Chapter 5

"ALEXANDER THE GREAT"

INCLUDING THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

I

It was the autumn of 1786. New York had risen from her charred and battered ruins. There were cows on her meadows, a lake with wooded shores as merely traditional, groves, gardens, orchards, fields, and swamps; but her business houses and public buildings were ambitious once more, her spires more lofty and enduring, her new dwelling-houses, whether somewhat crowded in Wall Street and Broadway, or on the terraces of less busy streets, or along the river fronts and facing a wild and lovely prospect, were square, substantial, and usually very large. And every street was an avenue of ancient trees. Mrs. John Jay, with her experience of foreign courts, her great beauty, and the prestige of her distinguished husband, was the leader of society, holding weekly receptions, 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 was quiet entertaining by the Hamiltons, who lived at 58 Wall Street, the Duers, Watts, Livingstons, Clintons, Duanes, Jays, Roosevelts, Van Cortlandts, and other representatives of old New York families, now returned to their own. Congress was come to New York and established in the City Hall in Wall Street. It had given the final impetus to the city, struggling under the burden of ruins and debt left by the British; and society sauntered forth every afternoon in all the glory of velvet and ruffles, three-cornered hats recklessly laced, brocades, hoopskirts, and Rohan hats, to promenade past the building where the moribund body was holding its last sessions. The drive was down the Broadway into the shades of the Battery, with the magnificent prospect of bay and wooded shores beyond. Politics, always epidemic among men and women alike, had recently been animated by Hamilton's coup at Annapolis, and the prospect of a general convention of the States to consider the reorganization of a government which had reduced the Confederation to a condition fearfully close to anarchy, the country to ruin, and brought upon the thirteen sovereign independent impotent and warring States the contempt of 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 citizens who had fallen upon each other with the venom of political antithesis; the one, a Nationalist, having called Heaven to witness that Hamilton was a demi-god, begotten to save the wretched country, the other vociferating that Hamilton was the devil who would trick the country into a monarchy, create a vast standing army, which would proclaim him king and stand upon the heads of a people that had fought and died for freedom, while the tyrant exercised his abominable functions.

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

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

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

"I had heard of you, sir," replied Marshall, meekly, "and I am glad to have the opportunity to ask you what _your_ remedy is for the existing state of things? You will admit that there must be a remedy, and quickly. If not a common government with a Constitution empowering it to regulate trade, imposts, reduce the debt, enter into treaties with foreign powers which will not be sneered at, administer upon a thousand details which I will not enumerate, and raise the country from its slough of contempt, then what? As the personage who has taken the most decided stand against the enlightened and patriotic efforts of Mr. Hamilton, I appeal to you for a counter suggestion as magnificent as his. I am prepared, sir, to listen with all humility."

Clinton, whose selfish fear of his own downfall with that of State supremacy was so well known that a smile wrinkled across the polite group of gentlemen surrounding him, deepened his colour to purple under this assault, and stammered: "Sir, have I not myself proposed an enlargement of the powers of Congress, in order to counteract the damnable policy of Britain? Did not your Hamilton harangue that crowd I sanctioned 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 my humble 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 his poise. He swept his hat from his head; the New Yorkers were as punctilious; Marshall lifted his battered lid from the wild mass beneath, and the popular Governor sauntered down the street, saluted deferentially by Nationalists and followers alike. When he had occasion to sweep his gorgeous hat to his knees, the ladies courtesied to the ground, their draperies taking up the entire pavement, and His Excellency was obliged to encounter the carriages in the street.

"If Clinton were sure of figuring as powerfully in a national government as 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 will elect him indefinitely. Were it not for Hamilton, he would be New York, and the awful possibilities lying hidden in the kernel of change haunt his dreams at night. You embarrassed him in a manner that rejoiced my heart, Mr. Marshall. I beg you will do me the honour to dine with me to-night. I beg to assure you that your fame is as known to me as were I a Virginian."

"I'll accept the invitation with pleasure," replied Marshall, whose manners were all that his attire was not. "I shall be glad to talk with you 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 himself to the right class of men all over the country, winning them to his sound and enlightened views, giving them courage, consolidating them against the self-interested advocates of State sovereignty. That he has so often neglected a legal practice which must bring him a large income, as well as sufficient personal glory, out of a sincere pity for and patriotic interest in this afflicted country, gives New York deep cause for congratulation that she was in such close communication with that Island 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 us Hamilton. We shall need him badly enough. The Clinton faction is very strong. That the Hamilton embraces the best spirits of the community means that it is in the minority, and needs the unremitting exercise of his genius to counteract the disadvantage in numbers."

"I think that what I admire most in Hamilton," remarked a newcomer, a small dark man of vivid personality, "are his methods of manipulation. He picks out his own men, Duer, Troup, Malcolm, has them sent to the legislature, where they blindly and indefatigably obey his behest and gain the consent of that body to the convention at Annapolis, then see that he is elected as principal delegate. He goes to Annapolis ostensibly to attend a commercial convention: while its insufficient numbers are drowsing, he springs upon them an eloquent proposal for a national convention for reforming the Union, and forces it through before they know what they are about. Certainly Mr. Hamilton is a man of genius."

"Do I understand. Mr. Burr," said Jay, from his glacial height, "that you are impugning the purity of Mr. Hamilton's motives?"

"No, sir," replied Burr, whom an archangel could not have rebuked. "In the present condition of things all methods are justifiable. Hamilton is great but adaptable. I respect him for that quality above all others, for he is quite the most imperious character in America, and his natural instinct is to come out and say, 'You idiots, fall into line behind me and stop twaddling. I will do your thinking; be kind enough not to delay me further.' On the other hand, he is forced to be diplomatic, to persuade where he would command, to move slowly instead of charging at the point of the bayonet. So, although I have no sympathy with his pronounced monarchical inclinations, I respect his acquired methods of getting what he wants."

"What do you mean by pronounced monarchical inclinations?" snorted Governor 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 writings which points to such a conclusion."

"Ah, he is too clever for that; but his very walk, his whole personality expresses it, to say nothing of the fact that he never thinks of denying his admiration of the British Constitution. And did he not defend the Tories after the evacuation, when no other lawyer would touch them? I admired his courage, but it was sufficient evidence of the catholicity of his sentiments."

"Mr. Hamilton defended the abstract principle of right against wrong in defending the wretched Tories against the persecutions of an unmagnanimous public sentiment," said Jay, witheringly. "I should advise you, young gentleman, to become a disciple of Mr. Hamilton. I can recommend no course which would prove so beneficial." And he turned on his heel.

He had hit Burr. The jealousy born in Albany had thriven with much sustenance since. Hamilton was by far the most prominent figure at the New York bar, and was hastening to its leadership. Burr was conspicuous for legal ability, but never would be first while Hamilton was in the race. Moreover, although Hamilton had not then reached that dizzy height from which a few years later he looked down upon a gaping world, he was the leader of a growing and important party, intelligently followed and worshipped by the most eminent men in the Confederation, many of them old 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 the subject nearest to all men's hearts, his eloquent speeches on the same theme upon every possible occasion, and the extraordinary brilliance of his legal victories, gave people no time to think of other men. When he entered a drawing-room general conversation ceased, and the company revolved about him so long as he remained. When he spoke, all the world went to hear. For an ambitious young man to be told to attach himself to the 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 the purity of his motives, but I have no desire to see George Washington king, nor Hamilton, neither. I wish you good day, sirs," and he strode up Broadway to the Fields with dignity in every inch of him.

"This constant talk of Hamilton's monarchical principles makes my gorge rise," 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 the call to arms?"

"Hamilton's exact attitude on that question is not clearly understood," replied Duane, soothingly, for the heat of Livingston's republicanism had never abated. "I fancy it is something like this: So far no constitution has worked so well as the British. Montesquieu knew whereof he praised. The number of men in this country equal to the great problem of self-government are in a pitiful minority. The anarchic conditions of the States, the disgrace which they have brought upon us, their inefficiency to cope with any problem, the contemptible depths of human nature which they have revealed to the thinking members of the community--all these causes inspire Hamilton, incomparably the greatest brain in the country, with a dread of leaving any power whatever in their hands. He believes firmly in the few of tried brain and patriotism. I very much doubt if he has considered the subject of actual monarchy for a moment, for he is no dreamer, and he knows that even his followers have been Republicans too long. But that he will fight for the strongest sort of national government, with the least possible power vested in the States--oh, no doubt of that."

"Our people are hopeless, I fear," said Livingston, with a sigh. "This period of independency seems to have demoralized them when it should have brought out their best elements. Well, Mr. Marshall, what say you? You have been modestly silent, and we have been rudely voluble when so distinguished a guest should have had all the floor."

"I have been deeply entertained," replied Marshall, with a grin. "My visit to New York is by no means wasted. I envy Mr. Hamilton; but let him look out for Mr. Burr. There are just five feet seven inches of jealous hate in that well-balanced exterior, and its methods would be sinuous, I fancy, but no less deadly. But Hamilton has had many escapes. What was that atrocious story I heard of a duelling cabal? When the rolling stone of gossip reaches Virginia from New York, it has gathered more 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 signed himself 'Mentor,' and was a conspicuous advocate of the damnable spirit of revenge possessing this country. It is a bold man indeed who enters into a conflict of the pen with Hamilton, and 'Mentor' was left without a leg to stand on. Forthwith, a club of Ledyard's friends and sympathizers, enraged by defeat, and fearing the growing ascendency of Hamilton over men's minds, deliberately agreed to challenge him in turn until he was silenced forever. This atrocious project would undoubtedly have been carried out, had not Ledyard himself repudiated it with horror. Can you show me a greater instance of the depravity of human nature, sir?"

"We are in a ferment of bitter passions," said Marshall, sadly, "and I fear they will be worse before they are better. I only hope that Hamilton will not be swept into their current, for upon his keeping his balance depends the future greatness of this country. I am at your service, sir, for I will confess my two legs are tired."

II

As the three men turned into Broadway they saluted a man who was entering Wall Street. It was Hamilton, hastening home to his family after the day's work. He had lost his boyish slenderness; his figure had broadened and filled out sufficiently to add to his presence while destroying nothing of its symmetry or agile grace, and it was dressed with the same care. His face was as gay and animated as ever, responded with the old mobility to every passing thought, but its lines and contours showed the hard work and severe thought of the last four years. When he was taking a brief holiday with his friends, or tumbling about the floor with his little brood, he felt as much a boy as ever, but no one appreciated more fully than he the terrible responsibility of his position in the Confederation. His abilities, combined with his patriotism, had forced him to the head of the Nationalist Party, for whose existence he was in greatest measure responsible; and he hardly dared to think of his personal ambitions, nor could he hesitate to neglect his lucrative practice whenever the crying needs of the country demanded it. He had also given much time to the creating and organization of the Bank of New York. But Burr was not far wrong when he accused him of impatience. His bearing was more imperious, his eye flashed more intolerantly, than ever. To impute to him monarchical ambitions was but the fling of a smarting jealousy, but it is quite true that he felt he knew what was best for the country, and would have liked to 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 York houses which had risen at random from the ruins. But within, it was very charming. The long drawing-room was furnished with mahogany, and rose-coloured brocade, with spindle-legged tables and many bibelots sent by Angelica Church, now living in London. The library was filling with valuable books, and the panelled whiteness of the dining room glittered with silver and glass, which in quantity or value was not exceeded in the home of any young couple in America; the world had outdone itself at the most interesting wedding of the Revolution. Betsey's sitting room was behind the drawing-room, and there Hamilton found her counting the moments until his return. She had lost nothing of her slimness, and except on dress occasions wore her mass of soft black hair twisted in a loose knot and unpowdered. She looked younger and prettier than with powder or wig, and Hamilton begged her to defy the fashion; but yielding in all else, on this point she was inflexible. "I am wiser than you in just a few things," she would say, playfully, for she firmly believed him infallible; "my position would suffer, were I thought eccentric. You cannot stand in rank without a uniform. I shall not yield to Sarah Jay nor 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, she remarked: "Speaking of eccentric people, I met to-day, at Lady Sterling's, that curious person, Mrs. Croix, or Miss Capet, as some will call her. Her hair was built up quite a foot and unpowdered. On top of it was an immense black hat with plumes, and her velvet gown was at least three yards on the floor. She certainly is the handsomest creature in town, but, considering all the gossip, I think it odd Lady Sterling should take her up, and I believe that Kitty is quite annoyed. But Lady Sterling is so good-natured, and I am told that Dr. Franklin went personally and asked her to give this lady countenance. He calls her his Fairy Queen, and to-day saluted her on the lips before all of us. Poor dear Dr. Franklin is by now quite in the class with Caesar's wife, but still I think his conduct rather remarkable."

"Who is this woman?" asked Hamilton, indifferently.

"Well!" exclaimed his wife, with a certain satisfaction, "you _are busy_. 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 hearth rug, "and considering the labours of the past three months--but tell me about her. I believe I love you best when gossiping. Your effort to be caustic is the sweetest thing in the world."

She threw a ball of wool at him, which he caught and pulled apart, then showered on her head. It was yellow wool, and vastly becoming on her black 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 three months ago with Captain Croix of the British army, and rumour hath it that he left a wife in England, and that this lady's right to the royal name of Capet is still unchallenged. The story goes that she was born about 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 royal name on board, the Captain adopted her; but that a baby and a ship being more than he could manage, he presented the baby to a humble friend at Newport, by the name of Thompson, who brought her up virtuously, but without eradicating the spirit of the age, and one fine day she disappeared with Colonel Croix, and after a honeymoon which may have been spent in the neighbourhood of any church between here and Rhode Island, or of none, they arrived in New York, and took the finest lodgings in town. I suppose Dr. Franklin was a friend of her humble guardian, he is so philanthropic, and that he is willing to take my lady's word that all is well--and perhaps it is. I feel myself quite vicious in repeating the vaguest sort of gossip--active, though. Who knows, if she had worn a wig, or an inch of powder, and employed the accepted architect for her tower, she would have passed without question? Another pillar for my argument, sir."

"As it is, you are even willing to believe that she is a daughter of the house of France," said Hamilton, with a hearty laugh. "Would that the world were as easily persuaded of what is good for it as of what tickles its 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 the room, and Hamilton romped with them for a half-hour, then flung them upon their mother, and watched them from the hearth rug. Betsey was lovely with her children, who were beautiful little creatures, and Hamilton was always arranging them in groups. The boy and girl pulled down her hair with the yellow wool, until all her diminutive figure and all her face, but its roguish black eyes, were extinguished; and Hamilton forgot the country.

Elizabeth Schuyler was a cleverer woman than her meed of credit has led the world to believe. She understood Hamilton very well even then, although, as his faults but added to his fascination in the eyes of those that loved him, the knowledge did not detract from her happiness. In many ways she made herself necessary to him; at that time she even kept his papers in order. He talked to her freely on every subject that interested him, from human nature to finance, taxes, and the law, and she never permitted a yawn to threaten. He read aloud to her every line he wrote, and while she would not have presumed to suggest, her sympathy was one of his imperative needs. When his erratic fancy flashed him into seductive meshes, she pulled a string and back he came. Perhaps this is the reason why no specific account of his numerous alleged amours have come down to us. He is vaguely accused of being the Lothario of his time, irresistible and indefatigable; but of all famous men whose names are enlivened with anecdotes of gallantry in the vast bulk of the world's unwritten history, he alone is the hero of much mysterious affirmation but of no particular romance. The Reynolds affair is open history and not a case in point. It is probable that, owing to inherent fickleness and Betsey's gentle manipulation, his affairs rarely lasted long enough to attract attention. It is one of the accidents of life that the world barely knew of his acquaintance with Eliza Croix, she who has come down to us as Madame Jumel; and such a thing could not happen twice. But whether or not he possessed in all their perfection the proclivities of so great and impetuous and passionate a genius, it is certain that he loved his wife devotedly, and above all other women, so long as his being held together. His home was always his Mecca, and he left it only when public duty compelled his presence in exile.

III

In February he went to the Assembly to fight Clinton's opposition to the harassing need of conferring a permanent revenue upon Congress. He had already written a memorial, distributed over the State, setting forth the dangerous position of the country. But Clinton was lord of the masses, and their representatives in the Legislature had been trained to think as he thought. They honoured him because he had made New York the greatest State in the Union, not yet realizing that he had brought her into disrepute at home and abroad, and that his selfish policy was now hastening her to her ruin. To increase the power of Congress was to encourage the spirit of Nationalism, and that meant the sure decline of the States and of himself. The fight was hot and bitter. Clinton won; but the thinking men present took Hamilton's words home and pondered upon them, and in time they bore fruit.

After many delays the Convention was summoned to meet at Philadelphia on the 14th of May. History calls it the Constitutional Convention, but its promoters were careful to give the States-right people no such guide to contravention. The violent oppositionists of all change slumbered peacefully, while the representatives of the more enlightened were appointed to the Convention under moderately worded and somewhat vague resolutions; and some of them went as vaguely. Congress, after a characteristic and selfish hesitation, and a thorough fright induced by the Massachusetts rebellion, was finally persuaded to give her official sanction to the proposed Convention. Hamilton secured his appointment as a delegate,--after a hard fight to have New York represented at all,--and found himself saddled with two Clintonians, Robert Yates and John Lansing, Jr. But the first great step for which he had struggled, since his Morristown letter to the Financier of the Revolution seven years before, was assured at last.

Shortly before the Convention opened, Gouverneur Morris and James Madison, Jr. met by appointment at Hamilton's house to discuss the plan of campaign and make sure of their leader's wishes. General Schuyler and Robert Troup were also present.

Morris was a delegate from Pennsylvania, but was about to return to New York, having bought the family estate at Morrisania from his brother, Staats Long Morris, and was involved in business enterprises which resulted in a large fortune. He awaited the settlement of the country's affairs before sailing for Europe in his private interests. Troup, now a successful lawyer at the New York bar, was an able politician and devoted to Hamilton's interests. Philip Schuyler was entirely in his son-in-law's confidence, working for and with him always, occupying the double position of adviser and follower. Madison, who had forced the Convention at Annapolis, had had his breath taken away by Hamilton's coup, but now was delighted that he had been the instrument which made it possible. He had composed his somewhat halting mind to the determination to concentrate his energies upon wringing from the Convention a national scheme of government after Hamilton's model, provided that model were not too extreme: he was no monarchist, and knew the people very thoroughly. But he was deeply anxious to have Hamilton's views and plans for his guidance, even if modification were necessary. He knew Hamilton's complete mastery of the science of government, and that his broad structure was bound to be right, no matter what its frills.

The company assembled in the library, whose open windows overhung a garden full of lilacs, dogwood, and maples. There was a long table in the room, about which the guests mechanically seated themselves, so accustomed were they to the council table. Hamilton had greeted them in the hall, and sent them on to the library, while he went to fetch some papers his wife had promised to copy for him.

"So this is the room in which the government of the United States is to be born," said Troup, glancing about at the familiar books and at the desk stuffed with papers. "I shall always smell lilacs in the new Constitution."

"If we get one," observed Morris. "'Conceive' would be a better word than 'born,' Twelve states,--for my part I am glad the refusal of Rhode Island to send delegates makes one less,--each wanting its own way, and the 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 my mind to that. There are a sufficient number of able and public-spirited men on their way to Philadelphia to agree upon a wise scheme of government and force it through--besides Hamilton and ourselves there are Washington, Governor Randolph, William Livingston, Rufus King, Roger Sherman, Dr. Franklin, James Wilson, George Wythe, the Pinckneys, Hugh Williamson--to mention but a few."

"They are not a bad lot," admitted Morris, "if they had all seen more of the world and less of their native or adopted State--all this State patriotism makes me sick. Half were not born in the State they vociferate about, are not certain of ending their days in it, nor of which 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 government little firmer than the one now existing; and Hamilton, whose travels are limited to campaigning in the different States, has a comprehensive grasp of European political machinery, and the breadth of vision such knowledge involves, which could gain nothing by personal contact."

"Dr. Franklin was too long a mendicant at foreign courts not to be besottedly in love with their antithesis, and Hamilton has a brain power and an intellectual grasp which quite remove him from the odiums of comparison," said Morris. "I think myself he is fortunate in never having visited Europe, deeply as he may regret it; for with his faculty of divination he goes straight for what is best only--or most essential. Had he lived there, the details and disappointments might have blocked his 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 the lilacs, despite his wooden leg; and he was followed by Troup and General Schuyler, demanding "Who?"

"Mrs. Croix--there. Did anything so lovely ever dawn upon a distracted American's vision? 'Tis said she is an unregistered daughter of the house of Capet, and I vow she looks every inch a princess. I stared at her so long last night in Vauxhall that she was embarrassed; and I never saw such poise, such royal command of homage. How has she developed it at the age of eighteen? I half believe this tale of royal birth; although there are those who assert that she is nothing less than the daughter of our highest in honour."

"'Tis said that she had an opportunity to acquire her aplomb in the village of Rutland, Massachusetts, where for some years she enlivened the exile and soothed the domestic yearnings of many British officers," said Troup. "One told me that he would vow she was none other than the famous vagrant 'Betsey.'"

"But I am told that she comes of a respectable Rhode Island family named Bowen," observed General Schuyler, who was not romantic. "That she was wayward and ran off with Colonel Croix, of whose other wife there is no proof, 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'm told she signs her name Eliza Capet Croix."

"I don't know," said Schuyler, meekly. "'Tis easy enough to assume a name, if you have it not. I am told that Lady Sterling is assured of her respectability. 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 the register of profound contempt. They turned about with a laugh and faced Madison's ascetic countenance, pale with disgust. "We have the most important work to do for which men ever met together, and we stand at the window and talk scandal about a silly woman and her hair."

"You did not, my dear James," said Morris, lightly; "and thereby you have missed the truly divine stimulus for the day's work. Don't you realize, my friend, that no matter how hard a man may labour, some woman is always in the background of his mind? She is the one reward of virtue."

"I know nothing of the sort," replied Madison, contemptuously. "I can flatter myself that I at least am independent of what appears to men like you to be the only motive for living."

"Right, my boy, but great as you are, you don't know what you might have been."

The door opened, and Hamilton entered the room, his hands full of papers, his face as gay and eager as if he were about to read to his audience a poem or a lively tale. Perhaps one secret of his ascendency over those who knew him best was that he never appeared to take himself seriously, even when his whole being radiated power and imperious determination. When he descended to the depths of seriousness and his individuality was most overwhelming, his unsleeping sense of humour saved him from a hint of the demagogue.

"While my wife was finishing, I heard you gossiping from the window above," 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 look so 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 his papers.

He sat down when he began to talk, but was quickly on his feet and shaking his papers over the table. To him, also, the council table was the most familiar article of furniture in his world, but he was usually addressing those it stood for, and he was too ardent a speaker, even when without the incentive of debate, to keep to his chair.

"I know what you are wondering," he said. "No, it is not the British Constitution. What I have done so distempered as to impress people with the belief that I am blind to the spirit of this country, I am at a loss to conjecture. The British Constitution is the best form which the world has 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 republican government can be attempted in this country, or would be adapted to our situation. Therefore, I propose to look to the British Constitution for nothing but those elements of stability and permanency which a republican system requires, and which may be incorporated into it without changing its characteristic principles. There never has been, and there never will be, anything in my acts or principles inconsistent with the spirit of republican liberty. Whatever my private predilections, it would be impossible for me, understanding the people of this country as I do, to fail to recognize the authority of that people as the source of all political power. Therefore you will find many departures from the British Constitution in the rough draft I am about to read. I have neither the patience nor the temper to dogmatize upon abstract theories of liberty, and our success will lie in adapting to our particular needs such principles of government as have been tried and not found wanting, our failure in visionary experiments. The best and wisest effort we can make will be a sufficient experiment, for whose result we must all tremble.

"It is going to be difficult to persuade this Convention to unite upon any constitution very much stronger than the one Dr. Franklin will propose, or to accomplish its ratification afterward. Nevertheless, I have prepared a draft of the strongest constitution short of monarchy which it is possible to conceive, and which I shall propose to the Convention for reasons I will explain after I have read it to you. Do you care to listen?"

"Hurry up!" exclaimed Morris. The audience leaned forward. Madison shook his head all through the reading; Morris jerked his with emphatic approval.

The radical points in which Hamilton's constitution differed from that under which we live, was in the demand for a President, to be elected by property holders, and who should hold office during good behaviour; senators possessing certain property qualifications and elected on the same principle; and governors of States appointed and removable by the President. Practically the author of the dual government, he believed emphatically in subserving the lesser to the greater, although endowing the States with sufficient power for self-protection. The Executive was to be held personally responsible for official misconduct, both he and the senators subject to impeachment and to removal from office. The whole scheme was wrought out with the mathematical complexity and precision characteristic of Hamilton's mind.

"Would that it were possible," exclaimed Morris, when Hamilton had finished. "But as well expect the Almighty to drive the quill. You will weaken your influence, Hamilton, and to no effect."

"Ah, but I have calculated upon two distinct points, and I believe I shall achieve them. I have not the most distant hope that this paper will be acceptable to five men in the Convention,--three, perhaps, would round the number,--Washington, yourself, myself. Nevertheless, I shall introduce it and speak in its favour with all the passion of which I am master, for these reasons: I believe in it; its energy is bound to give a tone that might be lacking otherwise; and--this is the principal point--_there must be something to work back from_. If I alarm with the mere chance of so perilous a menace to their democratic ideals, they will go to work in earnest at _something_ in order to defeat me, and they will not go back so far in the line of vigour as if I had suggested a more moderate plan; for, mark my words, they would infallibly incline to weaker measures than _any_ firm government which should first be proposed. In the management of men one of the most important things to bear in mind is their proneness to work forward from the weak, and backward from the strong. On the quality of the strength depends its magnetism over the weak. All reformers are ridiculed or outlawed, and their measures are never wholly successful; but they awaken men's minds to something of approximate worth, and to a desire for a divorce from the old order of things. So, while I expect to be called a monarchist, I hope to instil subtly the idea of the absolute necessity of a strong government, and implant in their minds a distrust of one too weak."

"Good," said Morris. "And it is always a delight to see your revelation of yourself in a new light. I perceive that to your other accomplishments you add the cunning of the fox."

"You are right to call it an accomplishment," retorted Hamilton. "We cannot 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 even nagging, I do not hesitate to borrow and use them."

"Let us call this sagacity," said Troup. "'Tis a prettier word. Or the canniness of the Scot. But there is one thing I fear," he added anxiously. "You may injure your chances of future preferment. Your ambition 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 no time to be considering private interests. If this be not the day for patriotism to stifle every personal ambition, then there is little hope for human nature. I believe the result of this paper will be a constitution of respectable strength, and I shall use all the influence I wield to make the people accept it. So, if you worry, consider if the later effort will not outweigh the first."

"Hamilton," said Madison, solemnly, "you are a greater man even than I thought you. You have given me a most welcome hint, and I shall take upon myself to engineer the recession from your constitution. I shall study its effect with the closest attention and be guided accordingly, I am heart and soul in this matter, and would give my life to it if necessary. I never should have thought of anything so astute," he added, with some envy, "but perhaps if I had, no one else would be so peculiarly fitted as myself to work upon its manifold suggestions. I hope I do not strike you as conceited," he said, looking around anxiously, "but I _feel_ that it is in me to render efficient service in the present crisis."

Before Morris could launch his ready fling, Hamilton hastened to assure Madison of his belief that no man living could render services so great. He underrated neither Madison's great abilities nor the danger of rankling arrows in that sensitive and not too courageous spirit. They then discussed a general plan of campaign and the best methods of managing certain members of the Convention. Morris was the first to rise.

"Adieu," he said. "I go to ruminate upon our Captain's diplomacy, and to pursue the ankle of Mrs. Croix. Be sure that the one will not interfere with 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 merest outline is necessary here; those who have not before this read at least one of the numberless reports, would be the last to wish its multigenerous details. To the students of history there is nothing new to tell, as may be the case with less exploited incidents of Hamilton's career. Someone has said that it was an assemblage of hostile camps, and it certainly was the scene of intense and bitter struggles, of a heterogeneous mass blindly striving to cohere, whilst a thousand sectional interests tugged at the more familiar of the dual ideal; of compromise after compromise; of a fear pervading at least one-half that the liberties of republicanism were menaced by every energetic suggestion; of the soundest judgement and patriotism compelled to truckle to meaner sentiments lest they get nothing; of the picked men of the Confederacy, honourable, loyal, able, and enlightened, animated in the first and last instance by a pure and common desire for the highest welfare of the country, driven to war upon one another by the strength of their conflicting opinions; ending--among the thirty-nine out of the sixty-one delegates who signed the Constitution--in a feeling as closely resembling general satisfaction as individual disappointments would permit.

At first so turbulent were the conditions, that Franklin, who troubled the Almighty but little himself, arose and suggested that the meetings be opened with prayer. After this sarcasm, and the submission of his mild compromise with the Confederation, he sat and watched the painted sun behind Washington's chair, pensively wondering if the artist had intended to convey the idea of a rise or a setting. Hamilton presented his draft at the right moment, and the startled impression it made quite satisfied him, particularly as his long speech to the Committee of the Whole was received with the closest attention. Nothing could alter his personal fascination, and even his bitterest enemies rarely left their chairs while he spoke. The small figure, so full of dignity and magnetizing 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 seen in the eyes of a mere mortal before, the graceful rapid gestures, and the passionate eloquence which never in its most apparently abandoned moments failed to be sincere and logical, made him for the hour the glory of friend and enemy alike, although the reaction was correspondingly bitter. Upon this occasion he spoke for six hours without the interruption of a scraping heel; and what the Convention did not 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. To his original scheme he had too much tact to make further allusion; but his general opinions, ardently propounded, his emphatic reiteration of the demoralized country's need for a national government, and of the tyrannies inherent in unbridled democracies, wedged in many a chink. Nevertheless, he was disgusted and disheartened when he left for New York, at the end of May. The Convention was chaos, but he could accomplish nothing more than what he hoped he might have done; the matter was now best in the hands of Madison and Gouverneur Morris, and his practice could no longer be neglected.

But although he returned to a mass of work,--for he handled most of the great cases of the time,--he managed to mingle daily with the crowd at Fraunces' and the coffee-houses, in order to gauge the public sentiment regarding the proposed change of government, and to see the leading men constantly. On the whole, he wrote to Washington, he found that both in the Jerseys and in New York there was "an astonishing revolution for the better 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 a superhuman dignity, to Hamilton who breathed his strong soul into it, to Madison who manipulated it, to Gouverneur Morris, whose sarcastic eloquent tongue brought it to reason again and again, and whose accomplished pen gave the Constitution its literary form, belong the highest honours of the Convention; although the services rendered by Roger Sherman, Rufus King, James Wilson, R.R. Livingston, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney entitle them to far more than polite mention.

When Hamilton signed the Constitution, on the 17th of September, it was by no means strong enough to suit him, but as it was incomparably better than the Articles of Confederation, which had carried the country to the edge of anarchy and ruin, and was regarded by a formidable number of people and their leaders as so strong as to be a menace to the liberties of the American citizen, he could with consistency and ardour exert himself to secure its ratification. After all, it was built of his stones, chipped and pared though they might be; had he not gone to the Convention, the result might have been a constitution for which his pen would have refused to plead.

Manhattan Island, Kings and Westchester counties had long since accepted his doctrines, and they stood behind him in unbroken ranks; but the northern counties and cities of New York, including Albany, were still under the autocratic sway of Clinton. Hamilton's colleagues, Yates and Lansing, had resigned their seats in the Great Convention. Among the signatures to the Constitution his name stood alone for New York, and the fact was ominous of his lonely and precarious position. But difficulties were ever his stimulant, and this was not the hour to find him lacking in resource.

"The Constitution terrifies by its length, complexity, frigidity, and above all by its novelty," he said to Jay and Madison, who met by appointment in his library. "Clinton, in this State, has persuaded his followers that it is so many iron hoops, in which they would groan and struggle for the rest of their lives. To defeat him and this pernicious idea, we must discuss the Constitution publicly, in the most lucid and entertaining manner possible, lay every fear, and so familiarize the people with its merits, and with the inseparable relation of its adoption to their personal interests, that by the time the elections for the State Convention take place, they will be sufficiently educated to give us the majority. And as there is so much doubt, even among members of the Convention, as to the mode of enacting the Constitution, we must solve that problem as quickly as possible. My purpose is to publish a series of essays in the newspapers, signed, if you agree with me, Publius, and reaching eighty or ninety in number, which shall expound and popularize the Constitution of the United States; and if you will give me your inestimable help, I am sure we shall accomplish our purpose."

"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 absolute mastery of the complex science of government, and I fear that my weaker pen may somewhat counteract the vigour of yours; but, I repeat, I will do my best with the time at my disposal."

Hamilton laughed, "You know how anxious I am to injure our chances of success," he said. "I hope all things from your pen."

Jay bowed formally, and Hamilton turned to Madison. "I know you must feel that you have done your share for the present," he said, "and there is hard work awaiting you in your State Convention, but the subject is at your finger tips; it hardly can be too much trouble."

"I am not very well," said Madison, peevishly, "but I realize the necessity,--and that the papers should be read as extensively in Virginia as here. I will write a few, and more if I can."

But, as it came to pass, Madison wrote but fourteen separate papers of the eighty-five, although he collaborated with Hamilton on three others, and Jay wrote five only. The remaining sixty-three, therefore, of the essays, collected during and after their publication under the title of "The Federalist," which not only did so much to enlighten and educate the public mind and weaken the influence of such men as Clinton, but which still stand as the ablest exposition of the science of government, and as the parent of American constitutional law, were the work of Hamilton.

"It is the fortunate situation of our country," said Hamilton, a few months later, at Poughkeepsie, "that the minds of the people are exceedingly enlightened and refined." Certainly these papers are a great tribute to the general intelligence of the American race of a century and more ago. Selfish, petty, and lacking in political knowledge they may have been, but it is evident that their mental _tone_ was high, that their minds had not been vulgarized by trash and sensationalism. Hamilton's sole bait was a lucid and engaging style, which would not puzzle the commonest intelligence, which he hoped might instruct without weighing heavily on the capacity of his humbler readers. That he was addressing the general voter, as well as the men of a higher grade as yet unconvinced, there can be no doubt, for as New York State was still seven-tenths Clintonian, conversion of a large portion of this scowling element was essential to the ratification of the Constitution. And yet he chose two men of austere and unimaginative style to collaborate with him; while his own style for purity, distinction, and profundity combined with simplicity, has never been excelled.

Betsey was ailing, and her doors closed to society; the children romped on 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 sensible of the calm of his home and of its incentive to literary composition; it never occurred to him to open his office in the evening. Betsey, the while she knitted socks, listened patiently to her brilliant husband's luminous discussions on the new Constitution--which she could have recited backward--and his profound interpretation of its principles and provisions. If she worried over these continuous labours she made no sign, for Hamilton was racing Clinton, and there was not a moment to lose. Clinton won in the first heat. After a desperate struggle in the State Legislature the Hamiltonians succeeded in passing resolutions ordering a State Convention to be elected for the purpose of considering the Constitution; but the result in April proved the unabated power and industry of Clinton,--the first, and not the meanest of New York's political "bosses,"--for two-thirds of the men selected were his followers. The Convention was called for the 17th of June and it was rumoured that the Clintonians intended immediately to move an adjournment until the following year. According to an act of Congress the ratification of only nine States was necessary to the adoption of the Constitution. The others could come into the Union later if they chose, and there was a disposition in several States to watch the experiment before committing themselves. Hamilton, who knew that such a policy, if pursued by the more important States, would result in civil war, was determined that New York should not behave in a manner which would ruin her in the present and disgrace her in history, and wrote on with increasing vigour, hoping to influence the minds of the oppositionists elected to the Convention as well as the people at large. Even he had never written anything which had attracted so wide admiring and acrimonious attention. The papers were read in all the cities of the Confederation, and in such hamlets as boasted a mail-bag. When they reached England and France they were almost as keenly discussed. That they steadily made converts, Hamilton had cause to know, for his correspondence was overwhelming. Troup and General Schuyler attended to the greater part of it; but only himself could answer the frequent letters from leaders in the different states demanding advice. He thought himself fortunate in segregating five hours of the twenty-four for sleep. The excitement throughout the country was intense, and it is safe to say that nowhere and for months did conversation wander from the subject of politics and the new Constitution, for more than ten minutes at a time. In New York Hamilton was the subject of constant and vicious attack, the Clintonians sparing no effort to discredit him with the masses. New York City was nicknamed Hamiltonopolis and jingled in scurrilous rhymes. In the midst of it all were two diversions: the fourth of his children, and a letter which he discovered before General Schuyler or Troup had sorted his mail. As the entire Schuyler family were now in his house, and his new son was piercingly discontented with his lot, he took refuge in his chambers in Garden Street, until Betsey was able to restore peace and happiness to his home. The postman had orders to bring his mail-bag thither, and it was on the second morning of his exile that the perfume of violets caused him to make a hasty journey through the letters.

He found the spring sweetness coincidentally with a large square, flowingly superscribed. He glanced at the clock. His devoted assistants would not arrive for half an hour. He broke the seal. It was signed Eliza 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 severe education than himself were liberal in these resources, and women were prodigal. The directness and precision were also remarkable, and he recalled that she was but nineteen. The flattery touched him, no doubt, for he was very human; and despite the brevity of his leisure, he read the 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 but have 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 but breathed no fervid desire for another letter. It is not to be expected that maturest nineteen can realize that, although a busy man will find time to see a woman if it be worth his while, the temptations to a romantic correspondence are not overwhelming.

Hamilton tore up the letter and threw it into the waste basket. Its perfume, delicate but imperious, intruded upon his brief. He dived into the basket as he heard Troup's familiar whistle, and thrust the pieces into a breast pocket. In a moment he remembered that Betsey's head would be pillowed upon that pocket at five in the afternoon, and he hastily extracted the mutilated letter, and applied a match to it, consigning women to perdition. Troup sniffed as he entered the room.

"Violets and burnt paper," remarked he. "'Tis a combination I have noticed 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 no time 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 redolent violets to carry home to his wife. He pinned three on his coat.

V

When the 17th of June approached, Hamilton, John Jay, Chancellor Livingston, and James Duane, started on horse for Poughkeepsie, not daring, with Clinton on the spot, and the menace of an immediate adjournment, to trust to the winds of the Hudson. General Schuyler had promised to leave even a day sooner from the North, and the majority of Federal delegates had gone by packet-boat, or horse, in good season.

The old post road between New York and Albany was, for the greater part of the way, but a rough belt through a virgin forest. Occasionally a farmer had cleared a few acres, the lawns of a manor house were open to the sun, the road was varied by the majesty of Hudson and palisade for a brief while, or by the precipitous walls of mountains, so thickly wooded that even the wind barely fluttered their sombre depths. Man was a moving arsenal in those long and lonely journeys, for the bear and the panther were breeding undisturbed. But the month was hot, and those forest depths were very cool; the scenery was often as magnificent as primeval, and a generous hospitality at many a board dispelled, for an interval, the political anxiety of Hamilton and his companions.

Hamilton, despite a mind trained to the subordination of private interests to public duty, knew that it was the crisis of his own destiny toward which he was hastening. He had bound up his personal ambitions with the principles of the Federalist party--so called since the publication in book form of the Publius essays; for not only was he largely responsible for those principles, but his mind was too well regulated to consider the alternative of a compromise with a possibly victorious party which he detested. Perhaps his ambition was too vaulting to adapt itself to a restricted field when his imagination had played for years with the big ninepins of history; at all events, it was inseparably bound up with nationalism in the boldest sense achievable, and with methods which days and nights of severe thought had convinced him were for the greatest good of the American people. Union meant Washington in the supreme command, himself with the reins of government in both hands. The financial, the foreign, the domestic policy of a harmonious federation were as familiar to his mind as they are to us to-day. Only he could achieve them, and only New York could give him those reins of power.

It is true that he had but to move his furniture over to Philadelphia to be welcomed to citizenship with acclamation by that ambitious town; but not only was his pride bound up in the conquest of New York from Clintonism to Federalism, but New York left out of the Union, dividing as she did New England from the South and North, of the highest commercial importance by virtue of her central position and her harbour, meant civil war at no remote period, disunion, and the undoing of the most careful and strenuous labours of the nation's statesmen. That New York should be forced into the Union at once Hamilton was determined upon, if he had to resort to a coup which might or might not meet with the approval of the rest of the country. Nevertheless, he looked forward to 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 as the sole force which could bear Clinton and his magnificent organization to the ground. Hamilton was no party manipulator. He relied upon his individual exertions, abetted by those of his lieutenants,--the most high-minded and the ablest men in the country,--to force his ideas upon the masses by their own momentum and weight. Indeed, so individual did he make the management of the Federalist party, that years later, when the "Republican" leaders determined upon its overthrow, they aimed all their artillery at him alone: if he fell the party must collapse, on top of him; did he retain the confidence of the people, he would magnetize their 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 having ratified, the signature of New Hampshire, the next in order, would mean union and a trial of the Constitution, a prospect which could not fail to influence the thinking men of the anti-Federal party; but it was from the ratification of Virginia that he hoped the greatest good. This State occupied much the same position in the South that New York did in the North, geographically, commercially, historically, and in the importance 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 the selfish policy of a Clinton, but in the limitations of a too narrow genius, was haranguing with all his recuperated might against the sinister menace to the liberties of a people who had freed themselves of one despotism so dearly; and even Randolph, with characteristic hesitancy when approaching a point, was deficient in enthusiasm, although he intimated that he should vote for the unconditional adoption of the Constitution he had refused to sign. He and Marshall were Madison's only assistants of importance against the formidable opponent of union, and it was well understood among leaders that Jefferson, who was then American minister in France, gave the Constitution but a grudging and inconsistent approval, and would prefer that it failed, were not amendments tacked on which practically would nullify its energies. But although Hamilton had such lieutenants as John Jay, Philip Schuyler, 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 colossal figure, the more potent that it was invisible and mute, guided as many wills as Madison's strenuous exertions and unanswerable dispassionate logic.

But Washington, although sufficiently revered by New Yorkers, was not their very own, as was he the Virginians'; was by no means so impinging and insistent as his excellency, Governor Clinton, he whose powerful will and personality, aided by an enterprise and wisdom that were not always misguided, for eleven years had compelled their grateful submission. It was difficult to convince New Yorkers that such a man was wholly wrong in his patriotism, particularly when their own interests seemed bound so firmly to his. It was this dominant, dauntless, resourceful, political nabob that Hamilton knew he must conquer single-handed, if he conquered him at all; for his lieutenants, able as they were, could only second and abet him; they had none of his fertility of resource. As he rode through the forest he rehearsed every scheme of counterplay and every method that made for conquest which his fertile brain had conceived. He would exercise every argument likely to appeal to the decent instincts of those ambitious of ranking as first-class citizens, as well as to the congenital selfishness of man, which could illuminate the darker recesses of their Clintonized understandings, and effect their legitimate conversion; then, if these higher 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 that in court, but never in good company before. You look as if considering a challenge to mortal combat."

Hamilton's brow cleared, and he laughed with that mercurial lightness which did more to preserve the balance of what otherwise would have been an overweighted mind than any other quality it possessed.

"Well, am I not to fight a duel?" he asked. "Would that I could call Clinton out and settle the question as easily as that. I disapprove of duelling, but so critical a moment as this would justify anything short of trickery. We'll leave that to Clinton; but although there is no vast difference between my political and my private conscience, there are recourses which are as fair in political as in martial warfare, and I should be found ingenuous and incapable did I fail to make use of them."

"Well, you love a fight," said Jay, without experiencing the humour of his remark. "I believe you would rather fight than sit down in good company at any time, and you are notoriously convivial. But easy conquest would demoralize you. If I do not mistake, you have the greatest battle of your career, past or present, immediately ahead of you--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 no mind to be tormented by any but his own. "Are we not alive? Are we not in health? Are not our intellectual powers at their ripest point of development? Can Clinton, Melancthon Smith, Yates, Lansing, Jones, make a 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-six against nineteen."

"We certainly are Right against the most unstatesman-like Selfishness the world has ever seen," observed Duane.

"Would that experience justified us in thinking well enough of the human race to gather courage from that fact," replied Hamilton. "It is to the self-interest of the majority we shall have to appeal. Convince them that there is neither career nor prosperity for them in an isolated State, and we may drag them up to a height which is safer than their mire, simply because it is better, or better because it is safer. This is a time to practice patriotism, but not to waste time talking about it."

"Your remarks savour of cynicism," replied Jay, "but I fear there is much truth in them. It is only in the millennium, I suppose, that we shall have the unthinkable happiness of seeing on all sides of us an absolute conformity to our ideals."

In spite of the close, if somewhat formal, friendship between Jay and Hamilton, the latter was often momentarily depressed by the resemblance of this flawless character to, and its rigid contrasts from, his dead friend Laurens. Jay was all that Laurens had passionately wished to be, and apparently without effort; for nature had not balanced him with a redeeming vice, consequently with no power to inspire hate or love. Had he been a degree greater, a trifle more ambitious, or had circumstances isolated him in politics, he would have been an even lonelier and loftier figure than Washington, for our Chief had one or two redeeming humanities; as it was, he stood to a few as a character so perfect that they marvelled, while they deplored his lack of personal influence. But his intellect is in the rank which stands just beneath that of the men of genius revealed by history, and he hangs like a silver star of the tropics upon the sometimes dubious fields of our ancestral heavens. Nevertheless, he frequently inspired Hamilton with so poignant a longing for Laurens that our impetuous hero was tempted to wish for an exchange of 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 irritants will be extinct; in any case we shall be happy, particularly if we have someone to hate."

"Ah, now you jest," said Duane, smiling. "For you are logical or nothing. _You_ may be happy when on the warpath, but the rest of us are not. 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. He answered lightly:--

"Someone to fight. Someone to love. Three warm friends. Three hot enemies. A sufficiency of delicate food and wine. A West Indian swimming-bath. Someone to talk to. Someone to make love to. War. Politics. Books. Song. Children. Woman. A religion. There you have the essence 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, above which other hills piled without an opening; and below lay the Hudson. As they paused upon the bare cone of the elevation, the river looked like a chain of Adirondack lakes, with dense and upright forests rising tier beyond tier until lost in the blue haze of the Catskills. The mountains looked as if they had pushed out from the mainland down to the water's edge to cross and meet each other. So close were the opposite crags that the travellers could see a deer leap through the brush, the red of his coat flashing through the gloomy depths. Below sped two packet-boats in a stiff breeze.

"Friends or enemies?" queried Livingston. "I wish I were with them, for I must confess the pleasures of horse travel for seventy-five miles must be the climax of a daily habit to be fully appreciated. It is all very well for Hamilton, who is on a horse twice every day; but as I am ten years older and proportionately stiffer, I shall leave patriotism to the rest of you for a day or two after our arrival."

Hamilton did not answer. He had become conscious of the delicate yet piercing scent of violets. Wild violets had no perfume, and it was long past their season. He glanced eagerly around, but without realizing what prompted a quick stirring of his pulses. There was but one tree on the crag, and he stood against it. Almost mechanically his glance sought its recesses, and his hand reached forward to something white. It was a small handkerchief of cambric and lace. The other men were staring at the scenery. He hastily glanced at the initials in the corner of the scented trifle, and wondered that he should so easily decipher a tangled E.C.C. But he marvelled, nevertheless, and thrust the handkerchief into his pocket.

They reached Poughkeepsie late in the afternoon. Main Street, which was the interruption of the post road, and East Street, which terminated the Dutchess turnpike, were gaily decorated with flags and greens, the windows and pavements crowded with people whose faces reflected the nervous excitement with which the whole country throbbed. The capital for ten years, the original village had spread over the hills into a rambling town of many avenues, straight and twisted, and there were pretentious houses and a certain amount of business. Hamilton and his party were stared at with deep curiosity, but not cheered, for the town was almost wholly Clintonian. The Governor had his official residence on the Dutchess turnpike, a short distance from town; and this was his court. Nevertheless, it was proudly conscious of the dignity incumbent upon it as the legislative centre of the State, and no matter what the suspense or the issue, had no mind to make the violent demonstrations of other towns. Nearly every town of the North, including Albany, had burned Hamilton in effigy, albeit with battered noses, for he had his followers 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, not far from the Court-house, to secure the rooms they had engaged; but finding an invitation awaiting them from Henry Livingston to make use of his house during the Convention, repaired with unmixed satisfaction to the large estate on the other side of the town. The host was absent, but his cousin had been requested to do the honours to as many as he would ask to share a peaceful retreat from the daily scene of strife.

"And it has the advantage of an assured privacy," said Hamilton. "For here 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 to Clinton."

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 uncomfortable lodgings, were deep in gloomy forebodings. As soon as they heard of their 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 belief in the man who was responsible for all the ideas they possessed.

VI

Although Hamilton and Clinton had no liking for each other, they were far from being the furious principals in one of those political hatreds which the times were about to engender,--an intellectual cataclysm which Hamilton was to experience in all its blackness, of which he was to be the most conspicuous victim. He had by no means plumbed his depths as yet. 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 he found perfect peace, abroad augmenting ranks of followers, sufficient work to use up his nervous energies, and the stimulant of enmity and opposition that he loved. It was long since he had given way to rage, although he flew into a temper occasionally. He told himself he was become a philosopher, and was far from suspecting the terrible passions which the future was to undam. His mother, with dying insight, had divined the depth and fury of a nature which was all light on the surface, and in its upper half a bewildering but harmonious intermingling of strength, energy, tenderness, indomitability, generosity, and intense emotionalism: a stratum so large and so generously endowed that no one else, least of all himself, had suspected that primeval inheritance which might blaze to ashes one of the most nicely balanced judgements ever bestowed on a mortal, should his enemies combine and beat his own great strength to the dust.

But when Hamilton and Clinton approached the Court-house from opposite directions, on the morning of the 17th, they did not cross the street to avoid meeting, although they bowed with extreme formality and measured each other with a keen and speculative regard. Clinton was now forty-nine years old, his autocratic will, love of power, and knowledge of men, in their contemptuous maturity. He was a large man, with the military bearing of the born and finished martinet, a long hard nose, and an irritated eye. The irritation kindled as it met Hamilton's, which was sparkling with the eager determination of a youth which, although desirable in itself, was become a presumption when pitted against those eighteen additional distinguished years of the Governor of New York. That there was a twinkle of amusement in the Federalist's eye was also to his discredit.

"The young fop," fumed Clinton, as he brushed a fleck of mud from his own magnificent costume of black ducape, "he is the _enfant gâté_ of politics, and I shall settle him here once for all. It will be a public benefaction."

The Court-house, which stood halfway up the hill, on the corner of Main and East streets, and was surrounded by the shade of many maples, was a two-story building of rough stones welded together by a ruder cement. The roof sloped, and above was a belfry. The Convention was held in the upper story, which was unbroken by partition; and with the windows open upon what looked to be a virgin forest, so many were the ancient trees remaining in the little town, the singing of birds, the shrilling of crickets, the murmur of the leaves in an almost constant breeze, the old Court-house of Poughkeepsie was by no means a disagreeable gathering-place. Moreover, it was as picturesque within as it was arcadian without; for the fine alert-looking men, with their powdered hair in queues, their elaborately cut clothes of many colours, made for the most part of the corded silk named ducape, their lawn and ruffles, made up the details of a charming picture, which was far from appealing to them, but which gives us a distinct pleasure in the retrospect.

Governor Clinton was elected the President of the Convention. On the right of the central table sat his forty-five henchmen, with Melancthon Smith, one of the most astute and brilliant debaters of the time, well to the front. Opposite sat Hamilton, surrounded by General Schuyler, Jay, Duane, and Robert Livingston, the rest of his small following close to the windows, but very alert, their gaze never ranging far from their leader. Beyond the bar crowded the invited guests, many of them women in all the finery of the time.

If the anti-Federalists had entertained the idea of an immediate and indefinite adjournment, they appear to have abandoned it without waste of time; perhaps because long and tedious journeys in midsummer were not to be played with; perhaps because they were sure of their strength; possibly because Clinton was so strongly in favour of arranging Hamilton's destinies once for all.

Certainly at the outset the prospects of the Federalists were almost ludicrous. The anti-Federalists were two-thirds against one-third, fortified against argument, uncompromisingly opposed to union at the expense of State sovereignty, clever and thinking men, most of them, devoted to Clinton, and admirably led by an orator who acknowledged no rival but Hamilton. The latter set his lips more than once, and his heart sank, but only to leap a moment later with delight in the mere test of strength.

Clinton's first move was to attempt a vote at once upon the Constitution as a whole, but he was beaten by Hamilton and many in his own ranks, who were in favour of the fair play of free debate. The Governor was forced to permit the Convention to go into a Committee of the Whole, which would argue the Constitution section by section. Hamilton had gained a great 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 speak almost daily for three weeks, receiving and repelling the brunt of every argument; and certainly Clinton had looked for no such feat.

The contest opened on the Clintonian side, with the argument that an amended Confederation was all that was necessary for the purposes of a more general welfare. The plan advanced was that Congress should be given the power to compel by force the payment of the requisitions which the States so often ignored. Hamilton demolished this proposition with one 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 more effective for following and preceding close passionless and pointed reasoning, a trenchant review of other republics ancient and modern, and an elaborate argument in favour of the representation prescribed by the new Constitution.

Hamilton was not only the most brilliant, resourceful, and unanswerable orator of his time, but he was gifted with an almost diabolical power over the emotions of men, which he did not hesitate to use. At this momentous assembly he kept them in exercise; when he chose, he made his audience weep; and the Clintonians weakened daily. Had not many years of trouble and anxiety made their emotions peculiarly susceptible, Hamilton would have attempted their agitation more sparingly; and had he been theatrical and rhetorical in his methods, he would have lost his control of them long before the end of the session. But he rarely indulged in a trope 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 for three weeks: for he took the Constitution to pieces bit by bit, and compelled 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 that while they listened they were willing to swear it was more beautiful than the Bible, but the torrent of his eloquence, never confusing, so sharp was every feature of the Constitution to his own mind, the magic of his personality, and his intense humanity in treating the driest sections of the document, so bewitched his audience that, even when he talked for six hours without pausing on the subject of taxation, perhaps the 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 with a warm unconscious smile while he demolished bit by bit one of Melancthon Smith's clever arguments, in a manner so courteous that even his victim could only shrug his shoulders, although he cursed him roundly afterward. Then, when his audience least expected an assault, he would treat them to a burst of scorn that made them hitch their chairs and glance uneasily at each other, or to a picture of future misery which reduced them to pulp.

Clinton was infuriated. Even he often leaned forward, forgetting his own selfish ambitions when Hamilton's thrilling voice poured forth a rapid appeal to the passions of his hearers; but he quickly resumed the perpendicular, and set his lips to imprison a scarlet comment. He saw that his men were weakening, and as much to the luminous expounding of the Constitution, to the logic of the orator, as to a truly satanic eloquence and charm. He held long private sessions at his mansion on the turnpike, where he was assisted by much material argument. But even Melancthon Smith, who distinguished himself in almost daily debate, acknowledged more than once that Hamilton had convinced him; and others asserted, with depression, that their minds, which they had supposed to be their own,--or Clinton's,--seemed to be in a process of remaking.

After all, for the most part, they were sincere and earnest; and although it is difficult for us of the present day to comprehend that enlightened men ever could have been so mad as to believe that the country would prosper without union, that a mere State should have been thought to be of greater importance than a Nation, or that a democratic constitution, which permits us to coddle anarchists in our midst, and the lower orders to menace the liberties of the upper, was ever an object of terror to men of bitter republican ideals, yet the historic facts confront us, and we wonder, when reading the astonishing arguments of that long and hard-fought contest, if Hamilton's constitution, had it passed the Great Convention, would not have ratified with a no more determined opposition.

Melancthon Smith was one of the brightest and most conspicuous men of his time, but his name is forgotten to-day. He was sincere; he was, in his way, patriotic; he was a clever and eloquent orator. Moreover, he was generous and manly enough to admit himself beaten, as the sequel will show. To insure greatness, must the gift of long foreknowledge be added to brilliant parts and an honest character? If this be the essential, no wonder Melancthon Smith is forgotten. We have him asserting that in a country where a portion of the people live more than twelve hundred miles from the centre, one body cannot legislate for the whole. He apprehends the abolition of the State constitutions by a species of under-mining, predicts their immediate dwindling into insignificance before the comprehensive and dangerous power vested in Congress. He believes that all rich men are vicious and intemperate, and sees nothing but despotism and disaster in the Federal Constitution.

But, like most of the speakers of that day, he was trenchant and unadorned, so that his speeches are as easy reading as they must have been agreeable to hear. It is a curious fact that the best speakers of to-day resemble our forefathers in this respect of trenchant simplicity. Mediocrity for half a century has ranted on the stump, and given foreigners a false impression of American oratory. Those who indulge in what may be called the open-air metaphor, so intoxicating is our climate, may find consolation in this flight of Mr. Gilbert Livingston, who had not their excuse; for the Court-house of Poughkeepsie was hot and crowded. He is declaiming against the senatorial aristocrats lurking in the proposed Constitution. "What," he cries, "what will be their situation in a Federal town? Hallowed ground! Nothing so unclean as State laws to enter there, surrounded as they will be by an impenetrable wall of adamant and gold, the wealth of the whole country flowing into it!" "_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 of our ancestors comes down to us.

Hamilton's speech, in which he as effectually disposed of every argument against the Senate as Roger Sherman had done in the Great Convention, is too long to be quoted; but it is as well to give the precise words in which 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 to strain 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, hoping to meet an express messenger with a letter from Madison, or with the good tidings that New Hampshire had ratified. Madison wrote every few days, sometimes hopefully, sometimes in gloom, especially if he were not feeling well. Each letter was from ten to twelve days old, and it seemed to Hamilton sometimes that he should burst with impatience and anxiety. On the 24th of June, as he was standing in the belfry while Chancellor Livingston rained his sarcasms, he thought he saw an object moving rapidly down the white ribbon which cut the forest from the East. In five minutes he was on his horse and the Dutchess turnpike. The object proved to be the messenger from Rufus King, and the letter which Hamilton opened then and there contained the news of the adoption of the Constitution by New Hampshire.

There was now a Nation, and nine States would be governed by the new laws, whether New York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Rhode Island sulked unprotected in the out-skirts, or gracefully entered the league before dragged in or driven. It was a glittering and two-edged weapon for Hamilton, and he flashed it in the faces of the anti-Federalists until they were well-nigh blinded. Nevertheless, he did not for a moment underrate Clinton's great strength, and he longed desperately for good news from Virginia, believing that the entrance of that important State into the Union would have more influence upon the opposition than all the arts of which he was master.

VII

And through it all Hamilton was sensible that someone was working for him, and was not long attributing the influence to its proper source. Mysterious hints were dropped of political reunions in a house on a thickly wooded hill, a quarter of a mile behind the Governor's, the fortunate guests to which enchanted abode being sworn to secrecy. That it was the nightly resort of Clintonians was an open secret, but that Federalism was being intelligently interpreted, albeit with deepest subtlety, was guessed by few of the visitors themselves, and Hamilton divined rather than heard it. If converts were not actually made, they were at least undergoing a process of education which would make them the more susceptible to Hamilton's final effort. Even before he caught a glimpse of radiant hair among the maples, when riding one day along the lane at the foot of the hill, he suspected that Mrs. Croix had preceded the Convention with the deliberate intention of giving him the precious assistance of a woman with a talent for politics and a genius for men. He was touched, interested, intrigued, but he resisted the temptation to precipitate himself into the eddies of her magnetism. Croix was in England, but even before his departure, which among men was regarded as final, she had achieved a reputation as a lady of erratic impulse and imperious habit. That she was also the most brilliant and fascinating woman in America, as well as the most beautiful, were facts as publicly established. Hamilton had resisted the temptation to meet her, the temptation receiving no help from indifference on the part of the lady; he had answered more than one note of admirable deftness. But he had no intention of being drawn into an intrigue which would be public gossip in a day and ruin the happiness of his wife. To expect a man of Hamilton's order of genius to keep faith with one woman for a lifetime would be as reasonable as to look for such genius without the transcendent passions which are its furnace; but he was far from being a man who sought adventure. Under certain conditions his horizon abruptly contracted, and life was dual and isolated; but when the opportunity had passed he dismissed its memory with contrite philosophy, and was so charming to Betsey that he persuaded himself, as her, that he wished never to behold the face of another woman. Nor did he--overwhelming temptation being absent: he was the most driven man in the United States, with no time to run about after women, had such been his proclivity; and his romantic temperament, having found high satisfaction in his courtship and marriage with one of the most bewitching and notable girls in America, was smothered under a mountain of work and domestic bliss. So, although well aware that his will must perish at times in the blaze of his passions, he was iron against the temptation that held itself sufficiently aloof. To an extreme point he was master of himself. He knew that it would be no whirlwind and forgetting with this mysterious woman, who had set the town talking, and yet whose social talents were so remarkable that she managed women as deftly as she did men, and was a welcome guest in many of the most exclusive houses in New York; the men were careful to do none of their gossiping at home, and the women, although they criticised, and vowed themselves scandalized, succumbed to her royal command of homage and her air of proud invincibility. That she loved him, he had reason to know, and although he regarded it as a young woman's romantic passion for a public man focussing the attention of the country, and whom, from pressure of affairs, it was almost impossible to meet, still the passion existed, and, considering her beauty and talents, was too likely to communicate itself to the object, were he rash enough to create the opportunity. Hamilton's morals were the morals of his day,--a day when aristocrats were libertines, receiving as little censure from society as from their own consciences. His Scotch foundations had religious shoots in their grassy crevices, but religion in a great mind like Hamilton's is an emotional incident, one of several passions which act independently of each other. He avoided temptation, not because he desired to shun a torment of conscience or an accounting with his Almighty,--to Whom he was devoted,--but because he was satisfied with the woman he had married and would have sacrificed his ambitions rather than deliberately cause her unhappiness. Had she been jealous and eloquent, it is more than probable that his haughty intolerance of restraint would have driven him to assert the pleasure of his will, but she was only amused at his occasional divagations, and had no thought of looking for meanings which might terrify her. He was quite conscious of his good fortune and too well balanced to risk its loss. So Mrs. Croix might be driven to rest her hopes on a trick of chance or a _coup de théâtre_. But she was a very clever woman; and she was not unlike Hamilton in a quite phenomenal precocity, and in the torrential nature of her passions.

Having a considerable knowledge of women and some of Mrs. Croix, he inferred that sooner or later she would cease to conceal the light of her endeavour. Nevertheless, he was taken aback to receive one day a parcel, which, in the seclusion of his room, he found to contain a dainty scented handkerchief, the counterpart of the one hidden in the tree by the post road.

"Can she have put it there on purpose?" he thought. "Did she take for granted that I would pause to admire the scenery, and that I would recognize the perfume of her violets? Gad! she's deeper than I thought if 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 Hamilton hastily retreated with it to the privacy of his room. His horse awaited him, but he read the epistle no less than four times. Once he moved uneasily, and once he put his hand to his neck as if he felt a silken halter. He smiled, but his face flushed deeply. Her bait, her veiled threat, affected him little. But all that was unsaid pulled him like a powerful magnet. He struggled for fully twenty minutes with the temptation to ride to that paradise on the hill as fast as his horse would carry him. But although he usually got into mischief when absent from Betsey, contradictorily he was fonder of his wife when she was remote; moreover, her helplessness appealed to him, and he rejected the idea of deliberate disloyalty, even while his pulses hammered and the spirit of romance within him moved turbulently in its long sleep. He glanced out of the window. Beyond the tree-tops gleamed the river; above were the hills, with their woods and grassy intervals. It was an exquisite country, green and primeval; a moderate summer, the air warm but 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, then scrawled a few hasty lines, as if he had found just a moment in which to read her letter, but thanking her warmly for her interest and information; ending with a somewhat conscience-stricken hope for the instructive delight of her personal acquaintance when he should find the leisure to be alive once more. So rested the matter for a time.

VIII

That afternoon the very memory of Eliza Croix fled before a mounted messenger, who came tearing into town with word of Virginia's ratification, of the great excitement in the cities of Richmond, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York, the processions in honour of this important conquest. There were tales also of fray and bloodshed, in which the Federals had retained the field; but, on the whole, the country seemed wild with delight.

But although this news did not produce the visible effect upon the opposition for which Hamilton had hoped, the anti-Federalist leaders were as fearful of hurrying the matter to the final vote as the Constitutionalists. Clinton stood like a rock, but he feared defections at the last moment, was conscious that his dominance over the minds of the men who had come to the Convention believing implicitly in his doctrine that union was unnecessary, concurring in his abhorrence of the new Constitution, was snapping daily, as Hamilton's arguments and acute logic fermented in their clarifying brains. Many began to avoid their chief. They talked in knots by themselves. They walked the forest roads alone for hours, deep in thought. It was evident that Hamilton had liberated their understandings from one autocrat, whether he had brought them under his own despotic will or not.

There was no speaking, and little or no business for several days. A few more amendments would be suggested, then an adjournment. It was like the lull of the hurricane, when nervous people sit in the very centre of the storm, awaiting the terrors of its final assault.

Hamilton had much leisure for several days, but he was too deeply anxious to give more than a passing thought to Mrs. Croix, although he was grateful for the help he knew she was rendering him. "If we were Turks," he thought once, "she would be an invaluable member of a harem. She never could fill my domestic needs, which are capacious; most certainly I should never, at any time, have chosen her for the mother of my children; but as an intellectual and political partner, as a confidante and counsellor, she would appeal to me very keenly. I talk to Betsey, dear child, because I must talk, because I have an egotistical craving for response, but I must bore her very often, and I am not conscious of ever having received a suggestion from her--however, God knows I am grateful for her sympathy. As the children grow older I shall have less and less of her; already I appreciate the difference. She will always have the core of my soul and the fealty of my heart, but it is rather a pity that man should be given so many sides with their corresponding demands, if no one woman is to be found able to respond to all. As for this remarkable creature, I could imagine myself in a state of mad infatuation, and seeking her constantly for the delight of mental companionship besides; but the highest and best, if I have them--oh, no! Perhaps the Turks are wiser than we, after all, for their wives suffer only from jealousy, while--most men being Turks on one plan or another--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 desperate battle. The oppositionists had brought forward a new form of conditional ratification, with a bill of rights prefixed, and amendments subjoined. This, it would seem, was their proudest achievement, and, in a long and adroit speech, Melancthon Smith announced it as their final decision. That was at midday. Hamilton rose at once, and in one of the most brilliant and comprehensive speeches he had yet made, demonstrated the absurdity of conditional ratification, or the power of Congress to indorse it. It was a close, legal, and constitutional argument, and with the retorts of the anti-Federalists occupied two days, during which Hamilton stood most of the time, alert, resourceful, master of every point of the vast subject, to which he gave an almost embarrassing simplicity. On the third day occurred his first signal triumph and the confounding of Clinton: Melancthon Smith stood up and admitted that Hamilton had convinced him of the impossibility of conditional ratification. Lansing immediately offered as a substitute for the motion withdrawn, another, by which the State ratify but reserve to itself the right to secede after a certain number of years, unless the amendments proposed should previously be submitted to a general convention.

Adjournment followed, and Hamilton and his leaders held a long consultation at the Livingston mansion, as a result of which he wrote that night to Madison, now in New York, asking his advice as to the sort of ratification proposed by the enemy. It was a course he by no means approved, but it seemed the less of two evils; for if, by hook or crook, the Constitution could be forced through, the good government which would ensue was bound to break up the party of the opposition. He had a trump, but he hesitated to resort to a coercion so high-handed and arbitrary. His supposed monarchical aspirations were hurled at him daily, and he must proceed with the utmost caution, lest his future usefulness 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 his letter arrived Hamilton and Smith had had another hot debate, at the end of which the anti-Federalist leader declared himself wholly beaten, and announced his intention to vote for the unconditional acceptance of the Constitution.

But although there was consternation in the ranks of the anti-Federalists at this momentous defection, Clinton stood like an old lion at bay, with his other leaders behind him, his wavering ranks still coherent under his practised manipulation. For several days more the battle raged, and on the night before what promised to be the day of the final 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 warmly than had been his habit. His friends were deep in gloomy prognostications, for it was impossible to delay twenty-four hours longer. He had made converts, but not enough to secure a majority; and his followers did not conceive that even he could put forth an effort more convincing or more splendid than many of his previous achievements. In consequence, his susceptible nature had experienced a chill, for he was Gallic enough to compass greater things under the stimulus of encouragement and prospective success; but this unquestioning belief in him by a woman for whose mind he was beginning to experience a profound admiration, sent his quicksilver up to a point where he felt capable of all things. She had scored one point for herself. He felt that it would be unpardonable longer to accept such favours as she showered upon him unsought, and make no acknowledgment beyond a civil note: he expressed his 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 her lodgings and take Troup or Morris with me. Morris will doubtless abduct her, 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 crowding close to the walls, that they might catch a ringing phrase now and again. By this time they all knew Hamilton's voice, and they confessed to a preference for his lucid precision. In front of the Court-house, under a tree, an express messenger sat beside his horse, saddled for a wild dash to New York with the tidings. The excitement seemed the more intense for the heat of the day, which half suppressed it, and all longed 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 when fervescent, was unusually aggressive. Beyond the bar men and women stood; there was no room for chairs, nor for half that desired admittance. In the very front stood the only woman whose superb physique carried her through that trying day without smelling-salts or a friendly shoulder. 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 patrician profile. Her figure was long, slender, and voluptuous. Every man within the bar offered her his chair, but she refused to sit while other women stood; and few were the regrets at the more ample display of her loveliness.

Hamilton and Lansing debated with a lively exchange of acrimonious wit. Smith spoke in behalf of the Constitution. Then Hamilton rose for what all felt was to be a grand final effort, and even his friends experienced an almost intolerable excitement. On the other side men trembled visibly with apprehension, not so much in fear of the result as of the assault upon their nervous systems. They hardly could have felt worse if on their way to execution, but not a man left his seat; the fascination was too strong to induce even a desire to avoid it.

Hamilton began dispassionately enough. He went over the whole Constitution rapidly, yet in so emphatic a manner as to accomplish the intelligent subservience of his audience. Then, with the unexaggerated eloquence of which he was so consummate a master, he pictured the beauty, the happiness, the wealth of the United States under the new Constitution; of the peace and prosperity of half a million homes; of the uninterrupted industry of her great cities, their ramifications to countless hamlets; of the good-will and honour of Europe; of a vast international trade; of a restored credit at home and abroad, which should lift the heavy clouds from the future of every ambitious man in the Republic; of a peace between the States which would tend to the elevation of the American character, as the bitter, petty, warring, and perpetual jealousies had incontestably lowered it; of, for the beginning of their experiment, at least eight years of harmony under George Washington.

He spoke for two hours in the glowing terms of a prophecy and an optimism so alluring, that load after load seemed to roll from the burdened minds opposite, although Clinton snorted as if about to thrust down his head and paw the earth. When Hamilton had made his hearers thoroughly drunk with dreams of an ecstatic future, he advanced upon them suddenly, and, without a word of warning transition, poured upon them so terrible a picture of the consequences of their refusal to enter the Union, that for the first few moments they were ready to leap upon him and wrench him apart. The assault was terrific, and he plunged on remorselessly. He sketched the miseries of the past eleven years, the poverty, the dangers, the dishonour, and then by the most precise and logical deduction presented a future which, by the commonest natural and social laws, must, without the protection of a high and central power, be the hideous finish. The twilight came; the evening breeze was rustling through the trees and across the sultry room. As Hamilton had calculated, the moment came when he had his grip on the very roots of the enemy's nerves. Chests were rising, handkerchiefs appearing. Women fainted. Clinton blew his nose with such terrific force that the messenger below scrambled to his feet. Hamilton waited during a breathless moment, then charged down upon them.

"Now listen, gentlemen," he said. "No one so much as I wishes that this Constitution be ratified to the honour of the State of New York; but upon this I have determined: that the enlightened and patriotic minority shall not suffer for the selfishness and obstinacy of the majority. I therefore announce to you plainly, gentlemen, that if you do not ratify this Constitution, with no further talk of impossible amendments and conditions, that Manhattan Island, Westchester, and Kings counties shall secede from the State of New York and form a State by themselves, leaving the rest of your State without a seaport, too contemptible to make treaties, with only a small and possibly rebellious militia to protect her northern boundaries from the certain rapacity of Great Britain, with the scorn and dislike of the Union, and with no hope of assistance from the Federal Government, which is assured, remember, no matter what her straits. That is all."

It was enough. He had won the day. The Constitution was ratified without further parley.

X

Hamilton reëntered New York to the blaze of bonfires, the salute of cannon, and the deafening shouts of a multitude that escorted him to his doorway. Betsey was so proud of him she hardly could speak for a day, and his library was flooded with letters of congratulation from all parts of the Union. For several days he shut himself up with his family and a few friends, for he needed the rest; and the relaxation was paradisal. He played marbles and spun tops with his oldest boys, and dressed and undressed Angelica's doll as often as his imperious daughter commanded. Troup and Fish, now the dignified Adjutant-General of State, with his bang grown long and his hair brushed back, spent hours with him in the heavy shades of the garden, or tormenting a monkey on the other side of the fence. Madison came at once to wrangle with him over the temporary seat of government, and demanded the spare bedroom, protesting he had too much to say to waste time travelling back and forth. He was a welcome guest; and he, too, sat on the floor and dressed Angelica's doll.

The city was _en fête_, and little business was transacted except at the public houses. Bands of citizens awoke Hamilton from his sleep, shouting for "Alexander the Great." Anti-Federalists got so drunk that they embraced the Federalists, and sang on Hamilton's doorstep. The hero retreated to the back room on the top floor. The climax came on the 5th of August, in the great procession, with which, after the fashion of other triumphant cities, New York was to demonstrate in honour of the victory of the Constitution.

But, unlike its predecessors, this procession was as much in honour of one man as of the triumph of a great principle. To have persuaded New York, at that time, that Hamilton had not written the Constitution, and secured its ratification in the eleven States of the Union by his unaided efforts, would have been a dissipation of energy in August which even Clinton would not have attempted. To them Hamilton was the Constitution, Federalism, the genius of the new United States. And he was their very own. "Virginia has her Madison," they reiterated, "Massachusetts her Adamses--and may she keep them and be damned; other States may think they have produced a giant, and those that do not can fall back on Washington; but Hamilton is ours, we adore him, we are so proud of him we are like to burst, and we can never express our gratitude, try as we may; so we'll show him an honour that no other State has thought of showing to any particular man."

And of the sixth of New York's thirty thousand inhabitants that turned out on that blazing August day and marched for hours, that all the eager city might see, at least two-thirds bore a banner emblazoned with Hamilton's portrait or name, held on high. The procession was accompanied by a military escort; and every profession, every trade, was represented. A large proportion of the men who marched were gentlemen. Nicolas Fish was on the staff of the grand marshal, with six of his friends. Robert Troup and two other prominent lawyers bore, on a cushion, 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 displayed the wonders of the newly perfected threshing-machine. John Watts, a man who had grown gray in the highest offices of New York, before and since the Revolution, guided a harrow, drawn by horses and oxen. The president, regents, professors, and students of Columbia College, all in academic dress, were followed by the Chamber of Commerce and the members of the bar. The many societies, led by the Cincinnati, followed, each bearing 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 the great Federal ship, with HAMILTON, HAMILTON, HAMILTON, HAMILTON, emblazoned on every side of it. In the memory of the youngest present there was to be but one other procession in New York so imposing, and that, too, was in honour of Hamilton.

He stood on a balcony in the Broadway, with his family, Madison, Baron Steuben, and the Schuylers, bowing constantly to the salutes and cheers. Nicolas Cruger looked up and grinned. Fish winked decorously, and Troup attempted a salaam, and nearly dropped the Constitution. But Hamilton's mind served him a trick for a moment; the vivid procession, with his face and name fluttering above five thousand heads, the compact mass of spectators, proud and humble, that crowded the pavements and waved their handkerchiefs toward him, the patriotically decorated windows filled with eager, often beautiful, faces, disappeared, and he stood in front of Cruger's store on Bay Street, with his hands in his linen pockets, gazing out over a blinding glare of water, passionately wishing for the war-ship which never came, to deliver him from his Island prison and carry him to the gates of the real world beyond. He had been an ambitious boy, but nothing in his imaginings had projected him to the dizzy eminence on which he stood to-day. He was recalled by the salute of the Federal ship's thirteen guns to the president of the Congress and its members, who stood on the fort in the Battery.

After all, perhaps it was the proudest and the happiest day of his career, for the depths in his nature still slumbered, the triumph was without alloy; and he knew that there were other heights to scale, and that he should scale them. It was the magnificent and spontaneous tribute of an intelligent people to an enlightened patriotism, to years of severe and unselfish thought; and hardly an enemy grudged him his deserts. The wild feeling of exultant triumph which surged behind his smiling face receded before the rising swell of the profoundest gratitude he had ever known.

The day finished with a great banquet at Mr. Bayard's country-seat, near Grand Street, where tables were spread for six thousand persons, in a pavilion surmounted by an image of Fame, and decorated with the colours of 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 a Federal 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 from the coming elections to the proper seat for the new government, and his duties as a member of Congress pressing, but Edward Stevens, now established as a doctor in Philadelphia, paid him a visit of a week, and they talked the night through of St. Croix and old times. One of the pleasantest results of these years of supremacy was the unqualified delight of his Island friends. Hugh Knox was so proud of him, and of himself and the debt which Hamilton acknowledged, that he wrote explosive reams describing the breathless interest of St. Croix in his career, and of the distinguished gatherings at the Governor's when he arrived with one of their lost citizen's infrequent epistles. Mrs. Mitchell, poor soul, wrote pathetically that she would no longer regret his loss could she love him less. Hamilton wrote to her as often as he could find the time, and Betsey selected a present for her several times a year. Gratitude is the privilege of a great soul, and Hamilton had a full measure of it. Even his father and brother wrote occasionally, respectfully, if with no great warmth; and if their congratulations were usually accompanied by the experimental sigh of poverty, Hamilton was glad 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 to himself the pressure of work, which was submerging; but while he reproached himself for ingratitude, he knew that he dreaded the meeting: the old spirit of adventure within him, long quiescent, tapped alluringly on the doors of his prudence. That she did not write again, even to congratulate him as other friends had done, but added to his discomfort, for he knew that her pride was now in arms, and that she must be deeply wounded. He heard of her constantly, and at the procession in his honour he had seen her, leaning on the arm of General Knox, a dazzling, but angelic vision in blue and white, at which even the bakers, wig-makers, foresters, tanners, and printers had turned to stare. One of the latter had leaped down from the moving platform on which he was printing a poem of occasion by William Duer, and begged her on his knee to deign to receive a copy. She held weekly receptions, which were attended by two-thirds of the leading men in town, and Hamilton's intimate friends discoursed of her constantly. Croix was supposed to have been seized with a passion for travelling in savage jungles, and it was the general belief that his death would be announced as soon as the lady should find it convenient to go into mourning. It was plain to the charitable that he had left her with plenty of money, for she dressed like the princess she looked, and her entertainments lacked no material attraction. The gossip was more furious than ever, but the most assiduous scandal-monger could connect no one man with her name, nor trace her income to other than its reputed source. More than once Hamilton had passed her coach, and she had bowed gravely, with neither challenge nor reproach in her sweet haughty eyes. After these quick passings Hamilton usually gave her a few moments of intense thought. He marvelled at her curious intimate knowledge of him, not only of the less known episodes of his career, but of more than one of his mental processes. It is true, she might have led Troup or Fish into gossip and analysis, but her sympathy counted heavily. She drew him by many strings, and sometimes the response thrilled him unbearably. He felt like a man who stood outside the gates of Paradise, bolting them fast. Still, he could quite forget her in his work; and it is probable that but for chance he never would have met her, that one of the greatest disasters in history would have been averted.

Betsey, who had not been well for some time, went to the northern forests of her old home to strive for "spring" and colour. She took the children with her, and Hamilton, who hated to live alone, filled his deserted rooms with Troup, Fish, and Baron Steuben, whose claims he had been pressing upon Congress for years, practically supporting him meanwhile. The old soldier felt keenly the ingratitude of the country he had served, but in time it made him ample compensation; meanwhile the devotion of a few friends, and the lionizing of society, helped him to bear his lot with considerable fortitude. He spent hours in the nursery of the little Hamiltons, and was frequently seen in the Broadway with one in his arms and the other three attached to his person.

All the talk was of Washington and the first administration, Hamilton having carried his point in Congress that New York should be the temporary seat of government; there was jealousy and wrangling over this, as over most other matters involving state pride, but Hamilton believed that should the prize fall to Philadelphia, she would not relinquish it as lightly as New York, which geographically was the more unfit for a permanent gathering, and that the inconvenience to which most 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 central and commonly agreeable locality,--one, moreover, which would not meet with the violent opposition of New York. Madison, who had been in favour of Philadelphia, finally acknowledged Hamilton's sagacity and gave him his influence and vote.

That point settled, all eyes were turned to Mount Vernon. The masses took for granted that Washington would respond to every call of duty the public chose to make, and it was inconceivable that anyone else should fill the first term of that great executive experiment. The universal confidence in Washington and belief that he was to guide the Constitution over the more critical of its shoals, had operated more than any other factor in the ratification of that adventurous instrument. It was a point upon which Hamilton had harped continually. That a whole country should turn, as a matter of course, to a man whom they revered for his virtues rather than for any brilliant parts he may have effectually hidden within his cold and silent exterior, their harmonious choice unbroken by an argument against the safety and dignity of the country in the hands of such a man, certainly is a manifest of the same elevation of tone that we infer from the great popularity of the writings of Hamilton and the deference to such men as Jay and Philip Schuyler. But although they had all the faults of human nature, our forefathers, and were often selfish and jealous to a degree that imperilled the country, at least they had the excuse, not only of being mere mortals, but of living in an era of such changes, uncertainty, and doubt, that public and private interests seemed hopelessly tangled. They were not debased by political corruption until Jefferson took them in hand, and sowed the bountiful crop which has fattened so vast and so curious a variation upon the original American.

The Federal leaders by no means shared the confidence of the people in Washington's response to their call, and they were deeply uneasy. They knew that he had been bombarded with letters for a year, urging upon him the acceptance of the great office which would surely be offered him, and that he had replied cautiously to each that he could not share their opinion of his indispensability, that he had earned the repose he loved after a lifetime spent in the service of his country, and had no desire to return to public life. Hamilton, at least, knew the motive that lay behind his evasion; without ambition, he was very jealous of his fame. That fame now was not only one of the most resplendent in history, but as unassailable as it was isolated. He feared the untried field in which he might fail.

One evening, late in September, as Hamilton and his temporary household were entering the dining room, Gouverneur Morris drove down Wall Street in his usual reckless fashion, scattering dogs and children, and pulling his nervous sweating horses almost to their haunches, as he reached Hamilton's door. As he entered the house, however, and received the enthusiastic welcome to which he was accustomed, his bearing was as unruffled as if he had walked down from Morrisania reading a breviary.

"I grow desperately lonely and bored out on my ancestral domain, and long for the glare and glitter, the intrigues and women, of Europe--our educated ones are so virtuous, and the others write such shockingly ungrammatical notes," he announced, as he took his seat at the board. "Educated virtue is beneficial for the country, but we will all admit that politics are our only excitement, and my blood dances when I think of Europe. However, I did not come tearing through the woods on a hot night to lament the virtue of the American woman. I've written to Washington, and he won't listen to me. We all know how many others have written, including Lafayette, I hear. And we all know what the consequences will be if--say John or Sam Adams, Hancock, or Clinton should be our first president. I long for Paris, but I cannot leave the country while she is threatened with as grave a peril as any that has beset her. Would that he had a grain of ambition--of anything that a performer upon the various chords of human nature could impress. I suppose if he were not so desperately perfect, we should not be in the quandary we are, but he would be far easier to manage. As I awoke from my siesta just two hours ago, my brain was illuminated by the idea that one man alone could persuade him; and that was Alexander Hamilton. He likes us, but he loves you. If he has a weak spot, it has yearned over you since you were our infant prodigy in uniform, with your curls in your 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 must write to him as peremptorily as only you dare to write to that majestic presence. Don't mince it. Don't be too respectful--I was, because he is the one being I am afraid of. So are all the others. Besides, you have the most powerful and pointed pen in this country. We have spoiled you until you are afraid of no one--if you ever were. And you know him as no one else does; you will approach him from precisely the right sides. Your duty is clear, and the danger is appalling. Besides, I want to go to Europe. Promise me that you will write to-night."

"Very well," said Hamilton, laughing. "I promise." And, in truth, his mind had opened at once to the certainty that the time was come for him to 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 mountain of work; but his skin chilled as he contemplated the opening of the new government without Washington in the presidential Chair.

Two hours after dinner Morris escorted him to the library and shut him in, then went, with his other friends, to Fraunces' tavern, and the house was quiet. Hamilton's thoughts arranged themselves rapidly, and before midnight he had finished his letter. Fortunately it has been preserved, for it is of as vital an interest as anything he ever wrote, not only because it was the determining factor in Washington's acceptance of an office toward which he looked with reluctance and dread, but because of its consummate sagacity and of its peremptory tone, which no man but Hamilton would have dared to assume to Washington.

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 the post-office himself. The night was hot and his head was throbbing: he had worked, dined, wined, talked, and written, since eight in the morning, 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 off for a stroll along the river front, and walked for two miles up the quiet road on the east side, listening to the lap of the water, and pausing to watch the superb effect of the moonlight on the bright ripples and on the wooded heights of Long Island. The little village of Brooklyn twinkled here and there for a time, then lay like a sombre shadow in the silences of her forest. As he returned, there was not a light anywhere, except now and again at a masthead, for it was very late. The clock in Trinity steeple struck one as he reëntered the town. He moved through the narrow dark and crooked streets with a lagging step, although he had walked briskly for the past hour. There seemed to be 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 letter to-night that may bridge this country over another crisis, and I should be sleeping the sleep of the self-sufficient statesman, or at least excogitating upon weighty matters; and for the last hour I've given no thought to anything but an unknown woman, who has electrified my imagination and my passions. Is there, perhaps, more safety in meeting her and laying the ghost? Imagination plays us such damnable tricks. She may have a raucous voice, or too sharp a wit; or she may love another by this. I'll ask Nick to take me there to-morrow."

The drawing-room windows of the dwellings were but a few feet above the ground, and many of them abutted on the pavement. The narrow street was almost dark, in spite of the moonlight, but Hamilton saw that some one sat at a lower window but a few feet ahead of him. It was a woman, for her arm hung over the sill There was nothing to arrest his attention in the circumstance, beyond the vague beauty of the arm and hand, for on these dog nights many sat at their windows until the chill of early morning; but he suddenly remembered that he was in Pearl Street. For a moment he meditated retreat; with no enthusiasm, however. He shrugged his shoulders and walked on, but his breath was short. As he approached he could see that she was watching him, although her face was almost invisible. He paused beneath the window, half in defiance, his eyes striving to pierce the heavy shade of the room. The hand closed abruptly about the lower part of his face. It trembled, but there was as much determination as warmth in the finger tips; and he seemed to have been transported suddenly to a field of violets.

XIII

"Nick," said Hamilton, a few evenings later as they were peeling walnuts, "This is the night on which Mrs. Croix receives, is it not? Do you attend? I will go with you. The lady has kindly been at pains to let me know that I shall not be unwelcome."

Troup pushed back his plate abruptly, and Baron Steuben burst into a panegyric. Fish replied that he had not intended to go, but should change his mind for the sake of the sensation he must create with such a lion in tow. He left the table shortly after, to dress, followed by Steuben, who announced his intention to make one of the party. The host and Troup were left alone.

"What is the matter?" asked Hamilton, smiling. "I see you disapprove of something. Surely you have not lost your heart--"

"Nonsense," exclaimed Troup, roughly, "but I have always hoped you would never meet her."

"_Have_ you?"

"If you want to know the truth she has pumped me dry about you. She did it so adroitly that it was some time before I discovered what she was up to. At first I wondered if she were a spy, and I changed my first mind to avoid her, determined to get to the bottom of her motives. I soon made up my mind that she was in love with you, and then I began to tremble, for she is not only a very witch of fascination, but she has about forty times more power of loving, or whatever she chooses to call it, than most women, and every mental attraction and fastidious refinement, besides. There is not a good woman in the country that could hold her own against her. I have no wish to slander her, and have never discussed her before; but my instincts are strong enough to teach me that a woman whose whole exterior being is a promise, will be driven by the springs of that promise to redeem her pledges. And the talk of you banishes all that regal calm from her face and lets the rest loose. I suppose I am a fool to tell you this, but I've been haunted by the idea from the first that if you know this woman, disaster will come of it. I do not mean any old woman's presentiment, but from what I know of her nature and yours. You do astonishingly few erratic things for a genius, but in certain conditions you are unbridled, and my only hope has been that the lightning in you would strike at random without doing much harm--to you, at all events. But this volcano has a brain in it, and great force of character. She will either consume you, ruining your career, or if you attempt to leave her she will find some way to ruin you still. God knows I'm no moralist, but I am jealous for your genius and 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 point of his knife. He made no attempt to laugh off Troup's attack, Troup watched him until he turned pale himself. "You have met her," he said abruptly.

Hamilton rose and pushed back his chair. "I promise you one thing," he said: "that if I happen to lose my nethermost to Mrs. Croix, the world shall never be the wiser. That I explicitly promise you. I dislike extremely the position in which I put the lady by these words, but you will admit that they mean nothing, that I am but striving to allay your fears--which I know to be genuine. She will probably flout me. I shall probably detest her conversation. But should the contrary happen, should she be what you suspect, and should a part of my nature which has never been completely accommodated, annihilate a resistance of many months, at least you have my assurance that worse shall not happen."

Troup groaned. "You have so many sides to satisfy! Would that you could have your truly phenomenal versatility of mind with a sweet simplicity of character. But we are not in the millennium. And as you have not the customary failings of genius,--ingratitude, morbidity, a disposition to prevaricate, a lack of common-sense, selfishness, and irresponsibility,--it is easy for us to forgive you the one inevitable weakness. Come to me if you get into trouble. She'd have no mercy at my hands. I'd wring her neck."

Many people were at their country-seats, but politics kept a number of men in town, and for this political and wholly masculine _salon_ of Mrs. Croix, Gouverneur Morris drove down from Morrisania, Robert Livingston from Clermont; Governor Clinton had made it convenient to remain a day longer in New York. Dr. Franklin had been a guest of my lady for the past two days. They were all, with the exception of Clinton, in the drawing-room, when Hamilton, Steuben and Fish arrived; and several of the Crugers, Colonel Duer, General Knox, Mayor Duane, Melancthon Smith, Mr. Watts, Yates, Lansing, and a half-dozen lesser lights. Mrs. Croix sat in the middle of the room, and her chair being somewhat higher and more elaborate than its companions, suggested a throne: Madame de Staël set the fashion in many affectations which were not long travelling to America. In the house, Mrs. Croix discarded the hoopskirt, and the classic folds of her soft muslin gown revealed a figure as superb in contour as it was majestic in carriage. Her glittering hair was in a tower, and the long oval of her face gave to this monstrous head-dress an air of proportion. Her brows and lashes were black, her eyes the deepest violet that ever man had sung, childlike when widely opened, but infinitely various with a drooping lash. The nose was small and aquiline, fine and firm, the nostril thin and haughty. The curves of her mouth included a short upper lip, a full under one, and a bend at the corners. There was a deep cleft in the chin. Technically her hair was auburn; when the sun flooded it her admirers vowed they counted twenty shades of red, yellow, sorrel, russet, and gold. Even under the soft rays of the candles it was crisp with light and colour. The dazzling skin and soft contours hid a jaw that denoted both strength and appetite, and her sweet gracious manner gave little indication of her imperious will, independent mind, and arrogant intellect. She looked to be twenty-eight, but was reputed to have been born in 1769. For women so endowed years have little meaning. They are born with what millions of their sex never acquire, a few with the aid of time and experience only. Nature had fondly and diabolically equipped her to conquer the world, to be one of its successes; and so she was to the last of her ninety-six years. 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, and died 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, and carried an unbroken spirit and an unbowed head into a vault which looks as if not even the trump of Judgement Day could force its marble doors to open and its secrets to come forth. But those doors closed behind her seventy-seven years later, when the greatest of her victims had been dust half a century, and many others were long since forgotten. To-night, in her glorious triumphant womanhood she had no thought of vaults in the cold hillside of Trinity, and when Hamilton entered the room, she rose and courtesied deeply. Then, as he bent over her hand: "At last! Is it you?" she exclaimed softly. "Has this honour indeed come to my house? I have waited a lifetime, sir, and I took pains to assure you 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, that I shall risk no reproaches in the future."

She passed him on in the fashion of royalty, and was equally gracious to Steuben and Fish, although she did not courtesy. The company, which had been scattered in groups, the deepest about the throne of the hostess, immediately converged and made Hamilton their common centre. Would Washington accept? Surely he must know. Would he choose to be addressed as "His Serene Highness," "His High Mightiness," or merely as "Excellency"? Would so haughty an aristocrat lend himself agreeably to the common forms of Republicanism, even if he had refused a crown, and had been the most jealous guardian of the liberties of the American people? An aristocrat is an aristocrat, and doubtless he would observe all the rigid formalities of court life. Most of those present heartily hoped that he would. They, too, were jealous of their liberties, but had no yearning toward a republican simplicity, which, to their minds, savoured of plebianism. Socially they still were royalists, whatever their 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 no communication from him on the subject, but he would obey the command of public duty if he were on his death-bed. His reluctance is natural, for his life has been a hard one in the field, and his tastes are those of a country gentleman,--tastes which he has recently been permitted to indulge to the full for the first time. Moreover, he is so modest that it is difficult to make him understand that no other man is to be thought of for these first difficult years. When he does, there is no more question of his acceptance than there was of his assuming the command of the army. As for titles they come about as a matter of course, and it is quite positive that Washington, although a Republican, will never become a Democrat. He is a grandee and will continue to live like one, and the man who presumes to take a liberty with him is lost."

Mrs. Croix, quite forgotten, leaned back in her chair, a smile succeeding the puzzled annoyance of her eyes. In this house her words were the jewels for which this courtly company scrambled, but Hamilton had not been met abroad for weeks, and from him there was always something to learn; whereas from even the most brilliant of women--she shrugged her shoulders; and her eyes, as they dwelt on Hamilton, gradually filled with an expression of idolatrous pride. The new delight of self-effacement was one of the keenest she had known.

The bombardment continued. The Vice-President? Whom should Hamilton support? Adams? Hancock? Was it true that there was a schism in the Federal party that might give the anti-Federalists, with Clinton at their head, a chance for the Vice-Presidency at least? Who would be Washington's advisers besides himself? Would the President have a cabinet? Would Congress sanction it? Whom should he want as confreres, and whom in the Senate to further his plans? Whom did he favour as Senators and Representatives from New York? Could this rage for amendments be stopped? What was to be the fate of the circular letter? Was all danger of a new Constitutional Convention well over? What about the 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 greater part of the evening to answer or parry, but he deftly altered his orbit until he stood beside Mrs. Croix, the company before her shrine. He had encountered her eyes, but although he knew the supreme surrender of women in the first stages of passion, he also understood the vanities and weaknesses of human nature too well not to apprehend a chill of the affections under too prolonged a mortification.

Clinton entered at midnight; and after almost bending his gouty knee to the hostess, whom he had never seen in such softened yet dazzling beauty, he measured Hamilton for a moment, then laughed and held out his hand.

"You are a wonderful fighter," he said, "and you beat me squarely. We'll meet 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't help it."

Hamilton, at that time of his life the most placable of men, had shaken his hand heartily. "And I so esteem and admire you, sir," he answered warmly, "that I would I could convert you, for your doctrines are bound to plunge this country into civil war sooner or later. The Constitution has given the States just four times more power than is safe in their hands; but if we could establish a tradition at this early stage of the country's history that it was the duty of the States always to consider the Union first and themselves as grateful assistants to a hard-working and paternal central power, we might do much to counteract an evil which, if coddled, is bound to result in a trial of strength."

"That is the first time I ever heard you croak, except in a public speech where you had a point to gain," said Livingston. "Do you mean that?"

"What of it?" asked Clinton. "Under Mr. Hamilton's constitution--for if it be not quite so monarchical as the one he wanted, it has been saddled upon the United States through his agency more than through any other influence or group of influences--I say, that under Mr. Hamilton's constitution all individualism is lost. We are to be but the component parts of a great machine which will grind us as it lists. Had we remained thirteen independent and sovereign States, with a tribunal for what little common legislation might be necessary, then we might have built up a great and a unique nation; but under what is little better than an absolute monarchy all but a small group of men are bound to live and die nonentities."

"But think of the excited competition for a place in that group," said Hamilton, laughing. The disappointed Governor's propositions were not worthy 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 loose Confederation, as you know, but the changes and the development of this country will be so great that there will be plenty of room for individualism; indeed, it could not be suppressed. And after a careful study of this instrument that you are to live under--my own time is so short that my only rôle now is that of the prophet--I fail to see anything of essential danger to the liberties of the American people. I may say that the essays of "The Federalist" would have reassured me on this point, had I still doubted. I read them again the other week. The proof is there, I think, that the Constitution, if rigidly interpreted and lived up to, must prove a beneficent if stern parent to those who dwell 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 the country finding some hope for individual liberty in this Constitution; the youngest, an optimist by nature and habit, sanguine by youth and temperament, trembling for the powers it may confer upon a people too democratically inclined. This is true, sir--is it not?"

"Yes," said Hamilton. "Democracy is a poison, just as Republicanism is the ideal of all self-respecting men. I would do all I could to vitalize the 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 suppress the aspirations of encouraged plebianism,--a dangerous factor in any republic. It means the mixing of ignoble blood with good, a gradual lowering of ideals until a general level of sordidness, individualism in its most selfish and self-seeking form, and political corruption, are the inevitable results. You, your Excellency, are an autocrat. It is odd that your principles should coincide so closely with the despotism of democracy."

"Oh, I can't argue with you!" exclaimed Clinton, impatiently. "No one can. 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 under her foot!" he said to Yates. "She is heart and soul with us. I augur well 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 genius directs 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 am dead. At this date we are assured of two elements in government: unselfish patriotism and common-sense. There never has been a nobler nor a more keenly intelligent group of men in public life than General Washington will be able to command as assistants in forming a government. And should our Governor lead his own party to victory," she added, turning to Clinton with so brilliant a smile that it dissipated a gathering scowl, "it would be quite the same. The determined struggle of the weaker party for the rights which only supremacy can insure them is often misconstrued as selfishness; and power leads their higher qualities as well as their caution and conservatism to victory. I am a philosopher. I disapproved the Constitution, and loved the idea of thirteen little sovereignties; but I bow to the Inevitable and am prepared to love the Constitution. The country has too much to accomplish, too much to recover from, to waste time arguing what might have been; it is sure to settle down into as complacent a philosophy as my own, and adjust itself to its new and roomy crinoline."

"Crinoline is the word," growled Clinton, who accepted her choice of words as a subtle thrust at Hamilton. "It is rigid. Wherever you move it will 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 grandly from the Jersey shore in a magnificent barge manned by twelve oarsmen in white uniform, escorted by other barges but a shade less imposing. A week later he had taken the oath of office on the new Broad Street gallery 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, no longer of dignity as a party, although with ample resources for obstruction 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 the Livingstons. He had thought it best to scatter the votes for the Vice-President, lest there be the slightest risk of Washington's defeat; and Adams who thought quite as much of himself as he did of George Washington, and had expected to be elected with little less than unanimity, instead of by a bare thirty-four votes, never forgave Hamilton the humiliation. "I have seen the utmost delicacy used toward others," he wrote to a friend, "but my feelings have never been regarded." He knew that Hamilton believed him to have been in sympathy with the Conway Cabal,--a suspicion of which he never cleared himself,--and attributed to the Federal leader the motive of wishing to belittle his political significance, lest he should endeavour to use his power as President of the Senate to hamper and annoy the Administration. Perhaps he was right. Far be it from anyone to attempt a journey through the utmost recesses of Hamilton's mind. He was frank by nature and habit, but he had resolved that the United States government should succeed, and had no mind to put weapons into the hands of Washington's rivals. He believed in Adams's general integrity, patriotism, and federalism, however, and brought him to power in his own fashion. He achieved his objects with little or no thought of personal consequences; and although this has been characterized as one of the great political mistakes of his career, it must be remembered that it was a time for nervousness and exaggerated fears. Washington had enemies; no other man was believed, by the men who did the thinking for the country, to be able to hold the United States together until they were past their shoals, and the method of election was precarious: each elector casting two votes without specification, the higher office falling to the candidate who received the larger number of votes.

The Livingstons had desired a seat in the Senate of the new Congress for one of their powerful family, and Hamilton had given the prize to Rufus King. No gift could have been more justly bestowed; but the Livingstons felt themselves flouted, their great services to the country unrewarded. Their open hostility roused all the haughty arrogance of Hamilton's nature, and he made no effort to placate them. When the great office of Chief Justice of the United States was given to John Jay, instead of to Robert Livingston, they attributed the discrimination to Hamilton's influence over Washington; and the time came when this strong and hostile faction lent themselves to the scheming of one of the subtlest politicians 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 Federalists controlled the Senate, and they had elected four of the six Representatives. Philip Schuyler had drawn the short term in the Senate, and the antagonism of the Livingstons to Hamilton enabled Burr to displace him two years later. The signal mistakes of Hamilton's political career were in his party management. One of the greatest leaders in history, cool and wise, and of a consummate judgement in all matters of pure statesmanship, he was too hot-headed and impetuous, too obstinate when his righting blood was up, for the skilful manipulation of politics. But so long as the Federal party endured, no other leader was contemplated: his integrity was spotless, his motives unquestioned, his patriotism and stupendous abilities the glory of his party; by sheer force of genius he carried everything before him, whether his methods were approved by the more conservative Federalists or not.

Madison, who mildly desired an office, possibly in the Cabinet, he despatched South to get himself elected to Congress, for he must have powerful friends in that body to support the great measures he had in contemplation; and that not unambitious statesman, after a hot fight with Patrick Henry, was obliged to content himself with a seat in the House. Before he went to Virginia he and Hamilton had talked for long and pleasant hours over the Federal leader's future schemes. In all things he was in accord with his Captain, and had warmly promised his support.

It was some weeks before Hamilton had a private interview with Washington, although he had dined at his house, entertained him, and been present at several informal consultations on such minor questions as the etiquette of the Administration. But delicacy held him from embarrassing Washington in a familiar interview until he had been invited formally to a position in the contemplated cabinet. He knew that Washington wished him to be Secretary of the Treasury, but he also knew that that most cautious and conscientious of men would not trust to his own judgement in so grave a matter, nor take any step without weeks of anxious thought. The more deeply were Washington's affections or desires engaged, 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 was great by virtue of his superhuman moral strength--and it is safe to say that in public life he never experienced a temptation--by a wisdom that no mental heat ever unbalanced, by an unrivalled instinct for the best and most useful in human beings, and by a public conscience to which he would have unhesitatingly sacrificed himself and all he loved, were it a question 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. As he had anticipated, Washington wrote to Robert Morris for advice, and the reply of that eminent financier, that "Hamilton was the one man in the United States competent to cope with the extreme difficulties of that office," pleasantly ended the indecision of the President, and he communicated with Hamilton at once.

Hamilton answered by letter, for Washington was wedded to the formalities, but he followed it with a request for a private interview; and after the lapse of eight years Washington and Hamilton met once more for a purely personal colloquy.

Washington was occupying temporarily the house of Walter Franklin, on the corner of Cherry Street and Franklin Square, a country residence at which society grumbled, for all the world lived between the present site of the City Hall and Battery Park. Hamilton rode up on horseback, and was shown into the library, which overlooked a pleasant garden. The President, in the brown suit of home manufacture which he had worn at the inauguration, as graceful and erect as ever, although with a more elderly visage than in the days of war, entered immediately, closed the door 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 what we all had to do then was a bagatelle to this, and you have made the supreme sacrifice of your life."

Washington seated himself in an arm-chair, motioning Hamilton to one opposite. "I wrote Knox," he said, "that I felt as if setting out to my own execution; and I swear to you, Hamilton, that if it had not been for you I doubt if my courage would not have failed me at the last moment. I had 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 enterprise we 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 to myself 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 can assure you that it has cost me many wakeful nights--and cold sweats."

He spoke with his usual slow impressiveness, but he smiled as he watched Hamilton's flashing eyes and dilating nostrils. "You look but little older," he added. "Not that you still look a stripling, controlling your temper with both hands while I worked you half to death; but you have the everlasting youth of genius, I suppose, and you look to me able to cope with anything."

Hamilton laughed. "I am far older in many things, sir. I fear I often seemed ungrateful. I have blessed you many times, since, for the discipline and the invaluable knowledge I gained in those years."

"Ah!" exclaimed Washington. "Ah! I am very glad to hear you say that. It is like your generosity, and I have had many anxious moments, wondering if there might not still be a grudge. But not only were your peculiar gifts indispensable to this country, but, I will confess, now that it is over, I mortally dreaded that you would lose your life. You and Laurens were the most reckless devils I ever saw in the field. Poor Laurens! I felt a deep affection for him, and his death was one of the bitterest blows of the war. If he were here now, and Lafayette, how many pleasant hours I should look forward to; but I have you, and God knows I am grateful. Lafayette, I am afraid, has undertaken too great a business for his capacity, which is admirable; but he is not strong enough to be a 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 last September. It was what I had earnestly hoped for. My position was most distressing. It was impossible for me not only to ask the advice of anyone, but the temper of the public mind regarding myself. To assume that I must be desired--but I need not explain to you, who know me better than anybody living, the extreme delicacy of my position, and the torments of my mind. Your letter explained everything, told me all I wished to know, made my duty clear--painfully clear. You divined what I needed and expressed yourself in your usual frank and manly way, without the least hesitation or fear. I take this occasion to assure you again of my deep appreciation."

"Oh, sir," said Hamilton, who was always affected unbearably by Washington's rare moments of deep feeling, "I was merely the selected instrument 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, my reward of many years of thought and work, that I am able to be of service to your administration, and conspicuous enough to permit you to call me to your side. Be sure that all that I have or am is yours, and that I shall never fail you."

"If I did not believe that, I should indeed be deep in gloomy forebodings. Jay will officiate as Secretary of State for the present; Knox, as Secretary at War. I contemplate inviting Randolph to act as Attorney-General, and Jefferson as permanent Secretary of State, if he will accept; thus dividing the appointments between the North and the South. What do you think of the wisdom of appointing Mr. Jefferson? He is a man of great abilities, and his long residence abroad should make him a valuable Secretary of State, his conspicuous services acceptable to both sections of the country. It is the selection over which I have hesitated longest, for it is a deep and subtle nature, a kind I have no love of dealing with, but so far as I know it is not a devious one, and his 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 and extensive knowledge of Thomas Jefferson. "Madison thinks well of him--is a close personal friend. He has rendered great services to the State of Virginia, his experience is wide, and he possesses a brilliant and facile pen--I can think of no one better fitted for the position. His record for personal bravery is not untarnished, but perhaps that will insure peace in the Cabinet."

Washington laughed. "Jefferson would slide under the table if you assaulted him," he said. "It is you only that I fear, as it is you only upon whom I thoroughly rely, and not for advice in your own department alone, but in all. I think it would perhaps be better not to hold collective meetings of the Cabinet, but to receive each of you alone. It is as well the others do not know that your knowledge and judgement are my 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 be Secretary of the Treasury."

Troup half rose with an exclamation of impatience. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "Have you not an introductory line in your nature? It has been bad enough to have been anticipating this, without having it go straight through one like a cannon-ball. Of course it is no use to reason with you--I gave that up just after I had assumed that you were a small boy whom it was the duty of a big collegian to protect, and you nearly demolished my not too handsome visage with your astonishing fists for contradicting you. But I am sorry. Remain at the bar and you have an immediate prospect of wealth, not too many enemies, and the highest honours. Five years from now, and you would lead not only the bar of New York but of the whole country. Jay may be the first Chief Justice, but you would be the second--."

"Nothing would induce me to be Chief Justice. I should be bored to death. Can you fancy me sitting eternally and solemnly in the middle of a bench, listening to long-winded lawyers? While I live I shall have action--."

"Well, you will have action enough in this position; it will burn you out twenty years before your time. And it will be the end of what peace and happiness a born fighter could ever hope to possess; for you will raise up enemies and critics on every side, you will be hounded, you will be the victim of cabals, your good name will be assailed--."

"Answer this: do you know of anyone who could fill this office as advantageously 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 of Coke, expanding and contracting it slowly. It was perhaps the most beautiful hand in America, and almost as famous as its owner. But as Troup gazed at it he saw only its superhuman suggestion of strength.

"The future of this country lies there," said Hamilton. "I know, and you know, that my greatest gift is statesmanship; my widest, truest knowledge is in the department of finance; moreover, that nothing has so keen and enduring a fascination for me. I could no more refuse this invitation of Washington's than I could clog the wheels of my mind to inaction. It is like a magnet to steel. If I were sure of personal consequences the most disastrous, I should accept, and without hesitation. 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 boy of 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 own particular 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 in the country, had inherited the dilatory methods of the old, and did not pass an act establishing the Treasury Department until the 2d of September. Hamilton's appointment to this most important portfolio at the disposal of the President was looked upon as a matter of course. It created little discussion, but so deep a feeling of security, that even before the reading of his famous Report business had revived to some extent. This Report upon the public credit was demanded of him at once, but it was not until the recess of Congress that he could work uninterruptedly upon it; for that body, floundering in its chaos of inherited difficulties, turned to the new Secretary for advice on almost every problem that beset it. I cannot do better here than to quote from the monograph on Hamilton by Henry Cabot Lodge, who puts with admirable succinctness a series of facts important to the knowledge of every American:--

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 been renovated, and with all the elegance to be commanded. Many had been let, by the less ambitious, to the Members of Congress from other States, and all were entertaining. General Schuyler occupied a house close to Hamilton, and his daughters Cornelia and Peggy--Mrs. Stephen Van Rensselaer--were lively members of society. The Vice-President had taken the great house at Richmond Hill, and General Knox as imposing a mansion as he could find. Washington, after a few months, moved to the McComb house in lower Broadway, one of the largest in town, with a reception room of superb proportions. Here Mrs. Washington, standing on a dais, usually assisted by Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Hamilton, received, with the rigid formality of foreign courts, all who dared to attend her levees. She had discarded the simplicity of campaigning days, and attired herself with a magnificence which was emulated by her "Court." It was yet too soon to break from tradition, and the Washingtons conducted themselves in accordance with their strong aristocratic proclivities. Nor did it occur to anyone, even the most ardent Republican, that dignity and splendour were inconsistent with a free and enlightened Republic, until Jefferson began his steady and successful system of plebeianizing the country.

Washington's levees were frigid; but I have not observed any special warmth at the White House upon public occasions in my own time. The President, after the company had assembled, entered in full official costume: black velvet and satin, diamond knee-buckles, his hair in a bag and tied with ribbons. He carried a military hat under his arm, and wore a 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 mingled more freely with the guests; but his presence always lowered every voice in the room, and women trembled with anxiety lest he should not engage them in conversation, while dreading that he might. The unparalleled dignity, the icy reserve of his personality, had always affected the temperature of the gatherings he honoured; but at this time, when to the height of a colossal and unique reputation was added the first incumbency of an office, bestowed by a unanimous sentiment, which was to raise the United States to the plane of the great nations of Europe, he was instinctively regarded as superhuman, rather as a human embodiment of the Power beyond space. He was deeply sensitive to the depressing effect he produced, and not a little bored by the open-mouthed curiosity he excited. A youngster, having run after him for quite a block, one day, panting from his exertions, Washington wheeled about suddenly, and made a bow so profound and satirical that his pursuer fled with a yell of terror.

The President was very fond of the theatre, and invited a party once a week to accompany him to John Street. He entertained at table constantly, and dined out formally and intimately. Congress, he attended in great state. He had brought to New York six white horses of the finest Virginian breed, and a magnificent cream-coloured coach, ornamented with cupids and festoons. For state occasions the horses were covered over night with a white paste, and polished next morning until they shone like silver. The hoofs were painted black. When Washington drove through the city on his way to Congress, attended by postilions and outriders, it is little wonder that he had a royal progress through proud and satisfied throngs.

The Adamses, who had counselled all the usages of foreign courts, but had been outvoted by Hamilton and Jay, entertained but little less than the President; and so did the Schuylers, Livingstons, Jays, and half the town. The Hamiltons, of necessity, entertained far more simply; but Betsey received every Wednesday evening, when her rooms were a crush of fashion and politics, eager for a glimpse of Hamilton and to do court to her popular self. They gave at least one dinner a week, but Betsey as a rule went out with her parents, for her husband was too busy for society.

The world saw little of Hamilton at this time, and Betsey but little more. He worked in his library or office for fourteen hours of the day, while the country teemed with conjectures of his coming Report. A disposition to speculate upon it was already manifest, and more than one friend endeavoured to gain a hint of its contents. Not even Madison, to whom he had talked more freely than to anyone, knew aught of the details of that momentous Report, what recommendations he actually should make to Congress; for none knew better than he that a hint derived from him which should lead to profitable speculation would tarnish his good name irretrievably. Careless in much else, on the subject of his private and public integrity he was rigid; he would not have yielded a point to retain the affection of the best and most valued of his friends. Fastidious by nature on the question of his honour, he knew, also, that other accusations, even when verified, mattered little in the long run; a man's actual position in life and in history was determined by the weight of his brain and the spotlessness of his public character. He worked in secret, with no help from anyone; nor could blandishments extract a hint of his purpose. Against the rock of his integrity passion availed nothing. As for Betsey, between her growing children, the delicacy which had followed the birth of her last child, and her heavy social duties, she would have had little time to assist him had he confided even in her. Moreover, to keep up a dignified position upon $3500 a year cost her clever little Dutch head much anxious thought. It is true that some money had been put aside from the income of her husband's large practice, but he was the most careless and generous of men, always refusing the fees of people poorer than himself, and with no talent for personal, great as was his mastery of political, economy. If General 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 far too absorbed to give the matter a thought. Betsey, it would seem, had her own little reputation, for it was about this time that M'Henry finished 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 his Report on Public Credit. By this time excitement and anxiety, to say nothing of cupidity, were risen to fever pitch. All realized that they were well in the midst of a national crisis, for the country was bankrupt, and her foreign and domestic debts footed up to quite eighty millions of dollars--a stupendous sum in the infancy of a nation, when there was little specie in the country, and an incalculable amount of worthless paper, with long arrears of interest besides. If Hamilton could cope with this great question, and if Congress, with its determined anti-government party, would support him, the Union and its long-suffering patriots would enter upon a season of prosperity and happiness. If the one were inadequate to meet the situation, or the other failed in its national duty, the consequences must be deeper wretchedness and disaster than anything they yet had endured. The confidence in Hamilton was very widespread, for not only were his great abilities fully recognized, but his general opinions on the subject had long been known, and approved by all but the politicians on the wrong side. The confidence had been manifested in a manner little to his liking: speculators had scoured the country, buying up government securities at the rate of a few shillings on the pound, taking advantage of needy holders, who dwelt, many of them, in districts too remote from the centre of action to know what the Government was about. And even before this "signal instance of moral turpitude," the fact that so many old soldiers who had gone home with no other pay than government securities, to be exchanged for specie at the pleasure of a government which nobody had trusted, had sold out for a small sum, was one of the agitating themes of the country; and opinion was divided upon the right of the assignees to collect the full amount which the new government might be prepared to pay, while the moral rights of the worthy and original holder were ignored. It was understood, however, that Hamilton had 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 was reading and until some hint of its contents filtered through the guarded doors. Hamilton himself was at home with his family, enjoying a day of rest. It is one of the most curious incidents in his career, as well as one of the highest tributes to his power over men, that Congress, after mature deliberation, decided that it would be safer to receive his Report in writing than in the form of a personal address from a man who played so dangerously upon the nerve-board of the human nature. There hardly could be any hidden witchery in a long paper dealing with so unemotional a subject as finance; but no man could foresee what might be the effect of the Secretary's voice and enthusiasm,--which was perilously communicable,--his inevitable bursts of spontaneous eloquence. But Hamilton had a pen which served him well, when he was forced to substitute it for the charm of his personality. It was so pointed, simple, and powerful, it classified with such clarity, it expressed his convictions so unmistakably, and conveyed his subtle appeals to human passions so obediently, that it rarely failed to quiver like an arrow in the brain to which it was directed. And this particular report was vitalized by the author's overwhelming sense of the great crisis with which he was dealing. Reading it to-day, a hundred and eleven years after it was written, and close to the top of a twelve-story building, which is a symbol of the industry and progress for which he more than any man who has ever dedicated his talents to the United States is responsible, it is so fresh and convincing, so earnest, so insistent, so courteously peremptory, that the great century which lies between us and that empire-making paper lapses from the memory, and one is in that anxious time, in the very study of the yet more anxious statesman; who, on a tropical island that most of his countrymen never will see, came into being with the seed of an unimagined nation in his brain.

To condense Hamilton is much like attempting to increase the density of a stone, or to reduce the alphabet to a tabloid. I therefore shall make no effort to add another failure to the several abstracts of this Report. The heads of his propositions are sufficient. The Report is accessible to all who find the subject interesting. The main points were these: The exploding of the discrimination fallacy; the assumption of the State debts by the Government; the funding of the entire amount of the public debt, foreign, domestic, and State; three new loans, one to the 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 of the foreign loan on the original terms of the contract; the segregating of the post-office revenue, amounting to about a million dollars, for a sinking fund, that the creation of a debt should always be accompanied by the means of extinguishment; increased duties on foreign commodities, that the government might be able to pay the interest on her new debts and meet her current expenses; and more than one admonition for prompt action, 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 liquidated domestic debt, $27,383,917, with arrears of interest amounting to $13,030,168. The unliquidated part he estimated at $2,000,000, and the aggregate 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 a possible excise law, and gave considerable space to the miserable condition of landed property and the methods by which it might be restored to its due value.

XVII

The talk in the drawing-room of Mrs. Croix that night was of little else but the Secretary's Report. Mrs. Croix, so said gossip, had concluded that this was the proper time for the demise of her recalcitrant officer, and had retired to weeds and a semi-seclusion while Mrs. Washington pondered upon the propriety of receiving her. Her court cared little for the facts, and vowed that she never had looked so fair or so proud; Hamilton, that she shone with the splendour of a crystal star on the black velvet skies of the Tropics. She wore, this evening, a few yards of black gauze which left bare a crescent of her shining neck and the lower arms. Her bright hair was arranged in a mass of ringlets, after a fashion obtaining in Europe, and surmounted by a small turban of gauze fastened with a diamond sun. Many of the men who visited her habitually called her Lady Betty, for she was one of those women who invite a certain playful familiarity while repelling intimacy. Hamilton called her, as the fancy moved him, Egeria, Boadicea, or Lady Godiva.

Clinton came in fuming. "It is not possible," he cried, "that the Congress can be so mad as to be hoodwinked by this deep political scheme for concentrating the liberties of the United States under the executive heel. 'To cement more closely the union of the States and to add to their security against foreign attack!' Forsooth! This assumption plan is nothing more nor less than another of his dastardly schemes to squeeze out of the poor States what little liberty he left them under the Constitution. He could not obtain at Philadelphia all he wished for, but now that Washington has given him both reins, he laughs in our faces. I regret that I ever offered him my hand."

"Then our party in Congress will fight him on political grounds?" asked Mrs. Croix.

"You may put it that way if you choose. It certainly will not be blinded by his speciousness and aid him in his subtle monarchism. 'Contribute in an eminent degree to an orderly, stable, and satisfactory arrangement of the Nation's finances!' 'Several reasons which render it probable that the situation of the State creditors will be worse than that of the creditors of the Union, if there be not a national assumption of the State debts!' And then his plan of debit and credit, with 'little doubt that balances would appear in favour of all the States against the United States!' My blood has boiled since I read that paper. I have feared apoplexy. He is clever, that West Indian,--do they grow many such?--but he did not select a country composed entirely of fools to machinate in."

"My dearest Governor," whispered Mrs. Croix, "calm yourself, pray. Only you can cope with Mr. Hamilton. You must be the colossal spirit without the walls of Congress to whom all will look for guidance. If you become ill, the cause is lost."

Clinton composed himself promptly, and asked Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, 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 the Governor. "Give me time, your Excellency, pray. Mr. Hamilton's paper has the thought of a decade in it. It merits at least a week of thought on our part. I never could agree with him in all things, but in some I am at one with him; and I acknowledge myself deeply in his debt, insomuch as he has taught me, among thousands of others, to 'think continentally,' I certainly agree with him that to pay to present holders the full value of their certificates, without discrimination, is a matter of constitutional law, a violation of which would be a menace to the new government. I shall support him on that point at the risk of being accused of speculation."

Stone, of Maryland, was striding up and down, but a degree less agitated than the Governor of New York.

"The man is cleverer than all the rest of us put together!" he exclaimed. "Let us not forget that for an instant. A greater thought than this of assumption has never been devised by man. If it be carried into execution,--which God forbid,--it will prove a wall of adamant to the Federal government, impregnable to any attempt on its fabric or operations."

"Oh, is it so bad as that?" asked Gerry. "Every fort falls if the siege be sufficiently prolonged. I apprehend no such disaster, and I confess I see 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 the States be taken into the power of Congress, it will prove a band to draw us so close together as not to leave the smallest interstice for separation?"

"But do you meditate separation?" asked Mrs. Croix. "Surely that would be as great a crime as Mr. Hamilton's monarchical manoeuvres--if it be true he practises such."

"He is bold enough about them," snorted Clinton. "I do the man justice to recognize his insolent frankness."

"Those I cannot say I have observed," said Gerry. "Nor do I think that we meditate separation. We are struggling out of one pit. It would be folly to dig a deeper. And Massachusetts has a great debt, with decreasing revenue for interest and redemption. I am not sure that assumption would not be to her advantage. She stood the brunt of the war. It is but fair that she should have relief now, even at the expense of other States whose debt is insignificant; and she is able to take care 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 had controlled himself with difficulty for several seconds. "I beg to assure you, sir, that Virginia may claim that honour. Her glorious patriotism, her contributions in men and money--they exceeded those of any State in the Union, sir."

Gerry laughed. "I have no means of comparison by which patriotism may be measured, Mr. Randolph," he said. "But we can produce figures, if necessary, to prove our title to supremacy in the other matters you mention. As you have reduced your debt, however, by an almost total repudiation of your paper money--"

"How about Mr. Madison?" asked Mrs. Croix, hurriedly. "He is your fellow-statesman, Mr. Randolph, but he is Mr. Hamilton's devoted friend and 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, he has begun to chafe at Hamilton's arrangement of his destinies--and a nature like that is not without deep and sullen jealousies. To be a leader of leaders requires a sleepless art; to lead the masses is play by 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 now and again, and not the least important would be--will be--Madison."

"Have you proof?" asked Clinton, eagerly. "He would be of incomparable value in our ranks. By the way, Aaron Burr is working to the front. He is a born politician, if I am not mistaken, and is in a rapid process of education. I feel sure that I have attached him to our cause by appointing him Attorney-General of the Staite. He should make an invaluable party man."

"He will be attached to no cause," said Gerry. "He is, as you say, a politician. There is not a germ of the statesman in him; nor of the honest man, either, unless I am deeply mistaken. He is the only man of note in the country who has not one patriotic act to his credit. He fought, but so did every adventurous youth in the country; and had there been anything more to his interest to do at the time, the Revolution could have taken care of itself. But during all our trying desperate years since--did he go once to Congress? Did he interest himself in the Constitution, either at Philadelphia or Poughkeepsie? What record did he make in the State Legislature during his one term of infrequent attendance? While other men, notably Hamilton, of whom he betrays an absurd jealousy, have been neglecting their private interests in the public cause, he has been distinguishing himself as a femalist, and thinking of nothing else but making money at the bar. I admit his brilliancy, his intrepidity, and the exquisite quality of his address, but I don't believe that an honest man who comes into contact with him instinctively 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 old age. "Surely this coming legislation should compel every faculty. What of the other debts?--of funding? Or, if it is still too soon to talk of these matters with equilibrium," she added hastily, as Clinton turned purple again, "pray tell me that the great question of deciding upon a site for the Capital is nearing a solution. It has been such a source of bitter 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 North Carolina. "The Federalists have the majority, and they are determined to keep the seat of government in the North, as they are determined to have their monarchical will in everything. Madison hopes for some fortuitous coincidence, but I confess I hardly know what he means."

Gerry laughed. "When Madison takes to verbiage," he said, "I should resort 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 the mirror of her boudoir when he arrived, and the maid had been dismissed.

"Well, Egeria," he said, smiling down upon this dazzling vision, "what is it? What warning of tremendous import have you to deliver, that you rout a busy Secretary from his work at eleven in the morning? I dared not loiter, lest your capricious majesty refuse me your door upon my next evening of leisure--"

"It is not I who am capricious!" cried Mrs. Croix. She pouted charmingly. "Indeed, sir, I never am quite sure of you. You are all ardour to-day, and indifference to-morrow. For work I am always put aside, and against your family demands I do not exist."

"My dear Boadicea," said Hamilton, drily, "I am a mere creature of routine. I met you after my habits of work and domesticity were well established. You are the fairest thing on earth, and there are times when you consume it, but circumstances isolate you. Believe me, I am a victim of those circumstances, not of caprice."

"My dear Hamilton," replied Mrs. Croix, quite as drily, "you have all the caprice of a woman combined with all the lordly superiority of the male. I well know that although I bewitch you, I can do so at your pleasure only. You are abominably your own master, both in your strength and 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 precious offerings."

"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 think themselves safe in your house, I prefer to fight in the open, and they reveal themselves to me sooner or later. What should I think of myself and 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 tell you so much now that would put you on your guard. I could help you immeasurably. I could be your fate. But you care for nothing but my beauty!" And she dropped dismally into her pocket-handkerchief.

Hamilton was not one of those men who dread a woman's tears. He had dried too many. His immediate and practical consolation but appeared to deepen her grief, however, and he was obliged to resort to eloquence.

"Where do I find such hours of mental companionship as here?" he demanded. "I say nothing of art and literature; do I not discuss with you the weightiest affairs of State--everything, in fact, upon which my honour does not compel silence? Never have I thought of asking the advice, the opinion, of a woman before. You are my Egeria, and I am deeply grateful for you. If at times I remember nothing but your beauty, would you have it otherwise? I flatter myself that you would not. Have you really anything to reproach me for, because I will not hear of your committing an act which I would not commit myself? I suppose it is hopeless to talk of honour to the cleverest of women, but you must accept this dictum whether you understand it or not: I will listen to none of the confidences of your trusting anti-Federalists. Why cannot you come out honestly and declare your true politics? You could do far more good, and I leave you no excuse to perpetrate this lie."

"I will not," sobbed his Egeria, obstinately. "I may be able to be of service to you, even if you will not let me warn you of Madison's treachery."

She had scored her point, and Hamilton sprang to his feet, his face as white as her petticoats. "Madison's treachery!" he exclaimed. "It is true he comes near me but seldom this Congress. I had attributed his coldness to temperament. Can it be? So many forces would operate. There is much jealousy and ambition in him. He can never lead my party. Is he capable of deserting that he might lead another? One expects that sort of thing of a Burr; but Madison--I have thought him of an almost dazzling whiteness at times--then I have had lightning glimpses of meaner depths. He is easily influenced. Virginia opposes me so bitterly! Will he dare to continue to defy her? Can he continue to rise if she combines 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 was thinking aloud, his thought leaping from point to point as they sprang into the brilliant atmosphere of his mind; or using its rapid divining rod. He threw back his head. "I'll not believe it till I have proof!" he exclaimed defiantly. "Why, I should feel as if one of the foundations of the earth had given way. Madison--we have been like brothers. I have confided deeply in him. There is little in that Report of yesterday that I have not discussed with him a hundred times--nothing but the ways and means, which I dared confide to no one. He has always been in favour of assumption, of paying the whole debt. It is understood that he is to support me in Congress. I'll hear no more. Dry your tears. You have accomplished your object with a woman's wit. I believe you did but shed those tears to enhance your loveliness, my Lady Godiva."

XIX

The immediate consequences of Hamilton's Report were a rise of fifty per cent in the securities of the bankrupt Confederation, and a bitter warfare in Congress. All were agreed upon the propriety of paying the foreign loan, but the battle raged about every other point in turn. One of the legacies of the old Congress was the principle of repudiating what it was not convenient to redeem, and the politicians of the country had insensibly fallen into the habit of assuming that they should start clear with the new government, and relegate the domestic debt to the limbo which held so many other resources best forgotten. They were far from admitting the full measure of their inheritance, however, and opened the battle with a loud denouncement of the greedy speculator who had defrauded the impoverished soldier, to whose needs they had been indifferent hitherto. Most of this feeling concentrated in the opposition, but many Federalists were so divided upon the question of discrimination that for a time the other great questions contained in the Report fell back. Feeling became so bitter that those who supported the assignees were accused of speculation, and personalities were hot and blistering. Many of the strongest men, however, ranged with Hamilton, and were in sight of victory, when Madison, who had hoped to see the question settle itself in favour of the original holders without his open support, came out with a double bomb; the first symptom of his opposition to the Federal party, and an unconstitutional proposition that the holders by assignment should receive the highest market-price yet reached by the certificates, by which they would reap no inconsiderable profit, and that the balance of the sum due, possibly more than one-half, should be distributed among the original holders. For a time the reputation for statemanship which Madison had won was clouded, for his admission of the claims of the assignees nullified any argument he could advance in favour of the original holders. But he had his limitations. There was nothing of the business man in his composition. One of the most notable and useful attributes of Hamilton's versatile brain was excluded from his, beyond its comprehension. His proposition was rejected by thirty-six votes to thirteen.

Then the hostile camps faced each other on the questions of the domestic debt and assumption. In regard to the former, common decency finally prevailed, but the other threatened to disrupt the Union, for the Eastern States threw out more than one hint of secession did the measure fail. Madison, without further subterfuge, came forth at the head of his State as the leader of the anti-assumptionists. He offered no explanation to his former chief and none was demanded. For a time Hamilton was bitterly disgusted and wounded. He shrugged his shoulders, finally, and accepted his new enemy with philosophy, though by no means with amiability and forgiveness; but he had seen too much of the selfishness and meanness of human nature to remain pained or astonished at any defection.

When June came, however, he was deeply uneasy. On March 29th the resolutions providing for the foreign debt and for paying in full the principal of the domestic debt to the present holders passed without a division. So did the resolution in favour of paying the arrears of interest in like manner with the principal of the domestic debt. But the resolution in favour of assumption was recommitted. The next day the friends of assumption had the other resolutions also recommitted, and the furious battle raged again. Finally, on June 2d, a bill was passed by the House, which left the question of assumption to be settled by a future test of strength.

The anti-assumptionists were triumphant, for they believed the idea would gain in unpopularity. But they reckoned without Hamilton.

XX

Jefferson had arrived on March 21st, and entered at once upon his duties as Secretary of State. He disapproved of the assumption measure, but was so absorbed in the perplexing details of his new office, in correspondence, and in frequent conferences with the President on the subject of foreign affairs, that he gave the matter little consecutive thought. Moreover, he was dined every day for weeks, all the distinguished New Yorkers, from Hamilton down, vying with each other in attentions to a man whose state record was so enlightened, and whose foreign so brilliant, despite one or two humiliating failures. He rented a small cottage in Maiden Lane, and looked with deep disapproval upon the aristocratic dissipations of New York, the frigid stateliness of Washington's "Court." The French Revolution and the snub of the British king had developed his natural democratism into a controlling passion, and he would have preferred to find in even the large cities of the new country the homely bourgeois life of his highest ideals.

No one accused him of inconsistency in externals. With his shaggy sandy hair, 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 have astounded the courtly city of New York, and it is certain that he set Washington's teeth on edge. It is no wonder that when this vision rises upon the democratic horizon of to-day, he is hailed as a greater man than Washington or Hamilton.

Shortly after the final recommitment of the resolution in favour of assumption, the Federalist leader met this engaging figure almost in front of Washington's door, and a plan which had dawned in his mind a day or two before matured on the instant. He had no dislike for Jefferson at the time, and respected his intellect and diplomatic talents, without reference to differences of opinion. Jefferson grinned as Hamilton approached, and offered his great paw amiably. He did not like his brother secretary's clothes, and his hitherto averted understanding was gradually moving toward the displeasing fact that Hamilton was the Administration; but he had had little time for reflection, and he succumbed temporarily to a fascination which few resisted.

Hamilton approached him frankly. "Will you walk up and down with me a few moments?" he asked. "I have intended to call upon you. You have returned at a most opportune time. Do you realize, sir, that the whole business of this nation is at a deadlock? There is nothing in this talk of the North seceding, but so great is the apprehension that the energies of the country are paralyzed, and no man thinks of anything but the possible failure of the Government. I am convinced that assumption is not only necessary to permanent union, to the solution of the financial problem, but to the prosperity of the States themselves." He then proceeded to convince Jefferson, who listened attentively, wondering, with a sigh, how any man could pour out his thoughts so rapidly and so well. "Will you turn this over in your mind, and let me see you again in a day or two?" asked Hamilton, as he finished his argument. "Let me reiterate that there is no time to lose. The Government is at a standstill in all matters concerning the establishment of the country on a sound financial basis, until this subordinate matter is settled."

"You alarm and deeply interest me," said Jefferson. "I certainly will give the matter my attention. Will you dine with me to-morrow? We can then discuss this matter at leisure. I will ask one or two others."

The next day, at Mr. Jefferson's epicureous board, Hamilton played his trump. Having again wrought havoc with his host's imagination, but by no means trusting to the permanence of any emotion, he proposed a bargain: if Jefferson would use his influence with the Virginians and other Southern anti-assumptionists in Congress, he and Robert Morris would engage to persuade obstinate Northerners to concede the Capital city to the South. Hamilton made no sacrifice of conviction in offering this proposition. There was no reason why the Government should not sit as conveniently on the banks of the Potomac as elsewhere, and if he did not carry the Union through this new crisis, no one else would. All his great schemes depended upon his bringing the hostile States to reason, and with his usual high-handed impatience he carried his object in his own way.

Jefferson saw much virtue in this arrangement. The plan was an almost immediate success. White and Lee of Virginia were induced to change their votes, and assumption with some modifications passed into a law. The Government, after a ten years' sojourn in Philadelphia, would abide permanently 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 recently selected by Mrs. Church, in London. On her head was an immense puff of yellow gauze, whose satin foundation had a double wing in large plaits. The dress was of yellow satin, flowing over a white satin petticoat, and embellished about the neck with a large Italian gauze handkerchief, striped with white. Her hair was in ringlets and unpowdered. She was a very plate of fashion, but her brow was puckered.

"What is it?" asked her husband, entering from his room. "You are a vision of loveliness, my dear Eliza. Is there a rose too few, or a hoop awry?"

"No, sir, I am well enough pleased with myself. I am worrying lest General Washington ask me to dance. It will be bad enough to go out with Mr. Adams, who snaps at me every time I venture a remark, but he at least is not a giant, and I do not feel like a dwarf. When the President leads me out--that is to say, when he did lead me out at the Inauguration ball, I was like to expire of mortification. I felt like a little polar cub trotting out to sea with a monster iceberg. And he never opened his lips to distract my mind, just solemnly marched me up and down, as if I had done something naughty and were being exhibited. I saw Kitty Livingston giggle behind her fan, and Kitty Duer drew herself up to her full height, which is quite five feet six, and looked down upon me with a cruel amusement. Women are so nasty to each other. Thank heaven 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 of them; let that console you," he said, arranging her necklace. "I am sure both the President and the Vice-President will take you out; they hardly would have the bad taste not to. And you look very sweet, hanging on to Washington'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 the dear General," she said. "I dare not dwell upon what it would be with Mr. Adams--or anyone else! You are amazing smart, yourself, to-night."

"This new costume depressed me for a moment, for it is very like one Laurens used to wear upon state occasions, but I had not the courage to wear the light blue with the large gilt buttons, and the pudding cravat Morris inconsiderately sent me; not with Jefferson's agonized eye to encounter. The poor man suffers cruelly at our extravagance and elegance."

"He is an old fright," quoth Betsey, "and I'd not dance with him, not if he went on his knees."

She looked her husband over with great pride. He wore a coat of plum-coloured velvet, a double-breasted Marseilles vest, white satin breeches, white silk stockings, and pumps. There were full ruffles of lace on his breast and wrists. A man of to-day has to be singularly gifted by nature to shine triumphant above his ugly and uniform garb, whereas many a woman wins a reputation for beauty by a combination of taste with the infinite range modern fashion accords her. In the days of which we write, a man hardly could help looking his best, and while far more decorative than his descendant, was equally useful. And as all dressed in varying degrees of the same fashion, none seemed effeminate. As for Hamilton, his head never looked more massive, his glance more commanding, than when he was in full regalia; nor he more ready for a fight. All women know the psychological effect of being superlatively well dressed. In the days of our male ancestors' external vanities it is quite possible that they, too, felt unconquerable when panoplied in their best.

The ball that night was at Richmond Hill, the beautiful home of the Vice-President and his wife, Abigail Adams, one of the wisest, wittiest, and most agreeable women of her time. This historic mansion, afterward the home of Aaron Burr during his successful years, was a country estate where Varick Street now crosses Charlton in the heart of the city. It stood on an eminence overlooking the Hudson, surrounded by a park and commanding a view of the wild Jersey shore opposite. The Adamses were ambitious people and entertained constantly, with little less formality than the President. The early hours of their receptions, indeed, were chilling, and many went late, after dancing was, begun or the company had scattered to the card-tables. The Vice-President and his wife 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 as deeply as their varying years would permit. The guests then stood about for quite an hour and talked in undertones; later, perhaps, the host and hostess mingled with them and conversed. But although Mrs. Adams was vastly popular, her distinguished husband was less so; he was not always to be counted upon in the matter of temper. This grim old Puritan, of an integrity which makes him one of the giants of our early history, despite the last hours of his administration when he was beating about in 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 irascible and violent, the victim of a passionate jealous nature, without the saving graces of humour and liveliness of temperament. But his sturdy upright figure was very imposing; his brow, which appeared to end with the tip of his nose, so bold was the curve, would have been benevolent but for the youthful snapping eyes. His indomitability and his capacity for hatred were expressed in the curves of his mouth. He was always well dressed, for although a farmer by birth, he was as pronounced an aristocrat in his tastes as Washington or Hamilton. At this time, although he liked neither of them, he was the staunch supporter of the Government. He believed in Federalism and the Constitution, insignificant as he found his rewards under both, and he was an ally of inestimable value.

When the Hamiltons entered his drawing-room to-night they found many people of note already there, although the minuet had not begun. The President, his graceful six feet in all the magnificence of black velvet and 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 immense hoop. Poor dame, she would far rather have been at Mount Vernon in homespun, for all this pomp and circumstance bored and isolated her. She hedged herself about with the etiquette which her exalted position demanded, and froze the social aspirant of insufficient pretensions, but her traditions and her propensities were ever at war; she was a woman above all things, and an extremely simple one.

John Jay, now Chief Justice of the United States, was there, as ever the most simply attired personage in the Union. His beautiful wife, however, beaming and gracious, but no less rigid than "Lady Washington," in her social statutes, looked like a bird of paradise beside a graven image, so gorgeous was her raiment. Baron Steuben was in the regalia of war and a breastplate of orders. Kitty Livingston, now Mrs. Matthew Ridley, had also received a fine new gown of Mrs. Church's selection, for the two women still were friends, despite the rupture of their families. Lady Kitty Duer, so soon to know poverty and humiliation, was in a gown of celestial blue over a white satin petticoat, her lofty head surmounted by an immense gauze turban. General and Mrs. Knox, fat, amiable, and always 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 a white gown of enviable simplicity, and a string of large pearls in her hair, another about her graceful throat. Mrs. Schuyler, stout and careworn, from the trials of excitable and eloping daughters, clung to the kind arm of her austere and silent husband. Fisher Ames, with his narrow consumptive figure and his flashing ardent eyes, his eloquent tongue chilled by this funereal assemblage, had retreated to an alcove with Rufus King, where they whispered politics. Burr, the target of many fine eyes, was always loyal to his wife in public; she was a charming and highly respected woman, ten years his senior. Burr fascinated women, and adorned his belt with their scalps; but had it not been for this vanity, which led him to scatter hints of infinite devilment and conquest, it is not likely that he would have been branded, in that era of gallantry, a devirginator and a rake. All that history is concerned with is his utter lack of patriotism and honesty, and the unscrupulous selfishness, from which, after all, he suffered more than any man. His dishonesties and his treasonable attempts were failures, but he left a bitter legacy in his mastery of the arts of political corruption, and in a glittering personality which, with his misfortunes, has begodded him with the shallow and ignorant, who know the traditions of history and none of its facts. He was a poor creature, with all his gifts, for his life was a failure, his old age one of the loneliest and bitterest in history; and from no cause that facts or tradition give us but the blind selfishness which blunted a good understanding to stupidity. Selfishness in public life is a crime against one's highest ambitions.

Mrs. Hamilton kept a firm hold on her husband's arm, and her glance shot apprehensively from Washington to the Vice-President. The latter could not dance at present; the former looked as if petrified, rooted in the floor. Betsey had a clever little head, and she devised a scheme at once. She was the third lady in the land, and although many years younger than Mrs. Adams, had entertained from her cradle. No one else immediately following the entrance of her husband and herself, she did not 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. "Can I help you? Shall I start the minuet? Dear Mr. Adams will be too tired to dance to-night. Shall I choose a partner and begin?"

"For the love of heaven, do," whispered Mrs. Adams. "Take out Colonel Burr. He matches you in height, and dances like a courtier."

Other people entered at the moment, and Betsey whispered hurriedly to Hamilton: "Go--quickly--and fetch Colonel Burr. I breathe freely for the first time since the clock struck six, but who knows what may happen?"

Hamilton obediently started in quest of Burr. But alas, Ames and King darted at him from their hiding-place behind a curtain, and he disappeared from his wife's despairing vision. Ten minutes later he became aware of the familiar strains of the minuet, and guiltily glanced forth. Betsey, her face composed to stony resignation lest she disgrace herself with tears, was solemnly treading the measure with the solemnest man on earth, clutching at his hand, which was on a level with her turban. A turn of her head and she encountered her husband's contrite eye. Before hers he retreated to the alcove, nor did he show himself in the 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 the library with a group of anxious Federalists,--for it was but a night or two after his dinner with Jefferson,--he retired to a small room at the right of the main hall for a short conference with the Chief Justice. He was alone after a few moments, and was standing before the half-drawn tapestry, watching the guests promenading in the hall, when Kitty Livingston passed on the arm of Burr. Their eyes met, and she cut him. His spirits dropped at once, and he was indulging in reminiscences tinged with melancholy, for he had loved her as one of the faithful chums of his youth, niching her with Troup, Fish, and other enthusiastic friends of that time, when to his surprise she entered abruptly, and drew the tapestry behind her.

"You wicked varlet!" she exclaimed. "What did you sow all this dissension for, and deprive me of my best friends?" Then she kissed him impulsively. "I shall always love you, though. You were the dearest little chap that ever was--and that is why I am going to tell you something to-night, although I may never speak to you again, Aaron Burr is burrowing between my family and the Clinton faction. He hopes to make a strong combination, defeat General Schuyler at the next election, and have 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 Rufus King to you or to the country compared with our combined strength? Why should John be preferred to Robert? You are as high-handed and arrogant as Lucifer himself; and generally you win, but not always. Burr has seen his first chance for political preferment, and seized it with a cunning which I almost admire. He has persuaded both the Livingstons and the Clintons that here is their chance to pull you down, and he is only too willing to be the instrument--the wretched little mole! I shall hate myself to-morrow for telling you this, for God knows I am loyal to my people, but I have watched you go up--up--up. I should feel like your mother would if I saw you in the dust. I am afraid it is too late to do anything 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 is morbid with jealousy and will live to pull you down."

"My dear girl," exclaimed Hamilton, who was holding her hand between both his own, "do not let your imagination run away with you. I am very well with Burr, and he is jealous by fits and starts only. Why in the name of heaven should he be jealous? He has never given a thought to the welfare of the country, and I have devoted myself to the subject since boyhood. If I reap the reward--and God knows the future is precarious enough--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, and for that reason I have been glad that he has hitherto kept out of politics; for he would be of no service to the country, would not hesitate to sacrifice it to his own ends--unless I am a poor student of character. But as to personal enmity against me, or jealousy because I occupy 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 not powerful enough to unite two such factions."

"He has a tongue as persuasive from its cunning as yours is in its impetuosity, and he has convinced greater men than himself of his usefulness. Believe me, Alexander, I speak of what I know, not of what I suspect. Accept the fact, if you will not be warned. You always underrate your enemies. Your confidence in your own genius--a confidence which so much has occurred to warrant--blinds you to the power of others. Remember the old adage: Pride goeth before a fall--although I despise the humble myself; the world owes nothing to them. But I have often trembled for the time when your high-handed methods and your scorn of inferior beings would knock the very foundations from under your feet. Now, I will say no more, and we part for ever. Perhaps if you had not worn that colour to-night, I should not have betrayed my family--heaven knows! We women are compounded of so many contradictory motives. Thank your heaven that you men are not half so complex."

"My dear friend," said Hamilton, drily, "you women are not half so complex as men. You may lay claim to a fair share because your intelligence is above the average, but that is the point--complexity is a matter of intelligence, and as men are, as a rule, far more intelligent 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 the impulse--and the sacrifice."

"But you won't heed," she said, with a sigh. "Good-by, Alexander! I think Betsey is looking for you."

XXII

Hamilton for many months was far too busy with the reports he sent to Congress in rapid succession, above all with the one concerning the establishment of a National Bank, to be presented at the opening of the next Session, and with the routine of business connected with his department, to interfere in politics. He warned General Schuyler, however, and hoped that the scandal connected with the State lands, in which Burr was deeply implicated, would argue for the statesman in his contest with a mere politician. But Burr, in common with the other commissioners, was acquitted, although no satisfactory explanation of their astounding transactions was given, and General Schuyler lost the election as much through personal unpopularity as through the industry of Burr and the determined efforts of the Livingstons. Schuyler, the tenderest of men in his friendships, was as austere in his public manner as in his virtues, and inflexible in demanding the respect due to his rank and position. Of a broad intelligence, and a statesman of respectable stature, he knew little of the business of politics and cared less. He took his defeat with philosophy, regretting it more for the animosity toward his son-in-law it betokened than because it removed him temporarily from public life, and returned with his family to Albany, Hamilton was annoyed and disgusted, and resolved to keep his eye on Burr in the future. While he himself was in power the United States should have no set-backs that he could prevent, and if Burr realized his reading of his character he should manage to balk his ambitions if they threatened the progress of the country. Kitty Livingston he did not see again for many months, for her father died on July 25th. Hamilton heard of William Livingston's death with deep regret, for Liberty Hall was among the brightest of his memories; but events and emotions were crowding in his life as they never had crowded before, and he had little time for reminiscence.

Congress adjourned on the 12th of August to meet in Philadelphia in December. New York followed Washington to the ferry stairs upon the day of his departure, weeping not only for that great man's loss, but for the glory that went with him. "That vile Philadelphia," as Angelica Church, in a letter to Betsey of consolatory lament, characterized the city where Independence was born, was to be the capital of the Nation once more, New York to console herself with her commerce and the superior cleanliness of her streets. Those who could, followed the "Court," and those who could not, travelled the weary distance over the corduroy roads through the forests, and over swamps and rivers, as often as circumstances would permit. Of the former was Mrs. Croix, whose particular court protested it must have the solace of her presence in a city to which few went willingly. Clinton heaped her with reproaches, but she argued sweetly that he was outvoted, and that she should ever go where duty called. "She felt politics to be her mission," and in truth she enjoyed its intrigues, the double game she played, with all her feminine soul. Hamilton would not help himself in her valuable storehouse, but it pleased her to know that she held dangerous secrets in her hands, could confound many an unwary politician. And she had her methods, as we have seen, of springing upon Hamilton many a useful bit of knowledge, and of assisting him in ways unsuspected of any. She established herself in lodgings in Chestnut Street, not unlike those in which she had spent so many happy hours for two years past, inasmuch as they were situated on the first floor and communicated with a little garden. Her removal was looked upon as quite natural, and so admirably did she deport herself that even Mrs. Washington received her in time.

Philadelphia was a larger city than New York, with wide ill-kept streets, good pavements, and many fine houses and public buildings. Chestnut Street was the great thoroughfare, shopping district, and promenade. It was a city renowned for social activity and "crucifying expenses." Naturally its press was as jubilant over the revival of its ancient splendour as that of disappointed New York was scurrilous and vindictive. When the latter was not caricaturing Robert Morris, staggering off with the Administration on its back, or "Miss Assumption and her bastard brats," its anti-Federal part was abusing Hamilton as the arch-fiend who had sold the country, and applying to him every adjective of vituperation that fury and coarseness could suggest. There were poems, taunts, jibes, and squibs, printed as rapidly as the press and ingenuity could turn them out. If our ancestors were capable of appreciating the literary excellence of their pamphleteers, as many of those who have replaced them to-day could not, it must be admitted that we do not rage and hate so violently. The most hysteric effusions of our yellow press, or the caustic utterances of our reputable newspapers, are tame indeed before the daily cyclones of a time when everybody who did not love his political neighbor hated him with a deadly virulence of which we know little to-day. We may be improved, merely commercialized, or more diffuse in our interests. In those days every man was a politician first and himself after.

The violence of party feeling engendered once more by the debates over Hamilton's Report spread over the country like a prairie fire, and raged until, in the North at least, it was met by the back fire of increasing prosperity. As the summer waned farmers and merchants beheld the prices of public securities going up, heard that in Holland the foreign loan had gone above par, and that two hundred and seventy-eight thousand dollars of the domestic debt had been purchased and cancelled at a cost of one hundred and fifty thousand, saw trade reviving, felt their own burdens lighten with the banishment of the State debt. To sing the praises of the Assumption Bill was but a natural sequence, and from thence to a constant panegyric of Hamilton. The anti-Federalist press was drowned in the North by the jubilance of the Federal and its increasing recruits, but in the South everything connected with the Government in general and Hamilton in particular was unholy, and the language 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 his argument in favour of a National Bank. Betsey had been more fortunate than many in getting her house in order within a reasonable time, for others were camping in two rooms while the carpenters hammered over the rest of the neglected mansions. Washington arrived in November and took possession of the stately home of Robert Morris, although he grumbled that the stables would hold but twelve horses. It was a splendid mansion, however, and filled not only with the fine collections of the rich merchant, but with many beautiful works of art that the President brought from Mount Vernon. Congress opened on the 6th of December.

If Hamilton had given only an occasional half-amused, half-irritated attention to the journalistic and pamphlet warfare in which he had been the target, he now found a domestic engagement confronting him which commanded his attentions and roused all the fighting Scotch blood in his composition. Jefferson had done much and distressful thinking during the summer 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 the Administration, and that Hamilton was a danger to the Nation and a colossus in his path. Assumption he held to be a measure of the very devil, and fumed whenever he reflected upon his part in its accomplishment. "I was made to hold a candle!" he would explain apologetically. "He hoodwinked me, made a fool of me."

For a statesman of forty-seven, and one of the most distinguished and successful men in the country, the literary author of The Declaration of Independence, the father of many beneficent and popular laws in his own State, a minister to foreign courts and one of the deepest and subtlest students of human nature of his century, to find himself fooled and played with by a young man of thirty-three, relegated by him to a second place in the Cabinet and country, means--meant in those days, at least--hate of the most remorseless quality. Jefferson was like a volcano with bowels of fire and a crater which spilled over in the night. He smouldered and rumbled, a natural timidity preventing the splendour of fireworks. But he was deadly.

He and Madison met often during these holidays, and an object of their growing 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, and everybody connected with it, from Washington down, Jefferson excepted; Randolph he held to be a trimmer, and overlooked the fact that although he himself had opposed the Constitution with all his words, he was one of the first to take office under it. Jefferson needed but this younger man's incentive to disapprove more profoundly not only assumption, but Hamilton's design to establish a National Bank. That was the most criminal evidence of an ultimate dash for a throne which the Secretary of the Treasury, whose place in the Cabinet should have been second to his own, but who was the very head and front of the Administration, had yet betrayed. And as for the triumphal progress of Washington through the States in the previous autumn, and again before leaving for Mount Vernon upon the close of the last Congress, a king could have done no more. The new Republic was tottering on its rotten foundations, and Jefferson and his able lieutenants vowed themselves to the rescue. Madison was the anti-government leader in the House, Monroe would abet him in the Senate, and Jefferson would undertake the fight in the Cabinet. It cannot be said that he liked the prospect, for he read his fellow-beings too well to mistake the mettle of Hamilton. He was a peaceable soul, except when in his study with pen in hand, but stem this monarchical tide he would, and bury Hamilton under the dam.

"We are three to one," he said reassuringly to his coadjutors. "He is brilliant. I do not deny it. But against a triple power--"

"He is worth any three men I ever knew," said Madison, drearily. "We shall 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 after the convening of Congress.

XXIII

On the 13th of December Hamilton sent to the House of Representatives his second Report on Public Credit--no longer a nomen of bitter sarcasm--and the Report in favour of a National Bank. Congress was once more on edge. Since his first Great Report, it had considered and wrangled over his successive Reports on State Debits and Credits, West Point, Public Lands, Estimates, and Renewal of Certificates; and it had lived through the hot summer on the prospect of the excitement which the bold and creative Secretary would surely provide. Even his enemies loved Hamilton in their way, for life was torpid when he rested on his labours.

The anti-Federalists, had they needed an additional incentive for the coming battle, a condition to rouse all their strength and mettle, found it in the rapidly increasing prosperity of the country, which had raised Hamilton to a height of popularity from which it would be an historic triumph to drag him down. He was, indeed, almost at the zenith of a reputation which few men have achieved. From end to end of the Union his name was on every lip, sometimes coupled with a hiss, but oftener with every expression of honour and admiration that the language could furnish. Even in the South he had his followers, and in the North and East 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 his opportunities, and the saviour of the national honour and fortunes. His fame obscured that of Washington, and abroad he was by far the most interesting and significant figure in the young country. No wonder the anti-Federalists trembled for the future, and with all the vigour of hardened muscles fought his scheme for allying the moneyed classes with the Government.

Hamilton made no secret of his design so closely to attach the wealthy men of the country to the central Government that they must stand or fall with it, coming to its rescue in every crisis; and time has vindicated his far-sighted policy. But when the National Bank was in the preliminary stages of its journey, certain of its hosts in Congress saw but another horrid menace to the liberties of the people, another step toward the final establishment of a monarchy after the British pattern. The old arguments of subservience to British institutions in the matter of funding, and other successful pets of the Secretary, were dragged forth and wrangled over, in connection with this new and doubly pernicious measure of a National Bank.

Hamilton recommended that a number of subscribers should be incorporated into a bank, to be known as the Bank of the United States; the capital to be ten million dollars; the number of shares twenty-five thousand; the par value of each share four hundred dollars; the Government to become a subscriber to the amount of two millions, and to require in return a loan of an equal sum, payable in ten yearly instalments of two hundred thousand dollars each. The rest of the capital stock would be open to the public, to be paid for, one-quarter in gold and silver, and three-quarters in the six or three per cent certificates of the national debt. The life of the bank was to end in 1811. As an inducement for prompt subscriptions a pledge would be given that for twenty years to come Congress would incorporate no other.

It is odd reading for us, with a bank in every street, not only those old diatribes in Congress against banks of all sorts, but Hamilton's elaborate arguments in favour of banks in general, the benefits and conveniences they confer upon individuals as well as nations. But in those days there were but three banks in the Union, and each had been established against violent opposition, Hamilton, in particular, having carried the Bank of New York through by unremitting personal effort. The average man preferred his stocking. Representatives from backwoods districts were used to such circulating mediums as military warrants, guard certificates, horses, cattle, cow-bells, land, and whiskey. They looked askance at a bank as a sort of whirlpool into which wealth would disappear, and bolt out at the bottom into the pockets of a few individuals who understood what was beyond the average intellect. But by far the most disquieting objection brought forward against this plan of the Secretary's was its alleged unconstitutionality.

Monroe, although a new man, and speaking seldom, exerted a systematic opposition in the Senate, and Madison, in the House, argued, with lucidity and persistence, that the Constitution had no power to grant a charter to any such institution as the Secretary proposed. Others argued that the success of this new scheme would infringe upon the rights of the States, and still others thundered the everlasting accusations of monarchical design. Nevertheless, the bill for granting the required charter passed both Houses by a handsome majority. The able Federalists had contemptuously dissected the arguments against it with greater skill than even Madison could command; and confidence in Hamilton, by this time, practically was a religion. The bill was sent to Washington to sign or veto, and the anti-Federalists, disconcerted and alarmed by their signal defeat in Congress, rested their final hope on Jefferson.

The President, according to law, had but ten days in which to sign or veto a bill: if he hesitated but a moment beyond the constitutional limit, the bill became a law without his signature. It may safely be said that these ten days were the most miserable of Washington's life so far, although they were but the forerunner of many to come.

By this time the Cabinet had acquired the habit of assembling for conference about a council table in the President's house. Washington sat at the head of the table, with Hamilton on his left, and Jefferson on his right. Knox, who would have frowned upon the Almighty had he contradicted Hamilton, sat beside his Captain. Randolph sat opposite, his principles with Jefferson, but his intellect so given to hair-splitting, that in critical moments this passion to weigh every side of a proposition in turn frequently resulted in the wrench of a concession by Hamilton, while Jefferson fumed. As time went on, Washington fell into the habit of extending his long arms upon the table in front of him, and clasping his imposing hands in the manner of a rampart.

Jefferson began a tentative showing of his colours while the bill was fighting its stormy way through Congress, and Hamilton was a brief while perceiving his drift and appreciating his implacable enmity. The first time that Jefferson encountered the lightning in Hamilton's eye, the quivering of his nostril, as he half rose from his chair under the sudden recognition of what he was to expect, his legs slid forward limply, and he turned his head toward the door. Washington suppressed a smile, but it was long before he smiled again, Hamilton would have no hints and innuendoes; he forced his enemy to show his hand. But although he wrung from Jefferson his opposition to the Bank and to every scheme the Secretary of the Treasury had proposed, he could not drag him into the open. Jefferson was deprecating, politely determined to serve the country 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. The more bitter and caustic the sarcasms that leaped from Hamilton's tongue, the more suave he grew, for placidity was his only weapon of self-preservation; a war of words with Hamilton, and he would be made ridiculous in the presence of his colleagues and Washington. Occasionally the volcano flared through his pale eyes, and betrayed such hate and resentment that Washington elevated his hands an inch. The President sat like a stoic, with a tornado on one side of him and a growling Vesuvius on the other, and exhibited an impartiality, in spite of the fact that Jefferson daily betrayed his hostility to the Administration, which revealed but another of his superhuman attributes. But there is a psychological manifestation of mental bias, no matter what the control, and some men are sensitive enough to feel it. Jefferson was quite aware that Washington loved Hamilton and believed in him thoroughly, and he felt the concealed desire to side openly with the Secretary to whom, practically, had been given the reins of government. Washington, rather than show open favouritism, even to Hamilton, to whom he felt the profoundest gratitude, would have resigned his high office; but the desire was in his head, and Jefferson felt it. The campaign open, he kept up a nagging siege upon Washington's convictions in favour of his aggressive Secretary's measures, finding constant excuses to be alone with the President. Hamilton, on the other hand, dismissed the subject when left alone with Washington, unless responding to a demand. He frequently remained to the midday meal with the family, and was as gay and lively as if Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe were in the limbo to which he gladly would have consigned them. His nature was mercurial in one, at least, of its essences, and a sudden let-down, followed by congenial company, restored his equilibrium at once. But Washington watched the development of the blackness and violence of his deeper passions with uneasiness and regret, finally with alarm.

Hamilton, in truth, was roused to his dregs. The sneaking retreat of Madison from his standard and affections, the rancorous enmity of Monroe, with whom he had fought side by side and been well with whenever they had been thrown together in the bitter winters of inaction; the slow, cool, determined, deadly opposition of Jefferson, whom he recognized as a giant in intellect and despised as a man with that hot contempt for the foe who will not strip and fight in the open, which whips a passionate nature to the point of fury, had converted Hamilton into a colossus of hate which, as Madison had intimated, far surpassed the best endeavours of the powerful trio. He hated harder, for he had more to hate with,--stronger and deeper passions, ampler resources in his intellect, and an energy of temperament which Jefferson and Madison, recruited by Monroe, could not outweigh. He saw that he was in for the battle of his life, and that its finish might be deferred for years; for he made no such mistake as to underrate the strength and resources of this triple enemy; he knew that it would last until one or the other were worn out. Hamilton had no thought of defeat; he never contemplated it for a moment; his faith in himself and in the wisdom of his measures was absolute; what he looked forward to with the deepest irritation was the persistent opposition, the clogging of his wheels of progress, the constant personal attacks which might weaken him with the country before his multitudinous objects should be accomplished. He suggested resource after resource to his faithful and brilliant disciples in Congress, and he determined to force Jefferson to leave the Cabinet.

"If he only would take himself out of that room with a defiant admission that 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 at Washington's hand, a member of his Cabinet, ostensibly in its first place, and at war with every measure of the Administration? He cannot oppose me without involving the President, under whom he holds office, and if he had a grain of decent feeling he would resign rather than occupy such an anomalous position."

"He intends to force you to resign."

"You don't mean to say that he is coming here?" asked Hamilton, in disgust. "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 being can force you to do anything you don't want to do, and that the sooner he retreats gracefully the better."

Hamilton shrugged his shoulders and made no answer. He had ceased remonstrance long since. If it pleased her to think she was fighting the battles he was forced to fight with undiminished vigour himself, he should be the last to interfere with her amusement. She was a born intrigante, and would have been miserable freckling her complexion in the open sunlight. He was too grateful to her at this time to risk a quarrel, or to condemn her for any of her violations of masculine standards. It was to her he poured out his wrath, after an encounter with Jefferson which had roused him too viciously for reaction at Washington's board or at his own. His wife he spared in every way. Not only was her delicate health taxed to the utmost with social duties which could not be avoided, the management of her household affairs, and an absorbing and frequently ailing family, but he would have controlled himself had he burst, before he would have terrified her with a glimpse of passions of whose existence she had not a suspicion. To her and his family he was ever the most amiable and indulgent of men, giving them every spare moment he could command, and as delighted as a schoolboy with a holiday, when he could spend an hour in the nursery, an evening with his wife, or take a ramble through the woods with his boys. He took a deep pride in his son Philip, directed his studies and habits, and was as pleased with every evidence of his progress as had he seen Madison riding a rail in a coat of tar and feathers. He coddled and petted the entire family, particularly his little daughter Angelica, and they adored him, and knew naught of his depths.

But Mrs. Croix knew them. In her management of Hamilton she made few mistakes, passionately as she loved him. It was in her secluded presence he stormed himself cool, was indignantly sympathized with first, then advised, then soothed. He was made to understand that the more he revealed the black and implacable deeps of his nature, the more was he worshipped, the more keen the response from other and not dissimilar deeps. His wife was necessary to him in many ways, his Egeria in many more. Although he would have sacrificed the last to the first, had it come to an issue, he would have felt as if one-half of him had been cruelly divorced. Few women understand this dual nature in men, and few are the men who do not. It has been known to exist in those who make no pretensions to genius, and in Hamilton was as natural as the versatility of his intellect. When with one he locked the other in the recesses of his mind as successfully as when at college he had accomplished herculean feats of mental accumulation by keeping but one thing before his thought at a time. What he wanted he would have, so long as his family were in no way affected; and had it not been for Mrs. Croix at this 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 curtains and lighting her many candles. Had she been a fool, Hamilton would have tired of her in a month; as it was, he often thought of her as the most confidential and dispensing of his friends, and no more.

During the preceding two years of their acquaintance there had been many quarrels, 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 she was the solitary woman of Earth, and others when she might have reigned on Mars. He was very busy, and he had countless interests to absorb time and 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; for she was a woman whose vanity was as strong as her passions. At this time, however, he felt a frequent need of her, and she made the most of the opportunity.

XXIV

Meanwhile, Washington, deeply disturbed by the arguments in the press and Congress against the constitutionality of the National Bank, had privately asked for the written opinions of Jefferson and Randolph, and for a form of veto from Madison. They were so promptly forthcoming that they might have been biding demand. Washington read them carefully, then, too worried and impatient for formalities, carried them himself to Hamilton's house.

"For God's sake read them at once and tell me what they amount to," he said, throwing the bundle of papers on the table. "Of course you must prepare me an answer in writing, but I want your opinion at once. I will wait."

Long years after, when Betsey was an old woman, someone asked her if she remembered any incidents in connection with the establishment of the great Bank. She replied, "Yes, I remember it all distinctly. One day General Washington called at the house, looking terribly worried. He shut himself up in the study with my husband for hours, and they talked nearly 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; and the next day we had a Bank."

Hamilton's answer, both verbally and in a more elaborate form, was so able and sound a refutation of every point advanced by the enemy that Washington hesitated no longer and signed the bill during the last moments remaining to him. Years later, when the same question was raised again, Chief Justice Marshall, the most brilliant ornament, by common consent, the Supreme Court of the United States has had, admitted that he could add nothing to Hamilton's argument. It must, also, have convinced Madison; for while President of the United States, and his opportunity 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 of the Federalists, advocated; the second Bank as heartily as he had cursed the first. His defence of his conduct was a mixture of insolent frankness and verbiage. He said: "As to the constitutional objection, it formed no serious obstacle. In voting against the Bank in the first instance, I was governed essentially by policy. The construction I gave to the Constitution I considered a strict one. In the latter instance it was more liberal but, according to my judgement, justified by its powers." If anyone can tell what he meant, doubtless his own shade would be grateful.

Hamilton's second Report on the Public Credit had beer buffeted about quite as mercilessly as the Report in favour of a bank. The customs officers had, during the past year collected $1,900,000, which sufficed to pay two-thirds of the annual expenses of the Government. There was still a deficit of $826,000, and to meet future contingencies of a similar nature, the Secretary of the Treasury urged the passage of an Excise Bill.

Even his enemies admired his courage, for no measure could be more unpopular, raise more widespread wrath. It was regarded as a deliberate attempt to deprive man of his most cherished vice; and every argument was brought forth in opposition, from the historic relation of whiskey to health and happiness, to the menace of adopting another British measure. 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 the establishment of a mint, with details so minute that he left the framers of the necessary bill little excuse for delay; but it had the same adventurous and agitated experience of its predecessors, and only limped through, in an amended form, after the wildest outburst of democratic fanaticism which any of the measures of Hamilton had induced. The proposition to stamp the coins with the head of the President was conclusive of an immediate design to place a crown upon the head of Washington. Doubtless the leaders of the Federal party, under the able tuition of their despot, had their titles ready, their mine laid. Jefferson, in the Cabinet, protested with such solemn persistence against so dangerous a precedent, and Hamilton perforated him with such arrows of ridicule, that Washington exploded with wrath, and demanded to know if neither never intended to yield a point to the other.

During this session of Congress, Hamilton also sent in Reports on Trade with India and China, and on the Dutch Loan. He was fortunate in being able to forget his enemies for days and even weeks at a time, when his existence was so purely impersonal that every capacity of his mind, save the working, slept soundly. By now, he had his department in perfect running order; and his successors have accepted his legacy, with its infinitude of detail, its unvarying practicality, with gratitude and trifling alterations. When Jefferson disposed himself in the Chair of State, in 1801, he appointed Albert Gallatin--the ablest financier, after Hamilton, the country has produced--Secretary of the Treasury, and begged him to sweep the department clean of the corruption amidst which Hamilton had sat and spun his devilish schemes. Gallatin, after a thorough and conscientious search for political microbes, informed his Chief that in no respect could the department be improved, that there was not a trace of crime, past or present. Jefferson was disconcerted; but, as a matter of fact, his administrations were passed complacently amidst Hamilton legacies and institutions. Jefferson's hour had come. He could undo all that he had denounced in his rival as monarchical, aristocratical, pernicious to the life of Democracy. But the administrations of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, ran from first to last on those Federal wheels which are still in use, protected within and without by Federal institutions. But their architect was sent to his grave soon after the rise of his arch-enemy to power, was beyond humiliation 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 was anticipated with the keenest interest, and followed by a season of crazy speculation, dissatisfaction, and vituperation. But this Hamilton had expected, and he used his pen constantly to point out the criminal folly and inevitable consequences of speculation.

XXV

Congress adjourned while the excitement was at its height. Washington went to Mount Vernon, the Cabinet scattered, and there was an interval of peace. Philadelphia in summer was always unhealthy, and liable to an outbreak of fever at any moment. Hamilton sent his family to the Schuyler estate at Saratoga. Mrs. Croix had gone as early as May to the New England coast; for even her magnificent constitution had felt the strain of that exciting session, and Philadelphia was not too invigorating in winter. Hamilton remained alone in his home, glad of the abundant leisure which the empty city afforded to catch up with the arrears of his work, to design methods for financial relief against the time to apply them, and to prepare his Report on Manufactures, a paper destined to become as celebrated and almost as widespread in its influence as the great Report on Public Credit. It required days and nights of thinking, research, correspondence, comparison, and writing; and how in the midst of all this mass of business, this keen anxiety regarding the whirlwind of speculation--which was involving some of the leading men in the country, and threatening the young Government with a new disaster; how, while sitting up half the night with his finger on the public pulse, waiting for the right moment to apply his remedies, he managed to entangle himself in a personal difficulty, would be an inscrutable mystery, were any man but Alexander Hamilton in question.

I shall not enter into the details of the Reynolds affair. No intrigue was ever less interesting. Nor should I make even a passing allusion to it, were it not for its political ultimates. A couple of blackmailers laid a trap for the Secretary of the Treasury, and he walked into it, as the wisest of men have done before and since, when the woman has been sufficiently attractive at the right moment. This woman was common and sordid, but she was young and handsome, and her affectation of violent attachment, if ungrammatical, was plausible enough to convince any man accustomed to easy conquest; and the most astute of men, provided his passions be strong enough, can be fooled by any woman at once designing and seductive. Ardent susceptibility was in the very essence of Hamilton, with Scotland and France in his blood, the West Indies the mould 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 pecuniary distress of this charmer, and weary of her society, he did his best to get rid of her. She protested. So did he. It was then that he was made aware of the plot The woman's husband appeared, and announced that only a thousand dollars would heal his wounded honour, and that if it were not immediately forthcoming, he would write to Mrs. Hamilton.

Hamilton was furious. His first impulse was to tell the man to do his worst, for anything in the nature of coercion stripped him for the fray at once. But an hour of reflection cooled his blood. No one was to blame but himself. If he had permitted himself to be made a fool of, it was but just that he should take the consequences, and not cruelly wound the woman he loved the better for his vagaries. Moreover, such a scandal would seriously affect the high office he filled, might indeed force him to resignation; not only thwarting his great ambitions, but depriving the country of services which no other man had the ability or the will to render. And a few moments forecast of the triumph of his enemies, not only over himself but possibly over his party, in case of his downfall, was sufficient in itself to force him to terms. Few are the momentous occasions in which men are governed by a single motive. Hamilton's ambitions were welded into the future happiness and glory of the country he 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 a nation out of the resources of a vast understanding, controlled by wisdom and honour, is an ambition which should be dignified with a higher name. Small and purely personal ambitions were unknown to Hamilton, his gifts were given him for the elevation of the human race; but he would rather have reigned in hell than have sunk to insignificance on earth. As he remarked once to Kitty Livingston, the complexity of man so far exceeds that of the average woman, complexity being purely a matter of brain and having no roots whatever in sex, that it were a waste of valuable time to analyze its ramifications, and the crossings and entanglements of its threads. Hamilton paid the money, yielded further to the extent of several hundred dollars, then the people disappeared, and he hoped that he had heard the last of them. Fortunately his habits were methodical, the result of his mercantile training on St. Croix, and he preserved the correspondence.

XXVI

Hamilton looked forward to the next Congressional term with no delusions. He polished his armour until it was fit to blind his adversaries, tested the temper of every weapon, sharpened every blade, arranged them for immediate availment. In spite of the absorbing and disconcerting interests of the summer, he had followed in thought the mental processes of his enemies, kept a sharp eye out for their new methods of aggression. Themselves had had no more intimate knowledge of their astonishment, humiliation, and impotent fury at the successive victories of the invulnerable Secretary of the Treasury, than had Hamilton himself. He knew that they had confidently hoped to beat him by their combined strength and unremitting industry, and by the growing power of their party, before the finish of the preceding term. The Federalists no longer had their former majority in Congress upon all questions, for many of the men who, under that title, had been devoted adherents of the Constitution, were become alarmed at the constant talk of the monarchical tendencies of the Government, of the centralizing aristocratic measures of the Secretary of the Treasury, at the "unrepublican" formalities and elegance of Washington's "Court," at his triumphal progresses through the country, and at the enormous one-man power as exhibited in the person of Hamilton. Upon these minds Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe had worked with unremitting subtlety. It was not so much that the early Federalists wished to see Hamilton dragged from his lofty position, for they admired him, and were willing to acknowledge his services to the country; but that the idea grew within them that he must be properly checked, lest they suddenly find themselves subjects again. They realized that they had been running to him for advice upon every matter, great and insignificant, since the new Congress began its sittings, and that they had adopted the greater part of his counsels without question; they believed that Hamilton was becoming the Congress as he already was the Administration; and overlooked the fact that legislative authority as against executive had no such powerful supporter as the Secretary of the Treasury. But it was not an era when men reasoned as exhaustively as they might have done. They were terrified by bogies, and the blood rarely was out of their heads. "Monarchism must be checked," and Hamilton for some months past had watched the rapid welding of the old anti-Federalists and the timid Federalists into what was shortly to be known, for a time, as the Republican party. That Jefferson had been at work all summer, as during the previous term, with his subtle, insinuating, and convincing pen, he well knew, and for what the examples of such men as Jefferson and Madison counted--taking their stand on the high ground of stemming the menace to personal liberties. The Republican party was to be stronger far than the old anti-Federal, for it was to be a direct and constant appeal to the controlling passion of man, vanity; and Hamilton believed that did it obtain the reins of power too early in the history of the Nation, confusion, if not anarchy, would result: not only was it too soon to try new experiments, diametrically opposed to those now in operation, but, under the tutelage of Jefferson, the party was in favour of vesting more power in the masses. Hamilton had no belief in entrusting power to any man or body of men that had not brains, education, and a developed reasoning capacity. He was a Republican but not a Democrat. He recognized, long before the rival party saw their mistake in nomenclature, that this Jefferson school marked the degeneracy of republicanism into democracy. Knowing how absurd and unfounded was all the hysterical talk about monarchism, and that time would vindicate the first Administration and its party as Republican in its very essence, he watched with deep, and often with impersonal, uneasiness the growth of a party which would denationalize the government, scatter its forces, and interpret the Constitution in a fashion not intended by the most protesting of its framers. Hamilton had in an extraordinary degree the faculty which Spencer calls representativeness; but there were some things he could not foresee, and one was that when the Republicans insinuated themselves to power they would rest on their laurels, let play the inherent conservatism of man, and gladly accept the goods the Federal party had provided them. The three men who wrote and harangued and intrigued against Hamilton for years, were to govern as had they been the humblest of Hamiltonians. But this their great antagonist was in unblest ignorance of, for he, too, reasoned in the heat and height and thick of the fray; and he made himself ready to dispute every inch of the ground, checkmate every move, force Jefferson into retirement, and invigorate and encourage his own ranks. The majority in both Houses was still Federal, if diminished, and he determined that it should remain so.

As early as October his watching eye caught the first flash in the sunlight of a new blade in the enemies' armoury. One Freneau had come to town. He had some reputation as a writer of squibs and verses, and Hamilton knew him to be a political hireling utterly without principle. When, therefore, he heard incidentally that this man had lately been in correspondence and conference with the Virginian junta, and particularly that he had been "persuaded by his old friend Madison to settle in Philadelphia," had received an appointment as translating clerk in the Department of State, and purposed to start a newspaper called the _National Gazette_ in opposition to Fenno's Administration organ, _The United States Gazette_, he knew what he was to expect. Fenno's paper was devoted to the Administration, and to the Secretary of the Treasury in particular; it was the medium through which Hamilton addressed most of his messages to the people. Naturally it was of little use to his enemies; and that Jefferson and his aides had realized the value of an organ of attack, he divined very quickly. He stated his suspicions to Washington immediately upon the President's arrival, and warned him to expect 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 hope so, for I am used to it."

He laughed, and quite as light-heartedly as ever; but Washington looked at him with uneasiness.

"You are a terrible fighter, Hamilton," he said. "I have never seen or dreamed of your equal. Why not merely oppose to them a massive resistance? Why be continually on the warpath? They give you a tentative scratch, and you reply with a blow under the jaw, from which they rise with a sullener determination to ruin you, than ever. When you are alone with your pen and the needs of the country, you might have the wisdom of a thousand years in your brain, and I doubt if at such times you remember your name; you are one of the greatest, wisest, coolest statesmen of any age; but the moment you come forth to the open, you are not so much a political leader as a warlike Scot at the head of his clan, and readier by far to make a dash into the neighbouring fastness than to wait for an attack. Are you and Jefferson going to fight straight through this session?--for if you are, I shall no longer yearn so 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 he had returned from Virginia refreshed; but Hamilton answered contritely:--

"We both behaved abominably last year, and it was shocking that you should bear the brunt of it. I'll do my best to control myself in the Cabinet--although that man rouses all the devil in me; but not to fight at the head of my party. Oh! Can the leopard change his spots? I fear I shall die with my back against the wall, sir, and my boots on." "I haven't the slightest doubt of it. But be careful of giving too free and constant a play to your passions and your capacity for rancour, or your character will deteriorate. Tell me," he added abruptly, narrowing his eyes and fixing Hamilton with a prolonged scrutiny, "do you not feel its effects already?"

By this time the early, half-unwilling, half-magnetized affection which the boy in Hamilton had yielded to his Chief had given place to a consistent admiration for the exalted character, the wisdom, justice, and self-control of the President of the United States, and to a devoted attachment. The bond between the two men grew closer every day, and only the end of all things severed it. Hamilton, therefore, replied as frankly as if Washington had asked his opinion on the temper of the country, instead of probing the sacred recesses of his spirit:--

"There have been times when I have sat down and stared into myself with horror; when I have felt as if sitting in the ruins of my nature. I have caught myself up again and again, realizing where I was drifting. I have let a fiend loose within me, and I have turned upon it at times with a disgust so bitter and a terror so over-mastering that the mildness which has resulted has made me feel indifferent and even amiable to mine enemies. Whether this intimate knowledge of myself will save me, God knows; but when some maddening provocation comes, after reaction has run its course, I rage more hotly than ever, and only a sense of personal dignity keeps me from using my fists. I am two-thirds passion, and I am afraid that in the end it will consume me. I live so intensely, in my best and my worst! I would give all I possess for your moderation and balance."

"No, you would not," said Washington. "War is the breath of your nostrils, and peace would kill you. Not that the poise I have acquired brings me much peace in these days."

Hamilton, who had spoken dejectedly, but with the deep relief which every mortal feels in a moment of open and safe confession, sprang to his feet, and stood on the hearth rug, his eyes sparkling with humour. "Confess, sir," he cried gaily. "You do not like Jefferson any better than I do. Fancy him opposite to you day after day, stinging you with honeyed shafts and opposing you with obstacle after obstacle, while leering with hypocrisy. Put yourself in my place for an instant, and blame me if you can."

"Oh," said Washington, with a deep growl of disgust, "o-h-h!" But he would not discuss his Secretary of State, even with Hamilton.

XXVII

The bombardment from Freneau's _Gazette_ opened at once. It began with a general assault upon the Administration, denouncing every prominent member in turn as a monarchist or an aristocrat, and every measure as subversive of the liberties of the country. Vice-President Adams received a heavy broadside, his "Discourses on Davila," with their animadversions upon the French Revolution in particular and Democracy in general, being regarded as a heinous offence against the spirit of his country, and detrimental to the political morals of the American youth. But although the _Gazette_ kept up its pretence of being an anti-Administration organ, publishing in the interests of a deluded people, it soon settled down to abuse of Hamilton.

That a large number of the articles were from Jefferson's damning pen few of the Republican leader's friends denied with any warmth, and the natural deductions of history would have settled the question, had not Freneau himself confessed the truth in his old age. What Jefferson did not write, he or Madison inspired, and Freneau had a lively pen of his own. They had promising material in General St. Clair's recent and disastrous defeat by the Indians, which, by a triumph of literary ingenuity, was ascribed to the ease and abundance with which the Secretary of the Treasury had caused money to circulate. But a far stronger weapon for their malignant use was the ruinous speculation which had maddened the country since the opening of the Bank of the United States. It was not enough that the Bank was a monarchical institution, a machine for the corruption of the Government, a club of grasping and moneyed aristocrats, but it had been purposely designed for the benefit of the few--the "corrupt squadron," namely, the Secretary and 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 his patron's villany.

For a time Hamilton held his peace. He had enough to do, steering the financial bark through the agitated waters of speculation, without wasting time on personal recrimination. Even when, before the failure, he was accused of being in secret partnership with Duer, he did not pause for vindication, but exerted himself to alleviate the general distress. He initiated the practice, followed by Secretaries of the Treasury at the present moment, of buying Government loan certificates in different financial centres throughout the country, thus easing the money market, raising the price of the certificates, and strengthening the 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 psychological condition. Hamilton had made up his mind not only to spare Washington further annoyance, if possible, but to maintain a dignity which he was keenly conscious of having relinquished in the past. The two antagonists greeted each other politely when they met for the first time in the Council Chamber, although they had crossed the street several times previously to avoid meeting; and if Jefferson discoursed unctiously and at length, whenever the opportunity offered, upon the lamentable consequences of a lamentable measure, and indulged in melancholy prognostications of a general ruin, in which the Government would disappear and be forgotten, Hamilton replied for a time with but an occasional sarcasm, and a change of subject. One day, however, a long-desired opportunity presented itself, and he did not neglect it. He was well aware that Jefferson had complained to Virginia that he had been made to hold a candle to the wily Secretary of the Treasury in the matter of assumption, in other words, that his guileless understanding, absorbed in matters of State, had been duped into a bargain of which Virginia did not approve, despite the concession to the Potomac.

About two months after Congress opened, Washington, as his Cabinet seated itself, was detained in his room with a slight indisposition, but sent word that he would appear presently. For a time, Randolph and Knox talked feverishly about the Indian troubles, while Hamilton looked over some notes, and Jefferson watched his antagonist covertly, as if anticipating a sudden spring across the table. Hamilton was not in a good humour. He was accustomed to abuse in Congress, and that it was again in full tide concerned him little, for he was sure of ultimate victories in both Houses; and words which were powerless to result in a defeat for himself, or his party, he treated with the scorn which impotence deserved. But it was another matter to have his private character assailed day after day in the press, to watch a subtle pen insinuate into the public mind that a woman imperilled her reputation in receiving him, and that he was speculating in secret with the reckless friend whom he had warned over and over, and begged to desist. Freneau sent him three copies of the _Gazette_ daily, lest he miss something, and he had that morning left Betsey in tears. Fenno was fighting the Secretary's battles valiantly; but there was only one pen in America which could cope with Jefferson's, and that was Hamilton's own. But aside from his accumulating cares, it was a strife to which he did not care 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 the Administration in any way."

"His connection was quite distinct from your department. I alone was responsible for his appointment as my assistant. There is no necessity for you to shed any hypocritical tears."

"What concerns the honour of the Administration naturally concerns the Secretary 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 no way be involved."

"Of those facts of course I am sure, but I fear the reflections in the press."

"Keep your own pen worthily employed, and the Administration will take care 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's blackguard sheet, while you are sitting at Washington's right hand, at all events--"

Jefferson had elevated both hands. "I call Heaven to witness," he cried, "this black aspersion upon my character is, has been, entirely a production of the imagination of my enemies. I have never written nor inspired a line in Mr. Freneau's paper."

Hamilton laughed and returned to his notes.

"You do not believe me, sir?" demanded Jefferson, the blood boiling slowly 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 stood enough from you. Are you aware that you have called me a liar, sir? I have suffered at your hands since the day I set foot in this country. I left the peace and retirement that I love, to come forth in response to a demand upon my duty, a demand I have ever heeded, and what has been my reward? The very first act I was tricked into committing was a crime against my country--"

"Were you in your dotage, sir?" thundered Hamilton, springing to his feet, and bringing his own hand down with such violence that the lead in his cuff dented his wrist. "Was your understanding enfeebled with age, that you could not comprehend the exhaustive explanation I made of the crisis in this country's affairs? Did I not give you twenty-four hours in which to think it over? What were you doing--muddling your brains with French wines?--that you could not reason clearly when relieved of my baleful fascination? Were you not protected on the following day by two men, who were more your friends than mine? I proposed a straightforward bargain, which you understood as well then as you do now. You realized to the full what the interests of the country demanded, and in a rare moment of disinterested patriotism you agreed to a compromise in which you saw no detriment to yourself. What you did not anticipate was the irritation of your particular State, and the annoyance 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 an open mind by a wily one, unless you are willing to acknowledge that your brain was too weak to grasp a simple proposition; in which case you had better resign from public office."

"I know that is what you are trying to force me to do," gasped Jefferson, almost speechless between rage and physical fear; for Hamilton's eyes were flashing, his body curved as if he meditated immediate personal violence. "But I'll not do it, sir, any more than I or anyone else will be deluded by the speciousness of your language. You are an upstart. You have no State affinities, you despise them for a very good reason--you come from God knows where--I do not even know the name of the place. You are playing a game. You care nothing for the country you were not born in. Unless you can be king, you would treat it as your toy."

"For your absurd personalities I care nothing," said Hamilton, reseating himself. "They are but the ebullitions of an impotence that would ruin and cannot. But take heed what you write, for in injuring the Secretary of the Treasury you injure the prosperity of the country; and if you push me too far, I'll expose you and make you infamous. Here comes the President. 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 raised welts under which he would writhe for some time to come. When the Cabinet adjourned he remained, and followed Washington into the library, under cover of a chat about seeds and bulbs, a topic of absorbing interest to both. When their legs were extended before the fire, Jefferson said, as abruptly as if the idea had but just presented itself:--

"Mr. President, we are both Virginians, and had cut our wisdom teeth--not that for a moment I class myself with you, sir--while young Hamilton was still in diapers."

"Children do not wear diapers in the West Indies," interrupted Washington, in his gravest accents. "I spent some months on the Island of Barbadoes, in the year seventeen hundred and fifty-one."

"Was he born In the West Indies? I had never heard. But, if I may continue, I have therefore summoned up my courage to speak to you on a subject close to my heart--for no subject can be so close as the welfare of a country to which we have devoted our lives."

He paused a moment, prepared with an answer, did the President haughtily warn him not to transgress the bounds of etiquette; but Washington was staring at the fire, apparently recalling the scenery of the Tropics.

Jefferson continued: "In the length and breadth of this Union there is not a man, not even the most ardent Republican, who has not implicit faith in the flawless quality of your patriotism and in your personal wisdom; but, and possibly unknown to you, sir, the extreme and high-handed measures, coupled with the haughty personal arrogance, of our Secretary of the Treasury have inspired a widespread belief, which is permeating even his personal friends, that he entertains subtle and insidious monarchical designs, is plotting to convert our little Republic into a kingdom. Personally, I do not believe this--"

"I should hope not. You have always seemed to me to be a man of singular wisdom and good sense. Therefore I feel sure that you are as heartily sick of all this absurd talk about monarchism as I am. There is not a word of truth in Mr. Hamilton's 'monarchical designs'; it is impossible that you should not know this as well as I do. You must also be as well aware that he has rendered services to this country which will be felt as long as it remains united. It is doubtful if anyone else could have rendered these same services, for, to my knowledge at least, we have no man in the country who combines financial genius with an unexampled boldness and audacity. He has emphatically been the man for the hour, abruptly transferred from his remote birthplace, it has seemed to me, by a special intervention of Providence; free of all local prejudices, which have been, and will continue to be, the curse of this country, and with a mettle unacted upon by years of doubt and hesitation. I do no other man in public life an injustice in my warm admiration of Mr. Hamilton's genius and absolute disinterestedness. Each has his place, and is doing his part bravely and according to his lights, many of them rendering historic services which Mr. Hamilton's will not overshadow. His are equally indisputable. This unfortunate result of establishing a National Bank was doubtless inevitable, and will quickly disappear. That the Bank is a monarchical device, you, of all men, are too wise to believe for a moment. Leave that for such sensational scoundrels as the editors of this new _Gazette_ and of other papers. I regret that there is a personal antipathy between you and Mr. Hamilton, but I have not the least doubt that you believe in his integrity as firmly as I do."

Jefferson was scowling heavily. "I am not so sure that I do, sir," he said; inconsistent often in his calmest tempers, passion dissipated his power of consecutive thought. "When Mr. Hamilton and I were on friendly terms--before he took to annoying me with a daily exhibition of personal rancour, from which I have been entirely free--he has often at my own table avowed his admiration of the British Constitution, deprecated the weakness of our own admirable instrument, tacitly admitted his regret that we are a republic and not a kingdom. I have his very words in my diary. He is committed out of his own mouth. I not only believe but know him to be a lover of absolute monarchy, and that he has no faith that this country can continue to exist in its present shape. It is for that reason I hold him to be a traitor to the country with which he is merely amusing himself."

"Sir," said Washington, turning to Jefferson an immobile face, in which the eyes were beginning to glitter, "is a man to be judged by his private fancies or by his public acts? I know nothing of Mr. Hamilton's secret desires. Neither, I fancy, do you. We do know that he has resigned a brilliant and profitable practice at the bar to guide this unfortunate country out of bankruptcy and dishonour into prosperity and every promise of a great and honourable future. Pray let the matter rest there 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. Every man is his own worst enemy. I was deeply interested in what you were saying when we entered this room. Where did you say you purchased those lily bulbs? My garden is sadly behind yours, I fear. I certainly shall enter 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 by the cast-iron muscles forged in the ancestral arena. Hamilton had no abstract or personal theories regarding tariff, and would have been the first to denounce the criminal selfishness which distinguishes Protection to-day. The situation was peculiar, and required the application of strictly business methods to a threatening and immediate emergency. Great Britain was oppressing the country commercially by every method her council could devise. Defensive legislation was imperative. Moreover, if the country was to compete with the nations of the world and grow in independent wealth, particularly if it would provide internal resources against another war, it must manufacture extensively, and its manufactures must be protected. Such, in brief, was the argument of one of the ablest State papers in any country, for whose exhaustive details, the result of two years of study and comparison, of research into the commercial conditions of every State in Europe, there is no space here. The battle was purely political, for the measure was popular with the country from the first. It was opposed by the planters, with Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe in the lead. They argued that the measure would burden the people at large; that the country was too remunerative not to be able to take care of itself; that progress should be natural and not artificial; that the measure was unconstitutional; above all, as the reader need hardly be told, that no proposition had yet been advanced by the monarchical Secretary of the Treasury so "paternal," so conclusive of his ultimate designs. "To let the thirteen States, bound together in a great indissoluble union, concur in erecting one great system, superior to the control of transatlantic force and influence, and able to dictate the connection between the old and the new world," was but another subtle device to consolidate the States for sudden and utter subversion when Hamilton had screwed the last point into his crown. That in the Twentieth Century the United States would be an object of uneasiness daily approaching to terror in the eyes of Great Britain and Europe, as a result of this Report, even Hamilton himself did not foresee, much less the planters; nor that it would carry through the War of 1812 without financial distress. Above all, did no one anticipate that the three Virginians, in their successive incumbencies of the Executive Chair, would pursue the policy of protection in unhesitating obedience to the voice of the people. The first result of this Report was the great manufacturing interests of Paterson, New Jersey, which celebrated their centennial a few years ago. Paterson was Hamilton's personal selection, and it still throbs with something of his own energy.

Meanwhile he was being elected an honorary member of colleges and societies of arts and letters, and persecuted by portrait painters and sculptors. Every honour, public and private, was thrust upon him, and each new victory was attended by a public banquet and a burst of popular applause. He was apparently invulnerable, confounding his opponents and enemies 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 the Federalists, they waxed in enthusiasm and devotion. His career was at its zenith. No man in the United States was--nor has been since--so loved and so hated, both in public and in private life. Even Washington's career had not been more triumphant, and hardly so remarkable; for he was an American born, had always had a larger measure of popular approval, and never had discovered the faculty of raising such bitter and powerful enemies. Nor had he won an extraordinary reputation until he was long past Hamilton's present age. Certainly he had never exhibited such unhuman precocity.

But although Hamilton had, by this time, extancy to suffice any man, and was hunted to his very lair by society, he had no thought of resting on his labours. He by no means regarded himself as a demi-god, nor the country as able to take care of itself. He prepared, and sent to Congress in rapid succession, his Reports on Estimates for Receipts and Expenditures for 1791-92, on Loans, on Duties, on Spirits, on Additional Supplies for 1792, on Remission of Duties, and on the Public Debt.

Nor did his labours for the year confine itself to reports. On August 4th, his patience with the scurrilities of Freneau's _Gazette_ came to an end, and he published in Fenno's journal the first of a series of papers that Jefferson, in the hush of Monticello, read with the sensations of those forefathers who sat on a pan of live coals for the amusement of Indian warriors. Hamilton was thorough or nothing. He had held himself in as long as could be expected of any mortal less perfected in his self-government than George Washington: but when, finally, he was not only stung to fury by the constant and systematic calumnies of Jefferson's slanting art, but fearful for the permanence of his measures, in the gradual unsettling of the public mind, he took off his coat; and Jefferson knew that the first engagement of the final battle had begun in earnest, that the finish would be the retirement of one or other from the Cabinet.

Hamilton began by mathematically demonstrating that Freneau was the tool of Jefferson, imported and suborned for the purpose of depressing the national authority, and exposed the absurdity of the denials of both. When he had finished dealing with this proposition, its day for being a subject of animated debate was over. He then laid before the public certain facts in the career of Jefferson with which they were unacquainted: that he had first discountenanced the adoption of the Constitution, and then advised the ratification of nine of the States and the refusal of four until amendments were secured,--a proceeding which infallibly would have led to civil war; that he had advocated the transfer of the debt due to France to a company of Hollanders in these words: "If there is a _danger_ of the public debt _not being punctual_, I submit whether it may not be better, that _the discontents which would then arise_ should be _transferred_ from a _court_ of whose _good-will we have so much need_ to the _breasts_ of a _private company_"--an obviously dishonourable suggestion, particularly as the company in view was a set of speculators. It was natural enough, however, in a man whose kink for repudiation in general led him to promulgate the theory that one generation cannot bind another for the payment of a debt. Hamilton, having disposed of Jefferson's attempts, under the signature of Aristides, to wriggle out of both these accusations, discoursed upon the disloyal fact that the Secretary of State was the declared opponent of every important measure which had been devised by the Government, and proceeded to lash him for his hypocrisy in sitting daily at the right hand of the President while privately slandering him; of exercising all the arts of an intriguing mind, ripened by a long course of European diplomacy, to undermine an Administration whose solidity was the only guaranty for the continued prosperity and honour of the country. Hamilton reminded the people, with a pen too pointed to fail of conviction, of the increase of wealth and happiness which had ensued every measure opposed by the Secretary of State, and drew a warning picture of what must result were these measures reversed by a party without any convictions beyond the determination to compass the downfall of the party in power. He bade them choose, and passed on to a refutation of the several accusations hurled at the Administration, and at himself in particular.

He wrote sometimes with temperance and self-restraint, at others with stinging 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 raged with such unseemly violence, that Washington wrote an indignant letter to each, demanding that they put aside their personal rancours and act together for the common good of the country. The replies of the two men were characteristic. Hamilton wrote a frank and manly letter, barely alluding to Jefferson, and asserting that honour and policy exacted his charges and refutations. He would make no promise to discontinue his papers, for he had no intention of laying down his pen until Jefferson was routed from the controversial field, and the public satisfied of the truth. Jefferson's letter was pious and sad. It breathed a fervent disinterestedness, and provided as many poisoned arrows for his rival as its ample space permitted. It was a guinea beaten out into an acre of gold leaf and steeped in corrosive sublimate.

But during that summer of 1792 Hamilton had little time for personal explosions except in brief. The Presidential elections approached, and the greater part of his time was given to party management and counsel. Washington's renomination and election were assured. The only obstacle encountered had been Washington himself, but his yearning for peace had again retired before duty. The parties were arrayed in a desperate struggle for the Vice-Presidency, the issue to determine the vindication or the condemnation of the measures of Hamilton. Adams himself was unpopular in the anti-Federalist ranks, on account of his aristocratic tastes and his opposition to the French Revolution; but the time was propitious for a tremendous trial of strength with the omnipotent Secretary of the Treasury, and any candidate of his would have been opposed as bitterly.

Jefferson and Burr were each suggested for the office, but Hamilton brought down his heavy hand on both of them promptly, and the fight settled into a bitter struggle between Adams and Clinton. The latter's strength in the State of New York was still very great, and he was as hardy a fighter as ever. But his political past was studded with vulnerable points, and the Federalists spared him not.

It is impossible, whatever one's predilections, not to admire Clinton for his superb fighting qualities. He was indomitable, and in ability and resourcefulness second only to Hamilton himself, in party management far superior; for he had greater patience, a tenderer and more intimate concern for his meaner followers, and less trust in his own unaided efforts and the right of his cause. Hamilton by no means was blind to the pettier side of human nature, but he despised it; instead of truckling and manipulating, he would scatter it before him or grind it to pulp. There is no possible doubt that if Hamilton had happened into a country at war with itself, but with strong monarchical proclivities, he would have seized the crown and made one of the wisest and kindest of autocrats. His lines cast in a land alight from end to end with republican fires, he accepted the situation with his inherent philosophy, burned with a patriotism as steady as Washington's own, but ruled it in his own way, forced upon it measures in whose wisdom he implicitly believed, and which, in every instance, time has vindicated. But his instinct was that of the amiable despot, and he had no conciliation in him.

His opponents saw only the despot, for time had not given them range of vision. Therefore, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Clinton, and his other formidable enemies have a large measure of excuse for their conduct, especially as they were seldom unstung by mortifying defeat. It is doubtful if the first three, at least, ever admitted to themselves or each other that they hated Hamilton, and were determined for purely personal reasons to pull him down. Every man knows how easy it is to persuade himself that he is entirely in the right, his opponent, or even he who differs from him, entirely in the wrong. The Virginian trio had by this, at all events, talked themselves into the belief that Hamilton was a menace to the permanence of the Union, and that it was their pious duty to relegate him to the shades of private life. That in public life he would infallibly interfere with their contemplated twenty-four years Chair Trust may have been by the way. They were all men with a consciousness of public benefits to their credit, and some disinterested patriotism. If their ignoble side is constantly in evidence in their dealings with Hamilton, it by no means follows that two, at least, of our most distinguished Presidents--Monroe was a mere imitationist--had no other. Had that been the case, they would have failed as miserably as Burr, despite their talents, for the public is not a fool. But that their faults were ignoble, rather than passionate, their biographers have never pretended to deny. In many instances no apology is attempted. On the other hand, the most exhaustive research among the records of friends and enemies has failed to bring to light any evidence of mean and contemptible traits in Hamilton. No one will deny his faults, his mistakes; but they were the mistakes and faults of passion in every instance; of a great nature, capable of the extremest violence, of the deadliest hate and maddest blows, but fighting always in the open; in great crises unhesitatingly sacrificing his personal desires or hatreds to the public good. Even his detractors--those who count in letters--have admitted that his nature and his methods were too high-handed for grovelling and deceit, that the mettle of his courage was unsurpassed. Jefferson and Madison had the spirit of the mongrel in comparison; Monroe was a fighter, but cowardly and spiteful. In point of mettle 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, by this, knew him thoroughly. He read his lack of Public spirit in every successive act of his life, recognized an ambition which would not hesitate to sacrifice his best friend and the country he was using, and a subtlety and cunning which would, with his lack of principle and property, make him the most dangerous man in America should he contrive to 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 hated Jefferson with a violence which threatened at times to submerge all the good in him, horrified him when he sat down and looked into himself. On the other hand, he knew himself to be justified in thwarting and humiliating him, for the present policy of the country must be preserved at any cost. But he was too clear and practised an analyst to fail to separate his public from his personal rancour. He would drive Jefferson from public office for the public good, but he would experience the keenest personal pleasure in so doing. Such was Hamilton. Could a genius like his be allied in one ego with a character like Washington's, we should have a being for which the world has never dared to hope in its most Biblical moments. But genius must ever be imperfect. Life is not long enough nor slow enough for both brain and character to grow side by side to superhuman proportions.

XXIX

The following political year was a lively one for Hamilton, perhaps the liveliest of his career. As it approached, those interested in public affairs had many subjects for constant and excited discussion: the possible Vice-President, whose election was to determine the future status of the Secretary of State, and cement or weaken the centralized powers of the Administration; the battle in the two _Gazettes_, with the laurels to Hamilton, beyond all controversy, and humiliation for Jefferson and Madison; the growing strength of the "Republican" party under Madison's open and Jefferson's literary leadership; the probable policy of the Administration toward the French Revolution, with Jefferson hot with rank Democracy, and Hamilton hotter with contempt for the ferocity of the Revolutionists; the next move of the Virginians did Hamilton win the Vice-Presidency for the Administration party; and the various policies of the Secretary of the Treasury and their results. At coffee-houses, at public and private receptions, and in Mrs. Croix's drawing-room, hardly another subject was broached.

"A fool could understand politics in these days," said Betsey, one evening in December, with a sigh. "Not a word does one hear of clothes, gossip, husbands, or babies. Mrs. Washington told me the day after she returned that she had deliberately thought of nothing but butter and patchwork during the entire recess, that her poor brain might be able to stand the strain of the winter. Shall you have to work harder than ever?"

"I do not know," replied Hamilton, and at that moment he did not. He was correcting a French exercise of his son's, and feeling domestic and happy. Jefferson and he had made no pretence at formal amiability this season; they did not speak at all, but communicated on paper when the business of their respective departments required an interchange of opinion. He had vanquished his enemy in print, made him ridiculous in the eyes of all who read the _Gazettes_. Moreover, Washington, disturbed during the summer by the constant nagging of Jefferson and his agents, respecting the "monarchical schemes" and "corrupt practices" of the Secretary of the Treasury, had formulated the accusations and sent them to Hamilton for refutation. The vindication, written without passion, as cold, clear, consistent, and logical, as if dealing with an abstract proposition, had convinced, and finally, all to whom it was shown; with the exception of Jefferson, who had no intention of being convinced. Hamilton was conscious that there was no vulnerable point in his public armour. Of his private he was not so sure; Reynolds was in jail, for attempting, in company with one Clingman, to suborn a witness to commit perjury, and had appealed to him for aid. He had ignored him, determined to 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 was in the best of humours as the Christmas holidays approached, with his boys home from their school on Staten Island, his little girl growing lovelier and more accomplished, and his wife always charming and pretty; in their rare hours of uninterrupted companionship, piquant and diverting. He had gone out with her constantly since Congress assembled, and had enjoyed the recreations of society after his summer of hard work and angry passions. Everywhere he had a triumphal progress; men and women jostled each other about him, eager for a word, a smile, making him talk at length, whether he would or not. The confidence in him was stronger than ever, but his enemies were the most powerful, collectively and individually, that had ever arrayed against a public man: Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, with the South behind them; the Livingstons and the Clinton faction in New York; Burr, with his smiling subterranean industry; the growing menace of the Republican party. Pamphlets were circulating in the States warning voters against all who supported the Secretary of the Treasury. It was one man against odds of appalling strength and resource; for by common consent both of friends and enemies Hamilton was the Federal party. Did he fall, it must go; all blows were aimed at him alone. Could any one man stand for ever an impregnable fortress before such a battery? Many vowed that he would, for "he was more than human," but others, as firm in their admiration, shrugged their shoulders. The enemy were infuriated at the loss of the Vice-Presidency, for again Hamilton had been vindicated and Adams reflected. What would be their next move?

Betsey knew that her husband had enemies, but the fact gave her little concern; she believed Hamilton to be a match for the allied forces of darkness. She noticed when his hair was unpowdered that it was turning gray and had quite lost its boyish brightness; here and there work and care had drawn a line. But he was handsomer, if anything, and of the scars on his spirit she knew nothing. In the peace and pleasant distractions of his home his mercurial spirits leaped high above his anxieties and enmities, and he was as gay and happy, as interested in the manifold small interests of his family, as were he a private man of fortune, without an ambition, an enemy, or a care. When most absorbed or irritated he never victimized his household by moods or tempers, not only because they were at his mercy, but because his nature spontaneously gave as it received; his friends had his best always, his enemies the very worst of which his intense passionate nature was capable. Naturally his family adored him and studied his happiness.

Betsey continued her somewhat rambling remarks, "The only variety is the French Revolution."

"By the way, Washington has had a distressing letter from Madame Lafayette. She begs him to receive her boy--George Washington--and keep him until the trouble is over. The Chief fears that in the present temper of the public his reception of Lafayette's son would be given an embarrassing significance, and yet it is impossible to refuse such a request,--with Lafayette in an Austrian dungeon, his wife in daily danger of prison or guillotine, and this boy, his only son, with no one but a tutor to protect him. I offered at once to receive the child into my family--subject, of course, to your approval. Should you object? It would add to your cares--"

"I have no cares, sir. I shall be delighted; and he can talk French with the children."

"I shall send him to Staten Island with Philip and Alex. Washington will make him a liberal allowance for school and clothing. I confess I am anxious to receive him, more than anxious to show that my old friendship is undiminished. I fear to open every packet from Europe, lest I hear of Lafayette's death. Fortunately, Morris was able to render some assistance to Madame Lafayette. Morris is a source of sufficient worry himself, for he is much too independent and bold for a foreign envoy in the thick of mob rule, mad with blood."

"I hate to think of old friends in trouble," said Betsey, removing a tear. "Poor Kitty Duer! I had another letter from her to-day. It is pitiful to think of her and the poor little children, with nothing but what Lady Sterling, who has so little, and Lady Mary can give them. Is there no way of getting Colonel Duer out of Debtor's prison?"

"I've moved heaven and earth, but certain of his creditors are inexorable. 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 am particularly happy. Philip is really remarkable, and I believe that Angelica is going to turn out a musical genius. What a delight it is to have one person in the world to whom one can brag about one's offspring without apology."

"Why, of course they are the most remarkable children in the world--all five of them," said Betsey, placidly.

Edward Stevens came in and threw himself on the sofa. "What a relief to come into this scene of domestic tranquillity, after the row outside!" he exclaimed. "All the world is in the streets; that is to say, all the daft American world that sympathizes with that bloody horror in France. The news that the allied armies have been beaten and the Duke of Brunswick was in full retreat when the packets sailed, has apparently driven them frantic with joy. They are yelling 'Ça ira,' bonfires are flaring everywhere, and bells ringing. All of the men are drunk, and some of the women. And yet the statesman who must grapple with this portentous problem is gossiping with his wife, and looking as if he had not a care in the world. Thank Heaven!"

"I can do nothing to-night," said Hamilton, smiling. "I have had too much 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 French matter, Alexander the Great? All the world is waiting to know. I should worry about you if I had time in this reeking town, where it is a wonder any man has health in him. Oh, for the cane-fields of St. Croix! But tell me, what is the policy to be--strict neutrality? Of course the President will agree with you; but fancy Jefferson, on his other side, burning with approval for the very excesses of the Revolution, since they typify democracy exultant. And of course he is burrowing in the dark to increase his Republican party and inspire it with his fanatical enthusiasm for those inhuman wretches in France. I believe he would plunge us into a war to-morrow."

"No, he is an unwarlike creature. He would like to trim, keep this country from being actually bespattered with blood, but coax the Administration to give the Revolutionists money and moral support. He will do nothing of the sort, however. The policy of this remote country is absolute, uncompromising, neutrality. Let Europe keep her hands off this 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 spread indefinitely, and any further Europeanizing of our continent would be a menace which we can best avoid by observing from the beginning a strictly defensive policy. To weaken it by an aggressive inroad into European politics would be the folly of schoolboys not fit to conduct a nation. We must have the Floridas and Louisiana as soon as possible. I have been urging the matter upon Washington's attention for three years. Spain is a constant source of annoyance, and the sooner we get her off the continent the better--and before Great Britain sends her. We need the Mississippi for navigation and must possess the territories that are the key to it. How idiotic, therefore, to antagonize any old-world power!"

"You _are_ long-headed!" exclaimed Stevens. "Good heavens! Listen to that! The very lungs of Philadelphia are bellowing. Our people must be mad to see in this hideous French Revolution any resemblance to their own 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 the party in power, and possess a leader as subtle and venomous as Thomas Jefferson--'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. "I have not uttered a word for just twenty-five minutes. Alexander, go and brew a beaker of negus."

XXX

The next morning Hamilton was sitting in his office when the cards of James Monroe, F.A. Muhlenberg, and A. Venable were brought in.

"What on earth can they want?" he thought. "Monroe? We have not bowed for a year. Two days ago he turned into a muddy lane and splashed himself to his waist, that he might avoid meeting me."

His first impulse was to excuse himself, on the plea of the pressing nature of his work; but curiosity triumphed, and he told his page to admit the men.

Muhlenberg was again Speaker of the House; Venable was a Representative from Virginia. Hamilton was not friendly with either, but nodded when they passed him. He greeted them amiably as they entered to-day, and exchanged a frigid bow with Monroe. The Senator from Virginia took a chair in the rear of the others, stretched his long legs in front of him, and folded his arms defiantly. He looked not unlike a greyhound, his preference for drab clothing enhancing the general effect of a pointed and narrow leanness.

There was a moment of extreme awkwardness. Muhlenberg and Venable hitched their chairs about. Monroe grinned spasmodically, and rubbed his nose 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," said Muhlenberg, who looked red and miserable, "and I will, with your permission, proceed to my unpleasant task with as little delay as possible."

"Pray do," replied Hamilton. "The daily assaults of my enemies for several years have endowed me with a fortitude which doubtless will carry me through this interview in a creditable manner."

"I assure you, sir, that I do not come as an enemy, but as a friend. It is owing to my appeal that the matter was not laid directly before the President."

"The President?" Hamilton half rose, then seated himself again. His eyes were glittering dangerously. Muhlenberg blundered on, his own gaze roving. 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 between yourself and one Reynolds." He produced a bundle of letters and handed them to Hamilton. "These are not in your handwriting, sir, but I am informed that you wrote them."

Hamilton glanced at them hastily, and the angry blood raced through his arteries.

"These letters were written by me," he said. "I disguised my handwriting for purposes of my own. What is the meaning of this unwarrantable intrusion into a man's private affairs? Explain yourself at once."

"That is what we have come for, sir. Unfortunately we cannot regard it as a private affair, but one which concerns the whole nation."

"The whole nation!" thundered Hamilton. "What has the nation to do with an affair of this sort? Why cannot you tell the truth and say that you gloat in having discovered this wretched affair,--a common enough episode in the lives of all of you,--in having another tid-bit for Freneau? Why did you not take it to him at once? What do you mean by coming here personally to take me to task?"

"I think there is some misapprehension, sir," said Muhlenberg. "It would be quite impossible for any one present to have misconducted himself in the manner in which the holder of those letters, Mr. Reynolds, accuses you of having done. And surely the whole country is intimately concerned in the honesty--or the dishonesty--of the Secretary of 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 calm speech. Then he set his shoulders and braced himself to meet the Secretary's eyes. Hamilton was staring at him, with no trace of passion in his face. His eyes looked like steel; his whole face had hardened into a mask. He had realized in a flash that he was in the meshes of a plot, and forced the heat from his brain. "Explain," he said. "I am listening."

"As you are aware, sir, this James Clingman, who has been arrested with Reynolds, was a clerk in my employ. You will also recall that when he applied to me to get him out, I, in company with Colonel Burr, waited on you and asked your assistance. You said that you would do all that was consistent, but we did not hear from you further. Clingman refunded the money, or certificates, which they had improperly obtained from the Treasury, the action was withdrawn, and he was discharged to-day. While the matter was pending I had several conversations with Clingman, and he frequently dropped hints to the effect that Reynolds had it in his power materially to injure the Secretary of the Treasury, as he knew of several very improper transactions of his. At first I paid no attention to these hints, but when he went so far as to assert that Reynolds had it in his power to hang the Secretary of the Treasury, that the latter was deeply concerned in speculation with Duer, and had frequently advanced him--Reynolds, I mean--money with which to speculate, then I conceived it my duty to take some sort of action, and yesterday communicated with Mr. Monroe and Mr. Venable. They went at once to call on Reynolds--whom I privately believe to be a rascal, sir--and he asserted that he was kept in prison by your connivance, as you feared him; and promised to put us in possession of the entire facts this morning. When we returned at the hour appointed, he had absconded, having received his discharge. We then went to his house and saw his wife, who asserted, after some circumlocution, that you had been concerned in speculations with her husband, that at your request she had burnt 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 had preserved. You will admit that it is a very serious charge, sir, and that 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 shall have it at my pleasure. I see that these notes implicate me to the extent of eleven hundred dollars. Strange, that a rapacious Secretary of the Treasury, handling millions, and speculating wildly with a friend of large resources, should have descended to such small play as this. More especially strange that he should have deliberately placed himself in the power of such a rascal as this Reynolds--who seems to impress every one he meets with his blackguardism--and communicated with him freely on paper; you will have observed that I acknowledged these notes without hesitation. What a clumsy knave you must think me. I resent the imputation. Perhaps you have noticed that in one of these notes I state that on my honour I cannot accommodate him with the three hundred dollars he demands, because it is quite out of my power to furnish it. Odd, that a thieving Secretary, engaged in riotous speculation, could not lay his hand on three hundred dollars, especially if it were necessary to close this rascal's mouth. I doubt, gentlemen, if you will be able to convince the country that I am a fool. Nevertheless, I recognize that this accusation must be met by controverting proof; and if you will do me the honour to call at my house to-night at nine o'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. Neither had failed to be impressed by the Secretary's manner, and the Speaker of the House, ashamed of his part in the business, would gladly have listened to an immediate vindication.

Hamilton sat motionless for some moments, the blood returning to his face, for he was seething with fury and disgust.

"The hounds!" he said aloud, then again and again. He was alone, and he never had conquered his youthful habit of muttering to himself. "I can see Monroe leaping, not walking, to the jail, the moment he learned of a chance to incriminate me. The heels at the end of those long legs must have beaten the powder from his queue. And this is what a man is to expect so long as he remains in public life--if he succeeds. He resigns a large income, reduces his family almost to poverty, works himself half to death, rescues the country from contempt, launches it upon the sea of prosperity; and his public rewards are more than counterbalanced by the persecutions of his enemies. I have been on the defensive from the moment I entered public life. Scarcely a week but I have been obliged to parry some poisoned arrow or pluck it out and cauterize. The dreams of my youth! They never soared so high as my present attainment, but neither did they include this constant struggle with the vilest manifestations of which the human nature is capable." He brought his fist 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 hour of victory."

He caught up his hat and went out into the air. The solace of Mrs. Croix in his blacker moods occurred to him; and he walked down Chestnut Street as rapidly as he could, in the crowd, lifting his hat now and again to cool his head in the frosty air. It was a brilliant winter's day; drifts of snow hid the dead animals and the garbage in the streets; and all the world was out for Christmas shopping. As it was one of the seasons for display, everybody was in his best. The women wore bright-coloured taffetas or velvets, over hoops flattened before and behind, muskmelon bonnets or towering hats. They whisked their gowns about, that their satin petticoats be not overlooked. The men wore the cocked hat, heavily laced, and a long coat, usually of light-coloured cloth, with a diminutive cape, the silver buttons engraved with initials or crest. Their small clothes were very short, but heavy striped stockings protected their legs; on their feet were pointed shoes, with immense silver buckles. Hamilton was dressed with his usual exquisite care, his cuffs carefully leaded. But his appearance interested him little to-day. For the moment, however, he forgot his private annoyance in the portent on every side of him. Few of the seekers after gifts had entered the shops. They blocked the pavements, even the street, talking excitedly of the news of the day before. Fully half the throng sported the tri-coloured cockade, the air hissed with "Citizen," "Citess," or rang with a volley of "Ça ira! Ça ira!"

Hamilton set his teeth. "It _is_ the next nightmare," he thought. "The Cabinet is quiet at present--Jefferson, mortified and beaten, is coaxing back his courage for a final spring. When the time comes to determine our attitude there will be Hell, nothing less." But his nostrils quivered. He might rebel at poisoned arrows, but he revelled in the fight that involved the triumph of a policy.

His mind was abstracted, the blood was still in his brain as he entered Mrs. Croix's drawing-room. For a moment he had a confused idea that he had blundered into a shop. The chairs, the sofas, the floor, were covered with garments and stuffs of every hue. Hats and bonnets were perched on every point. Never had he seen so much gorgeous raiment in one space before. There were brocades, taffetas, satins, lutestrings, laces, feathers, fans, underwear like mist. While he was staring about him in bewilderment, Mrs. Croix came running in from her bedroom. Her hair was down and tangled, her dressing sacque half off, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling. She looked half wanton, half like a giddy girl darting about among her first trunks.

"Hamilton!" she cried. "Hamilton!" She flew at him much as his children did when excited. "Look! Look! Look! Is this not magnificent? This is the 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 beautiful again! I am going to wear all those lovely things--all! all! And I am going to Lady Washington's to-morrow night. Mrs. Knox will take me. But I 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 been delivered. I ordered them long since, and hardly could control my impatience till they came. I am so happy! I feel like a bird that has been plucked for years."

Hamilton looked at her in amazement, and despair. More than once he had caught a glimpse of the frivolous side of her nature, but that it could spread and control her he never had imagined. Her intelligence, her passions, her inherited and accumulated wisdom, were crowded into some submerged 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 rapped sharply on the window as he passed, but he did not look up. He was filled with that unreasoning anger peculiar to man when woman for once has 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 was two o'clock. He would go home to his wife, where he should have gone in the first place. She never had failed him, or if she had he could not recall the occasion. Her little dark face rose before him, innocent and adorable. He could not tell her of the cause of his annoyance,--it suddenly occurred to him that the less of that matter confided to Mrs. Croix the better,--but then he never worried her with his troubles. He would merely go and bask in her presence for an hour, confess to a headache, and receive her sweet ministrations.

As he entered his own house, and, relieved of his coat and hat by the waiting black, ran up the stair, he thought he heard a soft babble of voices. Knowing that his wife would, if he desired it, dismiss at once any company she might have, he knocked confidently at her door and entered. For a moment he felt inclined to rub his eyes, and wondered if he were the victim of delirium. The bed was covered with bandboxes, the sofa with new frocks. Betsey was sitting before the mirror, trying on a cap, and her sisters, Peggy and Cornelia, were clapping their hands. Angelica was perched on the back of a chair, her eyes twice their natural size, Hamilton attempted instant retreat, but Betsey saw his reflection in the mirror.

"You?" she cried. "What a surprise and pleasure. Come here, sir, at once."

Meanwhile his two sisters-in-law, whose expected visit he had quite forgotten, ran forward and kissed him effusively. With the desire in his heart to rend the Universe in twain he went forward and smiled down into his wife's eager face.

"Angelica has sent me so many things!" she exclaimed. Her face was flushed, her eyes sparkling. She looked sixteen. "And this cap is the most bewitching of all. You came just at the right moment; it is quite singular. Read--".

She thrust a letter from Mrs. Church into his hand, and he read where his wife pointed. "Someone who loves you will tell you if it is becoming or not." And on the following page. "Kiss my saucy Brother for me. I call him my Brother with an air of pride. And tell him, _Il est l'homme le plus aimable du monde_."

"It is charming," said Hamilton, pinching his wife's chin. "It is like a frame. You never looked half so sweet."

Betsey cooed with delight. Hamilton, having done his duty, was about to retire in good order, when he met his little daughter's eyes. They had dismissed the wonderful cap and were fixed on him with an expression that gave him a sudden thrill. It was not the first time he had seen in Angelica so strong a resemblance to his mother that he half believed some fragment of Rachael Levine had come back to him. Her eyes were dark, but she had a mane of reddish fair hair, and a skin as white as porcelain, a long sensitive nose, and a full mobile mouth. She had none of his mother's vitality and dash, however. She was delicate and rather shrinking, and he knew that Rachael at her age must have been a marvel of mental and physical energy. It was only occasionally, when he turned suddenly and caught Angelica staring at him, that he experienced the odd sensation of meeting his mother's eyes, informed, moreover, with an expression of penetrating comprehension--an expression he recalled without effort. The child idolized him. She sat outside his study while he wrote, crawling in between the legs of anyone who opened the door? to sit at his feet; or, if he dismissed her, in another part of the room until he left it. She watched for his daily returns, and usually greeted him from the banister post. Amiable, intelligent, pretty, affectionate, and already putting forth the tender leaves of a great gift, her father thought her quite perfect, and they had long conversations whenever he was at leisure in his home. She demanded a great deal of petting, and he was always ready to humour her, the more as she was the only girl, and the one quiet member of his little family--although she had been known to use her fists upon occasion. Her prettiness and intelligence delighted him, her affection was one of the deepest pleasures of his life, and he was thankful for the return to him of his mother's beautiful and singular features. To-day the resemblance was so striking that he contracted his eyelids. Angelica straightened herself, gave a spring, and alighted on his chest.

"Take me downstairs and talk to me," she commanded. "'Tis nearly an hour to dinner."

Hamilton swung her to his shoulder, and went downstairs. On the way he laughed out loud. The past half-hour tossed itself into the foreground of his mind, clad in the skirts of high comedy. Tragedy fled. The burden in his breast went with it. Far be it from him to cherish a grudge against the sex that so often reduced the trials of public life to insignificance. Women were delicious irresponsible beings; man was an ingrate 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 the carving-knife into somebody."

They had reached the library. Hamilton sat the child on the edge of his table and took a chair closely facing her. "What do you mean, you little witch?" 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 pain here."

She laid her hand to her head, and Hamilton stared at her in deepening perplexity. Another child--anything feminine, at least--would have indicated her heart as the citadel of sorrow. "Why there?" he asked. "Do you mean a pain?"

"Yes, a pain, but not so bad as when I am in Albany or Saratoga and you are 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 that you are very big and the cleverest man in the world, and that I am too little 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 ever spoken to your mother of this?"

Angelica shook her head. Her eyes grew larger and wiser. "No; I should only worry Betsey, and she is always happy. She is not clever like you and me."

Hamilton rose abruptly and walked to the window. When he had composed his features he returned. "You must not criticise your mother in that way, my dear. She is a very clever little woman, indeed."

Angelica nodded. "If she were clever, you would not say 'little.' Nobody says that you are a very clever little man. When I'm big, I'll not be called 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. "You must not ask too many questions; but I am very grateful for your sympathy. You are my dear little girl, and you make me love you more and more, daily."

"And will you tell me whenever you are not feeling like what you are making the rest believe?"

"If it will make you any happier, I will whisper it into your pink little ear. But I think I should be a very bad father to make you unhappy."

"I told you, sir, that I am more unhappy when I imagine things. It is just 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 my children; but the boys have taken to books as they have to kites and fisticuffs. I should have remembered that girls--" His memory gave up the stories of his mother's precocity. But this child, who was so startlingly like the dead woman, was far less fitted to carry such burdens. So sensitive an intelligence in so frail a body might suddenly flame too high and fall to ashes. He resolved to place her in classes of other little girls at once, and to keep her in the fields as much as possible. None knew better than he how close the highly strung unresting brain could press to madness. He had acquired a superhuman control over his. If this girl's brain had come out of his own, it must be closely watched. She had not inherited his high light spirits, but the melancholy which had lain at the foundations of his mother's nature; she would require the most persistent guarding. He took her face between his hands and kissed it many times.

"Very well," he said, "we will have our little secrets. I will tell you when I am disturbed, and you will sit close beside me with your doll until I feel better. But remember, I expect as much confidence in return. You will never have a care nor a terror nor an annoyance that you will not confide it to me directly."

She nodded. "I'm always telling you things to myself. And I won't cry any more in the night, when I think you have felt badly and could not tell anyone. It will all go away if you talk to me about it," she added confidently.

Hamilton swung her to his shoulder again and started for the dining room.

"The child is uncanny," he thought. "Can there be anything in that old theory that tormented and erring souls come back to make their last expiation in children? That means early death!" He dismissed the thought promptly.

XXXI

After dinner he called on Oliver Wolcott, the Comptroller, one of his closest friends, and related the scene of the morning, adding the explanation. Wolcott was a Puritan, and did not approve of the marital digressions of his friends. But in this case the offence was so much less than the accusation that he listened with frequent ejaculations of content. 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 keenest pleasures of my life to confound them. The unpatriotic villains! They know that in disgracing you they would discredit the United States, and in their hearts they know that your measures are the only wheels for this country to run on; but to their party spite they would sacrifice everything. I'll be there."

And when the men called that night at nine o'clock, he read them the correspondence from beginning to end--Reynold's letters, and those of the woman. More than once Muhlenberg begged him to desist, but he was merciless. When he had finished, Hamilton explained that he had disguised 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 to attempt to express my regret or my humiliation," said Muhlenberg, "I shall be ashamed of this as long as I live."

"I feel like an ass and a spy," exclaimed Venable. "I heartily beg your pardon, 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 locked the letters carefully in their drawer again.

"Are you going to keep those things?" asked Wolcott. "It must have made you sick to listen to them."

"It did. Perhaps I shall keep them for penance, perhaps because I do not trust Monroe."

XXXII

Hamilton was not long kept in ignorance of the next tactics of his enemies. They made their deadliest assault soon after Christmas. Immediately upon the assembling of Congress it was suggested that the Secretary of the Treasury be asked to furnish a plan for reducing the public debt. Madison arose and fired the first gun. What Congress wanted was not a plan, but a statement of the national finances. The Federalists replied that the information would come in due course, and that the House was in duty bound to ask the Secretary to furnish a scheme. The Republicans, led by Madison, protested that already too much power had been invested in the Secretary of the Treasury, that it had exceeded constitutional limits. Moreover, he overwhelmed them with volumes, deliberately calculated to confuse their understandings. One Giles, who did the dirty work of the party, announced that the Secretary was not fit to make plans, and added the numerous and familiar denunciations. But the Republicans were outvoted, and the suggestions were called for. Hamilton furnished them immediately. His plan to reduce the debt was met by so strenuous an opposition from the Republicans that it was defeated, and by the party which had been most persistent in their detestation of the obnoxious burden. Rather than add to the laurels of Hamilton, they would shoulder it with equanimity. But this defeat was but an incident. The Secretary of the Treasury, as the result of a series of resolutions, was bidden to lay before Congress an account of the moneys borrowed at Antwerp and Amsterdam; the President to furnish 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 of departments 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 to be subjected to fresh persecution, and the agility of his enemies could not keep pace with his. He furnished the House with an itemized list--which it took the Committee days to plod through--of his bookkeepers, clerks, porters, and charwomen, and the varying emoluments they had received since the Department was organized, three years and a half before. He further informed them that the net yield of the foreign loan was eighteen millions six hundred and seventy-eight thousand florins, that the loans were six in number, that three bore five per cent interest, two four and a half, and one four per cent The enemy was disconcerted but not discouraged. Five fresh resolutions were moved almost immediately. Impartial historians have agreed that Jefferson suggested these shameful resolutions, and that Madison drew them up. Giles brought them forward. In a vociferous speech he asserted that no man could understand the Secretary's report, that his methods and processes were clothed in a suspicious obscurity. It was his painful duty to move the adoption of the following resolutions: That copies of the papers authorizing the foreign loans should be made; that the names of the persons to whom and by whom the French debt had been paid be sent to Congress; that a statement of the balances between the United States and 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 used for the purchase of the debt and where the rest was deposited. The fifth demanded an account of the unexpended revenue at the close of the preceding year. Giles charged that a serious discrepancy existed between the report of the Secretary and the books of the Bank--not less than a million and a half. It had been the purpose of Jefferson and Madison to bring forward the resolutions with an air of comparative innocence. But the vanity of Giles carried him away, and his speech informed Congress, and very shortly the country, that the honesty of the Secretary of the Treasury had been impeached, and that he was called upon to vindicate himself.

In crises Hamilton never lost his temper. The greater the provocation, as the greater the danger, the colder and more impersonal he became. Nor was it in his direct impatient nature to seek to delay an evil moment any more than it was to protect himself behind what the American of to-day calls "bluff." In this, the severest trial of his public career, he did not hesitate a moment for irritation or protest. He called upon his Department to assist him, and with them he worked day and night, gathering, arranging, elaborating all the information demanded by Congress. When he was not directing his subordinates, he was shut up in his library preparing his statements and replies. His meals were taken to him; his family did not see him for weeks, except as he passed them on his way to or from the front door. He sent in report after report to Congress with a celerity that shattered his health, but kept his enemies on the jump, and worked them half to death. The mass of manuscript he sent would have furnished a modest bookstore, and the subjects and accounts with which he was so familiar drove Madison and others, too opposed to finance to master the maze of it, close upon the borders of frenzy. It had been their uncommunicated policy to carry the matter over to the next session, but Hamilton was determined to have done with them by adjournment.

And in the midst of this tremendous pressure arrived George Washington Lafayette.

It was on the first Saturday of his retirement into the deep obscurity of his library, with orders that no one knock under penalty of driving him from the house, that Hamilton, opening the door suddenly with intent to make a dash for his office, nearly fell over Angelica. She was standing 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 enough not to tax the muscles of her throat.

Hamilton hesitated. If the child fidgeted, she would distract his attention, great as were his powers of concentration; but another searching 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, almost rigid. 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 chaos of his manuscript. He gathered it up and threw it on the sofa. "There," he said, "arrange that according to the numbers, and come here every five minutes for more."

And Angelica spent two hours of every day in the library, useful and happy.

One day Hamilton was obliged to attend a Cabinet meeting, and to spend several hours at his office just after. Returning home in the early winter dusk, he saw two small white faces pressed against the hall window. One of them was Angelica's, the other he had never seen. As he entered, his daughter fell upon him.

"This is George Washington Lafayette," she announced breathlessly. "He came to-day, and he doesn't speak any English, and he won't go near Betsey or anyone but me, and he won't eat, and I know he's miserable and wretched, only he won't cry. His tutor's ill at the Inn."

The little Frenchman had retired to the drawing-room. Angelica darted after him and dragged him forward into the light. He was small for his age, but his features had the bold curious outline of his father's. He carried himself with dignity, but it was plain that he was terrified and unhappy. Hamilton gave him a warm embrace, and asked him several questions in French. The boy brightened at once, answered rapidly and intelligently, and took firm possession of his new friend's hand.

"I am more happy now," he announced. "I don't like the other people here, except this little girl, because they do not speak French, but you are a Frenchman, and I shall love you, as my father said I should--long ago! I will stay with you day and night."

"Oh, you will?" exclaimed Hamilton. "I am going to send you to school with my boys."

"Oh, not yet, sir! not yet!" cried the boy, shrilly. "I have seen so many 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 little boy."

"And so you shall, but I am uncommonly busy."

"He is a very quiet little boy," interposed Angelica, who was three years his junior. "He would not move if he sat in your room, and I will take him for a walk every day. He will die if he has to sit in a room by himself 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 such terrible things, sir!"

"Good Heaven!" thought Hamilton, "is it not enough to be dry nurse to a nation?" But he could not refuse, and during the few hours he snatched for sleep he was half strangled. By day the boy sat quietly in a corner of 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 who could not speak his language. Angelica, like all of Hamilton's children, knew something of French, and he liked her and accepted her motherly attentions; but Hamilton he adored. The moment his absorbed friend made for the front door he was after him, and Hamilton let him run at his heels, lest he get neither air nor exercise. He had no time at present to take him to call on his august godfather, and, in truth, he dreaded the prospect. Washington knew nothing of children, and his diminutive namesake would probably be terrified into spasms.

XXXIII

The three long and exhaustive reports, accounting honourably for every penny entrusted to the Secretary of the Treasury, and justifying every payment, measure, and investment, had gone to the Congress. Nine days later Giles brought forward nine resolutions of censure against the Secretary of the Treasury. But by this time Congress had made up its mind, and many of the Republicans were disgusted and humiliated. The Federalists were triumphant, and amused themselves with Giles, drawing him on, to confound him with ridicule and proof of the absurdity of his charges. Madison, desperate, lost his head and the respect of many of his colleagues, by asserting hysterically that the House was impotent to change the truth of the accusations, and that in the tribunal of public opinion the Secretary would be condemned. But Hamilton was triumphantly vindicated by Congress and the Nation at large. His house was in a state of siege for weeks from people of all parts of the country, come to congratulate him; his desk obliterated by letters he had no time to read. The Federals were jubilant. Their pride in Hamilton was so great that a proclamation from above would not have disturbed their faith, and they were merciless to the discomfited enemy. In truth, the Virginian trio and their close adherents were mortified and confounded. In their hearts they had not believed Hamilton guilty of dishonesty, but they had been confident that his affairs were in chaos, that large sums must have escaped, not conceiving that any mortal could at the same time create gigantic schemes, and be as methodical as a department clerk in every detail of his great office.

Although Hamilton had commanded his brain to dwell exclusively upon the vindication and its means, the deeps below were bitter and hot. When the work was over, and exhausted in body and mind he went about his duties mechanically, or attempted to find distraction in his family, he felt as if 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 that the Virginian ring were grinding their teeth, and shivering under daily shafts of humiliation and ridicule. So terrible was the position in which they had placed him, so immeasurably had they added to the sum of his contempt for human kind, that individually they occupied, for a time, but a corner of his thought.

His only solace during this trial had been Washington; he had been too busy 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 unaltered affection and regard. As soon as the vindication was complete he fell into the habit of finishing his daily walk with an hour in Hamilton's library. But if his visits were a pleasure to his Secretary, they were wretchedness unleavened for two other members of the family. The President never failed to ask for Angelica and George Washington Lafayette; and upon their prompt but unwilling advent he would solemnly place one on either knee, where they remained for perhaps half an hour in awe-stricken misery. They had orders to show no distress, and they behaved admirably; but although young Lafayette was rapidly learning English, the fact did not lessen his fear of this enormous man, who spoke so kindly, and looked as if he could have silenced the Terror with the awful majesty of his presence. Angelica, being an independent little American, was less overwhelmed, but she was often on the verge of hysterics. It was the short session of Congress, and in March, George, with scalding but dignified tears, accompanied his godfather to Mount Vernon, whence he wrote Hamilton a daily letter of lament, until habit tempered his awe; from that point he passed with Gallic bounds into an ardent affection for the great man, who, if of an unearthly dignity, was always kind, and, when relieved of the cares of State, uniformly genial.

The respite in Philadelphia was brief. In April came the first news of the beheading of the French king; and the same tardy packets brought word that France was at war with England and Spain. Hamilton sent the news, express haste, to Washington, and dismissed every consideration from his brain but the terrible crisis forced upon the United States, and the proper measures to save her from shipwreck. In the early stages of the French Revolution he had predicted the developments with such accuracy to Henry Walter Livingston that the new Secretary of Legation, upon his arrival in Paris, told Gouverneur Morris--United States minister since 1792--that to his astonishment he found nothing to surprise him. Therefore the prophet had long been determined upon the policy the United States should pursue when this crisis shot out of the eastern horizon; he had now but to formulate it in such a manner that every 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 of which were: Shall a proclamation issue for the purpose of preventing interferences of the citizens of the United States in the war between France and Great Britain, etc.? Shall it contain a declaration of neutrality? Shall a minister from this Republic of France be received? Jefferson was in a far less enviable position than Hamilton. He neither wished for war, nor dared he machinate for it; but with all his democratic soul he loved the cause which was convulsing the world from its ferocious centre in France. Had Jefferson come of stout yeoman stock, like John Adams, or of a long line of patrician ancestors, like Hamilton, and, to a lesser degree, like Washington, he might, judging from 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 met in his blood. The plebeianism of his father showed itself in the ungainly shell, in the indifference to personal cleanliness, and in the mongrel spirit which drove him to acts of physical cowardice for which his apologists blush. But his mother had belonged to the aristocracy of Virginia, and this knowledge induced a sullen resentment that he should be so unlike her kind, so different in appearance from the courtly men of his State. Little was wanting to accelerate his natural desire to level his country to a plane upon which with his gifts he easily could loom as a being of superior mould; but when a British sovereign publicly turned his back upon him, and the English court, delighted with its cue, treated him with an unbearable insolence, nothing more was needed to start 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 of his enthusiasm to accord the United States fair commercial treatment: it embodied and demonstrated his ideal of liberty, equality, fraternity, and he was its most devoted friend, unresting until he had insinuated his own admiration into the minds of his followers in America, and made Jacobinism a party issue.

To turn his back upon France, therefore, to help her neither in money nor moral support, was a policy he had no intention to pursue, could he avoid it; but knowing his weakness in the Cabinet, he suggested an extra session of Congress. It would then be an easy matter to throw the responsibility upon his followers in both Houses, while he stood to the country as working consistently and harmoniously in his great office.

But Hamilton, who understood him thoroughly, would listen to no proposition which would involve weeks of delay, inflame further the public mind, and give Jefferson an opportunity to make political capital. Moreover, he would have no such confession of weakness go out from the Administration. He prevailed, and in that first meeting Jefferson was forced to consent also to the immediate issue of a proclamation to the people. He argued with such fervour, however, against the use of the word "neutrality," declaring that the Executive had no constitutional authority so far to commit the people, that Washington, to humour him, omitted the word, while declaring authoritatively for the substance. It was also agreed that Genet, the new Minister from France, sent by the Revolutionists to succeed M. Ternant, should be received. The first meeting closed tranquilly, for both Hamilton and Jefferson had tacitly admitted that it was no time for personal recrimination.

But the Cabinet met daily, and other subjects, notably Hamilton's contention that their treaties made with a proper French government no longer existed, came up for elaborate discussion; Hamilton had an exhaustive report prepared on each of them. The two Secretaries, who hated each other as two men hardly have hated before or since, and who realized that they had met for their final engagement in official life, soon dismissed any pretence at concord, and wrangled habitually--with cutting sarcasm or crushing force on Hamilton's part, with mild but deadly venom on Jefferson's; until he too was maddened by a jagged dart which momentarily routed his tender regard for his person. Jefferson wrenched one victory from the Cabinet despite Hamilton's determined opposition: Genet's reception should be absolute. But on all other important points the Secretary of the Treasury scored, and stone by stone built up the great policy of neutrality which prevailed until the year 1898; impressed into the Government the "Doctrine"--he had formulated it in "The Federalist"--which was to immortalize the name of a man who created nothing. Hamilton, with all the energy and obstinacy of his nature, was resolved that the United States should not have so much as a set-back for the sake of a country whose excesses filled him with horror, much less run the risk of being sucked into the whirlpool of Europe; and he watched every move Jefferson made, lest his secret sympathies commit the country. When, after a triumphal procession through miles of thoughtless enthusiasts, who remembered only the services of France, forgot that their friends had been confined entirely to the royalty and aristocracy that the mob was murdering, and were intoxicated by the extreme democracy of the famous Secretary of State, Genet arrived in Philadelphia, inflated and bumptious, his brain half crazed by the nervous excitement of the past two years, and was received with frigid politeness by Washington, Hamilton was not long discovering that Jefferson was in secret sympathy and intercourse with this dangerous fire-brand. The news had preceded and followed the new minister that he had been distributing blank commissions to all who would fit out privateers to prey upon British commerce, opening headquarters for the enlistment of American sailors into the French service, and constituting French consuls courts of admiralty for the trial and condemnation of prizes brought in by French privateers.

As soon as he arrived in Philadelphia he demanded of Hamilton the arrears of the French debt, which the Secretary had refused to pay until there was a stable government in France to receive it. Hamilton laughed, locked the doors of the Treasury, and put the key in his pocket. To Genet's excited volubility and pertinacity he paid as little attention as to Jefferson's arguments. Moreover, he reversed all Citizen Genet's performances in the South; and in course of time, even the captured British ships, to the wrath and disgust of Jefferson, were returned to their owners.

Freneau's _Gazette_ supported the Secretary of State with the desperation of an expiring cause; in this great final battle, were Jefferson driven from the Cabinet, his faithful organ must scurry to the limbo of its kind. It assailed the Administration for ingratitude and meanness, then turned its attention almost exclusively to the Secretary of the Treasury. It accused him of abstracting the moneys due to France, of plundering the industrious farmer with the Excise Law, destroying the morals of the people by Custom House duties; resurrected the old discrimination cry and asserted vehemently that he, and he alone, had robbed the poor soldiers. It raked every accusation, past and present, from its pigeon holes. Jefferson, on the other hand, was held up as a model of the disinterested statesman, combining virtues before which those falsely attributed to Washington paled and expired; and as the only man fit to fill the Executive Chair. Genet accepted all this as gospel, fortunately, perhaps, for the country; for his own excesses and impudence, his final threat to appeal from the President to the people, ruined him with the cooling heads of the Republican party, and finally lost him even the support of Jefferson.

Meanwhile, after stormy meetings of the Cabinet, Hamilton, in the peace of his library, with Angelica sorting his pages,--until she went to the North,--had written a series of papers defending the proclamation. They were so able and convincing, so demonstrable of the treasonable efforts of the enemy to undermine the influence of the Administration, so cool and so brilliant an exposition of the rights and powers of the Executive, that on July 7th Jefferson wrote to Madison: "For God's sake, my dear sir, take up your pen. Select the most striking heresies, and cut him to pieces in the face of the public."

Madison hastened to obey his chief in a series of papers which tickled the literary nerve, but failed to convince. That the laurels were to Hamilton was another bitter pill which Jefferson was forced to swallow. Nevertheless, Hamilton, despite his victories, felt anything but amiable. He was so exhausted that he was on the verge of a collapse, and triumphs were drab under the daily harassment of Jefferson, Genet, and Freneau. Matters came to a climax one day in August, shortly before the outbreak of yellow fever.

XXXIV

Hamilton laid down a copy of Freneau's _Gazette_, whose editorial columns were devoted, as usual, to persuading the people of the United States that they were miserable, and that they owed their misery to the Secretary of the Treasury. It also contained a shameful assault upon the President. As he lifted another paper from the pile on his library table, 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 of Great Britain and Spain, the high priest of tyranny, the bitterest enemy of the immortal French trio, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité; the subtle and Machiavellian adviser of Washington, who, relieved of this pernicious influence, would acknowledge the debts of gratitude and follow the will of the American people.

"Are they mad?" he thought, flinging the entire pile into the waste-basket. "Or are they merely so eager for power and our ruin that they are indifferent to the fact that the Administration, and the foundations upon which it stands, never has needed the support of the people more than now? Can only the party in power afford to be patriotic? What a spectacle is this, that I, an alien born, am wearing out my life and sacrificing my character, to save from themselves a people 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, my health almost gone, my reputation, in spite of repeated vindications, undermined by daily assault--for the fools of the world believe what they are told, and I cannot compromise my dignity by replying to such attacks as these; above all, a sickening and constant disgust for life and human nature! _Is_ the game worth the candle? Had I remained at the bar, I should have given my family abundance by now; with only the kind and quantity of enemies that stimulate. It is only politics that rouse the hellish depths in the human heart. It is true that I have saved the country, made it prosperous, happy, and honoured. But what guaranty have I that this state will last beyond the administration of Washington? With the Republicans in power the whole edifice may be swept away, the country in a worse plight than before, and the author of its brief prosperity forgotten with his works. I shall have lived in vain, and leave my sons to be educated, my family to be supported, by my father-in-law."

He was in no mood to see the reverse side of the picture; and indeed his cares were so many and overwhelming at this time that it is little wonder he believed he had lost for ever the gay buoyancy of his spirits. In addition to the predominating trials, financial matters were demanding all the leisure he should have given to rest, heavy failures in England having seriously affected the money concerns of the United States; and the rebellions in the West against the Excise Law were sounding a new alarm. Moreover, his constant efforts to obtain Duer's release were unavailing; he could get no word of Lafayette; and the last packet had brought a rumour of the murder of Gouverneur Morris by the mob. Altogether, he may be excused for forgetting that he was still the most dazzling figure in America, in the full tide of actual success, and an object of terrified hatred to a powerful ring who could reach their zenith 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 the library. The President was in a no more cheerful or amiable frame of mind than himself. His responsibilities in this terrible crisis wore on his spirits and temper; and the daily fear that his Secretaries would come to blows,--for Jefferson was in the worst humour of the quintette,--to say nothing of the assaults of the press, made him openly regret the hour he was persuaded into the Executive Chair. But his entire absence of party spirit, despite his secret sympathy with every measure of Hamilton's, his attitude of stern neutrality, never emerged more triumphantly from any trial of his public career; nor did he ever exhibit the magnanimity of his character more strikingly than in his undisturbed affection for Hamilton, while daily twitted with being the tool of his "scheming and ambitious Secretary."

Hamilton saw a copy of Freneau's _Gazette_ in the waste-basket, but by common consent they ignored the subjects which would be unavoidable in a few moments, and spoke of the stifling heat, of the unhealthy state of Philadelphia, the menace of the San Domingo refugees pouring into the city, of the piles of putrid coffee and hides on the wharves at the foot of Mulberry Street, and of the carcasses of rotting hogs and horses which lay everywhere.

"Thank Heaven, we can get our women and children out of it," said the President. "And unless we can finish this business in another week, I shall take the Government to the country. I suppose we are entitled to escape with our lives, if they leave us nothing else."

They entered the Council Chamber and found the others in their accustomed seats. Jefferson's brow was corrugated, his weak and mincing mouth pressed out of shape. He had just finished reading the last of Hamilton's "No Jacobin" papers, published that morning, in which Genet's abominable breaches of decorum, violation of treaties, and deliberate insults to the Executive--and through him to the American people--had been set forth in so clear pointed and dispassionate a manner, that no thinking Republican who read could fail to be convinced of the falseness of his position in supporting this impudent and ridiculous Frenchman. Furthermore, the Secretary of State had been forced, through the exigencies of his position, to sign despatch after despatch, letter after letter, in violation of his private sympathies. He was feeling not only as angry as a cornered bull, but extremely virtuous. He hated what he firmly believed to be the cold and selfish policy of the Administration, as he hated every other policy it had executed; and the knowledge that he had sacrificed his personal feelings to save his country from discord, made him feel a far better man than the Secretary of the Treasury, who had a diabolical talent for getting his own way. He had some reason to be pleased with his conduct, and with his share in contributing to a series of measures which later on won for the Cabinet at that crucial period the encomiums of history; and when time had abated the fevers, Hamilton would have been the first to acknowledge that Jefferson not only was the brake which the Administration needed at that time, but that, owing to his popularity with the French and the masses of the United States, he reduced the danger of a popular uprising.

As Hamilton took his seat this morning, however, the blood was in his head, and he and Jefferson exchanged a glance of sullen hate which made Washington extend his long arms at once. All went well until the President, 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, would have been the first at another moment to counsel the demand for recall which he knew was now inevitable, but he was in too bad a humour to-day to concur in any measure agreeable to Hamilton.

The latter had replied promptly to Washington's remark that the time had come to take definite action with regard to the light-headed Frenchman, who continued to fit out and despatch privateers, and was convulsing the country generally.

"Pray send him home, bag and baggage, sir. He is not entitled to the dignity or consideration of the usual formalities. Moreover, he is the trigger of the United States so long as he remains at liberty in it. I estimate that there is a new Jacobin club formed daily. At any moment he may do something which will drive these fools, under their red caps and cockades, mad with admiration."

Jefferson brought his brows down to the root of his nose. "'Fools' is not the word for an honest enthusiasm for liberty, sir. I regret the present excitement--its manifestations at this moment--as much as anyone--"

"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 suddenly determined to force the climax. "If you had employed your secret pen to better purpose, or not employed it at all, there would not be a Jacobin club in the country; this ridiculous Frenchman, unencouraged by your private sympathy, by your assurances of my inability to withhold the residue of the debt, would have calmed down long since. I accuse you here, deliberately and publicly, instead of writing private letters to the public, both because I have not your commanding talent for patient and devious ways, and because I wish you to declare, unequivocally, whether or not you purpose to continue this policy of obstruction. Time presses. We must act at once with regard to this Frenchman. Reserve subterfuge for some more opportune time, and let us know what you intend to do."

Jefferson looked with appeal at Washington, who usually interposed when his Secretaries arrived at personalities. But Washington, although his face was as immobile as stone, was so sick with anger and disgust over the whole situation, at what appeared to be the loss of the popular faith in himself, and the ridicule and abuse which had filled the columns of Freneau's paper that morning, that it was a relief to him to hear Hamilton explode.

"I repudiate every word you have said, sir," growled Jefferson. "More I will not say. As to Citizen Genet, with whom I have never had a word of private intercourse--" Here, even Washington lifted his head, and Hamilton laughed outright. Jefferson continued, determined upon martyrdom rather than rouse the terrible passions opposite: "As to Citizen Genet, if the Cabinet agree that it is best he leave this country. I shall demand that his recall be requested in the regular manner, in accordance with every principle of international courtesy. He may be imprudent, intoxicated with the glorious wine of liberty, but he is a Frenchman, a distinguished citizen of the great country that came so nobly to our rescue, and I protest against the base ingratitude which would fling insults in the teeth of an unfortunate people."

Hamilton threw back his head impatiently, and drummed with his fingers on the table. "The primary motive of France for the assistance she gave us was, obviously, to enfeeble a hated and powerful rival. A second motive was to extend her relations of commerce in the new world, and to acquire additional security for her possessions there, by forming a connection with this country when detached from Great Britain. To ascribe to her any other motives, to suppose that she was actuated by friendship toward us, is to be ignorant of the springs of action which invariably regulate the cabinets of princes. A despotic court aid a popular revolution through sympathy with its principles! For the matter of that, if you insist upon American statesmen being sentimental fools, the class that assisted us has been murdered by the rabble, which I refuse to recognize as France. And if it be your object to reduce this country to a similar position that you may climb over maddened brains to power--"

"Hear!" roared Jefferson, justly indignant. "I? Never a man loved peace as I do. My life has been hell since you have forced me into daily conflict, when, God knows, I perish with desire for the peace of my homely life in Virginia. Power! I scorn it, sir. I leave that to restless upstarts like yourself--"

He stopped, choking. Hamilton laughed contemptuously. "You are at work with your pen day and night, strengthening your misnamed party, and preparing the way by which you can lift yourself to a position where you can undo all that the party you hate, because it is composed of gentlemen, has accomplished for the honour and prosperity of your country. You are perfectly well aware that Genet was sent here to stir up a civil war, and embroil us with Europe at the same time, and you have secretly sympathized with and encouraged him. I cannot make up my mind whether you are a villain, or merely the victim of a sublimated and paradoxical imagination. But in either case, I wish to be placed on record as asserting that you are the worst enemy the United States is cursed with to-day."

This was too much for Jefferson, who had convinced himself that he was a high-minded and self-sacrificing statesman, stooping to devious ways for the common good. He forgot his physical fear, and shouted, pounding the table 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 devilish methods to cement the aristocracy, your abominable Excise Law--"

"Oh, but you have counteracted that so effectively! I was coming to that point. I conceived a measure by which to meet an imperative financial demand, and you, by your agents, by your secret machinations, have been the author of insurrection after insurrection, of the most flagrant breaches of the laws of your country. You have cost innumerable men, engaged in the pursuit of plain duty, their self-respect, and in several cases their lives. Another hideous problem is approaching--one, I am persuaded, that can be solved by arms and bloodshed alone; and to your pen, to your deliberate unsettling of men's minds, to the hatred you have inspired for the lawful government of this country, to you, and to you alone--"

"It's a lie! a lie!" shouted Jefferson. "You are speaking to an honourable man, sir! one who occupies a position in this country both by birth and breeding that you would give your soul--you adventurer!--to possess. Go back to your Islands! You have no place here among men of honourable birth. It's monstrous that this country should be ruled by a foreign bastard--!"

For a moment, every one present had a confused idea that a tornado was in the room. Then two doors were wrenched open, Jefferson fled down the street, with Randolph, bearing his hat, in pursuit; Knox was holding Hamilton firmly in his arms; and Washington, who had risen some moments since, and stood staring in grim disgust, awaiting the end, was divided between 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 he now withdrew from the relaxing arms, and the Secretary of War left the room hastily. Hamilton, to Washington's astonishment, flung himself into a chair, and dropped his head on his arms. In a moment, he began to sob convulsively. A malignant fever was breeding in his depressed system; the blood still surged in his head. He had a despairing sense that his character was in ruins; he was humiliated to his depths; he despised himself so bitterly that he forgot the existence of Jefferson.

The humour and anger died out of Washington. He went forward hastily and locked the door. Then he stooped over Hamilton, and pressed him closely in his arms.

"My dear boy!" he said huskily. "My dear boy!"

XXXV

That was the last of Hamilton's battles in the Cabinet. Jefferson resigned; although, in order that the Administration might, until the crisis was past, preserve an unbroken front to the country, he reluctantly consented to withhold his resignation until the assembling of Congress. He retired to Monticello, however; and apologized to the Secretary of the Treasury.

Hamilton, almost immediately, was taken down with yellow fever, which broke out suddenly and raged with a fearful violence. To the ordinary odours of carcasses and garbage, were added those of vinegar, tar, nitre, garlic, and gunpowder. Every disinfectant America had ever heard of was given a trial, and every man who possessed a shot-gun fired it all day and all night. The bells tolled incessantly. The din and the smells were hideous, the death carts rattled from dawn till dawn; many were left unburied in their houses for a week; hundreds died daily; and the city confessed itself helpless, although it cleaned the streets. Hamilton had a very light attack, but Dr. Stevens dropped in frequently to see him; he privately thought him of more importance than all Philadelphia.

Lying there and thinking of many things, too grateful for the rest to chafe at the imprisonment, and striving for peace with himself, Hamilton one day conceived the idea of immersing yellow-fever patients in ice-water. Microbes were undiscovered, but Hamilton, perhaps with a flashing glimpse of the truth, reasoned that if cold weather invariably routed the disease, a freezing of the infected blood should produce the same result. He succeeded in convincing Stevens, with the issue that when the scourge was over, the young West Indian doctor had so many cures to his credit, where all other physicians had failed, that the City Council presented him with a silver tankard, gratefully inscribed, and filled with golden coins. Hamilton's fecund brain, scattering its creations, 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 in September. She wore a white frock and a blue sash, and looked like an angel about to do penance.

"I have come back to take care of the sick, including yourself," she announced, "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 am in Dr. Stevens's hands."

Hamilton stared at her. He was not surprised, for she was kind hearted in her erratic imperious fashion, and much beloved by the poor; nor was she afraid of anything under heaven. But she was the last person he had wished to see; she was for his triumphant hours, or his furious, not for helpless invalidism. He had longed consistently for his wife, and written to her by every packet-boat, lest she suspect his illness and return to the plague-stricken city. He was filled with a sudden resentment that any other woman should presume to fill her chair. To forget her under overwhelming provocation he had reconciled to his conscience with little difficulty, for his extenuations were many, and puritanism had not yet invaded the national character; but to permit another woman to ministrate to him when ill, he felt to be an unpardonable breach of his Eliza's rights, and his loyalty rebelled. So, although he treated Mrs. Croix with politeness while she remained, he gave 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 Stevens obeyed without comment.

Hamilton's convalescence was cheered by two facts: the revival of his spirits and equilibrium, and frequent assurances from his wife that for the first time in five years she was entirely well. She wrote that she had regained all her old colour, "spring," vivacity, and plumpness, and felt quite ten years younger. Hamilton was delighted; for her courage had 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 her recovered health that she wrote to him weekly. Suddenly, and without explanation, the letters stopped. Still, he was quite unprepared for what was to follow, and on the first of October, his health improved by a short sojourn in the country, he went to the wharf to meet the packet-boat which invariably brought his family; his pockets full of sweets, and not a misgiving in his mind.

As he stood on the wharf, watching the boat towed slowly to dock, his four oldest children suddenly appeared, waving their hats and shouting like young Indians. James, who was as broad as he was long, and was wedged firmly between Angelica and Philip lest he turn over, swelled a chorus which excited much amusement among by-standers. To Hamilton's surprise his wife did not occupy her usual place behind that enthusiastic group, but as the boat touched the pier, and all four precipitated themselves upon him at once,--the three oldest about his neck, and James upon his pockets,--he forgot her for the moment in the delight of seeing and embracing his children after three months of separation. He emerged from that wild greeting, dishevelled and breathless, only to disappear once more within six long arms and a circle of sunburned faces. Hamilton received from his children an almost frantic affection; indeed, few people merely liked him; it was either hate or a love which far transcended the bounds of such affection as the average mortal commands. The passion he inspired in his children cost one his life, another her reason, and left its indelible mark on a third; but for what they gave, they received an overflowing measure in return; no man was ever more passionately attached to his brood, nor took a greater delight in its society.

Suddenly, through the web of Angelica's flying locks, he saw that his wife had appeared on deck and was about to land. He disentangled himself hastily and went forward to greet her. In a flash he noted that she was prettier than ever, and that she was affected by something far more extraordinary than an increase of health. She threw back her head, and her black eyes flashed with anger as he approached with the assurance of thirteen years of connubial ownership; but she greeted him politely and took his arm. No explanation was possible there; and he escorted her and the children to the coach as quickly as possible. Philip, Angelica, and Alexander were sensible at once of the chasm yawning between the seats; they redoubled their attentions to their father, and regarded their mother with reproving and defiant eyes. Poor Betsey, conscious that she was entirely in the right, felt bitter and humiliated, and sought to find comfort in the indifference of James, who was engaged with a cornucopia and blind to the infelicity of his parents.

When they reached the house, Hamilton dismissed the children and opened the door of his library.

"Will you come in?" he said peremptorily.

Mrs. Hamilton entered, and sat down on a high-backed chair. She was very small, her little pigeon toes were several inches above the floor; but no judge on his bench ever looked so stern and so inexorable.

"Now," said Hamilton, who was cold from head to foot, for he had an awful misgiving, "let us have an explanation at once. This is our first serious misunderstanding, and you well know that I shall be in misery until it is over--"

"I have not the least intention of keeping you in suspense," interrupted Betsey, sarcastically. "I am too thankful that you did not happen to come to Saratoga when _I_ was prostrated with misery. I have gone through everything,--every stage of wretchedness that the human heart is capable of,--but now, thank Heaven, I am filled with only a just indignation. Read that!"

She produced a letter from her reticule and flipped it at him. Even before he opened it he recognized the familiar handwriting, the profuse capitals, of Mrs. Reynolds. Fortunately, he made no comment, for the contents were utterly different from his quick anticipation. It contained a minute and circumstantial account of his visits during the past year to Mrs. Croix, with many other details, which, by spying and bribing, no doubt, she had managed to gather. Failing one revenge, the woman had resorted to another, and fearing that it might be lost among the abundant and surfeiting lies of the public press, she had aimed at what he held most dear. The letter was so minute and circumstantial that it would have convinced almost any woman.

There was but one thing for Hamilton to do, and he lied with his unsurpassable eloquence. When he paused tentatively, his wife remarked:--

"Alexander, you are a very great man, but you are a wretchedly poor liar. As Mr. Washington would say, your sincerity is one of the most valuable 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 two of your intimate friends discussing this intrigue as a matter of course. There was not a word of censure or criticism; they were merely wondering when you would add to your enemies; for as this woman was desperately in love with you, she was bound to hate you as violently when you tired of her. I think men are horrors!" she burst out passionately. "When, unable to bear this terrible affliction any longer, and unwilling to worry my poor mother, I took that letter and my grief to my father--what do you suppose he said? After he had tried to convince me that the story was a base fabrication, and that an anonymous communication should be destroyed unread--as if any woman living would not read an anonymous letter!--he said, crossly, that women did not understand men and never made allowances for them; and he went on to make as many excuses for you as if he were defending himself; and then wound up by saying that he did not believe a word of it, and that the letter was written by someone you had flouted. But it seemed to me in those awful days that I was awake for the first time, that for the first time I understood you--and your horrid sex, in general--I do! I do!"

She looked so adorable with her flashing eyes, the hot colour in her cheek, and the new personality she exhibited, that Hamilton would have foregone a triumph over his enemies to kiss her. But he dared not make a false move, and he was terribly perplexed.

"I can only reiterate," he said, "that this letter is a lie from beginning to end. It is written by a woman, who, with her husband, has blackmailed me and jeopardized my reputation. I treated them as they deserved, and this is their next move. As for Mrs. Croix, I repeat, she is a most estimable person, whose brilliant wit and talent for politics draw all public men about her. There is hardly one among them who might not be victimized by a similar attack. I doubt if I have called half as often as many others. As for the friends whom you heard discussing my visits--you know the love of the human mind for scandal. Please be reasonable. You have made me the most wretched man on earth, I shall be unfit for public duty or anything else if you continue to treat me in this brutal manner. I hardly know you. No woman was ever more loved by her 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, I will consider if I can bring myself to believe your denial and your protestations. It is that you never enter Mrs. Croix's house again, nor see her willingly."

Hamilton knew what the promise would mean, but his mind worked with the rapidity of lightning in great crises, and never erred. He replied promptly:

"I will see her once, and once only--to give her a decent reason for not calling again--that I understand I am compromising her good name, or something of the sort. I have accepted too much hospitality at her hands to drop her brusquely, without a word of explanation."

"You can write her a letter. You can merely send polite excuses when she invites you. You are very busy. You have every excuse. Gradually, she will 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 next packet to Albany."

But Hamilton, always considerate of women, and despising the weakness and brutality which permits a man to slink out of an amour, would not retreat, and Betsey finally settled herself in her chair, and said, with unmistakable determination:--

"Very well, go now. I shall not move from this room--this chair--until you return."

Hamilton caught his hat and left the house. Although he was possessed by the one absorbing desire to win back his wife, who had never been so dear as to-day, when for the first time she had placed him at arm's length and given him a thorough fright, still his brain, accustomed to see all sides of every question at once, and far into the future, spoke plainly of the hour when he would regret the loss of Mrs. Croix. He might forget her for weeks at a time, but he always reawakened to a sense of her being with a glowing impression that the world was more alive and fair. The secret romance had been very dear and pleasant. The end was come, however, and he was eager to pass it.

His eye was attracted to a chemist's window, and entering the shop hastily, he purchased a bottle of smelling salts. The act reminded him of 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 the green Island which was almost lost among his memories. The respite was brief, 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 his most direct and imperative temper, stood the infliction but a moment, then asked her attention. She closed the book over her finger and smiled charmingly.

"Forgive me for boring you," she said graciously. "But you know my passion for letters; and if truth must be told, I am a little piqued. I have not laid eyes on you for a fortnight. Not but that I am used to your lapses of memory by this time," she added, with a sigh.

Hamilton went straight to the point. He told her the exact reason for the necessary breach, omitting nothing but the episode of Mrs. Reynolds; one cause of reproach was as much as a man could be expected to furnish an angry woman.

For Mrs. Croix was very angry. At first she had pressed her hand against her heart as if about to faint, and Hamilton had hastily extracted the salts; but the next moment she was on her feet, towering and expanding like an avenging queen about to order in her slaves with scimitars and chargers.

"Do you mean," she cried, "that I am flouted, flung aside like an old cravat? 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 be on the watch and save my pride. How dare you come like this? Why could you not give me warning? It is an outrage. I would rather you had killed me."

"I am sorry I have blundered," said Hamilton, humbly. "But how in Heaven's name can a man know how a woman will take anything? I had such respect for your great intelligence that I thought it due you to treat you as I would a man--"

"A man?" exclaimed Mrs. Croix. "Treat me like a man! Of all the supremely silly things I ever heard one of your sex say, that is the silliest. I am not a man, and you know it."

Hamilton hastened to assure her that she was deliberately averting her intelligence from his true meaning. "You have never doubted my sincerity for a moment," he added. "You surely know what it will cost me never to see you again. There is but one cause under heaven that could have brought me to you with this decision. You may believe in my regret--to use 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 he be placed in a position from which he was not sure of emerging with a clear conscience,--and he dared take home nothing less. But Mrs. Croix, however she might feel on the morrow, was too outraged in her pride and vanity to be susceptible either to grief or the passion of love. She stormed up and down the room in increasing fury, her eyes flashing blue lightning, her strong hands smashing whatever costly offering they encountered. "Wives! Wives! Wives!" she screamed. "The little fools! What are wives for but to keep house and bring up babies? They are a class apart. I have suffered enough from their impertinent interference. Am I not a woman apart? Will you assert that there is a 'wife' in America who can hold her own with me for a moment in anything? Was I not created to reveal to men--and only the ablest, for I waste no time on fools--the very sublimation of my sex--a companionship they will find in 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 ever possessed a woman?" She stopped and laughed, bringing her lashes together and moving forward her beautiful lips. "What a fool I am!" she said. "You will come back when the humour seizes you. I had forgot that your family returned to-day. You are in your most domestic mood--and I have been inflicted with that before. But there will come an hour when neither 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 a presentiment of many desperate struggles. He rose, and took her hand forcibly.

"No," he said. "I shall not return. Believe me, that is the hardest sentence I have ever pronounced upon myself. And forgive me if I have been rude and inconsiderate. It was the result of the desire to have the agony over as quickly as possible. I should have found the anticipation unbearable, and I do not believe it would have been more soothing to you. There is no reason why your pride should be wounded, for this is not 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 with stern approval and announced that she had implicit faith in his promise to avoid Mrs. Croix in the future. But it was quite evident that his punishment was unfinished, and with due humility and some humour he bided 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 had taken herself in hand, that her pen was guided by her marvellous intelligence. She apologized charmingly for her exhibition of temper, and for any reflection she might have made upon the most estimable of women, who (with a sigh) had the happiness to be the wife of Alexander Hamilton. She ignored his ultimatum and asked him to come at once, and talk the matter over calmly. Hamilton replied with the graceful playfulness of which he was master, but left no doubt of his continuity of purpose. After the interchange of several letters of this complexion, in which Mrs. Croix was quite conscious of revealing the ample resources of her wit, spirit, and tact, she broke down and went through every circumstance of a despairing woman fighting to recover the supreme happiness of her life. At times she was humble, she prostrated herself at his feet. Again she raved with all the violence of her nature. Her pride, and it was very great, was submerged under the terrible agony of her heart. Even passion was forgotten, and she was sincere for the moment when she vowed that she had no wish beyond his mere presence.

Hamilton was horribly distressed. He would rather she had turned upon him at once with all her tigerish capacity for hate. But he had given his word to his wife, and that was the end of it. He answered every letter, but his gallantry and kindness were pitch and oil, and it was with profound relief that he watched the gradual stiffening of her pride, the dull resentment, even although he knew it meant that an enemy, subtle, resourceful, and venomous, was in the process of making. In her final letter she gave him warning--and a last opportunity. But of this he took no notice.

Meanwhile, Betsey had led him a dance. Naturally bright, but heretofore too sheltered and happy, too undisturbed in her trust, she had done little thinking, little analysis, felt nothing but amusement for the half-comprehended vagaries of men. But jealousy and suffering give a woman, in a week, a fill of knowledge and cunning that will serve her a lifetime. Betsey developed both coquetry and subtlety. She knew that if she obtained command of the situation now, she should hold it to the end, and she was determined that this crisis should result in a close and permanent union. If she finally believed his denial, she was much too shrewd to give him the satisfaction of regaining his former mastery of her mind; but she ceased to speak of it. Meanwhile, he was devoting his energies to winning her again, and he had never found life so interesting. She radiated a new bewitchment, and he had always thought her the most adorable woman on the planet. He divined a good many of her mental processes; but if he was a trifle amused, he was deeply respectful. She was sufficiently uncertain in this new character to torment him unbearably, and when she occasionally betrayed that she was interested and fascinated, he was transported. When she finally succumbed, 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 they were but the precursor of the last great battle of the giants.

In the spring of 1794 the Virginian ring rallied for their final assault in Congress. Their spokesman this time was a worthless man, named Fraunces, and he brought forth a charge against the Secretary of the Treasury of unfaithfulness in office. Hamilton promptly demanded another investigation. The result may be found in the following letters from eminent 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 political conditions in Virginia created by Thomas Jefferson, in which these significant 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 assumed such serious proportions that Hamilton insisted upon recourse to arms. With his usual precision he had calculated the numbers of the insurgents, and the amount of troops necessary to overwhelm them. Washington issued requisitions for fifteen thousand men, and set out with the troops, his first intention being to command in person. Hamilton accompanied him, and upon the President's return to Philadelphia, assumed the general superintendence of the army, whose commander, Henry Lee, was one of his devoted adherents. Many motives have been ascribed to Hamilton for this exceptional proceeding, and Washington was bitterly assailed for "not being able to move without his favourite Secretary at his elbow," and for giving additional conspicuousness to a man whose power already was a "menace to Republican liberties." Randolph, then the nominal Secretary of State, but quite aware that while Hamilton remained in the Cabinet he was but a figurehead, was so wroth, that later, in his futile "Vindication," following what practically was his expulsion from the Cabinet, he animadverted bitterly upon a favour which no one but Hamilton would have presumed to ask. Fauchet, the successor of Genet, in the intercepted letter to his government, which brought about the fall of Randolph, 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 ever attempt to plumb. It is safe to say he did nothing without one eye on a far-reaching policy; and aside from the pleasure of being in the saddle once 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 of implicit confidence in Lee's judgement, it is quite likely that he had some underlying motive relative to the advantage of his party, which had been weakened by the incessant assaults upon himself. By going with the army he not only demonstrated the perfect confidence reposed in him by Washington, and his determination that his laws should be enforced, but he gave emphasis to his belief that the resistance to the Excise Law had been deliberately instigated by the Republicans under the leadership of his avowed enemies. In this connection the following extract from Fauchet's letter is highly interesting, intimate as he was with the Republican 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. The pressing need of his services was over, and he had many reasons for retiring from office: his health was seriously impaired, he had a growing family of boys to educate; he expected his father by every ship from the Windward Islands, to spend his last years in the home to which his son had so often invited him; Mrs. Mitchell was now a widow and almost penniless; and his disgust of office was so uncompromising that no consideration short of an imperative public duty would have induced him 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 promised immediate response to any demand the President might make upon him. He went with his wife, Angelica, and the younger children to Albany and the Saratoga estate, where he remained until the first of June, endeavouring to regain his health in the forest and on the river. Young Lafayette lived 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 be Washington's chief adviser, and the correspondence was continuous upon every problem which confronted the harassed President. Indeed, when one reads its bulk, one wonders if the Cabinet did anything but execute Hamilton's suggestions. Randolph kicked his heels in impotent wrath, and his successor's correspondence with Hamilton was almost as voluminous as Washington's. So was Wolcott's, who hardly cancelled a bond without his former chief's advice; William Smith, the auditor-general, was scarcely less insistent for orders. Hamilton wrote at length to all of them, as well as to the numerous members of Congress who wanted advice, or an interpretation of some Constitutional provision hitherto on the shelf. What time he had for his practice and students would remain a mystery, were it not for the manifest price he paid in the vigours of all but will and brain.

During the summer of 1794 Talleyrand visited the United States. He brought a package from Mrs. Church to Mrs. Hamilton, and a cordial letter from the same important source to the statesman whom he ranked higher than any man of his time. "He improves upon acquaintance," wrote Mrs. Church to her sister; "I regret that you do not speak French." But her sister's husband spoke French better than any man in America, and after the resignation from the Cabinet, Talleyrand spent most of his time in the little red brick house at 26 Broadway, where Hamilton was working to recover his lost position at the bar. "I have seen the eighth wonder of the world," wrote the Frenchman, one morning, after a ramble in the small hours, which had taken him past the light in Hamilton's study, "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 great delight in each other's society. Hamilton was the most accomplished and versatile man in America, the most brilliant of conversationists, the most genial of companions, and hospitable of hosts. Talleyrand epitomized Europe to him; and the French statesman had met no one in his crowded life who knew it better. If he gave to Hamilton the concentrated essence of all that ardent brain had read and dreamed of, of all that fate had decreed he never should see in the mass, Talleyrand placed on record his tribute to Hamilton's unmortal powers of divination, and loved and regretted him to the close of his life.

Different as the men were in character, they had two points in common,--a passionate patriotism, and the memory of high ideals. Public life had disposed of Talleyrand's ideals, and Hamilton, after an education in the weakness and wickedness of human nature which left nothing to be desired, would have been equally destitute, had it not been for his temperamental gaiety and buoyant philosophy. There were times when these deserted him, and he brooded in rayless depths, but his Celtic inheritance and the vastness of his intellect saved him from despair until the end. Talleyrand was by no means an uncheerful soul; but his genius, remarkable as it was, flowed between narrower lines, and was unwatered by that humanity which was Hamilton's in such volume. Both men had that faculty of seeing things exactly as they are, which the shallow call cynicism; and those lost conversations appeal to the imagination of the searcher after truth.

Jay's treaty was the most formidable question with which Hamilton was called upon to deal before the retirement of Washington to private life, and it gave him little less trouble than if he had remained in the Cabinet.

It had been his idea to send a special envoy to England to remonstrate with the British Government for her abominable oppressions and accumulating outrages, decide if possible upon a treaty with her which would soothe the excitement in the United States,--as wild in the spring of 1794 as the Jacobin fever,--and avert war. It was the desire of Washington and the eminent Federalists that this mission be undertaken by Hamilton, for he had an especial faculty for getting what he wanted: however obstinate he might be, his diplomacy was of the first order when he chose to use it. But he believed that, having suggested the mission, he could not with propriety accept it, and that his services could be given more effectively in the Cabinet. Moreover, the violent opposition which the proposal immediately raised among the Republicans, notably Randolph and Monroe,--the latter so far transcending etiquette as to write to Washington, denouncing his Secretary of the Treasury,--made it probable that his enemies would defeat his confirmation in the Senate. He suggested the name of Chief Justice Jay; and after the usual bitter preliminaries, that exalted but not very forcible personage sailed for England in the latter part of April, 1794. Negotiations were very slow, for Britain still felt for us a deep and sullen resentment, nourished by our Jacobin enthusiasms. In January, however, news came that the treaty was concluded; and Hamilton, supposing that the matter was settled, resigned from the Cabinet. It has been asserted that when he read this famous instrument, he characterized it as "an old woman's treaty," and it is very probable that he did. Nevertheless, when, after a stormy passage through the Senate, it was launched upon the country, and, systematically manipulated by the practised arts of Jacobinism, carried the United States almost to the verge of civil war, Hamilton accepted the treaty as the best obtainable, and infinitely preferable to further troubles. He took up his pen, having previously been stoned while attempting to speak in its defence, and in a series of papers signed "Catullus," wrote as even he had not done since the days of "The Federalist." Their effect was felt at once; and as they continued to issue, and Hamilton's sway over the public mind, his genius for moulding opinion, became with each more manifest, Jefferson, terrified and furious, 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 puts himself on paper with Hamilton is lost," Burr had said; and Madison agreed with him, and entered the lists no more. The excitement gradually subsided. It left ugly scars behind it, but once more Hamilton had saved his party, and perhaps the Union. In connection with the much disputed authorship 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 of Jacobinism into the most painful and mortifying act of his public career. He had been hailed by certain enthusiastic Federalists as the legitimate successor of Washington. It was a noble ambition, and there is no doubt that Hamilton would have cherished it, had he been less of a philosopher, less in the habit of regarding a desire for the impossible as a waste of time. Not only were older men in the direct line of promotion, but he knew that as the author of the Excise Law he was hated by one section of the Commonwealth, and that as the parent of the manufacturing interest, to say nothing of the Assumption measure, he had incurred the antagonism of the entire South. Lest these causes for disqualification be obscured by the brilliancy of his reputation, Jefferson's unresting and ramifying art had indelibly impressed the public mind with the monarchical-aristocratical tendencies and designs of the former Secretary of the Treasury, and of his hatred for a beloved cause overseas. Hamilton had given an absolute negative to every suggestion to use his name; but one at least had found its way into print, and so terrified the enemy that they determined upon one more powerful blow at his good name. Monroe had a fresh cause for hatred in his humiliating recall from France, which he ascribed to the influence of Hamilton. No doubt the trio were well satisfied for a time with their carefully considered scheme. The pamphlet published in 1797, called "The History of the United States for 1796," and edited by a disreputable man named Callender, was the concentrated essence of Jacobinical fury and vindictiveness against Alexander Hamilton. It surpassed any attack yet made on him, while cleverly pretending to be an arraignment of the entire Federalist party; shrieking so loudly at times against Washington, Adams, and Jay, that the casual reader would overlook the sole purport of the pamphlet. "It is ungenerous to triumph over the ruins of declining fame," magnanimously finished its attack upon Washington. "Upon this account not a word more shall be said!"

It omitted a recital of the two Congressional attacks upon Hamilton's financial integrity, as to refrain from all mention of the vindications would have been impossible; but it raked up everything else for which it had space, sought to prove him a liar by his defence of the Jay treaty in the Camillus papers, and made him insult Washington in language so un-Hamiltonian that to-day it excites pity for the desperation of the Virginians. When it finally arrived at the pith and marrow of the assault, however, it was with quite an innocent air. This was a carefully concocted version of the Reynolds affair. Callender had obtained possession of the papers which Monroe, Muhlenberg, and Venable had prepared to submit to the President, before hearing Hamilton's explanation. He asserted that this explanation was a lie, and that the Secretary of the Treasury had not only speculated with the public funds, but that he had made thirty thousand pounds by the purchase of army certificates. It was also alleged that Hamilton ordered his name withdrawn as a Presidential candidate, in consequence of a threat that otherwise these same papers would be published.

It is a curious instance of the fatuity of contemporaries, that Hamilton's enemies reckoned upon a sullen silence, in the face of damning assault, from the greatest fighter of his time. Indubitably, they argued that he would think it best to pass the matter over; no man could be expected to give to the public the full explanation. But they reckoned with an insufficient knowledge of this host, as they had done many a time before. Hamilton had no desire to hold office again, but he was still the great leader of a great party, as determined as ever that at no cost should there be a stain on his public honour. He consulted with his closest friends, among them his wife. As the sin was now five years old--and the woman a derelict--Mrs. Hamilton found it easier to forgive than an unconfessed liaison with the most remarkable woman of her time. Although she anticipated the mortification of the exposure quite as keenly as her husband, she cherished his good name no less tenderly, and without hesitation counselled him to give the facts to the public. This he did in a pamphlet which expounded the workings of the "Jacobin Scandal Club," told the unpleasant story without reserve, and went relentlessly into the details of the part played in it by Monroe, Muhlenberg, and Venable. He forced affidavits from those bewildered gentlemen, the entire correspondence was published, and the pamphlet itself was a masterpiece of biting sarcasm and convincing statement. It made a tremendous sensation, but even his enemies admired his courage. The question of his financial probity was settled for all time, although the missile, failing in one direction, quivered in the horrified brains of many puritanical voters. Mrs. Reynolds, now living with Clingman, made no denial, and it is doubtful if even she would have echoed the one animadversion of the discomfited enemy,--that Hamilton had given the name of a mistress to the public. It is a weak and dangerous sentimentalism which would protect a woman of commerce against the good name of any man. The financial settlement makes her a party in a contract, nothing more, and acquits the payer of all further responsibility. She has no good name to protect; she has asked for nothing but money; she is a public character, whom to shield would be a thankless task. When this Reynolds woman added the abomination of blackmail to her trade, and further attempted the ruin of the man who had shown her nothing but generosity and consideration, it need hardly be added that Hamilton would have been a sentimental fool to have hesitated on any ground but detestation of a public scandal.

He never traced the betrayal of a secret which all concerned had promised to keep inviolate, but he had his suspicions. Mrs. Croix, now living in a large house on the Bowling Green, was the animated and resourceful centre of Jacobinism. She wore a red cap to the theatre and a tri-coloured cockade on the street. Her _salon_ was the headquarters of the Republican leaders, and many a plot was hatched in her inspiring presence. The Virginian Junta were far too clever to put themselves in the power of a drunkard like Callender, but they were constantly in collusion with Mrs. Croix. They knew that she feared nothing under heaven, and that she had devoted herself to Hamilton's ruin. Callender drew upon her for virus whenever his own supply ran down, and would have hailed the Reynolds concoction, even had it gone to him naked and begging. Hamilton saw the shadow of a fair hand throughout the entire pamphlet, and, indeed, could have traced many an envenomed shaft, since 1793, to a source which once had threatened to cloy him with its sweetness.

Meanwhile John Adams had been elected President of the United States, and Thomas Jefferson, Vice-President. Hamilton had made no secret of the fact 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's intrepidity, integrity, and loyal Federalism, he was, in Hamilton's opinion, too suspicious, jealous of influence, and hot headed, to be a safe leader in approaching storms. With Pinckney as a brilliant and popular figurehead, Hamilton well knew that his own hand would remain on the helm. With the irascible old gentleman from Massachusetts in the Chair, his continued predominance was by no means certain. Washington once said of Hamilton that he undoubtedly was ambitious, but that his ambition was of that laudable kind which prompts a man to excel in whatever he takes in hand; adding that his judgement was intuitively great. The truth was that Hamilton regarded the United States as his child. He had made her wealthy and respected, he foresaw a future importance for her equal to that of any state in Europe. "I anticipate," he wrote to Rufus King, "that this country will, ere long, assume an attitude correspondent with its great destinies--majestic, efficient, and operative of great things. A noble career lies before it." The first of the "Imperialists," he had striven for years to awaken the Government to the importance of obtaining possession of Louisiana and the Floridas, and he also had his eye on South America. Naturally, he wanted no interruption; the moment the security of the country was threatened, he was as alert and anxious as if his nursery were menaced with an Indian invasion. Without conceit or vanity no man ever was more conscious of his great powers; moreover, no American had made such sacrifices as he. Washington and almost all the leading men possessed independent fortunes. Hamilton had manifested his ability from the first to equal the income of the wealthiest, did he give his unbroken services to the pursuit of his profession. But he had lived for years upon a pittance, frequently driven to borrow small sums from his friends, that he might devote his energies entirely to his country. And no man ever gave more generously or with less thought of reward; although he would have been the last to deny his enjoyment of power. For a born leader of men to care 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's idiosyncrasies with considerable disquiet. Nevertheless, with the high priest of Jacobinism in the field, his first object was to secure the office for the Federalist party. The race was too close for serious consideration of any other ultimate. He counselled every Federalist to cast his vote for Adams and Pinckney; better a tie, with the victory to Adams, than Thomas Jefferson at the head of the Nation. Of course there was a hope that Pinckney might carry the South. But the Adams enthusiasts dreaded this very issue, and threw away their votes for the Vice-Presidency. Pinckney's followers in the South pursued the same policy. The consequence was that Adams won by three votes only. Again his pride was bruised, and again he attributed his mortification to Hamilton. If he had disliked him before, his dislike in a constant state of irritation through the ascendency and fame of the younger man, he hated him now with a bitterness which formed a dangerous link between himself and the Republican leaders. The time came when he was ready to humiliate his country and ruin his own chance of reelection, to dethrone his rival from another proud eminence and check his upward course. Another source of bitterness was Hamilton's continued leadership of the Federalist party, when himself, as President, was entitled to that distinction. But that party was Hamilton's; he had created, developed it, been its Captain through all its triumphant course. Even had he been content to resign his commission,--which he did not contemplate for a moment,--the great majority of the Federalists would have forced it into his hand again. Adams declared war. Hamilton, always ready for a fight, when no immediate act of statesmanship was involved, took up the gauntlet. Adams might resist his influence, but the Cabinet was his, and so were some of the most influential members of Congress, including Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts, the president pro tem. of the Senate. It was some time before Adams realized the full extent of this influence; but when he did discover that his Secretary of State, Timothy Pickering, his Secretary of the Treasury, Oliver Wolcott, and his Secretary of War, James M'Henry, were in the habit of consulting Hamilton upon every possible question before giving the President their valuable opinions, and that upon one occasion, at least, a letter of Hamilton's had been incorporated by the Secretary of War into a Presidential Message, he was like to die of apoplexy. He wrote, in his wrath:--

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 the Cabinet if they chose, and Washington had encouraged them to go to Hamilton. Hamilton was at liberty to give it, and Adams could find no evidence that he had counselled rebellion against himself; nor that he had used his great influence for any purpose but the honour of the country.

And never had the country needed his services more. When Adams, grim and obstinate, stepped forward as head of the Nation, he found himself confronted with the menace of France. In retaliation for Genet's disgrace, the Revolutionists had demanded the recall of Gouverneur Morris, whose barely disguised contempt, and protection of more than one royalist, had brought him perilously near to the guillotine. Burr had desired the vacant mission, and his pretensions were urged by Monroe and Madison. Washington recognized this as a device of the Opposition to embarrass him, and he had the lowest opinion of Burr's rectitude and integrity. Pressure and wrath produced no effect, but he offered to appoint Monroe. It might be wise to send a Jacobin, and the President hoped that ambition would preserve this one from compromising the country. He made the mistake of not weighing Monroe's mental capacity more studiously. The least said of the wild gallop into diplomacy of our fifth President the better. He was recalled, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney sent in his place. The French, who had found Monroe entirely to their taste, refused to receive the distinguished lawyer and soldier. To escape indignity he was forced to retire to Holland. The new Republic violated her treaties with increasing insolence, and Bonaparte was thundering on his triumphant course. France was mocking the world, and in no humour to listen to the indignant protests of a young and distant nation. To dismember her by fanning the spirit of Jacobinism, and, at the ripe moment,--when internal warfare had sufficiently weakened her,--reduce her to a French colony, was a plot of which Hamilton, Rufus King, then minister to England, and other astute statesmen more than suspected her. But although Hamilton abhorred France and was outraged at her attitude, the spirit of moderation which had regulated all his acts in public life suffered no fluctuation, and he immediately counselled the sending of a commission to make a final attempt before recourse to arms. War, if inevitable, but peace with honour if possible; it was not fair to disturb the prosperity of the young country except as a last resort. For once he and Adams were agreed. Hamilton suggested Jefferson or Madison as a sop to the Revolutionists, with two Federalists to keep him in order. But the President would have his own commissioners or none. He despatched Marshall and Gerry and ordered C.C. Pinckney to join them. Talleyrand refused them official reception, and sent to them, in secret, nameless minions--known officially, later on, as X.Y.Z.--who made shameful proposals, largely consisting of inordinate demand for tribute. Marshall and Pinckney threw up the commission in disgust. The Opposition in Congress demanded the correspondence; and Adams, with his grimmest smile, sent it to the Senate. It was a terrible blow to the Jacobins, not only the manner in which France had prejudiced her interests in this country; some of the disclosures were extremely painful to ponder upon. "Perhaps," one of the backstairs ambassadors had remarked, "you believe that, in returning and exposing to your countrymen the unreasonableness of the demands of this Government, you will unite them in resistance to those demands. You are mistaken. You ought to know that the diplomatic skill of France, and the means she possesses in your country, are sufficient to enable her, with _the French party in America_, to throw the blame, which will attend the rupture, on the Federalists, as you term yourselves, but the British party, as France terms you; and you may assure yourselves this will be done." Jefferson retired to weep alone. Several of the faction resigned from 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 for tribute!" "Hail Columbia" was composed, and inflamed the popular excitement. Federalist clubs paraded, wearing a black cockade, and one street riot followed another. Brockholst Livingston had his nose pulled, and killed his man. With the exception of the extreme Jacobins, who never swerved from their devotion to France and the principles she had promulgated with the guillotine, the country was for war to a man, and the President inundated with letters and memorials of encouragement. The immediate result was the augmentation of the Federalist party, and the decline of Jacobinism.

For a long while past, Hamilton had been urging naval and military preparations. A bold front, he thought, would be more effective than diplomacy; and the sequel proved his wisdom. When the crisis came a bill for a Provisional Army was passed at once, another for the increase of the Navy, and liberal appropriations were made. The proposed alliance with Great Britain, Hamilton effectually opposed, for he was almost as exasperated with England as with France; in her fear that the French party in the United States would triumph and declare war upon her, she had renewed her depredations upon our commerce.

Few believed that Washington would serve again, and the Nation turned naturally to Hamilton as its General-in-chief. He had manifestly been born to extricate them from difficulties. Even the Presidential faction put their pride in their pockets, and agreed that he was the one man in the country of matchless resource and military genius; they passed over the veterans of the war without controversy. But there was one man who never put his pride in his pocket, and that was John Adams. Rather than present to Alexander Hamilton another opportunity for distinction and power, he would himself cull fresh laurels for George Washington; the supply of his old rival was now so abundant that new ones would add nothing. Hamilton already had written to Washington as peremptorily as only he dared, urging that he must come forth once more and without hesitation. Washington replied that he would as cheerfully go to the tombs of his ancestors, but admitted the obligation, and asked Hamilton would he serve with him? Hamilton answered that he would on condition that he be second in command to himself; he would make no further sacrifice for an inconsiderable reward. When Washington, therefore, received Adams's invitation, he made his acceptance conditional upon being given the power to appoint his generals next in rank. Adams, meanwhile, without waiting for his answer, had sent his name to the Senate, and it had been confirmed as a matter of course. Washington was irritated, but persisted in his condition, and sent in the names of Alexander Hamilton for Inspector-General, with the rank of Major-General, C.C. Pinckney and Knox for Major-Generals, and a list of Brigadiers and Adjutant-Generals. Adams, fuming, sent the names to the Senate, and they were confirmed in the order in which Washington had written them; but when they came back, jealousy and temper mastered him, and he committed the intemperate act which tolled the death-knell of the Federalist party: he ordered the commissions made out with Hamilton's name third on the list. Knox and Pinckney, he declared, were entitled to precedence; and so the order should stand or not at all. He had not anticipated an outcry, and when it arose, angry and determined, he was startled but unshaken. The leading men in Congress waited upon him; he received a new deluge of letters, and the most pointed of them was from John Jay. Hamilton alone held his peace. He saw the terrible mistake Adams had made, and dreaded the result. He wrote to Washington that he should be governed entirely by his wishes, that he should not embarrass him in any manner, and that it never should be said of himself that his ambition or interest had stood in the way of the public welfare. But when Adams stood with his head down, like an angry bull, and it was plain to be seen that his astonishing attitude was prompted by personal hatred alone, when the Cabinet and all the eminent men in the Nation, with the exception of the Republican leaders, faced him with an equally determined front, there was nothing for Hamilton to do but to stand his ground; and he stood it. Washington put an end to the unfortunate controversy. He gave Adams his choice between submission or the selection of another General-in-chief. Adams submitted, but Hamilton had in him an enemy no less malignant than Thomas Jefferson himself. Adams had roused the deep implacability of Hamilton's nature. All hope of even an armed truce for party advantage between the two great Federalists was over. Hamilton had one cause for resentment which alone would have made him ardently desire retaliation: General Knox, who had loved him devotedly for twenty years, was bitterly alienated, and the breach was never healed.

Hamilton made his headquarters in New York, where he could, after a fashion, attend to his law practice,--he was now the leading counsel at the bar,--but he entered upon his new duties with all his old spirit and passionate energy. Although France might be discomfited by the readiness and resource of the United States, the imposing front erected by a universal indignation, there were reasons which made the reverse possible; and Hamilton thrilled with all the military ardours of his youth at the prospect of realizing those half-forgotten ambitions. He had, in those days, sacrificed his burning desire for action and glory to a sense of duty which had ruled him through life like a tyrannical deity. 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 boundless gratitude for the best friend a mortal ever made. Washington passed Hamilton over the heads of those superior in military rank, because he knew that he alone was equal to the great task for which himself was too old and infirm; but Hamilton never doubted that he did it with a deep sense of satisfied justice and of gratitude.

Never had Hamilton's conspicuous talent for detail, unlimited capacity for work, genius for creating something out of nothing, marshalled for more active service than now. He withheld his personal supervision from nothing; planning forts, preparing codes of tactics, organizing a commissariat department, drafting bills for Congress, advising M'Henry upon every point which puzzled that unfinished statesman, were but a few of the exercises demanded of the organizer of an army from raw material. The legislation upon one of his bills finally matured a pet project of many years, the Military Academy at West Point. Philip Church, the oldest son of Angelica Schuyler, was his aide; John Church, after a brilliant career as a member of Parliament, having returned to American citizenship, his wife to as powerful a position as she had held in London.

It is hardly necessary to inform any one who has followed the fortunes of Hamilton as far as this that he purposed to command an army of aggression as well as defence. A war with France unrolled infinite possibilities. Louisiana and the Floridas should be seized as soon as war was declared, and he lent a kindly ear to Miranda, who was for overthrowing the inhuman rule of Spain in South America. "To arrest the progress of the revolutionary doctrines France was then propagating in those regions, and to unite the American hemisphere in one great society of common interests and common principles against the corruption, the vices, the new theories of Europe," was an alluring prospect to a man who had given the broadest possible interpretation to the Constitution, and whose every conception had borne the stamp of an imperialistic boldness and amplitude.

But these last of his dreams ended in national humiliation. This time he had sacrificed his private interests, his vital forces, for worse than nothing. One enemy worked his own ruin, and Louisiana was to add to the laurels of Jefferson.

Talleyrand, astonished and irritated by these warlike preparations and the enthusiasm of the infant country, wisely determined to withdraw with grace while there was yet time. He sent a circuitous hint to President Adams that an envoy from the United States would be received with proper respect. For months Adams had been tormented with the vision of Hamilton borne on the shoulders of a triumphant army straight to the Presidential chair. His Cabinet were bitterly and uncompromisingly for war; Hamilton had with difficulty restrained them in the past. Adams, without giving them an inkling of his intention, sent to the Senate the name of William Vans Murray, minister resident at The Hague, to confirm as envoy extraordinary to France.

For a moment the country was stupefied, so firm and uncompromising had been the President's attitude hitherto. Then it arose in wrath, and his popularity was gone for ever. As for the Federalist party, it divided into two hostile factions, and neither had ever faced the Republicans more bitterly. A third of the party supported the President; the rest were for defeating him in the Senate, and humiliating him in every possible way, as he had humiliated the country by kissing the contemptuous hand of France the moment it was half extended.

Hamilton was furious. He had been in mighty tempers in his life, but this undignified and mortifying act of the President strained his statesmanship to the utmost. It stood the strain, however; he warned the Federalist leaders that the step taken was beyond recall and known to all the world. There was nothing to do but to support the President. He still had an opportunity for revenge while openly protecting the honour of the Nation. Did Murray, a man of insufficient calibre and prestige, go alone, he must fail; Adams would be disgraced; war inevitable, with glory, and greater glory, for himself. But when circumstances commanded his statesmanship, he ceased to be an individual; personal resentments slumbered. He insisted that Murray be but one of a commission, and Adams, now cooled and as disquieted as that indomitable spirit could be, saw the wisdom of the advice; Oliver Ellsworth and General Davie, conspicuous and influential men, were despatched. Once more Hamilton had saved his party from immediate wreck; but the strength which it had gathered during the war fever was dissipated by the hostile camps into which it was divided, and by the matchless 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 the preponderance of intellect and educated talents in its ranks, and the masterly leadership of Alexander Hamilton. The Republican party numbered few men of first-rate talents, but the upper grade of the Federalist was set thick with distinguished patriots, all of them leaders, but all deferring without question to the genius of their Captain. For years the harmonious workings of their system, allied to the aggregate ability of their personnel, and the watchful eye and resourceful mind of Hamilton, the silent but sympathetic figure of Washington in the background, had enabled them to win every hard-fought battle in spite of the often superior numbers of the Opposition. That Jefferson was able in the face of this victorious and discouraging army to form a great party out of the rag-tag and bobtail element, animating his policy of decentralization into a virile and indelible Americanism, proved him to be a man of genius. History shows us few men so contemptible in character, so low in tone; and no man has given his biographers so difficult a task. But those who despise him most who oppose the most determined front to the ultimates of his work, must acknowledge that formational quality in his often dubious intellect which ranks him a man of genius.

His party was threatened with disorganization when the shameful conduct of the France he adored united the country in a demand for vengeance, and in admiration for the uncompromising attitude of the Government. Not until the Federalists, carried away by the rapid recruiting to their ranks, passed the Alien and Sedition laws, did Jefferson find ammunition for his next campaign. As one reads those Resolutions to-day, one wonders at the indiscretion of men who had kept the blood out of their heads during so many precarious years. Three-quarters of a century later the Chinese Exclusion Act became a law with insignificant protest; the mistake of the Federalists lay in ignoring the fears and raging jealousies of their time. If Hamilton realized at once that Jefferson would be quick to seize upon their apparent unconstitutionality and convert 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 democratic ideals, and Jefferson could have asked for nothing better. He immediately drafted his famous Kentucky Resolutions, and the obedient Madison did a like service for Virginia. The Resolutions of Madison, although containing all the seeds of nullification and secession, are tame indeed compared with the performance of a man who, enveloped in the friendly mists of anonymity, was as aggressive and valiant as Hamilton on the warpath. These Resolutions protested against the unconstitutionality of the Federal Government in exiling foreigners, and curbing the liberty of the press, in arrogating to itself the rights of the States, and assuming the prerogatives of an absolute monarchy. If Jefferson did not advise nullification, he informed the States of their inalienable rights, and counselled them to resist the centralizing tendency of the Federal Government before it was too late. Even in the somewhat modified form in which these Resolutions passed the Kentucky legislature, and although rejected by the States to which they were despatched, they created a sensation and accomplished their primary object. The war excitement had threatened to shove the Alien and Sedition laws beyond the range of the public observation. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions roused the country, and sent the Republicans scampering back to their watchful shepherd. It is one of the master-strokes of political history, and Jefferson culled the fruits and suffered none of the odium. That these historic Resolutions contained the fecundating germs of the Civil War, is by the way.

Such was the situation on the eve of 1800, the eve of a Presidential election, and of the death struggle of the two great parties.

It was in December of this year of 1799 that Hamilton bent under the most crushing blow that life had dealt him. He was standing on the street talking to Sedgwick, when a mounted courier dashed by, crying that Washington was dead. The street was crowded, but Hamilton broke down and wept bitterly. "America has lost her saviour," he said; "I, a father."