public welfare. Butwhen Adams stood with his head down, like an angry bull, and it wasplain to be seen that his astonishing attitude was prompted by personalhatred alone, when the Cabinet and all the eminent men in the Nation, with the exception of the Republican leaders, faced him with an equallydetermined front, there was nothing for Hamilton to do but to stand hisground; and he stood it. Washington put an end to the unfortunatecontroversy. He gave Adams his choice between submission or theselection of another General-in-chief. Adams submitted, but Hamilton hadin him an enemy no less malignant than Thomas Jefferson himself. Adamshad roused the deep implacability of Hamilton's nature. All hope of evenan armed truce for party advantage between the two great Federalists wasover. Hamilton had one cause for resentment which alone would have madehim ardently desire retaliation: General Knox, who had loved himdevotedly for twenty years, was bitterly alienated, and the breach wasnever healed. 

Hamilton made his headquarters in New York, where he could, after afashion, attend to his law practice, --he was now the leading counsel atthe bar, --but he entered upon his new duties with all his old spirit andpassionate energy. Although France might be discomfited by the readinessand resource of the United States, the imposing front erected by auniversal indignation, there were reasons which made the reversepossible; and Hamilton thrilled with all the military ardours of hisyouth at the prospect of realizing those half-forgotten ambitions. Hehad, in those days, sacrificed his burning desire for action and gloryto a sense of duty which had ruled him through life like a tyrannicaldeity. Was he to reap the reward at this late hour? finish his life, perhaps, as he had planned to begin it? Once more he felt a boundlessgratitude for the best friend a mortal ever made. Washington passedHamilton over the heads of those superior in military rank, because heknew that he alone was equal to the great task for which himself was tooold and infirm; but Hamilton never doubted that he did it with a deepsense of satisfied justice and of gratitude. 

Never had Hamilton's conspicuous talent for detail, unlimited capacityfor work, genius for creating something out of nothing, marshalled formore active service than now. He withheld his personal supervision fromnothing; planning forts, preparing codes of tactics, organizing acommissariat department, drafting bills for Congress, advising M'Henryupon every point which puzzled that unfinished statesman, were but a fewof the exercises demanded of the organizer of an army from raw material. The legislation upon one of his bills finally matured a pet project ofmany years, the Military Academy at West Point. Philip Church, theoldest son of Angelica Schuyler, was his aide; John Church, after abrilliant career as a member of Parliament, having returned to Americancitizenship, his wife to as powerful a position as she had held inLondon. 

It is hardly necessary to inform any one who has followed the fortunesof Hamilton as far as this that he purposed to command an army ofaggression as well as defence. A war with France unrolled infinitepossibilities. Louisiana and the Floridas should be seized as soon aswar was declared, and he lent a kindly ear to Miranda, who was foroverthrowing the inhuman rule of Spain in South America. "To arrest theprogress of the revolutionary doctrines France was then propagating inthose regions, and to unite the American hemisphere in one greatsociety of common interests and common principles against thecorruption, the vices, the new theories of Europe, " was an alluringprospect to a man who had given the broadest possible interpretation tothe Constitution, and whose every conception had borne the stamp of animperialistic boldness and amplitude. 

But these last of his dreams ended in national humiliation. This time hehad sacrificed his private interests, his vital forces, for worse thannothing. One enemy worked his own ruin, and Louisiana was to add to thelaurels of Jefferson. 

Talleyrand, astonished and irritated by these warlike preparations andthe enthusiasm of the infant country, wisely determined to withdraw withgrace while there was yet time. He sent a circuitous hint to PresidentAdams that an envoy from the United States would be received with properrespect. For months Adams had been tormented with the vision of Hamiltonborne on the shoulders of a triumphant army straight to the Presidentialchair. His Cabinet were bitterly and uncompromisingly for war; Hamiltonhad with difficulty restrained them in the past. Adams, without givingthem an inkling of his intention, sent to the Senate the name of WilliamVans Murray, minister resident at The Hague, to confirm as envoyextraordinary to France. 

For a moment the country was stupefied, so firm and uncompromising hadbeen the President's attitude hitherto. Then it arose in wrath, and hispopularity was gone for ever. As for the Federalist party, it dividedinto two hostile factions, and neither had ever faced the Republicansmore bitterly. A third of the party supported the President; the restwere for defeating him in the Senate, and humiliating him in everypossible way, as he had humiliated the country by kissing thecontemptuous hand of France the moment it was half extended. 

Hamilton was furious. He had been in mighty tempers in his life, butthis undignified and mortifying act of the President strained hisstatesmanship to the utmost. It stood the strain, however; he warnedthe Federalist leaders that the step taken was beyond recall and knownto all the world. There was nothing to do but to support the President. He still had an opportunity for revenge while openly protecting thehonour of the Nation. Did Murray, a man of insufficient calibre andprestige, go alone, he must fail; Adams would be disgraced; warinevitable, with glory, and greater glory, for himself. But whencircumstances commanded his statesmanship, he ceased to be anindividual; personal resentments slumbered. He insisted that Murray bebut one of a commission, and Adams, now cooled and as disquieted as thatindomitable spirit could be, saw the wisdom of the advice; OliverEllsworth and General Davie, conspicuous and influential men, weredespatched. Once more Hamilton had saved his party from immediate wreck;but the strength which it had gathered during the war fever wasdissipated by the hostile camps into which it was divided, and by thematchless opportunity which, in its brief period of numerical strength, it had given to Thomas Jefferson. 

The Federalist party had ruled the country by virtue of thepreponderance of intellect and educated talents in its ranks, and themasterly leadership of Alexander Hamilton. The Republican party numberedfew men of first-rate talents, but the upper grade of the Federalist wasset thick with distinguished patriots, all of them leaders, but alldeferring without question to the genius of their Captain. For years theharmonious workings of their system, allied to the aggregate ability oftheir personnel, and the watchful eye and resourceful mind of Hamilton, the silent but sympathetic figure of Washington in the background, hadenabled them to win every hard-fought battle in spite of the oftensuperior numbers of the Opposition. That Jefferson was able in the faceof this victorious and discouraging army to form a great party out ofthe rag-tag and bobtail element, animating his policy ofdecentralization into a virile and indelible Americanism, proved him tobe a man of genius. History shows us few men so contemptible incharacter, so low in tone; and no man has given his biographers sodifficult a task. But those who despise him most who oppose the mostdetermined front to the ultimates of his work, must acknowledge thatformational quality in his often dubious intellect which ranks him a manof genius. 

His party was threatened with disorganization when the shameful conductof the France he adored united the country in a demand for vengeance, and in admiration for the uncompromising attitude of the Government. Notuntil the Federalists, carried away by the rapid recruiting to theirranks, passed the Alien and Sedition laws, did Jefferson find ammunitionfor his next campaign. As one reads those Resolutions to-day, onewonders at the indiscretion of men who had kept the blood out of theirheads during so many precarious years. Three-quarters of a century laterthe Chinese Exclusion Act became a law with insignificant protest; themistake of the Federalists lay in ignoring the fears and ragingjealousies of their time. If Hamilton realized at once that Jeffersonwould be quick to seize upon their apparent unconstitutionality andconvert it into political capital, he seems to have stood alone, although his protests resulted in the modification of both bills. 

 Let us not establish a tyranny! [he wrote to Wolcott]. Energy is a very different thing from violence. If we make no false step we shall be essentially united; but if we push things to an extreme, we shall then give to faction body and solidity. 

In their modified form they were sufficiently menacing to democraticideals, and Jefferson could have asked for nothing better. Heimmediately drafted his famous Kentucky Resolutions, and the obedientMadison did a like service for Virginia. The Resolutions of Madison, although containing all the seeds of nullification and secession, aretame indeed compared with the performance of a man who, enveloped in thefriendly mists of anonymity, was as aggressive and valiant as Hamiltonon the warpath. These Resolutions protested against theunconstitutionality of the Federal Government in exiling foreigners, andcurbing the liberty of the press, in arrogating to itself the rights ofthe States, and assuming the prerogatives of an absolute monarchy. IfJefferson did not advise nullification, he informed the States of theirinalienable rights, and counselled them to resist the centralizingtendency of the Federal Government before it was too late. Even in thesomewhat modified form in which these Resolutions passed the Kentuckylegislature, and although rejected by the States to which they weredespatched, they created a sensation and accomplished their primaryobject. The war excitement had threatened to shove the Alien andSedition laws beyond the range of the public observation. The Kentuckyand Virginia Resolutions roused the country, and sent the Republicansscampering back to their watchful shepherd. It is one of themaster-strokes of political history, and Jefferson culled the fruits andsuffered none of the odium. That these historic Resolutions containedthe fecundating germs of the Civil War, is by the way. 

Such was the situation on the eve of 1800, the eve of a Presidentialelection, and of the death struggle of the two great parties. 

It was in December of this year of 1799 that Hamilton bent under themost crushing blow that life had dealt him. He was standing on thestreet talking to Sedgwick, when a mounted courier dashed by, cryingthat Washington was dead. The street was crowded, but Hamilton brokedown and wept bitterly. "America has lost her saviour, " he said; "I, afather. "

BOOK V

THE LAST BATTLE OF THE GIANTS AND THE END

I

The sunlight moved along the table and danced on Hamilton's papers, flecking them and slanting into his eyes. He went to the window to drawthe shade, and stood laughing, forgetting the grave anxieties whichanimated his pen this morning. In the garden without, his son Alexanderand young Philip Schuyler, his wife's orphan nephew, who lived with him, were pounding each other vigorously, while Philip, Angelica, TheodosiaBurr, and Gouverneur Morris sat on the fence and applauded. 

"What a blessed provision for letting off steam, " he thought, with someenvy. "I would I had Burr in front of my fists this moment. I suppose heis nothing but the dupe of Jefferson, but he is a terrible menace, allthe same. "

The girls saw him, and leaping from the fence ran to the house, followedmore leisurely by Morris. 

"You are loitering, " exclaimed Angelica, triumphantly, as she enteredthe room without ceremony, followed by Theodosia. "And when you loiteryou belong to me. "

She had grown tall, and was extremely thin and nervous, movingincessantly. But her face, whether stormy, dreamy, or animated with thepleasure of the moment, was very beautiful. Theodosia Burr was ahandsome intellectual girl, with a massive repose; and the two were muchin harmony. 

"If I snatch a moment to breathe, " Hamilton was beginning, when hesuddenly caught two right hands and spread them open. 

"What on earth does this mean?" he demanded. The little paws of the twomost fastidious girls he knew were dyed with ink. Both blushed vividly, but Angelica flung back her head with her father's own action. 

"We are writing a novel, " she said. 

"You are doing what?" gasped Hamilton. 

"Yes, sir. All the girls in New York are. Why shouldn't we? I guess weinherit brains enough. "

"All the girls in New York are writing novels!" exclaimed Hamilton. "Isthis the next result of Jacobinism and unbridled liberty, the nextdevelopment of the new Americanism as expounded by Thomas Jefferson?Good God! What next?"

"You have the prophetic eye, " said Morris, who was seated on the edge ofthe table, grinning sardonically. (He was bald now, and looked morewicked than ever. ) "What of woman in the future?"

"She has given me sufficient occupation in the present, " repliedHamilton, drily. "Heaven preserve me from the terrors of anticipation. ""Well, finish your novel. If you confine your pens to those subjects ofwhich you know nothing, you will enjoy yourselves; and happiness shouldbe sought in all legitimate channels. But as a favour to me, keep yourhands clean. "

The girls retired with some hauteur, and Morris said impatiently:--

"I thought I had left that sort of thing behind me in France, whereMadame de Staël drove me mad. I return to find all the prettiest womenrunning to lectures on subjects which they never can understand, andscarifying the men's nerves with pedantic allusions. I always believedthat our women were the brightest on the planet, but that they shouldever have the bad taste to become intellectual--well, I have known butone woman who could do it successfully, and that is Mrs. Croix. What hasshe to do with this sudden activity of Burr's? Is he handling Frenchmoney?"

"Are you convinced that she is a French spy?"

"I believe it so firmly that her sudden departure would reconcile me tothe Alien law. Where has Burr found the money for this campaign? He isbankrupt; he hasn't a friend among the leaders; I don't believe theManhattan Bank, for all that he is the father of it, will let himhandle a cent, and Jefferson distrusts and despises him. Still, it isjust possible that Jefferson is using him, knowing that the result ofthe Presidential election will turn on New York, and that after himselfBurr is the best politician in the country. I doubt if he would trusthim with a cent of his own money, but he may have an understanding withthe Aspasia of Bowling Green. Certainly she must have the fullconfidence of France by this time, and she is the cleverest Jacobin inthe country. "

"I wish that dark system could be extirpated, root and branch, " saidHamilton. "I have been too occupied these past two years to watch her, or Burr either, for that matter. Organizing an army, and working foryour bread in spare moments, gives your enemies a clear field foroperations. I have had enough to do, watching Adams. Burr has stolen amarch that certainly does credit to his cunning. That is the mostmarvellous faculty I know. He is barely on speaking terms with aleader--Jefferson, Clinton, the Livingstons, all turned their backs uponhim long since, as a man neither to be trusted nor used. The fraud bywhich he obtained the charter of the Manhattan Bank has alienated somany of his followers that his entire ticket was beaten at the lastelections. Now he will have himself returned for the Assembly fromOrange, he is manipulating the lower orders of New York as if they wereso much wax, using their secrets, wiping the babies' noses, and hangingupon the words of every carpenter who wants to talk: and has actuallygot Clinton--who has treated him like a dog for years--to let him usehis name as a possible candidate for the Legislature. Doubtless he maythank Mrs. Croix for that conquest. But his whole work is marvellous, and I suppose it would be well if we had a man on our side who wouldstoop to the same dirty work. I should as soon invite a strumpet to myhouse. But I am fearful for the result. With this Legislature we shouldbe safe. But Burr has converted hundreds, if not thousands, to a partyfor which he cares as much as he does for the Federal. If he succeeds, and the next Legislature is Republican, Jefferson will be the thirdPresident of the Unites States, and then, God knows what. Not immediatedisunion, possibly, for Jefferson is cunning enough to mislead Francefor his own purposes; nor can he fail to see that Jacobinism is on thewane--but a vast harvest of democracy, of disintegration, anddenationalization, which will work the same disaster in the end. If Burrcould be taught that he is being made a tool of, he might desist, for hewould work for no party without hope of reward. He may ruin us and gainnothing. "

"It is a great pity we have not a few less statesmen in our party and afew more politicians. When we began life, only great services wereneeded; and the Opposition, being engaged in the same battle of ideas, fought us with a merely inferior variety of our own weapons. But thegreatest of our work is over, and the day of the politician has dawned. Unfortunately, the party of this damned lag-bellied Virginian has themonopoly. Burr is the natural result and the proudest sample of theFrench Revolution and its spawn. But your personal influence istremendous. Who can say how many infuscated minds you will illumine whenit comes to speech-making. Don't set your brow in gloom. "

"I have not the slightest intention of despairing. The deep and neverceasing methods of the Jacobin Scandal Club have weakened my influencewith the masses, however; no doubt of that. Its policy is to iterate andreiterate, pay no attention to denials, but drop the same poison dailyuntil denial is forgotten and men's minds are so accustomed to thedetraction, belittling, or accusation, that they accept it as theyaccept the facts of existence. Jefferson has pursued this policy with myreputation for ten years. During the last eight he has been ably abettedby Mrs. Croix, his other personal agents, and those of France. Now theyhave enlisted Burr, and there is no better man for their work in thecountry. "

"They know that if you go, the party follows. That is their policy, andmay they spend the long evening of time in Hell. But I believe you willbe more than a match for them yet; although this is by far the mostserious move the enemy has made. " "I wish to Heaven I had persisted inthe Great Convention until I carried my point in regard to having theelectors chosen by the people in districts. Then I should snap myfingers at Burr in this campaign, for he is an indifferent speaker, andpolitical manipulation would count for very little. With C. C. Pinckneyin the chair for eight years, I should feel that the country was plantedon reasonably sure foundations. It must be Adams and Pinckney, ofcourse, but with proper harmony Pinckney will carry the day. RatherJefferson in the chair than Adams--an open army that we can fight with aunited front, than a Federal dividing the ranks, and forcing us touphold him for the honour of the party--to say nothing of beingresponsible for him. "

"Jefferson is the less of several evils--Burr, for instance. "

"Oh, Burr!" exclaimed Hamilton. "I should be in my dotage if Burr becamePresident of the United States. Personally, I have nothing against him, and he is one of the most agreeable and accomplished of men. Theodosiahalf lives here. Perhaps no man ever hated another as I hate Jefferson, nor had such cause. He has embittered my life and ruined my health; hehas made me feel like a lost soul more than once. But better Jefferson athousand times than Burr. God knows I hate democracy and fear it, butJefferson is timid and cautious, and has some principles and patriotism;moreover, a desire for fame. Burr has neither patriotism nor aprinciple, nor the least regard for his good name. He is bankrupt, profligate--he has been living in the greatest extravagance at RichmondHill, and his makings at the bar, although large, are far exceeded byhis expenses; there is always a story afloat about some dark transactionof his, and never disproved: he challenged Church for talking openlyabout the story that the Holland Land Company had, for legislativeservices rendered, cancelled a bond against him for twenty thousanddollars; but the world doubts Burr's bluster as it doubts his word. Atpresent he is in a desperate way because Alexander Baring, in behalf ofa friend, I. I. Augustine, is pressing for payment on a bond given tosecure the price of land bought by Burr and Greenleaf, and he has beenoffering worthless land claims in settlement, and resorting to everyartifice to avert a crisis. Baring wanted me to take the case, but ofcourse I wouldn't touch it. I sent him to Rinnan. The man is literallyat the end of his tether. It is a coup or extinction--failure meansflight or debtor's prison. Furthermore, he is a conspirator by nature, and there is no man in the country with such extravagant tastes, who isso unscrupulous as to the means of gratifying them. He is half mad forpower and wealth. The reins of state in his hands, and he would stop atnothing which might give him control of the United States Treasury. Tobe President of the United States would mean nothing to him except as ahighway to empire, to unlimited power and plunder. We have beenthreatened with many disasters since we began our career, but with nosuch menace as Burr. But unless I die between now and eighteen hundredand one, Burr will lose the great game, although he may give victory tothe Republican party. "

"I am not surprised at your estimate and revelations, " said Morris, "forI have heard much the same from others since my return. It was thiscertainty that he is bankrupt that led me to believe he was handlingFrench money in this election--and he is flinging it right and left in amanner that must gratify his aspiring soul. Considering his lack offortune and family influence, he has done wonders in the way ofelevating himself. This makes it the more remarkable that with his greatcleverness he should not have done better--"

"He is not clever; that is the point. He is cunning. His is wholly thebrain of the conspirator. Were he clever, he would, like ThomasJefferson, fool himself and the world into the belief that he is honest. Intellect and statesmanship he holds in contempt. He would elevatehimself by the Catiline system, by the simple method of proclaiminghimself emperor, and appropriating the moneybags of the country. Thereis not one act of statesmanship to his credit. To him alone, of allprominent Americans, the country is indebted for nothing. The othernight at a dinner, by the way, he toasted first the French Revolution, then Bonaparte. It is more than possible that you are right, for France, whether Directory or Consulate, is not likely to change her policyregarding this country. Nothing would please either Talleyrand orBonaparte better than to inflame us into a civil war, then swoop downupon us, under the pretence of coming to the rescue. Burr would be justthe man to play into their hands, although with no such intention. Jefferson is quite clever enough to foil them, if he found that more tohis interest. Well, neither is elected yet. Let us hope for the best. Goand ask Angelica to play for you. I have letters to write to leaders allover the State. "

II

Burr was the author of municipal corruption in New York, the noblegrandsire of Tammany Hall. While Hamilton was too absorbed to watch him, he had divided New York, now a city of sixty thousand inhabitants, intodistricts and sections. Under his systematic management the name ofevery resident was enrolled, and his politics ascertained. Then Burr andhis committees or sub-committees laid siege to the individual. Insignificant men were given place, and young fire-eaters, furious withAdams, were swept in. Hundreds of doubtful men were dined and wined atRichmond Hill, flattered, fascinated, conquered. Burr knew the privatehistory, the income, of every man he purposed to convert, and madedexterous use of his information. He terrified some with his knowledge, fawned upon others, exempted the stingy from contributions provided hewould work, and the lazy from work provided he would pay. It is evenasserted that he blackmailed the women who had trusted him on paper, andforced them to wring votes from their men. He drafted a catalogue ofnames for the electoral Legislature, calculated to impose the hesitant, who were not permitted to observe that he smarted and snarled under manya kick. Strong names were essential if the Republicans were to wrestNew York from the Federals after twelve years of unbroken rule, butstrong men had long since ceased to have aught to do with Burr; althoughJefferson, as Hamilton suspected, had recently extended his politic paw. But in spite of snubs, curt dismissals, and reiterated intimations thathis exertions were wasting, Burr did at last, by dint of flattery, working upon the weak points of the men he thoroughly understood, convincing them that victory lay in his hands and no other, --some ofthem that he was working in harmony with Jefferson, --induce Clinton, Brockholst Livingston, General Gates, --each representing a differentfaction, --and nine other men of little less importance, to compose thecity ticket. All manner of Republicans were pleased, and manydiscontented Federalists. Burr, knowing that his own election in NewYork was hopeless, was a candidate for the Assembly in the obscurecounty of Orange; and the Legislature which would elect the nextPresident was threatened with a Republican majority, which alarmed theFederalist party from one end of the Union to the other. 

Hamilton had never been more alert. The moment he was awake to thedanger his mind closed to every other demand upon it, and he flunghimself into the thick of the fight. He would have none of Burr'smethods, but he spoke daily, upon every least occasion, and was ready toconsult at all hours with the distracted leaders of his party. Morris, Troup, Fish, and other Federalists, accustomed to handling the masses, also spoke repeatedly. But Adams had given the party a terrible blow, scattering many of its voters far and wide. They felt that the countryhad been humiliated, that it was unsafe in the hands of a man who wastoo obstinate to be advised, and too jealous to control his personalhatreds for the good of the Union; the portent of tyranny in the Alienand Sedition laws had terrified many, and the promises of theRepublicans were very alluring. The prospect of a greater equality, of auniversal plebeianism, turned the heads of the shopkeepers, mechanics, and labouring men, who had voted hitherto with the Federalist partythrough admiration of its leaders and their great achievements. In vainHamilton reminded them of all they owed to the Federalists: theConstitution, the prosperity, the _peace_. He was in the ironicalposition of defending John Adams. They had made up their minds beforethey went to hear him speak, and they went because to hear him was apleasure they never missed. Upon one occasion a man rushed from theroom, crying, "Let me out! Let me out! That man will make me believeanything. " Frequently Hamilton and Burr spoke on the same platform, andthey were so polite to each other that the audience opened their mouthsand wondered at the curious ways of the aristocracy. It was a period ofgreat excitement. Men knocked each other down daily, noses werepulled, --a favourite insult of our ancestors, --and more than one duelwas fought in the woods of Weehawken. 

The elections began early on the 29th of April and finished at sunset onMay 2d. Hamilton and Burr constantly addressed large assemblages. On thefirst day Hamilton rode up to the poll in his district to vote, and wasimmediately surrounded by a vociferating crowd. Scurrilous handbillswere thrust in his face, and his terrified horse reared before a hundredthreatening fists. A big carter forced his way to its side and beggedHamilton to leave, assuring him there was danger of personal violence, and that the men were particularly incensed at his aristocratic mannerof approaching the polls. 

"Thank you, " said Hamilton, "but I have as good a right to vote as anyman, and I shall do it in the mode most agreeable to myself. "

"Very well, General, " said the carter. "I differ with you in politics, but I'll stick by you as long as there is a drop of blood in my body. "

Hamilton turned to him with that illumination of feature which was notthe least of his gifts, then to the mob with the same smile, and liftedhis hat above a profound bow. "I never turned my back upon my enemy, " hesaid, "I certainly shall not flee from those who have always been myfriends. "

The crowd burst into an electrified roar. "Three cheers for GeneralHamilton!" cried the carter, promptly, and they responded as one man. Then they lifted him from his horse and bore him on their shoulders tothe poll. He deposited his ballot, and after addressing them to thesound of incessant cheering, was permitted to ride away. The incidentboth amused and disgusted him, but he needed no further illustrations ofthe instability of the common mind. 

The Republicans won. On the night of the 2d it was known that theFederalists had lost the city by a Republican majority of four hundredand ninety votes. 

A few weeks before, when uncertainties were thickest, Hamilton hadwritten to William Smith, who was departing for Constantinople: ". .. Yousee I am in a humour to laugh. What can we do better in _this best ofall possible worlds?_ Should you ever be shut up in the seven towers, orget the plague, if you are a true philosopher you will consider thisonly as a laughing matter. "

He laughed--though not with the gaiety of his youth--as he walked hometo-night through the drunken yelling crowds of William Street, more thanone fist thrust in his face. His son Philip was with him, and hiscousin, Robert Hamilton of Grange, who had come over two years before toenlist under the command of the American relative of whom his familywere vastly proud. A berth had been found for him in the navy, as bettersuited to his talents, and he spent his leisure at 26 Broadway. Both theyounger men looked crestfallen and anxious. Philip, who resembled hisfather so closely that Morris called him "his heir indubitate, " looked, at the moment, the older of the two. Ill health had routed the robustappearance of Hamilton's early maturity, and his slender form, which hadlost none of its activity or command, his thin face, mobile, piercing, fiery, as ever, made him appear many years younger than his age. 

"Why do you laugh, sir?" asked Philip, as they turned into Wall Street, "I feel as if the end of the world had come. "

"That is the time to laugh, my dear boy. When you see the world you haveeducated scampering off through space, the retreat led by the greatestrascal in the country, your humour, if you have any, is bound torespond. Moreover, there is always something humorous in one's downfall, and a certain relief. The worst is over. "

"But, Cousin Alexander, " said Robert Hamilton, "surely this is notultimate defeat for you? You will not give up the fight after the firstengagement--you!"

"Oh, no! not I!" cried Hamilton. "I shall fight on until I have madeThomas Jefferson President of the United States. Should I not laugh? Wasany man ever in so ironical a situation before? I shall move heaven andAmerica to put Pinckney in the chair, and I shall fail; and to save theUnited States from Burr I shall turn over the country I have made to mybitterest enemy. "

"That would not be my way of doing, sir, " said Robert. "I'd fight therival chieftain to his death. Perhaps this Burr is not so real aCatiline as you think him. Nobody has a good word for him, but I mean hemay not have the courage for so dangerous an act as usurpation. "

"Courage is just the one estimable if misdirected quality possessed byBurr, and, whetted by his desperate plight, no length would daunt him. Ayear or two ago he hinted to me that I had thrown away my opportunities. Pressed, he admitted that I was a fool not to have changed thegovernment when I could. When I reminded him that I could only have donesuch a thing by turning traitor, he replied, 'Les grands âmes sesoucient peu des petits moraux. ' It was not worth while to reason with aman who had neither little morals nor great ones, so I merely repliedthat from the genius and situation of the country the thing wasimpracticable; and he answered, 'That depends on the estimate we form ofthe human passions, and of the means of influencing them. ' Burr wouldneither regard a scheme of usurpation as visionary, --he is sanguine andvisionary to a degree that will be his ruin, --nor be restrained by anyreluctance to occupy an infamous place in history. "

They had reached his doorstep in the Broadway. The house was lighted. Through the open windows of the drawing-room poured a musical torrent. Angelica, although but sixteen, shook life and soul from the cold keysof the piano, and was already ambitious to win fame as a composer. To-night she was playing extemporaneously, and Hamilton caught hisbreath. In the music was the thunder of the hurricane he so often haddescribed to his children, the piercing rattle of the giant castinets[sic], the roar and crash of artillery, the screaming of the trees, thefurious rush of the rain. Robert Hamilton thought it was a battlepiece, but involuntarily he lifted his hat. As the wonderful music finishedwith the distant roar of the storm's last revolutions, Hamilton turnedto his cousin with the cynicism gone from his face and his eyessparkling with pride and happiness. 

"What do I care for Burr?" he exclaimed. "Or for Jefferson? Has any manever had a home, a family, like mine? Let them do their worst. Beyondthat door they cannot go. "

"Burr can put a bullet into you, sir, " said Robert Hamilton, soberly. "And he is just the man to do it. Jefferson is too great a coward. ForGod's sake be warned in time. "

Hamilton laughed and ran up the stoop. His wife was in the drawing-roomwith Angelica, who was white and excited after the fever of composition. Mrs. Hamilton, too, was pale, for she had heard the news. But mettle hadbeen bred in her, and her spirits never dropped before publicmisfortune. She had altered little in the last seven years. In spite ofher seven children her figure was as slim as in her girlhood, her hairwas as black, her skin retained its old union of amber and claret. Thelingering girlishness in her face had departed after a memorableoccasion, but her prettiness had gained in intellect and character;piquant and roguish, at times, as it still was. It was seven years sinceshe had applied her clever brain to politics and public affairsgenerally--finance excepting--and with such unwearied persistence thatHamilton had never had another excuse to seek companionship elsewhere. Moreover, she had returned to her former care of his papers, sheencouraged him to read to her whatever he wrote, and was necessary tohim in all ways. She loved him to the point of idolatry, but she kepther eye on him, nevertheless, and he wandered no more. When he could notaccompany her to Saratoga in summer, she sent the children with one ofher sisters, and remained with him, no matter what the temperature, orthe age of a baby. But she made herself so charming that if he suspectedthe surveillance he was indifferent, and grateful for her companionshipand the intelligent quality of her sympathy. Elizabeth Hamilton neverwas a brilliant woman, but she became a remarkably strong-minded andsensible one. Femininely she was always adorable. Although relieved ofthe heavier social duties since the resignation from the Cabinet, Hamilton's fame and the popularity of both forced them into a prominentposition in New York society. They entertained constantly at dinner, andduring the past seven years many distinguished men besides Talleyrandhad sat at their hospitable board: Louis Philippe d'Orleans, --supportedfor several years by Gouverneur Morris, --the Duc de Montpensier, theDuke of Kent, John Singleton Copley, subsequently, so eminent as juristand statesman, Kosciusko, Count Niemcewicz, the novelist, poet, dramatist, and historian, were but a few. All travellers of distinctionbrought letters to Hamilton, for, not excepting Washington, he was toEuropeans the most prosilient of Americans. If there had been littledecrease of hard work during these years, there had been social anddomestic pleasures, and Hamilton could live in the one or the other withequal thoroughness. He was very proud of his wife's youthful appearance, and to-night he reproached her for losing so many hours of rest. 

"Could anyone sleep in this racket?" she demanded, lightly. "You must beworn out. Come into the dining room and have supper. "

And they all enjoyed their excellent meal of hot oysters, and dismissedpolitics until the morrow. 

III

But if Hamilton consigned politics to oblivion at midnight and slept forthe few hours demanded by outraged nature, he plunged from the crystalof his bath into their reeking blackness early in the morning. He hadlaughed the night before, but he was in the worst of tempers as he shuthis study door behind him. For the first time in his life he was on abattle-ground with no sensation of joy in the coming fight. The businesswas too ugly and the prospect was almost certain defeat. Were the firstbattle lost, he knew that a sharper engagement would immediatelysucceed: his political foresight anticipated the tie, and he alone had aconsummate knowledge of the character of Burr. That the Republicanswould offer Burr the office of Vice-President was as positive as thatJefferson would be their first and unanimous choice. Clinton andChancellor Livingston might be more distinguished men than the littlepolitician, but the first was in open opposition to Jefferson, and thesecond was deaf. Burr's conquest of New York entitled him to reward, andhe would accept it and intrigue with every resource of his cunning andaddress for the larger number of votes, regardless of the will of thepeople. If the result were a tie, the Federals would incline to anybodyrather than Jefferson, and Hamilton would be obliged to throw into thescale his great influence as leader of his party for the benefit of theman he would gladly have attached to a fork and set to toast above thecoals of Hell. He had no score to settle with Burr, but to permit him tobecome President of the United States would be a crime for which theleader of the Federalist party would be held responsible. When theinevitable moment came he should hand over the structure he had createdto the man who had desired to rend it from gable to foundation; bothbecause it was the will of the people and because Jefferson was thesafer man of the two. 

So far his statesmanship triumphed, as it had done in every crisis whichhe had been called upon to manipulate, and as it would in many more. But for once, and as regarded the first battle, it failed him, and hemade no attempt to invoke it. This was the blackest period of his innerlife, and there were times when he never expected to emerge from itsdepths. The threatened loss of the magnificent power he had wielded, thehatreds that possessed and overwhelmed him, the seeming futility ofalmost a lifetime of labour, sacrifices without end and prodigaldispensing of great gifts, the constant insults of his enemies, and thepublic ingratitude, had saturated his spirit with a raging bitternessand roused the deadliest passions of his nature. The marah he had passedthrough while a member of the Cabinet was shallow compared to the depthsin which he almost strangled to-day. Not only was this the finalaccumulation, but the inspiring and sustaining affection, thecircumscribing bulwark, of Washington was gone from him. "He was anAegis very essential to me, " he had said sadly, and he felt his lossmore every day that he lived. 

He knew there was just one chance to save the Presidency to theFederalist party. Did he employ the magic of his pen to recreate thepopularity of John Adams, it was more than possible that thousands wouldgladly permit the leader they had followed for years to persuade themthey had judged too hastily the man of whom they had expected too much. But by this time there was one man Hamilton hated more implacably thanJefferson, and that was John Adams. Besides the thorough disapproval ofthe Administration of Adams, which, as a statesman, he shared with allthe eminent Federals in the country, his personal counts with this enemypiled to heaven. Adams had severed the party he had created, endeavouredto humiliate him before the country, refused, after Washington's death, to elevate him to his rightful position as General-in-chief of the armyhe had organized, alienated from him one of the best of his friends, andprimarily was answerable for the crushing defeat of yesterday. With oneof the Pinckneys at the helm, Hamilton could have defied Jefferson andkept the Democrats out of power; but the man next in eminence to himselfin his own party had given his supremacy its death-blow, and it islittle wonder if his depths resembled boiling pitch, if the heights ofhis character had disappeared from his vision. He was, above all things, intensely human, with all good and all evil in him; and although heconquered himself at no very remote period, he felt, at the presentmoment, like Lucifer whirling through space. 

Troup, now a retired judge of the U. S. District Court of New York, and aman of some fortune, ready as of old to be Hamilton's faithfullieutenant, entered and looked with sympathy and more apprehension athis Chief. 

"I've not come to bemoan this bad business, " he said, sitting down at adesk and taking up his pen. "What next? It looks hopeless, but of courseyou'll no more cease from effort than one of your Scotch ancestors wouldhave laid down his arms if a rival chieftain had appeared on the warpathwith the world at his back. Is it Adams and C. C. P. To the death?"

"It is Pinckney; Adams only in so far as he is useful. He still has hisfollowing in the New England States. The leaders in those States, firstand second, must be persuaded to work unanimously for Adams andPinckney, with the distinct understanding that in other States votes forAdams will be thrown away. This, after I have persuaded them of Adams'sabsolute unfitness for office. If we carry and it comes to a tie, thereis no doubt to whom the House will give the election. "

Troup whistled. "This is politics!" he said. "I never believed you'd godown to your neck. I wish you'd throw the whole thing over, and retireto private life. "

"I shall retire soon enough, " said Hamilton, grimly. "But Adams will gofirst. "

Troup knew that it was useless to remonstrate further. He had followedthis Captain to the bitter end too often. Underneath the immense sanityof Hamilton's mind was a curious warp of obstinacy, born ofimplacability and developed far beyond the normal bounds ofdetermination. When this almost perverted faculty was in possession ofthe brain, Hamilton would pursue his object, did every guardian in hisgenius, from foresight to acuteness, rise in warning. His presentpolicy if a failure might be the death of the Federalist party, but theflashing presentiment of that historic disaster did not deter him for amoment. 

"It is the time for politics, " Hamilton continued. "Statesmanship goesbegging. I shall be entirely frank about it, for that matter. There willbe no underhand scheming, Adams is welcome to know every step I take. The correspondence must begin at once. I'll make out a list for you. Ishall begin with Wolcott. "

IV

When the tidings of the New York election reached Philadelphia, theFederals of the House met in alarmed and hurried conference. In theirdesperation they agreed to ask Hamilton to appeal to the Governor of NewYork, John Jay, to reconvene the existing legislature that it mightenact a law authorizing in that State the choice of Presidentialelectors in districts. Why they did not send a memorial to Jaythemselves, instead of placing Hamilton in a position to incur the fullodium of such a suggestion, can only be explained by the facts thatduring the entire span of the party's existence, their leader hadcheerfully assumed the responsibility in every emergency or crisis, andthat if the distinguished formalist in the Executive Mansion of New Yorkhad a weak spot in him, it was for Hamilton. 

When Hamilton read this portentous letter, he flushed deeply and thenturned white. The expedient had not occurred to him, but it was too nearof kin to his disapproval of a provision which had delivered the Stateinto the hands of an industrious rascal, not to strike an immediateresponse; especially in his present frame of mind. He was alone with hiswife at the moment, and he handed her the letter. She read it twice, then laid it on the table. "It savours very much of fraud, to me, " shesaid. "Why do politics so often go to the head?"

"Sometimes one sort rises as an antidote to another. There comes a timein human affairs when one is forced into a position of choosing betweentwo evils; a time when the scruples of delicacy and propriety, asrelative to a common course of things, ought to yield to theextraordinary nature of the crisis. "

"Right is right, and wrong is wrong, " said Betsey, with her Dutchsturdiness. "This measure--were it adopted by Mr. Jay--would merely meanthat the party in power was taking an unconstitutional advantage of itssituation to nullify the victories gained by the other. "

"The victories you speak of were won by fraud and every unworthy device. I am not arguing that, such being the case, we are justified in turningtheir weapons upon them, but that for the good of the country the enemyshould be suppressed before they are able to accomplish itsdemoralization, if not its ruin. The triumph of Jefferson andJacobinism, the flourishing of Democracy upon the ruins of Federalism, too long a taste of power by the States rights fanatics, means, with theweak spots in our Constitution, civil war. Burr has sowed the seeds ofmunicipal corruption, which, if the sower be rewarded by the secondoffice in the gift of the people, will spread all over the Union. Thatmany in the ranks of Democracy are in the pay of France, and design theoverthrow of the Government, there is not a shadow of doubt. IfJefferson should die in office, or a tie, in spite of all I could do, should give the Presidency to Burr, there is nothing that man'sdesperate temper would not drive him to accomplish during the timeremaining to him--for he will never be the first choice of theDemocrats. Therefore, I shall propose this measure to Jay in the courseof the next two or three days, unless upon mature deliberation I altermy present opinion that the grave crisis in national affairs justifiesit, or I conceive something better. "

"You will violate your higher principles, " said his wife, who hadmatured in a previous era. "And it will be a terrible weapon for yourenemies. "

"I have now reached that happy point where I am entirely indifferent tothe broadsides of my enemies; and I believe that if I conclude to takethis step, my conscience--and history--will justify me. " "If yousucceed, " said Betsey, shrewdly. "But Mr. Jay is very rigid, and helacks your imagination, your terrible gift of seeing the future in aflash. "

"It is quite true that I have little hope of persuading Jay; as littleas I have of endowing him with the gift of foresight. But, if I thinkbest, I shall make the attempt, and whatever the consequences, I shallnot regret it. "

Betsey said no more. She knew the exact amount of remonstrance Hamiltonwould stand, and she never exceeded it. When his fighting armour was on, no human being could influence him beyond a certain point, and she wastoo wise to risk her happiness. Although he was too careful of her tolet her suspect the hideous conflicts which raged in his soul, she wasfully aware of his bitter obstinacy, and that he was the best hater inthe country. She had many gloomy forebodings, for she anticipated theterrible strain on what was left of his constitution. 

There was one person who, through her inherited intuitions, understoodHamilton, and that was Angelica. He had kept her at arm's length, greatas the temptation to have a sympathetic confidant had been, particularlyafter he had withdrawn from the intimate companionship of Washington;she was so highly wrought and sensitive, so prone to hysteria, that hehad never yielded for a moment, even when she turned her head slowlytoward him and stared at him with eyes that read his very soul. On theevening after the elections he had played and sung with her for an hour, then talked for another with Philip, who was the most promising studentof Columbia College, a youth of fine endowments and elevated character. He was the pride and delight of Hamilton, who could throttle bothapprehensions and demons while discussing his son's future, andlistening to his college trials and triumphs. Upon this particularevening Angelica had suddenly burst into tears and left the room. Thenext morning Hamilton sent her to Saratoga; and, much as he loved her, it was with profound relief that he arranged her comfortably on the deckof the packet-boat. 

On the 7th he wrote to the Governor; but, as he had feared, Jay wouldtake no such audacious leap out of his straight and narrow way. Theletter was published in the _Aurora_ before it reached Albany, andHamilton had reason to believe that Burr had a spy in the post-office. 

Hamilton executed the orders for disbanding the army, then made a tourof several of the New England States, holding conferences and speakingcontinually. He found the first-class leaders at one with him as to thedanger of entrusting the Executive office to Adams a second time, andfavourably inclined to Pinckney. But the second-rate men of influencewere still enthusiastic for the President, and extolling him for savingthe country from war. Hamilton listened to them with no attempt toconceal his impatience. He pointed out that if Talleyrand had made uphis mind that it was best to avoid a war, he would have made a secondand regular overture, which could have been accepted without humiliationto the country, and the severance of the Federalist party. 

As if Adams had not done enough to rouse the deadly wrath of Hamilton, he announced right and left that the Federalist defeat in New York hadbeen planned by his arch enemy, with the sole purpose of driving himselffrom office; that there was a British faction in the country and thatHamilton was its chief. He drove Pickering and M'Henry from his Cabinetwith contumely, as the only immediate retaliation he could think of, andWolcott would have followed, had there been anyone to take his place. Franklin once said of Adams that he was always honest, sometimes great, and often mad. Probably so large an amount of truth has never again beencondensed into an epigram. If Adams had not become inflamed with theambition that has ruined the lives and characters of so many Americans, he would have come down to posterity as a great man, with a record ofservices to his country which would have scattered his few mistakes intothe unswept corners of oblivion. But autocratic, irritable, and jealous, all the infirmities of his temper as brittle with years as theblood-vessels of his brain, the most exacting office in the civilizedworld taxed him too heavily. It is interesting to speculate upon whathe might have been in this final trial of his public career, hadHamilton died as he took the helm of State. If Hamilton's enemies verynearly ruined his own character, there is no denying that he exerted analmost malign influence upon them. To those he loved or who appealed tothe highest in him he gave not only strength, but an abundance ofsweetness and light, illuminating mind and spirit, and inspiring anaffection that was both unselfish and uplifting. But his enemies hatedhim so frantically that their characters measurably deteriorated; toruin or even disconcert him they stooped and intrigued and lied; theywere betrayed into public acts which lowered them in their own eyes andin those of all students of history. Other hatreds were healthy andstimulating by comparison; but there is no doubt that Adams, Jefferson, and Madison fell far lower than they would have done had Hamilton nevershot into the American heavens, holding their fields at his pleasure, and paling the fires of large and ambitious stars. 

The political excitement in the country by this time surpassed everyprevious convulsion to such an extent that no man prominent in thecontest could appear on the street without insult. Although he neverknew it, Hamilton, every time he left the house, was shadowed by his sonPhilip, Robert Hamilton, Troup, John Church, or Philip Church. For theDemocratic ammunition and public fury alike were centred on Hamilton. Adams came in for his share, but the Democrats regarded his doom assealed, and Hamilton, as ever, the Colossus to be destroyed. The windowsof the bookshops were filled with pamphlets, lampoons, and cartoons. Thechanges were rung on the aristocratical temper and the monarchicaldesigns of the leader of the Federalists, until Hamilton was sick of thesight of himself with his nose in the air and a crown on his head, histrain borne by Jay, Cabot, Sedgwick, and Bayard. The people were warnedin every issue of the _Aurora, Chronicle_, and other industrious sheets, that Hamilton was intriguing to drive the Democratic States tosecession, that he might annihilate them at once with his army and hisnavy. The Reynolds affair was retold once a week, with degradingvariations, and there was no doubt that spies were nosing the ground inevery direction to obtain evidence of another scandal to vary themonotony. Mrs. Croix, being Queen of the Jacobins, was safe, so pressand pamphlet indulged in wild generalities of debauchery and rapine. Itmust be confessed that Jefferson fared no better in the Federalistsheets. He was a huge and hideous spider, spinning in a web full ofseduced citizens; he meditated a resort to arms, did he lose theelection. As to his private vices, they saddled him with an entireharem, and a black one at that. 

When Hamilton heard that Adams had asserted that he was the chief of aBritish faction, he wrote to the President, demanding an explanation;and his note had that brief and frigid courtesy which indicated that hewas in his most dangerous temper. Adams ignored it. Hamilton waited areasonable time, then wrote again; but Adams was now too infuriated tocare whether or not he committed the unpardonable error of insulting themost distinguished man in the country. He was in a humour to insult theshade of Washington, and he delighted in every opportunity to wreakvengeance on Hamilton, and would have died by his hand rather thanplacate him. 

Then Hamilton took the step he had meditated for some time past, onewhich had received the cordial sanction of Wolcott, and the uneasy andgrudging acquiescence of Cabot, Ames, Carroll of Carrollton, Bayard, anda few other devoted but conservative supporters. He wrote, for thebenefit of the second-class leaders, who must be persuaded to cast theirvotes for Pinckney, to vindicate Pickering and M'Henry, and--it would befoolish to ignore it--to gratify his deep personal hatred, the pamphletcalled "The Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq. , Presidentof the United States. " His temper did not flash in it for a second. Itwas written in his most concise and pointed, his most lucid and classic, manner; and nothing so damning ever flowed from mortal brain. He setforth all Adams's virtues and services with judicial impartiality. There they were for all to read. Let no man forget them. Then hecounterbalanced and overbalanced them by the weaknesses, jealousies, andother temperamental defects which had arisen in evidence with thebeginnings of the President's public career. He drilled holes in poorAdams's intellect which proved its unsoundness and its unfitness forpublic duty, and he lashed him without mercy for his public mistakes andfor his treatment of his Secretaries and himself. It was a life historyon ivory, and a masterpiece; and there is no friend of Hamilton's whowould not sacrifice the memory of one of his greatest victories for theprivilege of unwriting it. 

This was one of his creations that he did not read to his wife, butTroup was permitted a glance at the manuscript. He dropped it to thefloor, and his face turned white. "Do you intend to publish this thing?"he demanded. "And with your name signed in full?"

"I intend to print it. I had every intention of scattering it broadcast, but I have yielded to the dissuasions of men whose opinions I am boundto respect, and it will go only to them and to the second-class leadersas yet unconvinced. To their entreaties that I would not sign my name Ihave not listened, because such a work, if anonymous, would be bothcowardly and futile. The point is to let those for whom it is intendedknow that a person in authority is talking; and anonymous performancesare legitimate only when published and unmistakable, when given in thatform as a concession to the fashion of the age. "

Troup groaned. "And if it falls into the enemy's hands?"

"In that case, what a hideous opportunity it would enclose, were itunsigned. "

"Oh, sign it!" said Troup, wildly. He set his heel on the manuscript, and looked tentatively at Hamilton. He knew the meaning of theexpression he encountered, and removed his heel. It was months since hehad seen the gay sparkle in Hamilton's eyes, humour and sweetnesscurving his mouth. When Hamilton's mouth was not as hard as iron, itrelaxed to cynicism or contempt. He was so thin that the prominence ofthe long line from ear to chin and of the high hard nose, with itsalmost rigid nostrils, would have made him look more old Roman coin thanman, had it not been for eyes like molten steel. "Politics andambition!" thought Troup. "What might not the world be without them?"

"Let us change the subject, " he said. "I hear that Mrs. Croix makes aconvert an hour from Federalism to Democracy. That is the estimate. Anda small and select band know that she does it in the hope of hasteningyour ruin. I must say, Hamilton, that as far as women are concerned, youare punished far beyond your deserts. There is hardly a man in publiclife who has not done as much, or worse, but the world is remarkablyuninterested, and the press finds any other news more thrilling. TheReynolds woman is probably responsible for many remorseful twinges inthe breasts of eminent patriots, but your name alone is given to thepublic. As for Mrs. Croix, I don't suppose that any mere mortal has everresisted her, but if any other man has regretted it, history is silent. What do you suppose is the reason?"

Hamilton would not discuss Mrs. Croix, but he had long since ceased towaste breath in denial. He made no reply. 

"Do you know my theory?" said Troup, turning upon him suddenly. "It isthis. You are so greatly endowed that more is expected of you than ofother men. You were fashioned to make history; to give birth, not foryour own personal good, but for the highest good of a nation, to thegreatest achievement of which the human mind is capable. Therefore, whenyou trip and stumble like any fool among us, when you act like a meremortal with no gigantic will and intellect to lift him to the heightsand keep him there, some power in the unseen universe is infuriated, andyou pay the price with compound interest. It will be the same with thatthing on the floor. If you could be sure that it would never fall intothe hands of a Jacobin, even then it would be a mistake to print it, forit is mainly prompted by hatred, and as such is unworthy of you. But ifit finds its way to the public, your punishment will be even in excessof your fault. For God's sake think it over. "

Hamilton made no reply, and in a moment Troup rose. "Very well, " hesaid, "have your own way and be happy. I'll stand by you if the citadelfalls. "

Hamilton's eyes softened, and he shook Troup's hands heartily. But assoon as he was alone, he sent the manuscript to the printer. 

V

M. L. Davis, the authentic biographer of Burr, tells this interestinganecdote concerning the Adams pamphlet:--'

 Colonel Burr ascertained the contents of this pamphlet, and that it was in the press. The immediate publication, he knew, must distract the Federal party, and thus promote the Republican cause in those States where the elections had not taken place. Arrangements were accordingly made for a copy as soon as the printing of it was completed; and when obtained, John Swartwout, Robert Swartwout, and Matthew L. Davis, by appointment met Colonel Burr at his house. The pamphlet was read, and extracts made for the press. They were immediately published. 

When Hamilton read the voluminous extracts in the marked copies of theDemocratic papers which he found on the table in his chambers in GardenStreet, his first sensation was relief; subterranean methods were littleto his liking. He was deeply uneasy, however, when he reflected upon theinevitable consequences to his party, and wondered that his imaginationfor once had failed him. Everyone who has written with sufficient powerto incite antagonism, knows the apprehensive effect of extracts liftedmaliciously from a carefully wrought whole. Hamilton felt like acriminal until he plunged into the day's work, when he had no time foran accounting with his conscience. He was in court all day, and afterthe five o'clock dinner at home, returned to his office and worked on animportant brief until eight. Then he paid a short call on a client, andwas returning home through Pearl Street, when he saw Troup bearing downupon him. This old comrade's face was haggard and set, and his eyes werealmost wild. Hamilton smiled grimly. That expression had stamped theFederal visage since morning. 

Troup reached Hamilton in three strides, and seizing him by the arm, pointed to the upper story of Fraunces' Tavern. "Alec, " he saidhoarsely, "do you remember the vow you made in that room twenty-fiveyears ago? You have kept it until to-day. There is not an instance inyour previous career where you have sacrificed the country to yourself. No man in history ever made greater sacrifices, and no man has had agreater reward in the love and loyalty of the best men in a nation. Andnow, to gratify the worst of your passions, you have betrayed yourcountry into the hands of the basest politicians in it. Moreover, allyour enemies could not drag you down, and no man in history has everbeen assailed by greater phalanxes than you have been. It tookyou--yourself--to work your own ruin, to pull your party down on top ofyou, and send the country we have all worked so hard for to the devil. Ilove you better than anyone on earth, and I'll stick to you till thebitter end, but I'd have this say if you never spoke to me again. "

Hamilton dropped his eyes from the light in the familiar room ofFraunces' Tavern, but the abyss he seemed to see at his feet was not theone yawning before his friend's excited imagination. He did not answerfor a moment, and then he almost took away what was left of Troup'sbreath. 

"You are quite right, " he said. "And what I have most to be thankful forin life, is that I have never attracted that refuse of mankind who fawnand flatter; or have dismissed them in short order, " he added, with hisusual regard for facts. "Come and breakfast with me to-morrow. Goodnight. "

He walked home quickly, told the servant at the door that he was not tobe disturbed, and locked himself in his study. He lit one candle, thenthrew himself into his revolving chair, and thought until the lines inhis face deepened to the bone, and only his eyes looked alive. He wastedno further regrets on the political consequences of his act. What wasdone, was done. Nor did he anticipate any such wholesale disaster as haddistracted the Federalists since the morning issues. He knew the forceof habit and the tenacity of men's minds. His followers would be aghast, harshly critical for a day, then make every excuse that ingenuity couldsuggest, unite in his defence, and follow his lead with redoubledloyality. His foresight had long since leaped to the end of thisconflict, for the Democratic hordes had been augmenting for years; hisown party was hopelessly divided and undermined by systematic slander. To fight was second nature, no matter how hopeless the battle; but inthose moments of almost terrifying prescience so common to him, herealized the inevitableness of the end, as history does to-day. His onlychance had been to placate Adams and recreate his enemy's popularity. 

The day never came when he was able to say that he might have done thisat the only time when such action would have counted. He had beeninexorable until the pamphlet was flung to the public; and then, although he was hardly conscious of it at the moment, he was immediatelydispossessed of the intensity of his bitterness toward Adams. Therevenge had been so terrible, so abrupt, that his hatred seemeddisseminating in the stolen leaves fluttering through the city. Therefore his mind was free for the appalling thought which tookpossession of it as Troup poured out his diatribe; and this thought was, that he was no longer conscious of any greatness in him. Through all theconflicts, trials, and formidable obstacles of previous years he hadbeen sustained by his consciousness of superlative gifts combined withloftiness of purpose. Had not his greatness been dinned into his ears, he would have been as familiar with it. But he seemed to himself to haveshrivelled, his very soul might have been in ashes--incremated in theflames of his passions. He had triumphed over every one of his enemiesin turn. Historically he was justified, and had he accomplished the sameend impersonally, they would have been the only sufferers, and in thejust degree. But he had boiled them in the vitriol of his nature; hehad scarred them and warped them and destroyed their self-respect. Hadthese raging passions been fed with other vitalities? Had they ravagedhis soul to nourish his demons? Was that his punishment, --an instance ofthe inexorable law of give and take?

He recalled the white heat of patriotism with which he had written therevolutionary papers of his boyhood, the numberless pamphlets which hadfinally roused the States to meet in convention and give the wretchedcountry a Constitutional Government, "_The Federalist_"; which hadspurred him to the great creative acts that must immortalize him inhistory. He contrasted that patriotic fire with the spirit in which hehad written the Adams pamphlet. The fire had gone out, and theprecipitation was gall and worm-wood. Even the spirit in which he hadfirst attacked Jefferson in print was righteous indignation bycomparison. 

Had he hated his soul to cinders? Had the bitterness and theimplacability he had encouraged for so many years bitten their acidsthrough and through the lofty ideals which once had been the larger partof himself? Had the angel in him fallen to the bottom of the pit in thatfrightful nethermost region of his, for his cynical brain to mock, untilthat, too, was in its grave? He thought of the high degree ofself-government, almost the perfection, that Washington hadattained, --one of the most passionate men that had ever lived. Did thatgreat Chieftain stand alone in the history of souls? He thought ofLaurens, with his early despair that self-conquest seemed impossible. Would he have conquered, had he lived? What would he or Washingtonthink, were they present to-night? Would they hate him, or would theirlove be proof against even this abasement? He passionately wished theywere there, whether they came to revile or console. Isolated andterror-stricken, he felt as if thrust for ever from the world of livingmen. 

His mind had been turned in, every faculty bent introspectively, but forsome moments past his consciousness had vibrated mechanically to anexternal influence. It flew open suddenly, as he realized that someonewas watching him, and he wheeled his chair opposite the dusk in thelower end of the room. For a moment it, seemed to him that everyfunction in him ceased and was enveloped in ice. A face rested lightlyon the farther end of the long table, the fair hair floating on eitherside of it, the eyes fixed upon him with an expression that flashed himback to St. Croix and the last weeks of his mother's life. He fancied inthat moment that he could even discern the earthen hue of the skin. Whenhe realized that it was Angelica, he was hardly less startled, but hefound his voice. 

"When did you return?" he asked, in as calm a tone as he could command. "And why did you hide in here?"

"I came down with Grandpa, who made up his mind in a minute. And I camein here to be sure to have a little talk with you alone. I was going tosurprise you as soon as you lit the candle, and then your facefrightened me. It is worse now. "

Her voice was hardly audible, and she did not move. Hamilton went downand lifted her to her feet, then supported her to a chair opposite hisown. He made no search for an excuse, for he would not have dared tooffer it to this girl, whose spiritual recesses he suddenly determinedto probe. Between her and the dead woman there was a similarity that wassomething more than superficially atavistic. His practical brain refusedto speculate even upon the doctrine of metempsychosis. He was like hismother in many ways. That unique and powerful personality had stampedhis brain cells when he was wholly hers. He recalled that his own soulhad echoed faintly with memories in his youth. What wonder that he hadgiven this inheritance to the most sensitively constituted of hischildren, whose musical genius, the least sane of all gifts, put her intouch with the greater mysteries of the Universe? That nebulous memoriesmoved like ghosts in her soul he did not doubt, nor that at such momentsshe was tormented with vague maternal pangs. He conquered his firstimpulse to confess himself to her; doubtless she needed more help thanhe. She was staring at him in mingled terror and agony. 

"Why do you suffer so when I suffer?" he asked gently; then bluntly, "doyou yearn over me as if I were your child, and in peril?"

"Yes, " she answered, without betraying any surprise; "that is it. I havea terrible feeling of responsibility and helplessness, of understandingand knowing nothing. I feel sometimes as if I had done you a greatwrong, for which I suffer when you are in trouble, and I am no more useto you than John or little Eliza. If you would tell me. If you would letme share it with you. You remember I begged as a child. You have madebelieve to tell me secrets many times, but you have told me nothing. Myimagination has nearly shattered me. "

"Do you wish to know?" he asked. "Are you strong enough to see me as Isee myself to-night? I warn you it will be a glimpse into Hell. "

"I don't care what it is, " she answered, "so long as it is the reality, and you let me know you as I do underneath my blindness and ignorance. "

Then he told her. He talked to her as he would have talked to the deadhad she risen, although without losing his sense of her identity for amoment, or the consciousness of the danger of the experiment. He showedher what few mortals have seen, a naked soul with its scars, its stains, and its ravages from flame and convulsion. He need not have apprehendeda disastrous result. She was compounded of his essences, and her age wasthat indeterminate mixture of everlasting youth and anticipated wisdomwhich is the glory and the curse of genius. She listened intently, theexpression of torment displaced by normal if profound sympathy. He hadbegun with the passions inspired by Jefferson; he finished with theclimax of deterioration in the revenge he had taken on Adams, and theabyss of despair into which it had plunged him. He drew a long breath ofrelief, and regarded his little judge with some defiance. She nodded. 

"I feel old and wise, " she said, "and at the same time much younger, because I no longer shrink from a load on my mind I cannot understand. And you--it has all gone. " She darted at the candle and held it to hisface. "You look twenty years younger than when you sat there andthought. I believed you were dying of old age. "

"I feel better, " he admitted, "But nothing can obliterate the scars. Andalthough I shall always be young at intervals, remember that I havecrowded three lifetimes into one, and that I must pay the penaltyspiritually and physically, although mentally I believe I shall hold myown until the end. " He leaned forward on a sudden impulse and took bothher hands. "I make you a vow, " he said, "and I have never broken even apromise--or only one, " he added, remembering Troup's accusation. "I willdrive the bitterness out of myself and I will hate no more. My publicacts shall be unaccompanied by personal bitterness henceforth. Not avengeance that I have accomplished has been worth the hideous experienceof to-night, and so long as I live I shall have no cause to repeat it. "

"If you ever broke that vow, " said Angelica, "I should either die or gocrazy, for you would sink and never rise again. "

VI

As Hamilton had anticipated, the Jacobin press shouted and laugheditself hoarse, vowed that it never could have concocted so effective abit of campaign literature, and that the ursine roars of Adams could beheard from Dan to Beersheba. Burr, as yet undetected, almost danced ashe walked. The windows were filled with parodies of the pamphlet, entitled, "The Last Speech and Dying Words of Alexander Hamilton, ""Hamilton's Last Letter and His Amorous Vindication, " "A FreeExamination of the Morals, Political and Literary Characters of JohnAdams and Alexander Hamilton. " One cartoon displayed the sinking ship_Administration_, with the Federal rats scuttling out of her, andHamilton standing alone on the deck; another, "The Little Lion"sitting, dejected and forlorn, outside the barred gates of"Hamiltonopolis. " The deep, silent laughter of Jefferson shook thecontinent. 

The Federalist leaders were furious and aghast. But they recovered, andwhen the time came, every Federalist delegate to the Electoral College, with one exception, voted precisely as Hamilton had counselled. SouthCarolina deserted Pinckney because he would not desert Adams, but shewould have pursued that policy had the pamphlet never been written; andwhether it affected the defeat of the Federalists in Pennsylvania andother States is doubtful. The publication in August of Adams's letter toTench Coxe, written in 1792, when he was bitterly disappointed atWashington's refusal to send him as minister to England, and assertingthat the appointment of Pinckney was due to British influence, thuscasting opprobrium upon the integrity of Washington, had done as much asHamilton's pamphlet, if not more, to damn him finally with theFederalists. Hamilton's chief punishment for his thunderbolt was in hisconscience, and his leadership of his party was not questioned for amoment. He expected a paternal rebuke from General Schuyler, but thatold warrior, severe always with the delinquencies of his own children, had found few faults in his favourite son-in-law; and he took a greaterpride in his career than he had taken in his own. Now that gout andfailing sight had forced him from public life, he found his chiefenjoyment in Hamilton's society. General Schuyler survived the death ofseveral of his children and of his wife, but Hamilton's death killedhim. Assuredly, life dealt generously with our hero in the matter offathers, despite or because of an early oversight. James Hamilton hadnever made the long and dangerous journey to the North, and he had diedon St. Vincent, in 1799, but what filial regret his son might havedutifully experienced was swept away on the current of the overwhelminggrief for Washington. And as for mothers, charming elder sisters, andbig brothers, eager to fight his battles, no man was ever so blest. InDecember Hamilton received the following letter from William VansMurray:--

 Paris, Oct. 9th, 1800. 

 Dear Sir: I was extremely flattered by the confidence which your letter by Mr. Colbert proved you have in my disposition to follow your wishes. A letter from you is no affair of ceremony. It is an obligation on any man who flatters himself with the hope of your personal esteem. Mr. Colbert gave it to me yesterday. I immediately, in particular, addressed a letter to Bonaparte, and made use of your name, which I was sure would be pleasing to him. To-day I dined with him. The Secretary of State assured me that he received it kindly, and I can hope something good from him. If any come it will be your work. I never before spoke or wrote to Bonaparte on any affair other than public business. It will be very pleasing to you if we succeed, that your silent agency works good to the unhappy and meritorious at such a distance. I know nothing better belonging to reputation. 

Poor Adams!

General Davie arrived by the next ship, bringing with him a conventionconcluded with France on the 30th of October. He also brought a letterto Hamilton from one of the commission, with a copy of the document anda journal of the proceedings of the negotiators. The writer was OliverEllsworth, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Adams mightoccupy the chair of State, but to the Federals Hamilton was President inall but name. 

Sedgwick and Gouverneur Morris, now a member of the Senate, not knowingof the communication, wrote immediately to Hamilton, acquainting himwith the contents of the treaty. 

 It contains no stipulation for satisfaction of the injuries we have received [Sedgwick wrote in wrath]. It makes the treaty of '78 a subject for future negotiation. It engages that we shall return, in the condition they now are, all our captures. It makes neutral bottoms a protection to their cargoes, and it contains a stipulation directly in violation of the 25th article of our treaty with Great Britain. Such are the blessed effects of our mission! These are the ripened fruits of this independent Administration! Our friends in the Senate are not enough recovered from their astonishment to begin to reflect on the course they shall pursue. 

This treaty was a far more deadly weapon in Hamilton's hands than theentire arsenal he had manipulated in his pamphlet, for campaignliterature is often pickled and retired with the salt of its readers. But did this mission fail, did Adams lose his only chance ofjustification for sending the commission at all, did the Senate refuseto ratify, and war break out, or honourable terms of peace be left tothe next President, then Adams's Administration must be stamped inhistory as a failure, and he himself retire from office covered withignominy. But had Hamilton not recovered his balance and trimmed totheir old steady duty the wicks of those lamps whose brilliance haddimmed in a stormy hour, his statesmanship would have controlled him insuch a crisis as this. He knew that the rejection of the treaty wouldshatter the Federal party and cause national schisms and discords; that, if left over to a Jacobin administration, the result would be stillworse for the United States. It was a poor thing, but no doubt the bestthat could have been extracted from triumphant France; nor was it as badin some respects as the irritated Senate would have it. Such as it was, it must be ratified, peace placed to the credit of the Federalists, andthe act of the man they had made President justified. Hamilton wasobliged to write a great many letters on the subject, for theFederalists found it a bitter pill to swallow; but he prevailed and theyswallowed it. 

Meanwhile, the Electoral College had met. Adams had received sixty-fivevotes, Pinckney sixty-four, Jefferson and Burr seventy-three each. Thatthrew the decision upon the House of Representatives, for Burr refusedto recognize the will of the people, and withdraw in favour of the manwhom the Democratic hemisphere of American politics had unanimouslyelected. Burr had already lost caste with the party by his attempts tosecure more votes than the leaders were willing to give him, and hadalarmed Jefferson into strenuous and diplomatic effort, the while hepiously folded his visible hands or discoursed upon the bones of themammoth. When Burr, therefore, permitted the election to go to theHouse, he was flung out of the Democratic party neck and crop, andJefferson treated him like a dog until he killed Hamilton, when he gavea banquet in his honour. Burr's only chance for election lay with theFederalists, who would rather have seen horns and a tail in theExecutive Chair than Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton had anticipated theirhesitation and disposition to bargain with Burr, and he bombarded themwith letters from the moment the Electoral College announced the result, until the House decided the question on the 17th of February. Heanalyzed Burr for the benefit of the anxious members until the dark andpoisonous little man must have haunted their dreams at night. Whetherthey approached Burr or not will never be known; but they were finallyconvinced that to bargain with a man as unfigurable as water would bethrowing away time which had far better be employed in extractingpledges from Jefferson. 

One of Hamilton's letters to Gouverneur Morris, who wielded muchinfluence in the House, is typical of many. 

 . .. Another subject. _Jefferson or Burr_? The former beyond a doubt. The latter in my judgement has no principle, public or private; could be bound by no agreement; will listen to no monitor but his ambition; and for this purpose will use the worst portion of the community as a ladder to climb to permanent power, and an instrument to crush the better part. He is bankrupt beyond redemption, except by the resources that grow out of war and disorder; or by a sale to a foreign power, or by great peculation. War with Great Britain would be the immediate instrument. He is sanguine enough to hope everything, daring enough to attempt everything, wicked enough to scruple nothing. From the elevation of such a man may heaven preserve the country. 

 Let our situation be improved to obtain from Jefferson assurances on certain points: the maintenance of the present system, especially on the cardinal articles of public credit--a navy, neutrality. Make any discreet use you may think fit of this letter. 

He was deeply alarmed at the tendency of the excited House, which sat incontinuous session from the 11th to the 17th, members sleeping on thefloor and sick men brought thither on cots, one with his wife inattendance. The South was threatening civil war, and Burr's subsequentcareer justified his alarm and his warnings; but in spite of his greatinfluence he won his case with his followers by a very small margin. They were under no delusions regarding the character of Burr, theirletters to Hamilton abound in strictures almost as severe as his own, but their argument was that he was the less of two evils, that everymove he made could be sharply watched. It is quite true that he wouldhave had Federalists and Democrats in both Houses to frustrate him; butit does not seem to have occurred to the former that impeachment wouldhave been inevitable, and Jefferson President but a year or two laterthan the will of the people decreed. But it was a time of terribleexcitement, and for the matter of that their brains must have been atrifle clouded by the unvarying excitement of their lives. Bayard ofDelaware, with whom Hamilton had fought over point by point, winning oneor more with each letter, changed his vote on the last ballot from Burrto a blank. Hamilton's friends knew that Burr would kill him sooner orlater, for the ambitious man had lost his one chance of the greatoffice; but Hamilton chose to see only the humour of the present he hadmade Thomas Jefferson. That sensible politician had tacitly agreed tothe terms suggested by the Federalists, when they debated thepossibility of accepting him, and Hamilton knew that he was far tooclever to break his word at once. What Hamilton hoped for was what cameto pass: Jefferson found the machinery of his new possession more to histaste than he could have imagined while sitting out in the cold, and helet it alone. 

VII

Hamilton was now free to devote himself to the practice of law, with butan occasional interruption. It hardly need be stated that he kept asharp eye on Jefferson, but for the sake of the country he supported himwhen he could do so consistently with his principles. More than once thePresident found in him an invaluable ally; and as often, perhaps, hewrithed as on a hot gridiron. Hamilton came forth in the pamphlet uponextreme occasions only, but he was still the first political philosopherand writer of his time, and the Federalists would have demanded his penupon these occasions had he been disposed to retire it. Although out ofthe active field of politics, he kept the best of the demoralizedFederalists together, warning them constantly that the day might comewhen they would be called upon to reorganize a disintegrated union, andresponding to the demands of his followers in Congress for advice. Inlocal politics he continued to make himself felt in spite of thefattening ranks of Democracy. His most powerful instrument was the _NewYork Evening Post_, which he founded for the purpose of keeping theFederalist cause alive, and holding the enemy in check. He selected anable man as editor, William Coleman of Massachusetts, but he directedthe policy of the paper, dictating many of the editorials in the latehours of night. This journal took its position at once as the mostrespectable and brilliant in the country. 

He also founded the Society for the Manumission of Slaves, securing ashonorary member the name of Lafayette--now a nobleman at large oncemore. But all these duties weighed lightly. For the first time in hislife he felt himself at liberty to devote himself almost wholly to hispractice, and it was not long before he was making fifteen thousanddollars a year. It was an immense income to make in that time, and hecould have doubled it had he been less erratic in the matter of fees. Upon one occasion he was sent eight thousand dollars for winning a suit, and returned seven. He invariably placed his own valuation upon a case, and frequently refused large fees that would have been paid withgratitude. If a case interested him and the man who asked his serviceswere poorer than himself, he would accept nothing. If he were convincedthat a man was in the wrong, he would not take his case at any price. Hewas delighted to be able to shower benefits upon his little family, andhe would have ceased to be Alexander Hamilton had he been content tooccupy a second place at the bar, or in any other pursuit which engagedhis faculties; but for money itself, he had only contempt. Perhaps thatis the reason why he is so out of tune with the present day, and unknownto the average American. 

Washington, after the retirement of John Jay, had offered Hamilton theoffice of Chief Justice of the United States; but Hamilton felt thatthe bar was more suited to his activities than the bench, and declinedthe gift. His legal career was as brilliant and successful as hispolitical, but although none is more familiar to ambitious lawyers, andhis position as the highest authority on constitutional law has neverbeen rivalled, his achievements of greater value to the Nation havereduced it in history to the position of an incident. There is littlespace left, and somewhat of his personal life still to tell, but nostory of Hamilton would be complete without at least a glimpse of thisparticular shuttle in the tireless loom of his brain. Such glimpses haveby no one been so sharply given as by his great contemporary, ChancellorKent. 

 He never made any argument in court [Kent relates] without displaying his habits of thinking, resorting at once to some well-founded principle of law, and drawing his deductions logically from his premises. Law was always treated by him as a science, founded on established principles. .. . He rose at once to the loftiest heights of professional eminence, by his profound penetration, his power of analysis, the comprehensive grasp and strength of his understanding, and the firmness, frankness and integrity of his character. .. . His manners were affable, gentle and kind; and he appeared to be frank, liberal and courteous in all his professional intercourse. [Referring to a particular case the Chancellor continues. ] Hamilton by means of his fine melodious voice, and dignified deportment, his reasoning powers and persuasive address, soared far above all competition. His preeminence was at once and universally conceded. .. . Hamilton returned to private life and to the practice of the law in '95. He was cordially welcomed and cheered on his return, by his fellow citizens. Between this year and 1798, he took his station as the leading counsel at the bar. He was employed in every important and every commercial case. He was a very great favourite with the merchants of New York and he most justly deserved to be, for he had shown himself to be one of the most enlightened, intrepid and persevering friends to the commercial prosperity of this country. Insurance questions, both upon the law and fact, constituted a large portion of the litigated business in the courts, and much of the intense study and discussion at the bar. Hamilton had an overwhelming share of this business. .. . His mighty mind would at times bear down all opposition by its comprehensive grasp and the strength of his reasoning powers. He taught us all how to probe deeply into the hidden recesses of the science, and to follow up principles to their far distant sources. He ransacked cases and precedents to their very foundations; and we learned from him to carry our inquiries into the commercial codes of the nations of the European continent; and in a special manner to illustrate the law of Insurance by the secure judgement of Emerigon and the luminous commentaries of Valin. .. . My judicial station in 1798 brought Hamilton before me in a new relation. .. . I was called to listen with lively interest and high admiration to the rapid exercise of his reasoning powers, the intensity and sagacity with which he pursued his investigations, his piercing criticisms, his masterly analysis, and the energy and fervour of his appeals to the judgement and conscience of the tribunal which he addressed. [In regard to the celebrated case of Croswell vs. The People, in the course of which Hamilton reversed the law of libel, declaring the British interpretation to be inconsistent with the genius of the American people, Kent remarks. ] I have always considered General Hamilton's argument in this cause as the greatest forensic effort he ever made. He had come prepared to discuss the points of law with a perfect mastery of the subject. He believed that the rights and liberties of the people were essentially concerned. .. . There was an unusual solemnity and earnestness on his part in this discussion. He was at times highly impassioned and pathetic. His whole soul was enlisted in the cause, and in contending for the rights of the Jury and a free Press, he considered that he was establishing the surest refuge against oppression. .. . He never before in my hearing made any effort in which he commanded higher reverence for his principles, nor equal admiration of the power and pathos of his eloquence. .. . I have very little doubt that if General Hamilton had lived twenty years longer, he would have rivalled Socrates or Bacon, or any other of the sages of ancient or modern times, in researches after truth and in benevolence to mankind. The active and profound statesman, the learned and eloquent lawyer, would probably have disappeared in a great degree before the character of the sage and philosopher, instructing mankind by his wisdom, and elevating the country by his example. 

 [Ambrose Spencer, Attorney General of the State, --afterward Chief Justice, --who did not love him, having received the benefit of Hamilton's scathing sarcasm more than once, has this to say. ] Alexander Hamilton was the greatest man this country ever produced. I knew him well. I was in situations to observe and study him. He argued cases before me while I sat as judge on the bench. Webster has done the same. In power of reasoning, Hamilton was the equal of Webster; and more than this can be said of no man. In creative power, Hamilton was infinitely Webster's superior, and in this respect he was endowed as God endows the most gifted of our race. If we call Shakspeare a genius or creator, because he evoked plays and character from the great chaos of thought, Hamilton merits the same appellation; for it was he, more than any other man, who thought out the Constitution of the United States and the details of the Government of the Union; and out of the chaos that existed after the Revolution, raised a fabric, every part of which is instinct with his thought. I can truly say that hundreds of politicians and statesmen of the day get both the web and woof of their thoughts from Hamilton's brains. He, more than any man, did the thinking of the time. 

His fooling was as inimitable as his use of passion and logic, and onone occasion he treated Gouverneur Morris, who was his opposing counsel, to such a prolonged attack of raillery that his momentary rival sat withthe perspiration pouring from his brow, and was acid for some timeafter. During his earlier years of practice, while listening toChancellor Livingston summing up a case in which eloquence was made todisguise the poverty of the cause, Hamilton scribbled on the margin ofhis brief: "Recipe for obtaining good title for ejectment: two or threevoid patents, several _ex parte_ surveys, one or two acts of usurpationacquiesced in for the time but afterwards proved such. Mix well withhalf a dozen scriptural allusions, some ghosts, fairies, elves, hobgoblins, and a _quantum suff_. Of eloquence. " Hamilton alsooriginated the practice of preparing "Points, " now in general use. 

VIII

Hamilton, after the conclusion of the great libel case in the spring of1804, returned from Albany to New York to receive honours almost asgreat, if less vociferous, than those which had hailed him after themomentous Convention of 1788. Banquets were given in his honour, the barextolled him, and the large body of his personal friends were triumphantat this new proof of his fecundity and his power over the minds of men. They were deeply disturbed on another point, however, and several daysafter his arrival, Troup rode out to The Grange, Hamilton'scountry-seat, to remonstrate. 

Hamilton, several years since, had bought a large tract of wooded landon Harlem Heights and built him a house on the ridge. It commanded aview of the city, the Hudson, and the Sound. The house was spacious andstrong, built to withstand the winds of the Atlantic, and to sheltercommodiously not only his family, but his many guests. The garden andthe woods were the one hobby of his life, and with his own hands he hadplanted thirteen gum trees to commemorate the thirteen original Statesof the Union. Fortunately his deepest sorrow was not associated withthis estate; Philip had fallen before the house was finished. Thisbrilliant youth, who had left Columbia with flying honours, had broodedover the constant attacks upon his father, --still the Colossus in thepath of the Democrats, to be destroyed before they could feel secure intheir new possessions, --until he had deliberately insulted the mostrecent offender, received his challenge, and been shot to death close tothe spot where Hamilton was to fall a few years later. That was in theautumn of 1801. Hamilton's strong brain and buoyant temperament haddelivered him from the intolerable suffering of that heaviest of hisafflictions, and the severe and unremitting work of his life gave himlittle time to brood. If he rarely lost consciousness of hisbereavement, the sharpness passed, and he was even grateful at timesthat his son, whose gifts would have urged him into public life, wasspared the crucifying rewards of patriotism. 

As Troup rode up the avenue and glanced from right to left into theheavy shades of the forest, with its boulders and ravines, its streamsand mosses and ferns, then to the brilliant mass of colour at the end ofthe avenue, out of which rose the stately house, he sighed heavily. 

"May the devil get the lot of them!" he said. 

It was Saturday, and he found Hamilton on his back under a tree, thelast number of the _Moniteur_ close to his hand, his wife and Angelicalooking down upon him from a rustic seat. Both the women were inmourning, and Betsey's piquant charming face was aging; her sister Peggyand her mother had followed her son. 

Hamilton had never recovered his health, and he paid for the prolongedstrains upon his delicate system with a languor to which at times he wasforced to yield. To-day, although he greeted the welcome visitor gaily, he did not rise, and Troup sat down on the ground with his back to thetree. As he looked very solemn, Mrs. Hamilton and Angelica inferred theywere not wanted, and retired. 

"Well?" said Hamilton, laughing. "What is it? What have I done now?"

"Put another nail into your coffin, we are all afraid. The story of thepaper you read before the Federalist Conference in Albany is commontalk; and if Burr is defeated, it will be owing to your influence, whether you hold yourself aloof from this election or not. Why do youjeopardize your life? I'd rather give him his plum and choke him withit--"

"What?" cried Hamilton, erect and alert. "Permit Burr to become Governorof New York? Do you realize that the New England States are talking ofsecession, that even the Democrats of the North are disgusted andalarmed at the influence and arrogance of Virginia? Burr has a certainprestige in New England on account of his father and Jonathan Edwards, and his agents have been promoting discussion of this ancestry for sometime past. Do the Federalists of New York endorse him, this prestigewill have received its fine finish; and New Englanders have winked hisvices out of sight because Jefferson's treatment of him makes him almostvirtuous in their eyes. The moment he is Governor he will foment theunrest of New England until it secedes, and then, being the firstofficer of the leading State of the North, he will claim a higher officethat will end in sovereignty. He fancies himself another Bonaparte, hewho is utterly devoid of even that desire for fame, and thatmagnificence, which would make the Corsican a great man without hisgenius. That he is in communication with his idol, I happen to know, forhe has been seen in secret conversation with fresh Jacobin spies. Now isthe time to crush Burr once for all. Jefferson has intrigued theLivingstons and Clinton away from him again; the party he patchedtogether out of hating factions is in a state of incohesion. If theFederals--"

"That is just it, " interrupted Troup; "the man is desperate. So are hisfollowers, his 'little band. ' They were sick and gasping after Burr'sfailure to receive one vote in the Republican caucus for even theVice-Presidency, and they know that the Louisiana Purchase has madeJefferson invincible with the Democrats--or the Republicans, asJefferson still persists in calling them. They know that Burr's chancefor the Presidency has gone for ever. So New York is their only hope. Secession and empire or not, their hope, like his, is in the spoils ofoffice; they are lean and desperate. If you balk them--"

"What a spectacle is this!" cried Hamilton, gaily. He threw himself backon the grass, and clasped his hands behind his head. "Troup, of all men, reproaching me for keeping a vow he once was ready to annihilate me forhaving broken. That offence was insignificant to the crime of supinelypermitting our Catiline to accomplish his designs. "

"If I could agree with you, I should be the last to counselindifference; no, not if your life were the forfeit. But I neverbelieved in Burr's talent for conspiracy. He is too sanguine andvisionary. He desires power, office, and emolument--rewards for hishenchmen before they desert him; but I believe he'd go--or get--nofarther, and the country is strong enough to stand a quack or two;while, if we lose you--"

"You will live to see every prophecy I have made in regard to Burrfulfilled. I will not, because so long as I am alive he shall not evenattempt to split the Union, to whose accomplishment and maintenance Ipledged every faculty and my last vital spark. Sanguine and visionary hemay be, but he is also cunning and quick, and there is a condition readyto his hand at the present moment. Jefferson is bad enough, Heavenknows. He has retained our machinery, but I sometimes fancy I can hearthe crumbling of the foundations; the demoralizing and thedisintegrating process began even sooner than I expected. He isappealing to the meanest passion of mankind, vanity; and the UnitedStates, which we tried to make the ideal Republic, is galloping towardthe most mischievous of all establishments, Democracy. Every cowherdhopes to be President. What is the meaning of civilization, pray, if theeducated, enlightened, broad-minded, are not to rule? Is man permittedto advance, progress, embellish his understanding, for his own selfishbenefit, or for the benefit of mankind? And how can his superiorityavail his fellows unless he be permitted to occupy the high offices ofresponsibility? God knows, he is not happy in his power; he is, indeed, a sacrifice to the mass. But so it was intended. He is the onlysufferer, and mankind is happier. "

"Jefferson and Burr both have a consummate knowledge of the limitedunderstanding; they know how to tickle it with painted straws and baitit with lies. Bonaparte is not a greater autocrat than Jefferson, butour tyrant fools the world with his dirty old clothes and hisfamiliarities. But I am not to be diverted. I want to keep you for myold age. I believe that you have done your part. It has been amagnificent part; there is no greater in history. Your friends aresatisfied. So should you be. I want you to give up politics before it istoo late. I fear more than one evil, and it has kept me awake manynights. Burr is not the only one who wishes you under ground. His'little band' is composed of men who are worse than himself without oneof his talents. Any one of them is capable of stabbing you in the dark. The Virginia Junta know that the Federalist party will exist as long asyou do, and that some external menace might cohere and augment it againunder your leadership. At every Federalist banquet last Fourth you weretoasted as the greatest man in America; and I know this undiminishedenthusiasm--as well as the influence of the _Evening Post_--alarms themdeeply. They are neither great enough nor bad enough to murder you, noreven to employ someone to do it; but more than one needy rascal knowsthat he has only to call you out and kill you according to the code, tobe rewarded with an office as soon as decency permits. There is anothermenace. I suppose you have heard that Mrs. Croix married a Frenchmannamed Stephen Jumel while you were in Albany?"

"Yes!" exclaimed Hamilton, with interest; "who is he?"

"A Parisian diamond merchant and banker, a personal friend of Bonaparte. The belief is that he came over here as a special emissary of theConsulate. Of course he brought a letter to that other illustriousagent, and to the amazement of everybody he married her. They musthandle thousands of French money between them. France would besomething more than glad to hear of your elimination from thiscomplicated American problem; particularly, if you demonstrate yourpower by crushing this last hope of Burr's. I doubt if Burr would callyou out with no stronger motive than a desire for personal revenge. Heis no fool, and he knows that if he kills you, he had better put abullet through his own brain at once. He is a sanguine man, but not sosanguine as not to know that if he compassed your death, he would behounded into exile. But he is in a more desperate way financially thanever. He can borrow no more, and his debtors are clamouring. If he isdefeated in this election, and the Jumels are sharp enough to takeadvantage of his fury and despair, --I think she has been watching herchance for years; and the talk is, she is anxious, for her own reasons, to get rid of Burr, besides, --I believe that a large enough sum wouldtempt Burr to call you out--"

"He certainly is hard up, " interrupted Hamilton, "for he rang my frontdoor bell at five o'clock this morning, and when I let him in he went onlike a madman and begged me to let him have several thousands, orRichmond Hill would be sold over his head. "

"And you gave them to him, I suppose? How much have you lent himaltogether? I know from Washington Morton that Burr borrowed six hundreddollars of you through him. "

"I lent him the six hundred, partly because his desperate plight appealsto me--I believe him to be the unhappiest wretch in America--and morebecause I don't want Europe laughing at the spectacle of aVice-President of the United States in Debtor's prison. Of course Ican't lend him this last sum myself, but I have promised to raise it forhim. "

"Well, I argue with you no more about throwing away money. Did youlisten to what I said about Madame Jumel?"

"With the deepest interest. It was most ingenious, and does honour toyour imagination. " Troup, with an angry exclamation, sprang to hisfeet. Hamilton deftly caught him by the ankle and his great formsprawled on the grass. He arose in wrath. 

"You are no older than one of your own young ones!" he began; thenrecovered, and resumed his seat. "This is the latest story I have heardof you, " he continued: "Some man from New England came here recentlywith a letter to you. When he returned to his rural home he was asked ifhe had seen the great man. 'I don't know about the _great_' he replied;'but he was as playful as a kitten. '"

Hamilton laughed heartily. "Well, let me frolic while I may, " he said. "I shall die by Burr's hand, no doubt of that. Whether he kills me forrevenge or money, that is my destiny, and I have known it for years. Andit does not matter in the least, my dear Bob. I have not three years oflife left in me. "

IX

Burr was defeated by a majority of seven thousand votes; and NewEngland, which had hoped, with the help of a man who was at war with allthe powerful families of New York, --Schuylers, Livingstons, and Clintonsat the head of them, --to break down the oligarchy of which it had beenjealous for nearly a century, deserted the politician promptly. Incidentally, Hamilton had quenched its best hope of secession, for theelected Governor of New York, Judge Lewis, was a member of theLivingston family. Burr was in a desperate plight. Debtor's prison anddisgrace yawned before him; his only followers left were a handful ofdisappointed politicians, and these deserted him daily. But although hishatred of Hamilton, by now, was a foaming beast within him, he was waryand coolheaded, and history knows no better than he did that if hekilled the man who was still the most brilliant figure in America, aswell as the idol of the best men in it, cunning, and skill, and masteryof every political art would avail him nothing in the future; everyavenue but that frequented by the avowed adventurer would be closed tohim. Moreover, he must have known that Hamilton's life was almost over, that in a very few years he could intrigue undisturbed. Nor could hehave felt a keen interest in presenting to Jefferson so welcome a giftas his own political corpse. But desperate for money, crushed to theearth, his hatred for Hamilton cursing and raging afresh, the onlyconspicuous enemy who might be bought with gold of the man who was stilla bristling rampart in the path of successful Jacobinism, he was in asituation to fall an easy victim to greater plotters than himself. Hisact, did he challenge Hamilton, would be ascribed to revenge, and thetowering figures in the background of the tragedy would pass unnoticedby the horrified spectators in front. 

On June 18th William Van Ness, Burr's intimate friend, waited uponHamilton with a studiously impertinent note, demanding an acknowledgmentor denial of the essence of certain newspaper paragraphs, which statedthat the leader of the Federalists had, upon various occasions, expressed his low opinion of the New York politician, and in no measuredterms. Hamilton replied, pointing out the impossibility of eitheracknowledging or denying an accusation so vague, and analyzed at lengththe weakness of Burr's position in endeavouring to pick a quarrel out ofsuch raw material. He said, in conclusion:--

 I stand ready to avow or disavow promptly and explicitly any precise or definite opinion which I may be charged with having declared of any gentleman. More than this cannot fitly be expected from me; and especially, it cannot reasonably be expected that I shall enter into an explanation upon a basis so vague as that which you have adopted. 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. 

Hamilton foresaw the inevitable end, and commenced putting his affairsin order at once; but, for both personal and abstract reasons, holdingthe practice of duelling in abhorrence, he was determined to give Burrany chance to retreat, consistent with his own self-respect. Burrreplied in a manner both venomous and insulting, and Hamilton calledupon Colonel Pendleton, General Greene's aide during the Revolution, andasked him to act as his second. On the 23d he received a note from VanNess, inquiring when and where it would be most convenient for him toreceive a communication, and the correspondence thereafter was conductedby the seconds. 

It was Sunday, and Hamilton was at The Grange, when the note from VanNess arrived. He was swinging in a hammock, and he put the missive inhis pocket, shrugged his shoulders, and lifted himself on his elbow. Hisentire family, with the exception of his wife and Angelica, wereshouting in the woods. The baby, a sturdy youngster of two, named forthe brother who had died shortly before his birth, emerged in a state offury. He had eighty-two years of vitality in him, and he roared like ayoung bull. Hamilton's children inherited the tough fibre and thelongevity of the Schuylers. Of the seven who survived him all lived toold age, and several were close to being centenarians. 

Angelica was busy in her aviary, close by. She was now twenty, and oneof the most beautiful girls in the country, but successive deaths hadkept her in seclusion; and the world in which her parents were suchfamiliar figures was to remember nothing of her but her tragedy. Betsey, still as slim as her daughter, ran from the house at the familiar roar, and Gouverneur Morris came dashing through the woods with a half-dozenguests, self-invited for dinner. It was an animated day, and Hamiltonwas the life of the company. He had no time for thought until night. Hiswife retired early, with a headache; the boys had subsided even earlier. At ten o'clock Angelica went to the piano, and Hamilton threw himselfinto a long chair on the terrace and clasped his hands behind his head. 

"So, " he thought, "the end has come. My work is over, I suppose. Personally, I am of no account. All I would have demanded, by way ofreward for services faithfully executed, was the health to make a decentliving and ten or fifteen years of peaceful and uninterrupted intimacywith my family. For fame, or public honours, or brilliant successes ofany sort, I have ceased to care. Nothing would tempt me to touch thereins of public life again unless in the event of a revolution. Ibelieve I have crushed that possibility with this election; otherwise, Idoubt if my knell would have sounded. On the bare possibility that suchis not the case, and that my usefulness may not be neutralized by publicdoubt of my courage, I must accept this challenge, whether or not I havesufficient moral courage to refuse it. I believe I have; but that isneither here nor there, and I shall fall. Should I survive, the solereason would be danger ahead. For the last two years I have felt myselfmoving steadily deathward. By this abrupt exit I but anticipate theinevitable a year or two, and doubtless it seems to the destiny thatcontrols my affairs as the swiftest way to dispose of Burr, and awakenthe country to the other dangers that menace it. To the last I am but atool. No man was ever so little his own master, so thrust upon a planetfor the accomplishment of public and impersonal ends alone. I have beenpermitted a certain amount of domestic felicity as my strength was bestconserved thereby, my mind free to concentrate upon public duties. I wasendowed with the gift of fascination, that men should follow me withoutquestion, and this country be served with immediate effectiveness, Ihave received deep and profound satisfaction from both theseconcessions, but it would not matter in the least if I had not. Theywere inevitable with the equipment for the part I had to play. I havehad an astonishing and conquering career against the mightiestobstacles, and I may as a further concession, be permitted an enduringplace in history; but that, also, is by the way. I conquered, not togratify my love of power and to win immortal fame, but that I mightaccomplish the part for which I was whirled here from an almostinaccessible island fifteen hundred miles away--to play my part in thecreation of this American empire. It has been a great part, creativelythe greatest part. The proof that no native-born American could haveplayed it lies in the fact that he did not. The greatest of her men haveabetted me; not one has sought to push me aside and do my work. My onlyenemies have been those who would pull my structure down; the mostambitious and individual men in the Union, of the higher sort, are mywilling followers. To win them I never plotted, nor did I ever seek todazzle and blind them. Part of my equipment was the power to convincethem without effort of my superior usefulness; there was no time tolose. I am nothing but a genius, encased in such human form as wouldbest serve its purpose; an atom of the vast creative Being beyond theUniverse, loaned for an infinitesimal part of time to the excrescencecalling itself The United States of North America, on the dot calledEarth. Now the part is played, and I am to be withdrawn. That my humanheart is torn with insupportable anguish, matters not at all. I leavethat behind. "

Hamilton had been bred in the orthodox religion of his time, and itspicturesqueness, including its ultimates of heaven and hell, had takenfirm hold of his ardent imagination. But in his cosmic moments theformulations of this planet played no part. 

"I have not even a mother-country, " he thought. "I am a parent, not achild. My patriotism has been that of a tigress for her young, not of aman for his fatherland. God knows I am willing, and always have been, todie for this country, which is so much my own, but why--why--need I havebeen made so human? Could I not have understood men as well? Could I nothave performed my various part without loving my wife and children, myfriends, with the deepest tenderness and passion of which the humanheart is capable? Then I would go without a pang, for I am tired, anddeath would be a relief. But, since all humanity was forced into me, whyshould not I, now that I have faithfully done my part, be permitted afew years of happiness by my hearthstone?"

He raised his hands as if to shut out the cold high stars. He had hadfew bitter moments since the night, four years before, when he haddeliberately exorcised bitterness and hate; and that mellowness had cometo him which came to his great rivals in their old age. But to-night helet the deeps rise. He ached with human wants, and he was bidden towork out his last act of service to the country for whose sole use hehad been sent to Earth. 

He dropped his hands and stared at the worlds above. "Must I go on?" hethought. "Is that it? Does other work await me elsewhere? Has theAlmighty detached from himself a few creative egos, who go from world toworld and do their part; removed the day their usefulness is over, thatthey shall not dissipate their energy, nor live until men regard withslighting wonder the work of the useless old creature in their midst, withdraw from it their first reverence? I go in the fulness of mymaturity and the high tide of respect and affection; I go in thedramatic manner of my advent, and my work will be a sacred thing;--evenmy enemies will not dare to pull it down until such time as they arecalm enough to see it as it is; and then the desire will have passed. Doubtless all things are best and right. .. . Maturity? I feel as old astime and as young as laughter. "

He sat up suddenly and bent his head. Millions of tiny bells wereringing through the forest. So low, so golden, so remote they sounded, that they might have hung in the stars above or in the deeps of theearth. He listened so intently for a moment that life seemed suspended, and he saw neither the cool dark forest nor the silver ripple of theHudson, but a torn and desolate land, and a gravestone at his feet. Thenhe passed his hand over his forehead with a long breath, and went softlyinto the drawing-room. 

Angelica sat at the piano, with her head thrown back, her long fair hairhanging to the floor. Her dark eyes were blank, but her fingers shookfrom the keys the music of a Tropic night. It was a music that Hamiltonhad not sent a thought after since the day he landed in America, thirty-one years ago. It had come to her, with other memories, by directinheritance. 

He went to the dining room hastily and poured out a glass of wine. Whenhe returned, Angelica, as he expected, was half lying in a chair, whiteand limp. 

"Drink this, " he said, in the bright peremptory manner to which hischildren were accustomed. "I think you are not strong enough yet toindulge in composition. You have grown too fast, and creation needs agreat deal of physical vigour. Now run to bed, and forget that you canplay a note. "

Angelica sipped the wine obediently, and bade him good night. As shetoiled up the stairs she prayed for the physical strength that wouldpermit her to become the great musician of her ambitious dreams. Herprayer was answered; the great strength came to her, and her music wasthe wonder of those who listened; but they were very few. 

Hamilton went into his library, prepared to write until morning. Bitterness and cosmic curiosity had vanished; he was the practical man, with a mass of affairs to arrange during the few days that were left tohim. But he did no work that night. The door-knocker pounded loudly. Theservants had gone to bed. He took a lamp, and unchained and unlocked thefront door, wondering what the summons meant, for visitors in thatlonely spot were rare after nightfall. A woman stood in the heavy shadeof the porch, and behind her was a carriage. She wore a long thinpelisse; and the hood was drawn over her face. Nevertheless, shehesitated but a moment. She lifted her head with a motion of haughtydefiance that Hamilton well remembered, and stepped forward. 

"It is I, Hamilton, " she said. "I have come to have a few words with youalone, and I shall not leave until--"

"Come in, by all means, " said Hamilton, politely. "You were imprudent tochoose such a dark night, for the roads are dangerous. When you return Iwill send a servant ahead of you with a lantern. "

He led the way to the library and closed the door behind them. MadameJumel threw off her cloak, and stood before him in the magnificence ofcloth of gold and many diamonds. Her neck blazed, and the glitteringtower of her hair was a jewel garden. She was one of the women for whomsplendour of attire was conceived, and had always looked her best whenin full regalia. To-night she was the most superb creature that man hadever seen or dreamed of. Even her great eyes looked like jewels, deepand burning as that blue jewel of the West Indies, the Caribbean Sea;but her lips and cheeks were like soft pink roses. Hamilton had seen hermany times since the day of parting, for she went constantly to thetheatre, and had been invited to the larger receptions until herreckless Jacobinism had put the final touch to the disapproval ofFederal dames; but he had never seen her in such beauty as she wasto-night. Eleven years had perfected this beauty, taken from it nothing. He sighed, and the past rose for a moment; but it seemed a centurybehind him. 

"Will you not sit down?" he asked. "Can I fetch you a glass of wine? Iremember you never liked it, but perhaps, after so long a drive--"

"I do not wish any wine, " said Madame Jumel, shortly. She was nonplussedby this matter-of-fact acceptance of a situation which she had intendedshould be intensely dramatic. She was not yet gone, however. 

"No one ever could get the best of you, Hamilton, " she exclaimed. "Ihave come here to-night--how terribly delicate you look, " she faltered, with a sudden pallor. "I have not seen you for so long--"

"My health does not give me the least concern, " said Hamilton, hurriedly, wondering if he could lay his hand on a bottle ofsmelling-salts without awaking his wife. "Pray go on. To what am Iindebted for the honour of this visit?"

Madame Jumel rose and swept up and down the long room twice. "Can therebe anything in that tale of royal blood?" thought Hamilton. "Or in thatother tale of equally distinguished parentage?"

She had paused with her back to him, facing one of the bookcases. 

"Classics, classics, classics!" she exclaimed, in a voice which grewsteadier as she proceeded. "That was the only taste we did not share. Don Quixote in Spanish, Dante and Alfieri in Italian; and all the Germanbrutes. Ah! Voltaire! Rousseau! What superb editions! No one can bindbut the French. And the dear old _Moniteur_--all bound for posterity, which will never look at it. "

She returned and stood before him, and she was quite composed. 

"I came to tell you, " she said, "that when you die, it will be by thehand of my deputy. I tell you because I am determined that your lastearthly thought shall be of me. "

"_Cherchez la femme--toujours!_ Why are you doing this?" he askedcuriously. "You no longer love me, and your hate should have worn outlong since. "

"Neither my hate nor my love has ceased for a second. I married Jumelfor these jewels, for the courts of Europe, for a position in thiscountry which the mighty Schuylers cannot take from me again. But Iwould fly with you to-morrow, and live with you in a hole under ground. I came to make no such proposal, however; I know that you wouldsacrifice even your family to your honour, and everything else in lifeto them. For years I waited, hoping that you would suddenly come back tome, hating you and injuring you in every way my Jacobinism could devise, but ready to wipe your shoes with my hair the moment you appeared. Nowthe hard work of your life is over. You look forward to years ofhappiness with your family on this beautiful estate, while I am marriedto a silly old Frenchman--who, however, has brought me my final means ofrevenge. I know you well. You would rather be alive now than at any timeof your life. Well, you shall go. And I would pray, if that were myhabit, that into these last days you may condense all the agonies ofparting from those you love that I have ached and raged through in theseeleven long years. "

"God knows I have bitterly regretted that you should suffer for mypassions. And, if it is any satisfaction to you, I go unwillingly, andthe parting will be very bitter. "

She drew a sharp breath, and flung her head about. "One cannot triumphover you!" she cried. "Why was I such a fool as to come here to-night?My imagination would have served me better. "

"Is it French money?" asked Hamilton. 

"Yes, but I alone am responsible. We handle immense sums, and itsdisposal is left to our discretion. This will be distasteful neither toFrance nor Virginia, --I suppose I may have Louisiana, if I want it!--butI am no man's agent in this matter. "

"You are magnificent! It is quite like you to disdain to share yourterrible responsibility. I can lighten it a little. I shall not shootBurr. "

"I should rather you did. Still, it does not matter. He will be disposedof, and I shall lead the hue and cry. "

"You are young to be so brutal. Will your conscience never torment you?"

"I have too much brain to submit to conscience, and you know it. I shallsuffer the torments of the damned, but not from conscience. But I wouldrather suffer with you out of the world than in it. I have stood that aslong as a mere mortal can stand anything. Revenge is not my only motive. Either you or I must go, and as I have now found the means of boundlessdistraction, I live. I have been on the point of killing myself and youmore than once. But my power to injure you gave me an exquisitesatisfaction; and then, I always hoped. Now the time for the _period_has come. " Her chin sank to her neck, and she stared at him until hereyes filled. "Do you love them so much more than you ever loved me?" sheasked wistfully. 

Hamilton turned away his head. "Yes, " he said. 

She drew a long shivering breath. "Ah!" she said. "You are a frailshadow of yourself. You have no passion in you. And yet, even as youare, I would fling these jewels into the river, and live with you untilyou died in my arms. You may think me a monster, if you like, but youshall die knowing that your wife does not love you as I do. "

Hamilton leaned forward and dried her tears. "Say that you forgive me, "she said; for audacity was ever a part of genius. 

"Yes, " he said grimly, "I forgive you. You and Bonaparte are the twomagnificent products of the French Revolution. I am sorry you are notmore of a philosopher, but, so far as I alone am concerned, I regretnothing. "

"Oh, men!" she exclaimed, with scorn. "They are always philosophers whenthey are no longer in love with a woman. But you will give me your lastconscious moment?"

"No, " he said deliberately, "I shall not. "

She sprang to her feet. "You will! Thank you for saying that, though! Iwas about to grovel at your feet. Take me to my coach! What a fool I wasto come here!" She seized her pelisse, and wound it about her as she randown the hall. Hamilton followed, insisting that she give him time toawaken a servant. But she would not heed. She flung herself into hercoach, and called to the driver to gallop his horses, unless he wishedto lose his place on the morrow. Hamilton stood on the porch, listeningto the wild flight down the rough hill through the forest But it wasunbroken, so long as he could hear anything, and he laughed suddenly andentered the house. 

"The high farce of tragedy, " he thought. "Probably a mosquito willsettle on Burr's nose as he fires, and my life be spared. "

X

The challenge was delivered on Wednesday. Hamilton refused to withdrawhis services from his clients in the midst of the Circuit Court, andJuly 11th, a fortnight later, was appointed for the meeting. WhenHamilton was not busy with the important interests confided to him byhis clients, he arranged his own affairs, and drew up a document forpublication, in the event of his death, in which he stated that he hadcriticised Burr freely for years, but added that he bore him noill-will, that his opposition had been for public reasons only, that hisimpressions of Burr were entertained with sincerity, and had beenuttered with motives and for purposes which appeared to himselfcommendable. He announced his intention to throw away his fire, andgave this reason for yielding to a custom which he had held in avowedabhorrence: "The ability to be in future useful, whether in resistingmischief or effecting good, in those crises of our public affairs whichseem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable from a conformitywith public prejudice in this particular. "

Burr spent several hours of each day in pistol practice, using thecherry trees of Richmond Hill as targets. Thurlow Weed, in his"Autobiography, " has told of Burr's testament, written on the nightbefore the duel. Having neither money nor lands, but an infinitude ofdebts, to bequeath his daughter, he left her a bundle of compromisingletters from women. The writers moved in circles where virtue was heldin esteem, and several were of the world of fashion. They had, with theinstinct of self-defence, which animates women even in that stage wherethey idealize the man, omitted to sign their names. Burr supplied theomission in every case and added the present address. That Hamiltonwould throw away his fire was a possibility remote from the best effortof Burr's imagination, and although he knew that no one could fire morequickly than himself, he was not the man to go to the ground unpreparedfor emergencies: if his daughter, now Mrs. Alston, would obey his hintand blackmail, she might realize a pretty fortune. That Theodosia Burr, even with the incentive of poverty, would have sunk to such ignominy, noone who knows the open history of her short life will believe; but thefather, whose idol she was, insulted her and stained her memory, toodepraved and warped to understand nobility in anyone, least of all inone of his own blood. In the study of lost souls Burr has appealed tomany analysts, and by no one has been made so attractive as by HarrietBeecher Stowe; who, knowing naught by experience of men of the world, either idealized them as interesting villains or transformed them intobeasts. In Burr she saw the fallen angel, and bedewed him with manyChristian tears. But I doubt if Burr, the inner and real Burr, had farto fall. His visible divergence from first conditions was as strikingas, no doubt, it was natural. As the grandson of Jonathan Edwards, theson of the Reverend Aaron Burr, and reared by relatives of that samemorbid, hideous, unhuman school of early New England theology, it onlyneeded a wayward nature in addition to brain and spirit to send himflying on his own tangent as soon as he was old enough to think. Afterthat his congenital selfishness did the rest. For a time he climbed thehill of prizes very steadily, taking, once in a way, a flight, swift asan arrow: in addition to great ability at the bar, and a cunning whichrose to the dignity of a talent, he was handsome, magnetic, well-bred, and polished, studied women with the precision of a vivisectionist, assumed emotions and impulses he could not feel with such dexterity thateven men yielded to his fascination until they plumbed him; had in factmany of the fleeting kindly instincts to which every mortal is subjectwho is made of flesh and blood, or comes of a stock that has been bredto certain ideals. Every wretch has a modicum of good in him, and inspite of the preponderance of evil in Burr, had he been born underkindly Southern skies with a gold spoon in his mouth, if, when ambitionsdeveloped, he had had but to stretch out his hand to pluck the prizes oflife, instead of exercising the basest talents of his brain to overreachmore fortunate men, why it is possible that his nature might not havehardened into a glacier: its visible third dazzling and symmetrical, itsdeadly bulk skulking below the surface of the waters which divided thetwo parts of him from his victims; might have died in the chastereclusion of an ancestral four-poster, beneficiaries at his side. Butthat immalleable mind lacked the strong fibre of logic andforesight--which is all that moral force amounts to--that lifts a mantriumphant above his worst temptations; and he paid the bitter andhideous penalty in a poverty, loneliness, and living death that wouldhave moved the theologians of his blood to the uneasy suspicion thatpunishment is of this earth, a logical sequence of foolish andshort-sighted acts. Both men and women are allowed a great latitude inthis world; they have little to complain of. It is only when the brainfails in its part, or the character is gradually undermined by lyingand dishonour, that the inevitable sequence is some act which arousesthe indignation of society or jerks down the iron fist of the law. WhenBurr took to the slope he slid with few haltings. In his long life ofplottings and failures, from his sympathy with the Conway Cabal to hisdesperate old age, there were no depths of blackguardism that he did nottouch. Whether Madame Jumel spoke the truth or not to Hamilton on thatnight of their last interview, it was entirely in keeping with his lifeand character that he should kill for hire. 

On the Fourth of July, the Society of the Cincinnati gave its annualdinner. This society, then the most distinguished in the Union, andmembered by men who had fought in the War of Independence, had, upon thedeath of Washington, their first President, elected Hamilton to thevacant office. He presided at this banquet, and never had appeared norfelt happier. Not only did that peculiar exaltation which precedescertain death possess him, as it possesses all men of mettle and brainin a like condition, but the philosophy which had been born in him andruled his imagination through life had shrugged its shoulders andaccepted the inevitable. Hamilton knew that his death warrant had beensigned above, and he no longer experienced a regret, although he hadoften felt depressed and martyred when obliged to go to the courts ofAlbany and leave his family behind him. He had lost interest in hisbody; his spirit, ever, by far, the strongest and the dominant part ofhim, seemed already struggling for its freedom, arrogant and blithe asit approached its final triumph. There is nothing in all life so selfishas death; and the colossal ego which genius breeds or is bred out of, isolated Hamilton even more completely than imminent death isolates mostmen. The while he gave every moment he could spare to planning thefuture comfort and welfare of his family, he felt as if he had alreadybade them farewell, and wondered when and how he should meet themagain. 

At this gathering he was so gay and sportive that he infected the greatcompany, and it was the most hilarious banquet in the society's history. The old warriors sighed, and wondered at his eternal youth. When hesprang upon the table and sang his old camp-song, "The Drum, " he lookedthe boy they remembered at Valley Forge and Morristown. There was onlyone member of the company who was unelectrified by the gay abandon ofthe evening, and his sombre appearance was so marked in contrast that itwas widely commented on afterward. Burr frequently leaned forward andstared at Hamilton in amazement. As the hilarity waxed, his taciturnitydeepened, and he finally withdrew. 

The secret was well kept. Few knew of the projected meeting, and nonesuspected it, although Burr's pistol practice aroused some curiosity. Hehad been a principal in a number of duels, and killed no one. But he wasknown to have more than one bitter score to pay, for this last campaignhad exceeded every other in heat and fury. So many duels had studded it, and so many more impended, that the thinking men of the community wereroused to a deep disapproval of the custom. The excitement and horrorover the sacrifice of Hamilton, full-blew this sentiment. 

On Saturday, Hamilton gave a dinner at the Grange, and a guest was oneof Washington's first aides, Colonel Trumbull. As he was leaving, Hamilton took him aside and said, with an emphasis which impressedTrumbull even at the moment: "You are going to Boston. You will see theprincipal men there. Tell them from me, as my request, for God's sake tocease these conversations and threatings about a separation of theUnion. It must hang together as long as it can be made to. If this Unionwere to be broken, it would break my heart. "

The following day preceded the duel. Hamilton attended an entertainmentgiven by Oliver Wolcott, whose fortunes he had made, raising the capitalof a business that could be presided over by no one so well as a formerSecretary of the Treasury. It was a large reception, and he met many ofhis old friends. Lady Kitty Duer, widowed, but pleasantlycircumstanced, was there, and Kitty Livingston, once more bearing herold name in a second marriage. Bitter as the feeling between her houseand Hamilton still was, she had declared long since that she would notcut him again; and although they never met in private, they oftenretired to a secluded corner at gatherings and talked for an hour. Hisfirst reason for attending this reception was to shake her hand as theyparted. Madame Jumel was there, paling the loveliness of even the youngdaughters of Mrs. Jay and Lady Kitty Duer. Those who did not mob aboutHamilton surrounded her, and although her cheek was without colour, shelooked serene and scornful. 

After the reception Hamilton spent an hour with Troup. This oldest ofhis friends, and Angelica, were the only people whose suspicion hefeared. Troup was quite capable of wringing Burr's neck, and hisdaughter of taking some other desperate measure. But it was long nowsince he had given Angelica reason for anxiety, and she had ceased towatch him; and to-day, Troup, whom he had avoided hitherto, was treatedto such a flow of spirits that he not only suspected nothing, butallowed himself to hope that Hamilton's health was mending. Hamiltondared not even hold his hand longer than usual at parting, although helonged to embrace him. 

That night, in the late seclusion of his library, Hamilton wrote twoletters to his wife, in one of which he recommended Mrs. Mitchell to hercare; then the following to Sedgwick, still a close friend, and probablythe most influential man in New England:--

 NEW YORK, July 10th, 1804. 

 MY DEAR SIR: I have received two letters from you since we last saw each other--that of the latest date being the twenty-fourth of May. I have had on hand for some time a long letter to you, explaining my view of the course and tendency of our politics, and my intentions as to my own future conduct. But my plan embraced so large a range, that, owing to much avocation, some indifferent health, and a growing distaste for politics, the letter is still considerably short of being finished. I write this now to satisfy you that want of regard for you has not been the cause of my silence. 

 I will here express but one sentiment, which is, that DISMEMBERMENT of our EMPIRE will be a clear sacrifice of great positive advantages, without any counterbalancing good; administering no relief to our real disease, which is DEMOCRACY; the poison of which, by a subdivision, will only be the more concentrated in each part, and consequently the more virulent. King is on his way to Boston where you may chance to see him and hear from himself his sentiments. God bless you. 

 A. H. 

As he folded and sealed the letter he suddenly realized that the act wasthe final touch to the order of his earthly affairs, and he lifted hishand as though to see if it were still alive. "To-morrow night!" hethought. "Well, now that the hour has come, I go willingly enough. Ihave been permitted to live my life; why should I murmur? There has beensufficient crowded into my forty-seven years to cover a century. I havebeen permitted to play a great part in history, to patch together anation out of broken limbs and inform it with a brain. It is right thatI should regard myself in this final hour as a statesman and nothingmore, and that I should go without protest, now that I have no more todo. I can only be deeply and profoundly thankful that out of threemillions of Americans I was selected, that I have conquered in spite ofall obstacles, and remained until I have nothing more to give. It isentirely right and fitting that I should die as I have lived, in theservice of this country. Only a sacrifice can bring these distractedStates to reason and eliminate the man most dangerous to their peace. IfI have been chosen for this great part, I should be unworthy indeed if Irebelled. "

XI

Hamilton crossed the river to Weehawken at seven the next morning. Hewas accompanied by Pendleton, and his surgeon, Dr. Hosack. It wasalready very hot. The river and the woods of the Jersey palisades weredim under a sultry blue haze. There was a swell on the river, andPendleton was very sick. Hamilton held his head with some humour, thenpointed out the great beauty of the Hudson and its high rugged banks, to distract the unhappy second's mind. 

"The majesty of this river, " he said, "its suggestion of a vast wildcountry almost unknown to the older civilizations, and yet peopled withthe unembodied spirits of a new and mighty race, quicked my unbornpatriotism, unconsciously nourished it until its delivery in Boston. "

"It would have curdled mine, " said Pendleton. "Who knows--if you hadbeen of a bilious temperament, the face of our history might wear a pugnose and a weak chin. "

Hamilton laughed. "It never could have done that while Washington'sprofile was stamped on the popular fancy. But lesser causes thanseasickness have determined a man's career. Perhaps to my immunity I owethe fact that I am not a book-worm on St. Croix. If I had even once feltas you did just now, my dear Pendleton, I should never have set sail forAmerica. "

"Thank God!" said Pendleton. They were beaching. A moment later he andHamilton had climbed to the ledge where Burr and Van Ness awaited them. It was the core of a thick grove, secluded from the opposite shore andfrom the high summit of the great palisade. 

Hamilton and Burr nodded pleasantly. The men were dressed in the silkenfinery of their time, and looked like a pleasuring quartette in thatgreen and lovely spot. Through leafy windows they saw the blue Hudson, the spires and manor-houses, the young city, on the Island. The image ofPhilip rose to Hamilton, but he commanded it aside. 

Pendleton had the choice of position and was to give the word. He hadbrought with him John Church's pistols, now in their fourth duel. Theirfirst adventure caused the flight of Church to America. Since then, theyhad been used in his duel with Burr and by Philip Hamilton. 

He handed one of the pistols to Hamilton, and asked him if he should setthe hair-spring. 

"No, not this time, " said Hamilton. 

Pendleton gave the word. Burr raised his arm, deliberately took aim, and fired, Hamilton lifted himself mechanically to the tips of his feet, turned sideways, and fell on his face. His pistol went off, andPendleton's eye involuntarily followed the direction of the ball, whichsevered a leaf in its flight. Often afterward he spoke of the impressionthe cloven leaf made on him, a second of distraction at which he caughteagerly before he bent over Hamilton. Hosack scrambled up the bank, andBurr, covered with an umbrella by Van Ness, hastily withdrew. 

Hamilton was half sitting, encircled by Pendleton's arm, when thesurgeon reached the spot. His face was gray. He muttered, "This is amortal wound, " then lost consciousness. Hosack ascertained, after aslight examination, that the ball was in a vital part, and for a fewmoments he thought that Hamilton was dead; he did not breathe, nor wasany motion of heart or pulse perceptible. With Pendleton's assistance, Hosack carried him down the bank and placed him in the barge. WilliamBayard had offered his house in case of disaster, and the boat waspropelled over to the foot of Grand Street as rapidly as possible. Before reaching the shore the surgeon succeeded in reviving Hamilton, who suddenly opened his eyes. 

"My vision is indistinct, " he said. In a moment it grew stronger, andhis eye fell on the case of pistols. His own was lying on the top. "Takecare of that pistol, " he said. "It is undischarged and still cocked. Pendleton knows that I did not intend to fire at him. " He closed hiseyes, and said nothing further except to enquire the state of his pulse, and to remark that his lower extremities had lost all feeling. As theboat reached the pier, he directed that his wife and children be sentfor at once, and that hope be given them. Bayard was standing on theshore in a state of violent agitation. It was in these pleasant groundsof his that the great banquet had been given to Hamilton after theFederalists had celebrated their leader's victory at Poughkeepsie, andhe had been his friend and supporter during the sixteen years that hadfollowed. 

Hamilton was placed in bed on the lower floor of Bayard's house; and, inspite of the laudanum that was liberally administered, his sufferingswere almost intolerable. His children were not admitted to the room forsome time, but his wife could not be kept from him. She knew nothing ofthe duel, but she saw that he was dying; and the suddenness and horror, the end of her earthly happiness, drove her frantic. She shrieked andraved until Hamilton was obliged to rouse himself and attempt to calmher. The children were huddled in the next room, and when the painsubsided for a time, they were brought in. Hamilton's eyes were closed. When he was told that his children were beside his bed, he did not openthem at once. In those moments he forgot everything but the agony ofparting. Finally, he lifted his heavy eyelids. The children stood there, the younger clinging to the older, shivering and staring in terror. Hamilton gave them one look, then closed his eyes and did not open themagain for several moments. As the children were led from the room, oneof the boys fainted. 

Through Hamilton's heavy brain an idea forced itself, and finally tookpossession. Angelica had not stood in that little group. He opened hiseyes, half expecting that which he saw--Angelica leaning over thefoot-board, her face gray and shrunken, her eyes full of astonishmentand horror. 

"Are you going to die--to die?" she asked him. 

"Yes, " said Hamilton. He was too exhausted to console or counselsubmission. 

"To die!" she repeated. "To die!" She reiterated the words until hervoice died away in a mumble. Hamilton was insensible for the moment tothe physical torments which were sending out their criers again, andwatched her changed face with an apprehension, which, mercifully, hismind was too confused by pain and laudanum to formulate. Angelicasuddenly gripped the foot-board with such force that the bed shook; hereyes expanded with horror only, and she cowered as if a whip crackedabove her neck. Then she straightened herself, laughed aloud, and ranout of the room. Hamilton, at the moment, was in the throes of anexcruciating spasm, and was spared this final agony in his harsh anduntimely death. Angelica was hurried from the house to a private asylum. She lived to be seventy-eight, but she never recovered her reason. 

Meanwhile, the grounds without were crowded with the friends of thedying man, --many of them old soldiers, --who stood through the nightawaiting the end. Business in New York was entirely suspended. Thepopulace had arisen in fury at the first announcement on the bulletinboards, and Burr was in hiding lest he be torn to pieces. 

Hamilton slept little, and talked to his wife whenever he succeeded incalming her. Her mental sufferings nearly deprived her of health andreason; but she lived a half a century longer, attaining the great ageof ninety-seven. It was a sheltered and placid old age, warm with muchdevotion; her mind remained firm until the end. Did the time come whenshe thought of Hamilton as one of the buried children of her youth?

Troup, Fish, Wolcott, Gouverneur Morris, Rufus King, Bayard, MatthewClarkson, some twenty of Hamilton's old friends, were admitted to thedeath room for a moment. He could not speak, but he smiled faintly. Thenhis eyes wandered to the space behind them. He fancied he saw theshadowy forms of the many friends who had preceded him: Laurens, Tilghman, Harrison, Greene, André, Sterling, Duane, Duer, Steuben, --Washington. They looked at him as affectionately as theliving, but without tears or the rigid features of extremest grief. Itis a terrible expression to see on the faces of men long intimate withlife, and Hamilton closed his eyes, withdrawing his last glance fromMorris and Troup. 

Of whom did Hamilton think in those final moments? Not of Eliza Croix, we may be sure. Her hold had been too superficial. Perhaps not even ofElizabeth Schuyler, although he had loved her long and deeply. What moreprobable than that his last hour was filled with a profoundconsciousness of the isolation in which his soul had passed its mortaltarrying? Surrounded, worshipped, counting more intimate friendssincerely loved than any man of his time, gay, convivial, too active formany hours of introspection, no mortal could ever have stood moreutterly alone than Hamilton. Whether or not the soul is given a sentientimmortality we have no means of discovering, but the most commonplacebeing is aware of that ego which has its separate existence in hisbrain, and is like to no other ego on earth; and those who think realizeits inability to mingle with another. Hamilton, with his unmortal gifts, his unsounded depths, must have felt this isolation in all its tragiccompleteness. There may have been moments when the soul of Washington orLaurens brushed his own. Assuredly no woman companioned it for afraction of a second. Whatever his last thoughts, no man has met his endwith more composure. 

He died at two o'clock in the afternoon. 

XII

The humour and vivacity which had seldom been absent from Hamilton'sface in life withdrew its very impress with his spirit. His features hadsomething more than the noble repose, the baffling peace, of death; theylooked as if they had been cast long ago with the heads of the Caesars. Gouverneur Morris, staring at him through blistered eyeballs as he layin his coffin, recalled the history of the House of Hamilton, of itsdirect and unbroken descent--through the fortunate, and famed, andcrowned of the centuries--from the Great Constantine, from "TheMacedonian, " founder of a dynasty of Roman Emperors, and from the firstof the Russian monarchs. Throughout that history great spirits hadappeared from time to time, hewed the foundations of an epoch, anddisappeared. What long-withdrawn creators had met in this exceptionallybegotten brain? Did those great makers of empire, whose very granitetombs were dust, return to earth when their immortal energies wereinvoked to create a soul for a nation in embryo? Morris reviewed thedead man's almost unhuman gift for inspiring confidence, exerted fromthe moment he first showed his boyish face to the multitude; fortriumphing to his many goals as if jagged ramparts had been grass underhis feet. He had been the brain of the American army in his boyhood; hehad conceived an empire in his young twenties; he had poured his geniusinto a sickly infant, and set it, a young giant, on its legs, when hewas long under twoscore. Almost all things had come to him by intuition, for he had lived in advance of much knowledge. 

He communicated these thoughts to Troup, who left the room with him, hishead bent, his arms hanging listlessly. "He might have come in some lesshuman form, " added Morris, bitterly. "This is the worst time of _my_life. I am not ashamed to say I've cried my eyes out. "

"I have cried my heart out, " said Troup. 

The funeral took place from the house of John Church, in RobinsonStreet, near the upper Park. Express messengers had dashed out from NewYork the moment Hamilton breathed his last, and every city tolled itsbells as it received the news. People flocked into the streets, weepingand indignant to the point of fury. Washington's death had been followedby sadness and grief, but was unaccompanied by anger, and a loud desirefor vengeance. Moreover, Hamilton was still a young man. Few knew of hisfeeble health; and that dauntless resourceful figure dwelt in the highlight of the public imagination, ever ready to deliver the young countryin its many times of peril. His death was lamented as a nationalcalamity. 

On the day of the funeral, New York was black. Every place of businesswas closed. The world was in the windows, on the housetops, on thepavements of the streets through which the cortège was to pass:Robinson, Beekman, Peal, and Broadway to Trinity Church. Those who wereto walk in the funeral procession waited, the Sixth Regiment, with thecolours and music of the several corps, paraded, in Robinson Street, until the standard of the Cincinnati, shrouded in crêpe, was wavedbefore the open door of Mr. Church's house. The regiment immediatelyhalted and rested on its reversed arms, until the bier had been carriedfrom the house to the centre of the street, when the processionimmediately formed. This was the order of it:--

 The Military Corps The Society of the Cincinnati Clergy of all Denominations The Body of Hamilton The General's Horse The Family Physicians The Judges of the Supreme Court (in deep mourning) Mr. Gouverneur Morris in his carriage Gentlemen of the Bar and students at law (in deep mourning) Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of the State Mayor and Corporation of the City Members of Congress and Civil Officers of the United States The Minister, Consuls, and Residents of Foreign Powers The Officers of the Army and Navy of the United States Military and Naval Officers of the Foreign Powers Militia Officers of States Presidents, Directors, and Officers of the respective Banks Chamber of Commerce and Merchants Marine Society, Wardens of the Port, and Masters and Officers of the Harbour The President, Professors, and students of Columbia College The different Societies The Citizens in general, including the partisans of Burr

On the coffin were Hamilton's hat and sword. His boots and spurs werereversed across his horse. The fine gray charger, caparisoned inmourning, was led by two black servants, dressed in white, their turbanstrimmed with black. 

The military escorted him in single file, with trailing arms, the bandplaying "The Dead March in Saul, " minute guns from the Artillery in thePark answered by the British and French warships in the harbour. But forthe solemn music, its still more solemn accompaniment, the tolling ofmuffled bells, and the heavy tramp of many feet, there was no sound;even women of an hysterical habit either controlled themselves or weretoo impressed to give way to superficial emotion. When the processionafter its long march reached Trinity Church the military formed in twocolumns, extending from the gate to the corners of Wall Street, and thebier was deposited before the entrance. Morris, surrounded by Hamilton'sboys, stood over it, and delivered the most impassioned address whichhad ever leapt from that brilliant but erratic mind. It was brief, bothbecause he hardly was able to control himself, and because he feared toincite the people to violence, but it was profoundly moving. "He neverlost sight of your interests!" he reiterated; "I declare to you beforethat God in whose presence we are now so especially assembled, that inhis most private and confidential conversations, his sole subject ofdiscussion was your freedom and happiness. Although he was compelled toabandon public life, never for a moment did he abandon the publicservice. He never lost sight of your interests. For himself he fearednothing; but he feared that bad men might, by false professions, acquireyour confidence and abuse it to your ruin. He was ambitious only ofglory, but he was deeply solicitous for you. "

The troops formed an extensive hollow square in the churchyard, andterminated the solemnities with three volleys over the coffin in itsgrave. The immense throng, white, still aghast, and unreconciled, dispersed. The bells tolled until sundown. The city and the people woremourning for a month, the bar for six weeks. In due time the leading menof the parish decided upon the monument which should mark to futuregenerations the cold and narrow home of him who had been so warm inlife, loving as few men had loved, exulted in the wide greatness of theempire he had created. 

It bears this inscription:

TO THE MEMORY OF

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

THE CORPORATION OF TRINITY HAVE ERECTED THIS MONUMENT IN TESTIMONY OFTHEIR RESPECT FOR THE PATRIOT OF INCORRUPTIBLE INTEGRITY THE SOLDIER OFAPPROVED VALOUR THE STATESMAN OF CONSUMMATE WISDOM

WHOSE TALENTS AND VIRTUES WILL BE ADMIRED BY GRATEFUL POSTERITY LONGAFTER THIS MARBLE SHALL HAVE MOULDERED TO DUST

HE DIED JULY 12TH 1804, AGED 47

NOTES

PAGE XI. "Nevis" is pronounced Neevis. 

PAGE 3. Of the Gingerland estate nothing remains to-day but a negrohamlet named Fawcett. Its inhabitants are, beyond a doubt, thedescendants of slaves belonging to Hamilton's grandparents, for there isno trace of any other family named Fawcett in the Common Records ofNevis. 

PAGE 6. This deed of separation is entered in the Common Records ofNevis, 1725-1746, page 429, and is dated the fifth day of February, 1740. 

PAGE 11. I have hesitated over the spelling of the name Levine. JohnChurch Hamilton, in his life of Hamilton, spells it Lavine, and in oneof Hamilton's letters, page 7, Vol. 11, of this same Life, it is speltin the same manner. But four times in the Records of St. Croix it isspelt Levine. The half-brother to whom Hamilton refers in his letter hadhimself baptized in Christianstadt in the year 1769, and the entryreads: Peter, son of John Michael and Rachael Levine. In the intermententry of Rachael Levine it is spelt in this fashion, and in thegovernment records of Levine's business transactions. It seems to meprobable that in copying Hamilton's letter the name was misspelled, andalthough he no doubt mentioned the name freely to his family, it ispossible that he did not write it upon any other occasion. I have, therefore, used the method for which there is a considerable authority. 

PAGE 29. James Hamilton was the fourth son of Alexander Hamilton, Lairdof Grange, and his wife, Elizabeth (eldest daughter of Sir RobertPollock), who were married about 1730. The Hamiltons of Grange belongedto the Cambuskeith branch of the great house of Hamilton, and thefounder of this branch, in the fourteenth century, was Walter deHamilton, a son of Sir Gilbert de Hamilton, who was the common ancestorof the Dukes of Hamilton, the Dukes of Abercorn, Earls of Haddington, Viscounts Boyne, Barons Belhaven, several extinct peerages, and of allthe Scotch and Irish Hamilton families. He was fifth in descent fromRobert, Earl of Mellent, created by Henry I, Earl of Leicester, whomarried a granddaughter of King Henry I of France and his Queen, who wasa daughter of Jeroslaus, Czar of Russia. See "The Lineage of AlexanderHamilton, " in the _New York Genealogical and Biographical Review_, forApril, 1889, or "The Historical and Genealogical Memoirs of the House ofHamilton, with Genealogical Memoirs of Several Branches of the Family, "by John Anderson, Edinburgh, 1825, a copy of which is to be found in theBritish Museum. In the latter work, against the name of James Hamilton, is the following statement: A proprietor in the West Indies, and fatherof Alexander Hamilton, the celebrated statesman and patriot in theUnited States of America, who fell, greatly regretted, in a duel with aMr. Burr. 

PAGE 35. There is still so widespread misconception of the term"creole, " that it is necessary, even at this late date, to reiteratethat it was not invented as a euphemism for coloured blood. In theUnited States creoles are Southerners of French or Spanish extraction;in the West Indies any person born on one of the islands is a creole, even if he be an undiluted Dane. 

PAGE 49. This deed of trust was entered in Vol. X, No. 1, page 180, ofthe Common Records of St. Christopher, on the fifth day of May, 1756, eight months before the birth of Alexander Hamilton. 

PAGE 60. This dialect, or rather this curious mispronunciation of words, and inability to make use of certain letters and more than one or twopersonal pronouns, is gathered from old books on the islands, for thecoloured people of the present generation in the Caribbees, even thoseof the lower class, now speak, save for their singsong inflection, muchlike any one else. But in those days there was no education for theblacks, and they spoke the barbarous lingo I have transcribed withoutembellishment. 

PAGE 65. Dr. Hamilton died in June, 1764. 

PAGE 68. A piece of eight, then the principal coin in the Danish WestIndies, was worth sixty-four cents. 

PAGE 69. Hugh Knox married and left two children, Ann Knox, who marriedJames Towers, and John Knox, who, I think, became a clergyman on St. Thomas. 

PAGE 79. The lower story of this fine building, built by Mr. Mitchell, is in a state of entire preservation, and is now one of the largeststores in Christiansted. 

PAGE 87. The private burying-ground of the Lyttons was on the Grangeestate, owned, at the time of Rachael's death, by Chamberlain RobertTuite. 

PAGE 88. Two candlesticks of this fashion have been preserved inFrederiksted, and are said to have been used by Hamilton while there. 

PAGE 91. I am convinced that Hugh Knox baptized Hamilton, and have hadthe old records of St. Croix, deposited in the archives of Copenhagen, thoroughly searched. But they are in so dilapidated a condition that onemight as profitably appeal to the recording angel. In 1782 the Frenchdestroyed the church registers of Nevis, but it is hardly likely thatRachael Levine had Hamilton baptized. The islanders were indifferent tobaptism under the most amiable conditions, usually waiting until it wasreasonable to suppose that their brood was complete, when they took itto the font _en bloc_. But Hugh Knox would have attached greatimportance to this ceremony. 

PAGE 120. There is no doubt in my mind that Hamilton and young Stevenswere either first or second cousins, and that the resemblance betweenthem which subsequently, in the United States, gave rise to the gossipthat they were brothers, was due to this fact. I was not able todiscover that Mrs. Stevens was a daughter of John and Mary Fawcett, butshe or her husband might well have been closely related to Hamilton'sgrandparents, for the few prominent families of Nevis and St. Christopher intermarried again and again. The Fawcetts were married atleast twenty-two years before Rachael was born, and doubtless had one ofthe large families of that time. 

PAGE 131. "The Fields" was the old name for the City Hall Park. 

PAGE 133. I have inferred that the speech Hamilton made on this occasionwas a spontaneous outburst of the same thought which he elaborated a fewweeks later in his history-making pamphlets. Wherever it has beenpossible, I have used his own words, for he must have talked much as hewrote. 

PAGE 136. "Indeed he was the first to perceive and develop the idea of areal union of the people of the United States"--"History of theConstitution of the United States" by George Ticknor Curtis, who alsocomments at length upon his having been the chief force in bringing thediscontent of the colonists to a head and precipitating the Revolution. 

PAGE 145. There is space only for Hamilton's share in these battles. Iam obliged to assume that the reader knows his Revolutionary history. 

PAGE 165. Nothing can be told here of Laurens's private history beyondthe statements that his too sensitive mind held him responsible for theaccidental death of a younger brother, and that he had married a womanin England, whom he had left at the altar, to join, with all possiblehaste, the fighting forces in America, and whom he never saw again. Ifthis meets the eye of his family and they care to trust me with thenecessary papers, I shall be glad to write a life of Laurens. 

PAGE 196. This verse was found in a little bag on Mrs. Hamilton's neckwhen she died at the age of ninety-seven. 

PAGE 208. "At the age of three and twenty he had already formedwell-defined, profound, and comprehensive views on the situation andwants of these states. He had clearly discerned the practicability offorming a confederated government and adapting it to their peculiarcondition, resources, and exigencies. He had wrought out for himself apolitical system, far in advance of the conceptions of hiscontemporaries, and one which in the case of those who most opposed himin life, became, when he was laid in a premature grave, the basis onwhich this government was consolidated; on which to the present day ithas been administered; and on which, alone, it can safely rest in thatfuture which seems to stretch out its unending glories beforeus. "--GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS. 

PAGE 209. This letter from Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, from whichthis extract is taken, was first published in Martha Lamb's "History ofNew York, " A. S. Barnes & Co. , New York. 

PAGE 226. Burr was aide-de-camp to Washington for six weeks, beginningthe last week in May, 1776. He hated the work and left abruptly, incurring Washington's contempt and dislike. The charge of his friendsthat Hamilton poisoned the Chief's mind against him is wholly unfounded. Washington made up his own mind about men, and there is no evidence thatthe two young men met except in the most casual manner before thisspring of 1782. Of course it is possible that a diligent reading ofobscure correspondence might bring to light an earlier acquaintance, butthe matter is not worth the waste of time. Matthew Davis, the onlyresponsible biographer of Burr, gives two years as the time consumed byBurr for his legal studies. Parton was wholly indifferent to facts andhas no serious position as a biographer; but possessing a picturesqueand entertaining style, he has been widely read, and his estimate ofBurr accepted by the ignorant. 

PAGE 233. Madison was born in 1751, Morris in 1752. 

PAGE 257. "A long chapter might be written about Hamilton's otherlabours in the State legislature;. .. He laboured hard to preventlegislation in contravention of the treaty of peace; he corrected grosstheoretical blunders in a proposed system of regulating elections, andstrove hard though not altogether successfully to eliminate religiousrestrictions; he succeeded in preventing the disfranchisement of a greatnumber of persons for having been interested, often unwillingly, inprivateering ventures; he stayed some absurd laws proposed concerningthe proposed qualifications of candidates for office; in the matter oftaxation he substituted for the old method of an arbitrary officialassessment, with all its gross risks of error and partiality, theprinciple of allowing the individual to return under oath his taxableproperty; he laboured hard to promote public education by statutoryregulations; his 'first great object was to place a book in the hand ofevery American child, ' and he evolved a system which served as the modelof that promulgated in France by the imperial decree of 1808; he hadmuch to do with the legislation concerning the relations of debtor andcreditor, then threatening to dissever the whole frame of society; hewas obliged to give no little attention to the department of criminallaw; finally he had to play a chief part in settling the long andperilous struggle concerning the 'New Hampshire Grants, ' the region nowconstituting the State of Vermont: his efforts in this matter chieflyaverted war and brought the first new state into the Union. "--MORSE'S"Life of Hamilton, " Vol. I. 

PAGE 265. The classic narrative of the Constitutional Convention is byGeorge Ticknor Curtis, and there have been few more fascinatingchronicles of any subject. Of the condensed narratives the most coherentand vivid is in Roosevelt's "Life of Gouverneur Morris. "

PAGE 268. Hamilton also invited Gouverneur Morris to collaborate, butthat erratic gentleman was otherwise engaged. 

PAGE 269. I take this apportionment from a copy of "The Federalist"presented by Hamilton to his nephew Philip Church, and kindly lent to meby Mr. Richard Church. In this copy one of Hamilton's sons, at hisfather's dictation, wrote the initial of the writer or writers aftereach essay. To Jay are allotted Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 54. To Madison, 10, 14, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48. To Hamilton and Madisonjointly: 13, 19, 20. The rest to Hamilton. 

PAGE 271. "'The Federalist, ' written principally by Hamilton, exhibitsan extent and precision of information, a profundity of research, and anaccurateness of understanding, which would have done honour to the mostillustrious statesmen of ancient or modern times. "--_Edinburgh Review_, No. 24. 

"It is a work altogether, which, for comprehensiveness of design, strength, clearness, and simplicity, has no parallel. We do not evenexcept or overlook Montesquieu and Aristotle among the writings ofmen. "--_Blackwood's Magazine_, January, 1825. 

"In the application of elementary principles of government to practicaladministration 'The Federalist' is the greatest work known tome. "--_Guizot_. 

PAGE 300. This coup of Hamilton's was evidently not placed onrecord, --for manifest reasons, --for it is not to be found in Elliot's"Debates, " and we should have lost it but for a letter from Clinton toJohn Lamb. See Foster, "On the Constitution, " page 4, Vol. I. 

PAGE 304. On page 842, "History of the Republic, " by J. C. Hamilton, isthe only letter from Hamilton to his brother James which has beenpreserved. It is well known in the family, however, that he correspondedwith both his father and brother after his arrival in America. A letterfrom his father promising to come to the United States as soon aspracticable will be found on page 567, Vol. V, Hamilton's Works (J. C. Hamilton edition). 

PAGE 304. I am at a loss to understand upon what authority certain ofHamilton's biographers base their assertion that, shortly after hisarrival in this country, he cut his West Indian relatives, ignored theirmany claims upon his affection and gratitude, and deliberately excludedthem from his memory. There is no such assertion in his son's biography, and the lives of Hamilton that have followed have been little more thana condensation of that voluminous work. This uncharitableassumption--which must precede such a statement--cannot be the result ofan exhaustive reading of his correspondence, for there they would findletters from Hugh Knox and Governor Walsterstorff and Edward Stevens, extending over a period of many years; and reproaches in none of them. Nor can it be the result of investigation among his descendants, for itis well known in the Hamilton family, that he not only correspondedregularly with his relatives, including his father, for a long while, but that he supported Mrs. Mitchell after her husband's failure anddeath. And even if this indisputable information were not accessible, itis incredible to me that any one capable of understanding Hamilton evena little should believe that so contemptible a quality as ingratitudehad any place in his nature. The most impetuous, generous, honest, andtender of men, he was the last person to turn his back upon those whohad befriended and supported him in his precarious youth. Had he beencapable of such meanness, he would not have died lamented by the bestmen in the country, many of whom had loved him devotedly for a quarterof a century. Nor was there any motive for such a performance. One isnot at all surprised to find that Mrs. Mitchell was among the last ofhis earthly thoughts; but were there not ample proof of the falsity ofthese careless assertions, then indeed would Hamilton be an enigma. 

PAGE 339. Burr was married to Madame Jumel for a short time when theywere both old enough to know better. She very quickly sent him about hisbusiness and resumed the name of her second husband. Burr hadappropriated sixteen thousand dollars with which she had entrusted him, and, as she told people still living, his charming manners were entirelysuperficial, he was cross and exacting at home. Nevertheless she did nothesitate to make use of him upon occasion. During the bread riots inItaly her carriage was hemmed in one day and her richly attired selfthreatened by the furious populace. When it became evident that herterrified coachman could make no headway she arose to her majesticheight, and, sweeping out one hand with her haughtiest gesture, said ina loud and commanding tone, "Make way! make way! for the widow of theVice-President of the United States. " The crowd fell back properly awed. Madame Jumel claimed to have the famous diamond necklace, but for thetruth of this claim I cannot vouch. She certainly had many personalrelics of Napoleon, confided to the care of Jumel, when the fallenEmperor meditated flight on his faithful banker's frigate. 

PAGE 387. It is impossible that Hamilton could have sat for all thealleged portraits of himself, scattered over the United States, or hewould have had no time to do any work. Moreover, few realize hispersonality or the contemporaneous description of him. That in theBoston Museum of Fine Arts is the best. That in the City Hall, New York, is one of the best, and the copy of it in the Treasury Department, Washington, is better. Several others are charming, notably, the one atMorristown Headquarters, New Jersey, and the one painted for his armyfriends, now in the possession of Mr. Philip Schuyler. The one in theChamber of Commerce is a Trumbull, but looks like a fat boy with thinlegs. It is to be hoped there will be no further photographing of thatlibel. Had Hamilton looked like it he would have accomplished nothing. 

PAGE 413. As the visit of little Lafayette to the United States was ofno historical moment I have taken the liberty of bringing him over at myown pleasure. Otherwise I should have been obliged merely to mention hisadvent in the course of the rapid seven years' summary which comeslater. 

PAGE 430. That Hamilton conceived the ice-water cure for yellow fever iswell known to doctors. 

PAGE 435. Mr. Richard Church kindly brought me an old bundle of lettersfrom Mrs. Church to Mrs. Hamilton. Except for the faded ink they mightbeen written yesterday, so lively, natural, and _modern_ were they. Itwas impossible to realize that the writer was dust long since. Indeed, in all the matter, published and unpublished, that I have read for thisbook, I find no excuse for the inverted absurdities and stilted formswith which it is thought necessary to create a hundred-year-oldatmosphere. 

PAGE 441. This letter of Thomas Corbin disposes of the asseverations ofJefferson's biographers that the leader of the Democrats dressed himselflike a gentleman until he became President. His untidiness was probablycongenital to begin with, and in any case would have been a policy fromthe first, of that deep and subtle mind. 

PAGE 448. A clause had been inserted in Article II of the Constitutionwhich would permit Hamilton, although an alien born, to be a Presidentof the United States. 

PAGE 451. It was Mr. James Q. Howard in a letter to the New York _Sun_, May, 1901, who called attention to the fact that Hamilton was the firstof the "Imperialists, " or "Expansionists. "

PAGE 458. I wrote to Colonel Mills, Commander of West Point, to ask himif any of Hamilton's codes were still in use. The librarian of the post, Dr. Edward S. Holden, replied, among other things, as follows: ". .. Ascircumstances have changed, the details of his codes have changed, andthe principles which guided him have been readapted to new conditions asthey have arisen. The best praise that can be given him is, then, thathe thoroughly understood the basic principles underlying militaryaffairs, and that with superb genius he applied them to the exigenciesof his time with that philosophical and at the same time practicaltalent which was his special endowment. "

PAGE 469. I made a copy from the original of a letter from AlexanderBaring (afterward Lord Ashburton) to his counsel, D. J. Rinnan, containing full details of this transaction. One of the significantpoints about the contemptuous opinions of Burr's dishonesty which onecomes upon constantly in the correspondence of this period, is that noone claims to have made its discovery, or to think comment worth while. It evidently became established at an early date. But brilliancy anddexterity saved him at the bar, and he won many a case for those whodespised him most. 

PAGE 471. Tammany Hall was highly respectable in the beginning of itscareer. I have here used the term in the figurative sense; it is intruth an epigram into which all political abomination is concentrated. 

PAGE 474. For correspondence of Hamilton with his Scotch relatives, andwith Secretary of the Navy regarding Robert Hamilton, see Vol. VI, Hamilton's Works. 

PAGE 496. 

Burials in 1799, Con. June 3d. James Hamilton--Father of GeneralHamilton in America killed by Col. Baird. 

NOTE: The Rev. I. Guilding was the Rector of the Parish at this time, and the entry was made by him in the above form. 

E. A. TURPIN. 

I certify that the above entry is a true and correct copy from theRegister of Burials in the Cathedral Church of St. George, in the townof Kingston, in the island of St. Vincent, West Indies, by me, E. A. TURPIN, Rector of St. George and St. Andrew, and Archdeacon of St. Vincent, this 13th day of May, 1901. 

PAGE 501. Hamilton never would own a slave. 

PAGE 509. The story of Burr's awakening Hamilton in the early morning toborrow of him, is related in "The History of the Republic. " Mrs. Hamilton herself is the authority for the other loan. The story was toldher by Washington Morton, her brother-in-law, who arranged it, Burr, foronce, being ashamed to go openly to Hamilton. He repaid this sum afterHamilton's death. 

PAGE 516. The oft-told tale of Hamilton and Burr meeting at the house ofMadame Jumel on the night before the challenge, I have, after carefulinvestigation, utterly repudiated. In the first place, the lady had beenmarried but two months, and to a Frenchman at that. He was a rich manand had undoubtedly married her for love, moreover was devoted to her aslong as he lived. It is not at all likely that he was permittingHamilton to call one night and Burr the next--so the story runs. In thesecond place, Hamilton, whatever may have been his adventures in thepast, was in no condition for gallivanting at this period, as I think Ihave demonstrated. Dr. Hosack, in the paper he prepared for the _Post_on the day following Hamilton's death, asserted that owing to thepatient's feeble condition he had been unable to give the usualmedicines. At the same time Hamilton had been working from fourteen tofifteen hours a day. The conclusions are obvious. Moreover, GeneralHamilton, now eighty-seven, and in perfect possession of all hisfaculties, has told me that he frequently accompanied his grandmother, Hamilton's widow, to call on Madame Jumel. In the small town of New Yorkno such sensational meeting could have been kept a secret for long. Madame Jumel lived in the city at the time, by the way, her husband notbuying the house on the Heights until 1815. 

But that she was at the bottom of the matter I should not have had theslightest doubt, even were it not an accepted fact by both Hamilton'spresent family and hers, and I arrived at my conclusions, as the storyof all concerned, and of the history of the times, developed. 

PAGE 522. Burr kept these letters until he died, at the age of 80, andleft them to Matthew Davis, who destroyed those whose writers were dead, and returned the others to certain ancient and highly respected dames. 

PAGE 527. These pistols are now in the possession of Mr. Richard Church. 

PAGE 531. Hamilton's strong likeness to the Caesars is best seen in themarbles of him, notably the one executed by Ceracchi. The paintedlikenesses of him either do not resemble him at all or are so full ofhis vivacity, mischievous humour, and indomitable youth that they arewholly himself. 

From "Statistical Account of Scotland, " Vol. V, page 450, Edinburgh:"The most remarkable person connected with the parish (Stevenston inAyrshire) was the late General Alexander Hamilton of the family ofGrange, though America was the field in which he distinguished himself. He was excelled by none as a general, orator, financier, lawyer. In thewords of one who knew him, he was 'the mentor of Washington, the framerof the present constitution of America, a man of strict honour andintegrity; equally esteemed in public and in private life. '"

The above came to my hand after the book went to press, and I publish itto emphasize the fact that the Scotch Hamiltons eagerly claimed thekinship of Hamilton, quite indifferent to the irregularity of his birth. 

Hamilton's children were born and named as follows: Philip, January 22, 1782; Angelica, September 25, 1784; Alexander, May 16, 1786; JamesAlexander, April 14, 1788; John Church, August 22, 1792; WilliamStephen, August 4, 1797; Eliza, November 20, 1799; Philip, June 7, 1802. 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is a pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to the following peoplewho have helped me with family papers, books and political pamphletslong out of print, their knowledge of the unwritten history of theUnited States, unpublished anecdotes of Hamilton, and generalsuggestions: Mr. James Q. Howard of the Library of Congress; Dr. AllanMcLane Hamilton; General A. Hamilton; Colonel J. C. L. Hamilton; Mr. Richard Church; Mr. Roger Foster; Mr. H. W. Parker of the Mechanics'Institute Free Library of New York; Dr. Richard B. Coutant, and Mr. Philip Schuyler; and to the following residents of the British andDanish West Indies:

_On St. Christopher_

Mrs. Spencer WigleyDr. Joseph Haven, U. S. ConsulThe Rev. William EveredThe Rev. George YoeMr. E. P. Latouche, Registrar and Provost Marshal

_On Nevis_

The Hon. C. C. GreavesThe Rev. W. CowleyThe Rev. Mr. ShephardMr. G. V. Mercier

_On St. Croix_

The Rev. W. C. Watson

Also--The West Indian works of Dr. Taylor, and Lightbourne's Annuals.