But during much of that terrible day and night Alexander's brain was

obliged to work on device after device to strengthen those battered

boards which alone protected the house from destruction, its inmates,

perhaps, from death. A tamarind tree came down on a corner of the roof

with a crash; and when Mrs. Mitchell and Alexander reached the room,

which was in a wing, the rain was struggling past the heavy mass through

a hole in the roof. They closed up the room, as well as the jalousies of

the inner walls, but as they returned to the windows they heard the rain

fighting to pass the branches, and knew that if the wind snatched the

tree, the deluge would come in.

Mrs. Mitchell neither fainted again nor exhibited other sign of fear.

While that hurricane lasted she was all Mary Fawcett; and Alexander,

meeting her eyes now and again, or catching sight of her as she darted

forward at the first rattle of a shutter, recalled his mother's many

anecdotes of his redoubtable grandmother, and wondered if that valiant

old soul had flown down the storm to the relief of the fortress.

Toward evening that sudden lull came which means that at last the

besieged are in the very centre of the hurricane, and will have respite

while the monster is swinging his tail to the west. Alexander and Mrs.

Mitchell, after opening the windows on the east side of the house, and

securing those opening to the west, went to the pantry and made a

substantial meal without sitting or selecting. To his last day Alexander

could not remember what he ate that night, although he recalled the

candle in the long chimney, the constant craning of his aunt's head, the

incessant racing of the rats along the beams. He went to his room and

took a cold bath, which with the food and suspended excitement quite

refreshed him; put on dry clothes, nailed a board against the hole in

the roof, then sat down with Mrs. Mitchell in the western gallery to

await the hurricane's return.

"We have three windows where we had one before," remarked Mrs.

Mitchell; "and the hinges of that door are rusty. God knows! If you had

not come, the roof would have gone long before this."

"The silence is horrible," said Alexander.

It was, indeed, earsplitting. Not a sound arose from that devastated

land. Birds and beasts must lie dead by the thousand; not a horseman

ventured abroad; not a whisper came from the cellar, where two hundred

Africans might be dead from fright or suffocation. Mrs. Mitchell had lit

the candles, and there was something sinister and ironical in the steady

flames. How long before they would leap and add the final horror to what

must be a night of horrors? It was impossible to work in the dark, but

every yellow point was a menace.

They had not long to endure the silence. This time the hurricane sent no

criers before it. It burst out of the west with a fury so intensified

that Alexander wondered if one stone in Frederikstadt were left upon

another. It was evident that it had gathered its forces for a final

assault, and its crashing and roaring, as it tore across the unhappy

Island it had marked for destruction, was that of a gigantic wheel

whirling ten thousand cannon, exploding, and lashing each other in

mid-air. It seemed to Alexander that every ball they surely carried

rattled on the roof, and the heavy stone structure vibrated for the

first time. It was two hours before he and Mrs. Mitchell met again, for

they worked at opposite ends of the long gallery; but in the third both

rushed simultaneously to the door. It sprang back from its rusty

fastenings, and they were but in time to seize the bar which passed

through a staple in its middle, and pull it inward until it pressed hard

against the jamb on the right. There was no other way to secure it, and

for three hours Alexander and Mrs. Mitchell dragged at it alternately,

while the other attended to the windows. By this time Alexander had

ceased to wonder if he should see another morning, or much to care: the

storm was so magnificent in its almighty power, its lungs of iron

bellowed its purpose with such furious iteration, as if out of all

patience with the mortals who defied it, that Alexander was almost

inclined to apologize. More than once it took the house by the shoulders

and shook it, and then a yell would come from below, a simultaneous note

pitched in a key of common agony. Suddenly the house seemed to spring

from its foundations, then sink back as if to collapse. Alexander called

out that it had been uprooted and would go down the hill in another

moment, but Mrs. Mitchell, who was at the bar, muttered, "An earthquake.

I believe a hurricane shakes the very centre of the earth."

They feared that the foundations of the house had been loosened, and

that the next blast would turn it over, but the house was one of the

strongest in the Caribbees, built to withstand the worst that Nature

could do, so long as man saw to its needs; and when the hurricane at

last revolved its artillery away into the east, carrying with it that

piercing rattle of the giant's castinets, which never for a moment had

ceased to perform its part, roof and walls were firm. Mrs. Mitchell and

Alexander sank where they had stood, and slept for twenty hours.

X

Alexander rode back to Christianstadt two days later, and again and

again he drew a hard breath and closed his eyes. It was a sight to move

any man, and the susceptible and tender nature of young Hamilton bled

for the tragedy of St. Croix. There was not a landmark, not a

cane-field, to remind him that it was the beautiful Island on which he

had spent the most of his remembering years. Although all of the Great

Houses were standing, their mien and manner were so altered by the

disappearance of their trees and outbuildings, and by the surrounding

pulpy flats in place of the rippling acres of young cane, that they were

unrecognizable. Here and there were masses of débris, walls and thatched

roofs swept far from the village foundations; but as a rule there was

but a board here or a bunch of dried leaves there, a battered utensil or

a stool, to reward the wretched Africans who wandered about searching

for the few things they had possessed before the storm. They looked

hopeless and dull, as if their faculties had been stunned by the

prolonged incessant noise of the hurricane.

Alexander was riding down what a week ago had been the most celebrated

avenue in the Antilles. Where there were trees at all, they were

headless, the long gray twisted trunks as repulsive as they had once

been beautiful The road was littered with many of the fallen; but others

were far away in what had been the cane-fields, serpents and lizards

sunning themselves on the dead roots. Even stone walls were down, and

under them, sometimes, were men. Mills were in ruins; for no one had

remained to keep bars in their staples. Tanks of last year's rum and

treacle had been flung through the walls, and their odours mingled with

the stench of decomposing men and cattle. The horrid rattle of the

land-crab was almost the only sound in that desolate land. "The Garden

of the Antilles" looked like a putrid swamp, and she had not a beauty on

her.

Alexander turned at a cross-road into a path which led through the

Grange estate to the private burying-ground of the Lyttons. These few

moments taxed his courage more heavily than the ride with the hurricane

had done, and more than once he opened his clenched teeth and half

turned his horse's head. But he went on, and before long he had climbed

to the end of his journey. The west wall of the little cemetery had been

blown out, and the roof of old James Lytton's tomb lay with its débris.

A tree, which evidently had been torn from the earth and flung from a

distance, lay half in and half out of the enclosure. But his mother's

headstone, which stood against the north wall, was undisturbed, although

the mound above her was flat and sodden. The earth had been strong

enough to hold her. Alexander remembered its awful air of finality as it

opened to receive her, then closed over her. What he had feared was that

the burying-ground, which stood on the crest of a hill, would have been

uprooted and scattered over the cane-fields.

He rode on to Christianstadt. There the evidences of the hurricane were

less appalling, for the houses, standing close together, had protected

each other, and only two were unroofed; but everywhere the trees looked

like twisted poles, the streets and gardens were full of rubbish, and

down by the bay the shore was strewn with the wreckage of ships; the

Park behind the Fort was thick with decaying fish, which the blacks were

but just now sweeping out to the water.

After Alexander had ascertained that Mr. Mitchell's house was quite

unharmed, although a neighbour had lost half a roof and been deluged in

consequence, he walked out Company Street to see how it had fared with

Hugh Knox. That worthy gentleman was treating his battered nerves with

weak whiskey and water when he caught sight of Alexander through the

library window. He gave a shout that drew an exasperated groan through

the ceiling, flung open the door, and clasped his beloved pupil in his

arms.

"I knew you were safe, because you are you, although I've been afraid to

ask if you were dead or alive. Cruger sent out three others to warn the

planters, and they've all been brought home, one dead, one maimed, one

with chills and fever and as mad as a March hare. Good God! what a

visitation! I'd rather have been on a moving bog in Ireland. You

wouldn't have ridden out in that hurricane if I'd got you, not if I'd

been forced to tie you up. Fancy your being here alive, and not even a

cold in your head! But you've a grand destiny to work out, and the

hurricane--which I believe was the Almighty in a temper--knew what it

was about. Now tell me your experience. I'm panting to tell you mine.

I've not had a soul to talk to since the hour it started. The Missis

behaved like a Trojan while it lasted, then went to bed, and hasn't

spoken to me since; and as for everyone else in Christianstadt--well,

they've retired to calm their nerves in the only way,--prayer first and

whiskey after."

Alexander took possession of his own easy-chair and looked gratefully

around the room. The storm had not disturbed it, neither had a wench's

duster. Since his mother's death he had loved this room with a more

grateful affection than any mortal had inspired, well as he loved his

aunt, Hugh Knox, and Neddy. But the room did not talk, and the men who

had written the great books which made him indifferent to his island

prison for days and weeks at a time, were dead, and their selfishness

was buried with them.

Meanwhile Knox, forgetting his desire to hear the experience of his

guest, was telling his own. It was sufficiently thrilling, but not to be

compared with that of the planter's; and when he had finished, Alexander

began with some pride to relate his impressions of the storm. He, too,

had not talked for three days; his heart felt warm again; and in the

familiar comfortable room, the terrible picture of the hurricane seemed

to spring sharp and vivid from his memory; he had recalled it confusedly

hitherto, and made no effort to live it again. Knox leaned forward

eagerly, dropping his pipe; Alexander talked rapidly and brilliantly,

finally springing to his feet, and concluding with an outburst so

eloquent that his audience cowered and covered his face with his hands.

For some moments Knox sat thinking, then he rose and pushed a small

table in front of Alexander, littering it with pencils and paper, in his

untidy fashion.

"My boy," he said, "you're still hot with your own eloquence. Before you

cool off, I want you to write that down word for word as you told it to

me. If it twisted my very vitals, it will give a similar pleasure to

others. 'Twould be selfish to deny them. When it's done, I'll send it to

Tiebout. Now I'll leave you, and if my niggers are still too demoralized

to cook supper for you, I'll do it myself."

Alexander, whose brain, in truth, felt on fire, for every nerve had

leapt to the recreating of that magnificent Force that had gathered an

island into the hollow of its hand, crushed, and cast it back to the

waters, dashed at the paper and wrote with even more splendour than he

had spoken. When he had finished, he was still so excited that he

rushed from the house and walked till the hideous sights and smells

drove him home. He was quivering with the ecstasy of birth, and longed

for another theme, and hours and days of hot creation. But he was to be

spared the curse of the "artistic temperament."

XI

The description of the hurricane went to St. Christopher by sloop two

days later (there were no English papers on St. Croix), and was not

heard from for two weeks. Meanwhile Alexander forgot it, as writers have

a way of forgetting their infants of enthusiastic delivery. There was

much to do on St. Croix. The negroes were put at once to rebuilding and

repairing, and masters, as well as overlookers and agents, were behind

them from morning till night. Mr. Mitchell had not returned, and

Alexander was obliged to take charge of his estates. When he was not

galloping from village to village and mill to mill, driving the sullen

blacks before him, or routing them out of ruins and hollows, where they

huddled in a demoralized stupor, he was consoling his aunt for the

possible sacrifice of Mr. Mitchell to the storm. Alexander was quite

confident that the hurricane had spared Tom Mitchell, whomsoever else it

may have devoured, but his logic did not appeal to his aunt, who wept

whenever he was there to offer his arm and shoulder. At other times she

bustled about among her maids, who were sewing industriously for the

afflicted.

Alexander was grateful for the heavy task Mr. Mitchell's absence

imposed, for there was no business doing in Christianstadt, and his

nerves were still vibrating to the storm he had fought and conquered.

His rigorous self-control was gone, his suppressed energies and

ambitions were quick and imperious, every vial of impatience and disgust

was uncorked. As he rode through the hot sunlight or moved among the

Africans, coaxing and commanding, getting more work out of them by his

gay bright manner than the overlookers could extract with their whips,

his brain was thumping with plans of delivery from a life which he

hated so blackly that he would wrench himself free of it before the year

was out if he had to ship as a common sailor for New York. It seemed to

him that the vacancies in his brain ached. His imagination was hot with

the future awaiting him beyond that cursed stretch of blinding water.

For the first time he fully realized his great abilities, knew that he

had in him the forces that make history. All the encouragement of his

mother and Hugh Knox, the admiration and confidence of such men as Mr.

Cruger, the spoiling of his relatives, and his easy conquest or equally

flattering antagonism of the youth of the Island, had fostered his

self-confidence without persuading him that he was necessarily a genius.

Strong as his youthful ambitions had been, burning as his desire for

more knowledge, much in his brain had been dormant, and a humorous

philosophy, added to the sanguineness of youth and a deep affection for

a few people, had enabled him to bear his lot with unbroken

cheerfulness. But the clashing forces of the Universe had roused the

sleeping giant in his brain and whirled his youth away. His only

formulated ambition was to learn first all that schools could teach him,

then lead great armies to battle. Until the day of his death his desire

for military excitement and glory never left him, and at this time it

was the destiny which heated his imagination. It seemed to him that the

roar and rattle of the hurricane, in whose lead he had managed to

maintain himself unharmed, were the loud prophecy of battle and

conquest. At the same time, he knew that other faculties and demands of

his brain must have their way, but he could only guess at their nature,

and statesmanship was the one achievement that did not occur to him; the

American colonies were his only hope, and there was no means by which he

could know their wrongs and needs. Such news came seldom to the West

Indies, and Knox retained little interest in the country where he had

sojourned so short a while. And at this time their struggle hardly would

have appealed to young Hamilton had he known of it. He was British by

instinct and association, and he had never received so much as a

scratch from the little-finger nail of the distant mother, whose long

arm was rigid above her American subjects.

His deliverance was so quick and sudden that for a day or two he was

almost as dazed as the Africans after the hurricane. One day Hugh Knox

sent him out a copy of the St. Christopher newspaper which had published

his description of the storm. With some pride in his first-born, he read

it aloud to his aunt. Before he was halfway down the first column she

was on the sofa with her smelling-salts, vowing she was more terrified

than when she had expected to be killed every minute. When he had

finished she upbraided him for torturing people unnecessarily, but

remarked that he was even cleverer than she had thought him. The next

morning she asked him to read it again; then read it herself. On the

following day Hugh Knox rode out.

Alexander was at one of the mills. Knox told Mrs. Mitchell that he had

sent a copy of the newspaper to the Governor of St. Croix, who had

called upon him an hour later and insisted upon knowing the name of the

writer. Knox not only had told him, but had expanded upon Alexander's

abilities and ambitions to such an extent that the Governor at that

moment was with Peter Lytton, endeavouring to persuade him to open his

purse-strings and send the boy to college.

"He will not do all," added Knox, "and I rely upon you to do the rest.

Between you, Alexander can get, first the education he wants now more

than anything in life, then the chance to make a great reputation among

men. If you keep him here you're no better than criminals, and that's

all I have to say."

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

asked.

"Do I think he wants to go!" roared Hugh Knox. "Do I think--Good God!

why he's been mad to go for five years. He'd have thought of nothing

else if he hadn't a will like a bar of iron made for a hurricane door,

and he'd have grown morbid about it if he hadn't been blest with a

cheerful and a sanguine disposition. You adore him, and you couldn't

see that!"

"He never said much about it," said Mrs. Mitchell, meekly; "but I think

I can see now that you are right. It will make me ill to part with him,

but he ought to go, and if Peter Lytton will pay half his expenses, I'll

pay the other half, and keep him in pocket coin besides. Of course Tom

won't give a penny, but I have something of my own, and he is welcome to

it. Do have everything arranged before my husband's return. He is alive

and well. I had a letter from him by the sloop that came from St. Kitts,

and he'll be here by the next or the one after."

As soon as Knox had gone Mrs. Mitchell ordered her coach and drove to

Lytton's Fancy. Her love for Alexander had struggled quite out of its

fond selfishness, and she determined that go to New York he should and

by the next ship. She found her brother-in-law meditating upon the

arguments of the Governor, and had less difficulty in persuading him

than she had anticipated.

"I'm sorry we haven't sent him before," he said finally. "For if two men

like Walsterstorff and Knox think so highly of him, and if he can write

like that,--it gave me the horrors,--he ought to have his chance, and

this place is too small for him. I'll help you to keep him at college

until he's got his education,--and it will take him less time than most

boys to get it,--and then he'll be able to take care of himself. If he

sails on Wednesday, there's no produce to send with him to sell; but

I've silver, and so have you, and he can take enough to keep him until

the Island is well again. We'll do the thing properly, and he shan't

worry for want of plenty."

When Alexander came home that evening he was informed that the world had

turned round, and that he stood on its apex.

XII

The night before he sailed he rode out to the Grange estate. The wall of

the cemetery had been repaired, James Lytton's slab was in its place,

the tree had been removed, and he had rebuilt the mound above his

mother as soon as the earth was firm again. There was no evidence of the

hurricane here. The moon was out, and in her mellow bath the Island had

the beauty of a desert. Alexander leaned his elbows on the wall and

stared down at his mother's grave. He knew that he never should see it

again. What he was about to do was for good and all. He would no more

waste months returning to this remote Island than he would turn back

from any of the goals of his future. And it mattered nothing to the dead

woman there. If she had an immortal part, it would follow him, and she

had suffered too much in life for her dust to resent neglect. But he

passionately wished that she were alive and that she were sailing with

him to his new world. He had ceased to repine her loss, much to miss

her, but his sentiment for her was still the strongest in his life, and

as a companion he had found no one to take her place. To-night he wanted

to talk to her. He was bursting with hope and anticipation and the

enthusiasm of the mere change, but he was close to melancholy.

Suddenly he bent his head. From the earth arose the golden music of a

million tiny bells. They had hung rusty and warped since the hurricane,

but to-night they rang again, and as sweetly as on the night, seventeen

years ago, when their music filled the Universe, and two souls, whose

destiny it was to bring a greater into the world, were flooded with a

diviner music than that fairy melody. Alexander knew nothing of that

meeting of his parents, when they were but a few years older than he was

to-night, but the inherited echo of those hours when his own soul

awaited its sentence may have stirred in his brain, for he stood there

and dreamed of his mother and father as they had looked and thought when

they had met and loved; and this he had never done before. The tireless

little ringers filled his brain with their Lilliputian clamour, and his

imagination gave him his parents in the splendour of their young beauty

and passion. For the first time he forgave his father, and he had a deep

moment of insight: one of the mysteries of life was bare before him. He

was to have many of these cosmic moments, for although his practical

brain relied always on hard work, never on inspiration, his divining

faculty performed some marvellous feats, and saved him from much

plodding; but he never had a moment of insight which left a profounder

impression than this. He understood in a flash the weakness of the

world, and his own. At first he was appalled, then he pitied, then he

vibrated to the thrill of that exultation which had possessed his mother

the night on the mountain when she made up her mind to outstay her

guests. And then the future seemed to beckon more imperiously to the boy

for whose sake she had remained, the radiant image of his parents melted

in its crucible, and the world was flooded with a light which revealed

more than the smoke of battlefields and the laurels of fulfilled

ambition.

XIII

On the following day, as Alexander stood on the wharf with his tearful

relatives and friends, Hugh Knox detached him from Mrs. Mitchell and led

him aside.

"Alec," he said, "I've two pieces of parting advice for you, and I want

you to put them into the pocket of your memory that's easiest to find.

Get a tight rein on that temper of yours. It's improved in the last

year, but there's room yet. That's the first piece. This is the second:

keep your own counsel about the irregularity of your birth, unless

someone asks you point-blank who has the right; if anyone else does,

knock him down and tell him to go to hell with his impertinence. And

never let it hit your courage in the vitals for a moment. You are not

accountable; your mother was the finest woman I ever knew, and you've

got the best blood of Britain in your veins, and not a relative in the

world who's not of gentle blood. You're an aristocrat in body and brain,

and you'll not find a purer in the American colonies. The lack of a

priest at the right time can cause a good deal of suffering and trouble,

but it can't muddy a pure stream; and many a lawful marriage has done

that. So, mind you never bring your head down for a minute, nor

persuade yourself that anyone has a better right to keep it up. It would

be the death of you."

Alexander nodded, but did not reply. He was feeling very low, now that

the hour for parting was come, for his affections were strong and

tender, and they were all rooted in the Island he hated. He understood,

however.

He was six weeks reaching Boston, for even the wind seemed to have had

the life beaten out of it. He had a box of Knox's books, which he was to

return by the Captain; and although he had read them before, he read

them again, and wrote commentaries, and so kept his mind occupied for

the greater part of the voyage. But an active brain, inexperienced in

the world, and in no need of rest, is always bored at sea, and he grew

sick of the sight of that interminable blue waste; of which he had seen

too much all his life. When he had learned all there was to know about a

ship, and read all his books, he burned for change of any sort. The

change, when it came, was near to making an end of him: the ship caught

fire, and they were a day and a night conquering the flames and

preparing their philosophy to meet death; for the boats were

unseaworthy. Alexander had all the excitement he wanted, for he fought

the fire as hard as he had fought the hurricane, and he was delighted

when the Captain gave him permission to turn in. This was his third

touch-and-go with death.

He arrived in Boston late in October, and took passage immediately for

New York. There had been no time to announce his coming, and he was

obliged to find his own way to the house of Hercules Mulligan, a member

of the West Indian firm, to whom Mr. Cruger had given him a warm letter

of introduction. Mr. Mulligan, a good-natured Irishman, received him

hospitably, and asked him to stop in his modest house until his plans

were made. Alexander accepted the invitation, then started out in search

of his friend, Ned Stevens, but paused frequently to observe the queer,

straggling, yet imposing little city, the red splendour of the autumn

foliage; above all, to enjoy the keen and frosty air. All his life he

had longed for cold weather. He had anticipated it daily during his

voyage, and, although he had never given way to the natural indolence of

the Tropics, he had always been conscious of a languor to fight. But the

moment the sharp air of the North had tingled his skin his very muscles

seemed to harden, his blood to quicken, and even his brain to become

more alert and eager. If he had been ambitious and studious in an

average temperature of eighty-five degrees, what would happen when the

thermometer dropped below zero? He smiled, but with much contentment.

The vaster the capacity for study, the better; as for his ambitions,

they could rest until he had finished his education. Now that his feet

were fairly planted on the wide highway of the future, his impatience

was taking its well-earned rest; he would allow no dreams to interfere

with the packing of his brain.

It was late in the afternoon, and the fashionable world was promenading

on lower Broadway and on the Battery by the Fort. It was the first time

that Alexander had seen men in velvet coats, or women with hoopskirts

and hair built up a foot, and he thought the city, with its quaint Dutch

houses, its magnificent trees, and these brilliant northern birds, quite

like a picture book. They looked high-bred and intelligent, these

animated saunterers, and Alexander regarded the women with deep

inquisitiveness. Women had interested him little, with the exception of

his mother, who he took for granted _sui generis_. The sisters of his

friends were white delicate creatures, languid and somewhat affected;

and he had always felt older than either of his aunts. In consequence,

he had meditated little upon the sex to which poets had formed a habit

of writing sonnets, regarding them either as necessary appendages or

creatures for use. But these alert, dashing, often handsome women,

stirred him with a new gratitude to life. He longed for the day when he

should have time to know them, and pictured them gracing the solid

home-like houses on the Broadway, and in the fine grounds along the

river front, where he strayed alter a time, having mistaken the way to

King's College. He walked back through Wall Street, and his enthusiasm

was beginning to ebb, he was feeling the first pangs of a lonely

nostalgia, when he almost ran into Ned Stevens's arms. It was four years

since they had met. Stevens had grown a foot and Alexander a few inches,

but both were boyish in appearance still and recognized each other at

once.

"When I can talk," exclaimed Stevens, "when I can get over my

amazement--I thought at first it was my double, come to tell me

something was wrong on the Island--I'll ask you to come to Fraunces'

Tavern and have a tankard of ale. It's healthier than swizzle."

"That is an invitation, Neddy," cried Alexander, gaily. "Initiate me at

once. I've but a day or two to play in, but I must have you for

playfellow."

They dined at Fraunces' Tavern and sat there till nearly morning.

Alexander had much to tell but more to hear, and before they parted at

Mr. Mulligan's door he knew all of the New World that young Stevens had

patiently accumulated in four years. It was a stirring story, that

account of the rising impatience of the British colonies, and Stevens

told it with animation and brevity. Alexander became so interested that

he forgot his personal mission, but he would not subscribe to his

friend's opinion that the Colonials were in the right.

"Did I have the time, I should study the history of the colonies from

the day they built their first fort," he said. "Your story is

picturesque, but it does not convince me that they have all the right on

their side. England--"

"England is a tyrannical old fool," young Stevens was beginning,

heatedly, when a man behind arose and clapped a hand over his mouth.

"There are three British officers at the next table," he said. "We don't

want any more rows. One too many, and God knows what next."

Stevens subsided, but Alexander's nostrils expanded. Even the mental

atmosphere of this brilliant North was full of electricity.

The next day he presented to Dr. Rogers and Dr. Mason the letters which

Hugh Knox had given him. He interested them at once, and when he asked

their advice regarding the first step he should take toward entering

college, they recommended Francis Barber's Grammar School, at

Elizabethtown, New Jersey. Stevens had suggested the same institution,

and so did other acquaintances he made during his brief stay in the city

which was one day to be christened by angry politicians,

"Hamiltonopolis." Early in the following week he crossed to New Jersey

and rode through the forests to the village, with its quaint streets and

handsome houses, "the Burial Yard Lot," beside the main thoroughfare of

the proud little hamlet, and Mr. Barber's Grammar School at its upper

end. Hamilton was accepted immediately, but where to lodge was a

harassing question. The only rooms for hire were at the tavern, where

permanent lodgement would be intolerable. When he presented a letter to

Mr. Boudinot, which Mr. Cruger had given him, the problem was solved at

once. Mr. Boudinot, one of the men of his time, had a spacious and

elegant house, set amidst gardens, lawns, and forest trees; there were

many spare bedrooms, and he invited Hamilton to become a member of his

family. The invitation was given as a matter of course, and Hamilton

accepted it as frankly. All the pupils who were far from home visited in

the neighbourhood. Liberty Hall, on the Springfield turnpike, was

finishing when Hamilton arrived. When the family was installed and he

presented his letter to its owner, William Livingston, he received as

pressing an invitation as Mr. Boudinot's, and divided his time between

the two houses.

Mr. Boudinot was a large man, with a long nose and a kindly eye, who was

deeply attached to his children. Susan was healthy, pretty, lively, and

an ardent young patriot. The baby died, and Hamilton, having offered to

sit up with the little body, entertained himself by writing an

appropriate poem, which was long treasured by Mr. Boudinot.

At Liberty Hall life was even more interesting. William Livingston was

one of the ablest lawyers, most independent thinkers, and ardent

republicans of the unquiet times. Witty and fearless, he had for years

made a target of kingly rule; his acid cut deep, doing much to weaken

the wrong side and encourage the right. His wife was as uncompromising a

patriot as himself; his son, Brockholst, and his sprightly cultivated

daughters had grown up in an atmosphere of political discussion, and in

constant association with the best intellects of the day. Sarah, the

beauty, was engaged to John Jay, already a distinguished lawyer,

notoriously patriotic and high-minded. He was a handsome man, with his

dark hair brushed forward about his face, his nobility and classic

repose of feature. Mr. Livingston wore his hair in a waving mass, as

long as he had any. His nose was large and sharp, and he had a very

disapproving eye. He took an immediate liking to young Hamilton,

however, and his hospitality was frank and delightful. Brockholst and

Alexander liked and admired each other in those days, although they were

to become bitter enemies in the turbulent future. As for the lively bevy

of women, protesting against their exile from New York, but amusing

themselves, always, they adopted "the young West Indian." The

delicate-looking boy, with his handsome sparkling face, his charming

manners, and gay good humour captivated them at once; and he wrote to

Mrs. Mitchell that he was become shockingly spoiled. When Mr. Livingston

discovered that his brain and knowledge were extraordinary, he ceased at

once to treat him as a fascinating boy, and introduced him to the men

who were constantly entertained at his house: John Jay, James Duane, Dr.

Witherspoon, President of Princeton; and members of the Morris,

Schuyler, Ogden, Clinton, and Stockton families. The almost weekly

conversation of these men contributed to the rapid maturing of

Hamilton's mind. His recreation he found with the young women of the

family, and their conversation was not always political. Sarah

Livingston, beautiful, sweet, and clever, was pensively in love; but

Kitty and Susan were not, and they were handsome and dashing. They were

sufficiently older than Alexander to inspire him with the belief that he

was in love with each in turn; and if he was constant to either, it was

to Kitty, who was the first to reveal to him the fascination of her

sex. But they did not interrupt the course of his studies; and in the

dawn, when he repaired to the Burial Yard Lot to think out his difficult

task for the day, not a living face haunted the tombstones.

And when winter came and he walked the vast black forests alone, the

snow crunching under his feet, the blood racing in his body, a gun on

his shoulder, lest he meet a panther, or skated till midnight under the

stars, a crystal moon illuminating the dark woods on the river's edge,

the frozen tide glittering the flattering homage of earth, he felt so

alive and happy, so tingling and young and primeval, that had his

fellow-inhabitants flown to the stars he would not have missed them.

Until that northern winter embraced and hardened him, quickening mind

and soul and body, crowding the future with realized dreams, he never

had dared to imagine that life could be so fair and beautiful a thing.

On stormy winter nights, when he roasted chestnuts or popped corn in the

great fireplace of Liberty Hall, under the tuition of all the Livingston

girls, Sarah, Susan, Kitty, and Judith, he felt very sociable indeed;

and if his ears, sometimes, were soundly boxed, he looked so penitent

and meek that he was contritely rewarded with the kiss he had snatched.

The girls regarded him as a cross between a sweet and charming boy to be

spoiled--one night, when he had a toothache, they all sat up with

him--and a phenomenon of nature of which they stood a trifle in awe. But

the last was when he was not present and they fell to discussing him.

And with them, as with all women, he wore, because to the gay vivacity

and polished manners of his Gallic inheritance he added the rugged

sincerity of the best of Britons; and in the silences of his heart he

was too sensible of the inferiority of the sex, out of which, first and

last, he derived so much pleasure, not to be tender and considerate of

it always.

Before the year of 1773 was out Mr. Barber pronounced him ready for

college, and, his choice being Princeton, he presented himself to Dr.

Witherspoon and demanded a special course which would permit him to

finish several years sooner than if he graduated from class to class. He

knew his capacity for conquering mental tasks, and having his own way to

make in the world, had no mind to waste years and the substance of his

relatives at college. Dr. Witherspoon, who had long been deeply

interested in him, examined him privately and pronounced him equal to

the heavy burden he had imposed upon himself, but feared that the board

of trustees would not consent to so original a plan. They would not.

Hamilton, nothing daunted, applied to King's College, and found no

opposition there. He entered as a private student, attached to no

particular class, and with the aid of a tutor began his customary

annihilation of time. Besides entering upon a course of logic, ethics,

mathematics, history, chronology, rhetoric, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, all

the modern languages, and Belles Lettres, he found time to attend Dr.

Clossy's lectures on anatomy, with his friend Stevens, who was studying

medicine as a profession.

King's was a fine building facing the North River and surrounded by

spacious grounds shaded by old sycamores and elms. There were many

secluded corners for thought and study. A more favourite resort of

Alexander's was Batteau Street, under whose great elms he formed the

habit of strolling and muttering his lessons, to the concern of the

passer-by. In his hours of leisure he rollicked with Stevens and his new

friends, Nicolas Fish and Robert Troup. The last, a strong and splendid

specimen of the young American collegian, had assumed at once the

relation of big brother to the small West Indian, but was not long

discovering that Hamilton could take care of himself; was flown at

indeed by two agile fists upon one occasion, when protectiveness, in

Alexander's measurement, rose to interference. But they formed a deep

and lifelong friendship, and Troup, who was clever and alert, without

brilliancy, soon learned to understand Hamilton, and was not long

recognizing potentialities of usefulness to the American cause in his

genius.

It was Troup who took him for his first sail up the Hudson, and except

for the men who managed the boat, they went alone. Troup was a good

listener, and for a time Hamilton chattered gaily as the boat sped up

the river, jingling rhymes on the great palisades, which looked like the

walls of some Brobdingnagian fortress, and upon the gorgeous masses of

October colouring swarming over the perpendicular heights of Jersey and

the slopes and bluffs of New York. It was a morning, and a piece of

nature, to make the quicksilver in Hamilton race. The arch was blue, the

tide was bluer, the smell of salt was in the keen and frosty air. Two

boats with full white sails flew up the river. On either bank the

primeval forest had burst in a night into scarlet and gold, pale yellow

and crimson, bronze, pink, the flaming hues of the Tropics, and the

delicate tints of hot-house roses. Hamilton had never seen such a riot

of colour in the West Indies. They passed impenetrable thickets close to

the water's edge, ravines, cliffs, irregular terraces on the hillside,

gorges, solitary heights, all flaunting their charms like a vast booth

which has but a day in which to sell its wares. They sped past the

beautiful peninsula, then the lawns of Philipse Manor. Hamilton stepped

suddenly to the bow of the boat and stood silent for a long while.

The stately but narrow end of the Hudson was behind; before him rolled a

wide and ever widening majestic flood, curving among its hills and

palisades, through the glory of its setting and the soft mists of

distance, until the far mountains it clove trembled like a mirage. The

eye of Hamilton's mind followed it farther and farther yet. It seemed to

him that it cut the world in two. The sea he had had with him always,

but it had been the great chasm between himself and life, and he had

often hated it. This mighty river, haughty and calm in spite of the

primeval savagery of its course, beat upon the gates of his soul, beat

them down, filled him with a sense of grandeur which made him tremble.

He had a vision of the vastness and magnificence of the New World, of

the great lonely mountains in the North, with their countless lakes

hidden in the immensity of a trackless forest, of other mountain ranges

equally wild and lonely, cutting the monotony of plains and prairies,

and valleys full of every delight. All that Hamilton had read or heard

of the immense area beyond or surrounding the few cities and hamlets of

the American colonies, flew to coherence, and he had a sudden

appreciation of the stupendousness of this new untravelled world,

understood that with its climate, fertility, and beauty, its large

nucleus of civilization, its destiny must be as great as Europe's, nor

much dissimilar, no matter what the variance of detail. The noblest

river in the world seemed to lift its voice like a prophet, and the time

came--after his visit to Boston--when Hamilton listened to it with a

thrill of impatient pride and white-hot patriotism. But to-day he felt

only the grandeur of life as he never had felt it before, felt his soul

merge into this mighty unborn soul of a nation sleeping in the infinity,

which the blue flood beneath him spoke of, almost imaged; with no

premonition that his was the destiny to quicken that soul to its birth.

* * * * *

While on the ship, Alexander had written to his father, asking for news

of him and telling of the change in his own fortunes. James Hamilton had

replied at once, gratefully, but with melancholy; by this time he knew

himself to be a failure, although he was now a planter in a small way.

Alexander's letter, full of the hope and indomitable spirit of youth,

interested as keenly as it saddened him. He recalled his own high

courage and expectant youth, and wondered if this boy had stronger

mettle than his own equipment. Then he remembered Rachael Levine and

hoped. He lived to see hope fulfilled beyond any achievement of his

imagination, although the correspondence, brisk for a time, gradually

subsided. From Hugh Knox and Mrs. Mitchell Alexander heard constantly,

and it is needless to state that his aunt kept him in linen which was

the envy of his friends. His beruffled shirts and lace stocks were

marvels, and if he was an exquisite in dress all his life, it certainly

was not due to after-thought. Meanwhile, he lodged with the family of

Hercules Mulligan, and wrote doggerel for their amusement in the

evening. Troup relates that Hamilton presented him with a manuscript of

fugitive poetry, written at this period. Mercifully, Troup lost it.

Hamilton has been peculiarly fortunate in this respect. He lies more

serenely in his grave than most great men.

When he was not studying, or joking, or rhyming, during those two short

years of college life, he read: Cudworth's "Intellectual System,"

Hobbes's "Dialogues," Bacon's "Essays," Plutarch's "Morals," Cicero's

"De Officiis," Montaigne's "Essays," Rousseau's "Émile," Demosthenes's

"Orations," Aristotle's "Politics," Ralt's "Dictionary of Trade," and

the "Lex Mercatoria."

He accomplished his mental feats by the--to him--simple practice of

keeping one thing before his mind at a time, then relegating it

uncompromisingly to the background; where, however, it was safe in the

folds of his memory. What would have sprained most minds merely

stimulated his, and never affected his spirits nor his health, highly as

nature had strung his nerves. He was putting five years college work

into two, but the effect was an expansion and strengthening of the

forces in his brain; they never weakened for an instant.

XIV

In the spring of 1774 Hamilton visited Boston during a short holiday.

His glimpse of this city had been so brief that it had impressed his

mind but as a thing of roofs and trees, a fantastic woodland

amphitheatre, in whose depths men of large and solemn mien added daily

to the sum of human discomfort. He returned to see the important city of

Boston, but with no overwhelming desire to come in closer contact with

its forbidding inhabitants. He quickly forgot the city in what those

stern sour men had to tell him. For to them he owed that revelation of

the tragic justice of the American cause which enabled him to begin with

the pen his part in the Revolution, forcing the crisis, taking rank as a

political philosopher when but a youth of seventeen; instead of bolting

from his books to the battlefield at the first welcome call to arms. Up

to this time he had adhered to his resolution to let nothing impede the

progress of his education, to live strictly in the hour until the time

came to leave the college for the world. Therefore, although he had

heard the question of Colonies versus Crown argued week after week at

Liberty Hall, and at the many New York houses where he dined of a Sunday

with his friends, Stevens, Troup, and Fish, he had persistently refused

to study the matter: there were older heads to settle it and there was

only one age for a man's education. Moreover, he had grown up with a

deep reverence for the British Constitution, and his strong aristocratic

prejudices inclined him to all the aloofness of the true conservative.

So while the patriots and royalists of King's were debating, ofttimes

concluding in sequestered nooks, Hamilton remained "The young West

Indian," an alien who cared for naught but book-learning, walking

abstractedly under the great green shade of Batteau Street while Liberty

Boys were shouting, and British soldiers swaggered with a sharp eye for

aggression. This period of philosophic repose in the midst of electric

fire darting from every point in turn and sometimes from all points at

once, endured from the October of his arrival to its decent burial in

Boston shortly after his seventeenth birthday.

Boston was sober and depressed, stonily awaiting the vengeance of the

crown for her dramatic defiance in the matter of tea. Even in that

rumbling interval, Hamilton learned, the Committee of Correspondence,

which had directed the momentous act, had been unexcited and methodical,

restraining the Mohawks day after day, hoping until the last moment that

the Collector of Customs would clear the ships and send the tea whence

it came. Hamilton heard the wrongs of the colonies discussed without any

of the excitement or pyrotechnical brilliancy to which he had become

accustomed. New York was not only the hot-bed of Toryism, but even such

ardent Republicans as William Livingston, George Clinton, and John Jay

were aristocrats, holding themselves fastidiously aloof from the rank

and file that marched and yelled under the name of Sons of Liberty. To

Hamilton the conflict had been spectacular rather than real, until he

met and moved with these sombre, undemonstrative, superficially

unpleasing men of Boston; then, almost in a flash, he realized that the

colonies were struggling, not to be relieved of this tax or that, but

for a principle; realized that three millions of people, a respectable

majority honourable, industrious, and educated, were being treated like

incapables, apprehensive of violence if they dared to protest for their

rights under the British Constitution. Hamilton also learned that Boston

was the conspicuous head and centre of resistance to the crown, that she

had led the colonies in aggressiveness since the first Stamp Act of 1765

had shocked them from passive subjects into dangerous critics. He had

letters which admitted him to clubs and homes, and he discussed but one

subject during his visit. There were no velvet coats and lace ruffles

here, except in the small group which formed the Governor's court. The

men wore dun-coloured garments, and the women were not much livelier. It

was, perhaps, as well that he did not see John Hancock, that ornamental

head-piece of patriotic New England, or the harmony of the impression

might have been disturbed; but, as it was, every time he saw these men

together, whether sitting undemonstratively in Faneuil Hall while one of

their number spoke, or in church, or in groups on Boston Common, it was

as if he saw men of iron, not of flesh and blood. Every word they

uttered seemed to have been weighed first, and it was impossible to

consider such men giving their time and thought, making ready to offer

up their lives, to any cause which should not merit the attention of all

men. Although Hamilton met many of them, they made no individual

impression on him; he saw them only as a mighty brain, capable of

solving a mighty question, and of a stern and bitter courage.

He returned to New York filled with an intense indignation against the

country which he had believed too ancient and too firm in her highest

principles to make a colossal mistake, and a hot sympathy for the

colonists which was not long resolving itself into as burning a

patriotism as any in the land. It was not in him to do anything by

halves, it is doubtful if he ever realized the half-hearted tendency of

the greater part of mankind. He studied the question from the first

Stamp Act to the Tea Party. The day he was convinced, he ceased to be a

West Indian. The time was not yet come to draw the sword in behalf of

the country for which he conceived a romantic passion, which satisfied

other wants of his soul, but he began at once on a course of reading

which should be of use to her when she was free to avail herself of

patriotic thinkers. He also joined the debating club of the college. His

abrupt advent into this body, with his fiery eloquence and remarkable

logic, was electrical. In a day he became the leader of the patriot

students. There were many royalists in King's, and the president, Dr.

Myles Cooper, was a famous old Tory. He looked upon this influential

addition to the wrong side with deep disfavour, and when he discovered

that the most caustic writer of Holt's Whig newspaper, who had carved

him to the quick and broken his controversial lances again and again,

was none other than his youngest and most revolutionary pupil, his wrath

knew no bounds.

With the news of the order to close the port of Boston, the wave of

indignation in the colonies rose so high that even the infatuated clergy

wriggled. Philadelphia went so far as to toll her muffled bells for a

day, and as for New York, then as now, the nerve-knot of the country,

she exploded. The Sons of Liberty, who had reorganized after the final

attempt of England to force tea on the colonies, paraded all day and

most of the night, but were, as yet, more orderly than the masses, who

stormed through the streets with lighted torches, shrieking and yelling

and burning the king and his ministers in effigy.

The substantial citizens also felt that the time was come to prepare for

the climax toward which their fortunes were hastening. That spiteful

fist would be at their own skulls next, beyond a doubt. The result of a

long and hot debate in the Exchange between the Sons of Liberty and the

more conservative patriots was an agreement to call a Congress of the

Colonies. The contest over the election of delegates was so bitter,

however, the Committee of the Assembly, which was largely ministerial,

claiming the right to nomination, that it was determined to submit the

question to the people at large.

XV

In the early morning Hamilton still sauntered beneath the college trees

or those of Batteau Street, pondering on his studies, and abstracting

himself from the resting city, but in the evenings and during half the

night he inhaled the hot breath of rebellion; and the flaring torches,

the set angry faces, the constant shouting, the frightened pallor of the

women at the windows of the great houses on the line of march, the

constant brawls with British soldiers, stormed the curb he had put on

his impatient spirit. He realized that the colonies were not yet

prepared to fight, and he had no thought of doing anything rash, but it

was his propensity to do a thing at once if it were to be done at all,

and this last indignity should result in something except talk. He was

present at the meeting in the Exchange and listened carefully to all

that was said, feeling that he could add to that whirlwind of ideas, but

forbearing on account of his youth. His mind, by now, was so mature that

he reminded himself, with some difficulty, that he was but seventeen. He

was as lively and as happy as ever, but that was temperamental and would

endure through all things; mentally he had no youth in him, had had

little since the day he began to ask questions.

The meeting in the Fields--at which it was hoped to effect a choice of

delegates by the people at large--was called for the 6th of July, and a

great multitude assembled. Alexander McDougall, the first patriot to

have suffered imprisonment at the hands of the Tyrant, presided, and

celebrated speakers harangued. It was here that Hamilton's impatience

got rid of its curb. He heard much that was good, more that was bad,

little that was new; and he found the radicals illogical and the

conservatives timid. Nicolas Fish and Robert Troup pushed their way

through the crowd to where Hamilton stood, his uplifted face expressing

his thoughts so plainly to those who knew him that these friends

determined to force him to the platform.

At first he protested; and in truth, the idea, shaping concretely,

filled his very legs with terror; but the young men's insistence, added

to his own surging ideas, conquered, and he found himself on the

platform facing a boundless expanse of three-cornered hats. Beneath were

the men who represented the flower as well as the weeds of the city, all

dominated by the master passion of the civilized world. There was little

shade in the Fields and the day was hot. It was a crowded,

uncomfortable, humid mass whose attention he was about to demand, and

their minds were already weary of many words, their calves of the

ruthless mosquito. They stared at Hamilton in amazement, for his slender

little figure and fair curling hair, tied loosely with a ribbon, made

him look a mere boy, while his proud high-bred face, the fine green

broadcloth of his fashionably cut garments, the delicate lawn of his

shirt and the profusion of lace with which it was trimmed, particularly

about his exquisite hands, gave him far more the appearance of a court

favourite than a champion of liberty. Some smiled, others grunted, but

all remained to listen, for the attempt was novel, and he was beautiful

to look upon.

For a moment Hamilton felt as if the lower end of his heart had grown

wings, and he began falteringly and in an almost inaudible voice. Pride

hastened to his relief, however, and his daily debates in college had

given him assurance and address. He recovered his poise, and as ideas

swam from his brain on the tide of a natural eloquence, he forgot all

but the great principle which possessed him in common with that jam of

weary men, the determination to inspire them to renewed courage and

greater activity. He rehearsed their wrongs, emphasized their

inalienable rights under the British Constitution--from which the

ministerial party and a foolish sovereign had practically divorced them.

He insisted that the time had come in their history to revert to the

_natural_ rights of man--upon which all civil rights were founded--since

they were no longer permitted to lead the lives of self-respecting

citizens, pursuing the happiness which was the first instinct of the

human intelligence; they had been reduced almost to the level of their

own slaves, who soon would cease to respect them.

He paused so abruptly that the crowd held its breath. Then his ringing

thrilling voice sounded the first note of the Revolution. "It is war!"

he cried. "It is war! It is the battlefield or slavery!"

When the deep roar which greeted the startling words had subsided, he

spoke briefly of their immense natural advantages, in the event of war,

the inability of England to gain any permanent advantage, and finally of

the vast resources of the country, and its phenomenal future, when the

"waves of rebellion, sparkling with fire, had washed back to the shores

of England the wrecks of her power, her wealth, and her glory."

His manner was as fiery and impetuous as his discourse was clear,

logical, and original. The great crowd was electrified. It was as if a

blade of lightning had shot down from the hot blue sky to illuminate the

doubting recesses of their understandings. They murmured repeatedly "It

is a collegian," "a collegian," and they thundered their applause when

he finished.

Troup and Fish bore him off in triumph to Fraunces' Tavern, where

Stevens joined them immediately, hot, but exultant.

"I've just passed our president, looking like an infuriated bumblebee,"

he cried. "I know he heard your speech from some hidden point of

vantage. It was a great speech, Alec. What a pity Hugh Knox, Mr. Lytton,

and Benny Yard were not there to hear. I'll write them about it

to-night, for St. Croix ought to burn a bonfire for a week. It was a

hurricane with a brain in it that whirled you straight to these

shores--as opportune for this country as for your own ambitions, for,

unless I'm much mistaken, you're going to be a prime factor in getting

rid of these pestiferous redcoats--we've a private room, so I can talk

as I please. One tried to trip me up just now, thinking I was you."

Fish leaned across the table and looked penetratingly at Hamilton, who

was flushed and nervous. The young New Yorker had a chubby face, almost

feminized by a soft parted fringe, but his features were strong, and his

eyes preternaturally serious.

"You've committed yourself, Hamilton," he said. "That was no college

play. Whether you fight or not doesn't so much matter, but you must give

us your pen and your speech. I'm no idle purveyor of compliments, but

you are extraordinary, and there isn't a man living can do for the cause

with his pen what you can do. Write pamphlets, and they'll be published

without an hour's delay."

"Ah, I see!" cried Hamilton, gaily. "I was a bit bewildered. You think

my new patriotism needs nursing. 'After all, he is a West Indian, born

British, brought up under Danish rule, which is like being coddled by

one's grandmother. He sympathizes with us, his mind is delighted with a

new subject for analysis and discourse, but patriotism--that is

impossible,' Is it not true?"

"You have read my thought," said Fish, with some confusion. "And you

have a great deal to occupy your mind. I never have known anyone whose

brain worked at so many things at once. I am selfish enough to want you

to give a good bit of it to us."

"I never was one to make fierce demonstrations," said Alexander; "but

fill up another bumper--the first has calmed my nerves, which were like

to jump through my skin--and stand up, and I'll drink you a pledge."

The three other young men sprang to their feet, and stood with their

glasses raised, their eyes anxiously fixed on young Hamilton. They had

believed him to be preparing himself for a great career in letters, and

knowing his tenacity and astonishing powers of concentration, had

doubted the possibility of interesting him permanently in politics. They

all had brains and experience enough--it was a hot quick time--to

recognize his genius, and to conceive the inestimable benefit it could

confer upon the colonial cause. Moreover, they loved him and wanted to

see him famous as quickly as possible.

"Stand up on the table," cried Troup. "It is where you belong; and

you're the biggest man in New York, to-day." As Hamilton, although

self-confident, was modest, Troup put down his bumper, seized the hero

in his big arms and swung him to the middle of the table. Then the

three, raising their glasses again, stood in a semi-circle. Hamilton

threw back his head and raised his own glass. His hand trembled, and his

lips moved for a moment without speaking, after his habit when excited.

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

"It is this," said Hamilton. "I pledge myself, body and soul and brain,

to the most sacred cause of the American colonies. I vow to it all my

best energies for the rest of my life. I swear to fight for it with my

sword; then when the enemy is driven out, and all the brain in the

country needed to reconstruct these tattered colonies and unify them

into one great state, or group of allied states, which shall take a

respectable place among nations, to give her all that I have learned,

all that my brain is capable of learning and conceiving. I believe that

I have certain abilities, and I solemnly swear to devote them wholly to

_my country_. And I further swear that never, not in a single instance,

will I permit my personal ambitions to conflict with what must be the

lifelong demands of this country."

He spoke slowly and with great solemnity. The hands of the three young

men shook, as they gulped down a little of the wine. Hamilton rarely was

serious in manner; even when discussing literature, politics, or any of

the great questions before the world, his humour and wit were in

constant play, a natural gift permitting this while detracting nothing

from the weight of his opinions. But his words and his manner were so

solemn to-day that they impressed his hearers profoundly, and they all

had a vague presentiment of what the unborn Country would owe to that

pledge.

"You'll keep that, Alexander," said Fish. "Perhaps it were better for

you had you not made it so strong. I burn with patriotism, but I'd not

have you sacrificed--"

"I've made my vows," cried Hamilton, gaily, "and I'll not have you

mention the fact again that I'm not an American born. Here's not only to

liberty, but to a united people under the firmest national constitution

ever conceived by man."

"Amen," said Troup, "but that's looking well ahead. Hard as it will be

to get England out, it will be harder still to make New York and New

England love each other; and when it comes to hitching Massachusetts and

Virginia about each other's necks, I vow my imagination won't budge."

"It will come," said Hamilton, "because in no other way can they

continue to exist, much less become one of the nations of the earth.

This war is but an interlude, no matter how long it may take. Then will

come the true warfare of this country--the Great Battle of Ideas, and

our real history will begin while it is raging, while we are

experimenting; and there will be few greater chapters in any country. I

shall take part in that battle; how, it is too soon to know, except that

for union I shall never cease to strive until it is a fact. But it has

grown cooler. Let us ride up to the village of Harlem and have supper

under the trees."

XVI

It was not long after this that he wrote the pamphlets in reply to the

tracts assailing the Congress and aimed particularly at setting the

farmers against the merchants. These tracts were by two of the ablest

men on the Tory side, and were clever, subtle, and insinuating.

Hamilton's pamphlets were entitled, "A Full Vindication of the Measures

of Congress from the Calumnies of Their Enemies," and "The Farmer

Refuted; or a More Comprehensive and Impartial View of the Disputes

between Great Britain and the Colonies, Intended as a Further

Vindication of the Congress." It is not possible to quote these

pamphlets, and they can be found in his "Works," but they were

remarkable not only for their unanswerable logic, their comprehensive

arraignment of Britain, their close discussion of the rights of the

colonists under the British Constitution, their philosophical definition

of "natural rights," and their reminder that war was inevitable, but for

their anticipation of the future resources of the country, particularly

in regard to cotton and manufactures, and for the prophecies regarding

the treatment of the colonies by Europe. The style was clear, concise,

and bold, and with a finish which alone would have suggested a pen

pointed by long use.

These pamphlets, which created a profound sensation, were attributed to

William Livingston and John Jay, two of the ablest men on the patriot

side. That side was profoundly grateful, for they put heart into the

timid, decided the wavering, and left the Tory writers without a leg to

stand on. Nothing so brilliant had been contributed to the cause.

It was not long before the public had the author's name. Troup had been

present at the writing of the pamphlets, and he called on Dr. Cooper,

one day, and announced the authorship with considerable gusto.

"I'll not believe it," exclaimed the president, angrily; "Mr. Jay wrote

those pamphlets, and none other. A mere boy like that--it's absurd. Why

do you bring me such a story, sir? I don't like this Hamilton, he's too

forward and independent--but I have no desire to hear more ill of him."

"He wrote them, sir. Mulligan, in whose house he lives, and I, can prove

it. He's the finest brain in this country, and I mean you shall know

it."

He left Dr. Cooper foaming, and went to spread the news elsewhere. The

effect of his revelation was immediate distinction for Hamilton. He was

discussed everywhere as a prodigy of intellect; messages reached him

from every colony. "Sears," said Willets, one of the leaders of the

Liberty party, "was a warm man, but with little reflection; McDougall

was strong-minded; and Jay, appearing to fall in with the measures of

Sears, tempered and controlled them; but Hamilton, after these great

writings, became our oracle."

Congress met in May, 1775, and word having come that Chatham's

conciliation bill had been rejected, and that Britain was about to send

an army to suppress the American rebellion, this body assumed sovereign

prerogatives. They began at once to organize an army; Washington was

elected Commander-in-chief, and they ordered that five thousand men be

raised to protect New York, as the point most exposed. The royal troops

were expelled, and the city placed in command of General Charles Lee, an

English soldier of fortune, who had fought in many lands and brought to

the raw army an experience which might have been of inestimable service,

had he been high-minded, or even well balanced. As it was, he very

nearly sacrificed the cause to his jealousy of Washington and to his

insane vanity.

Hamilton, meanwhile, published his two pamphlets on the Quebec Bill, and

took part in a number of public debates. At one of these, as he rose to

speak, a stranger remarked, "What brings that lad here? The poor boy

will disgrace himself." But the merchants, who were present in force,

listened intently to all he had to say on the non-importation agreement,

and admitted the force of his arguments toward its removal, now that war

practically had been declared. One of the most interesting of the

phenomena in the career of Hamilton was the entire absence of struggle

for an early hearing. People recognized his genius the moment they came

in contact with it, and older men saw only the extraordinary and mature

brain, their judgement quite unaffected by the boyish face and figure.

Those who would not admit his great gifts were few, for except in the

instances where he incurred jealous hate, he won everybody he met by his

charming manner and an entire absence of conceit. He was conscious of

his powers, but took them as a matter of course, and thought only of

what he would do with them, having no leisure to dwell on their quality.

In consequence, he already had a large following of unhesitating

admirers, many of them men twice his age, and was accepted as the

leading political philosopher of the country.

Dr. Cooper sent for him after his third pamphlet. He, too, was a patriot

in his way, and although he bristled whenever Hamilton's name was

mentioned, he had come in contact with too many minds not to recognize

ability of any sort; he knew that Hamilton would be invaluable to the

Royalist cause.

"Ask your own price, sir," he said, after suggesting the higher service

to which he could devote his pen. "You will find us more liberal--" But

Hamilton had bolted. It is impossible to knock down one's venerable

president, and his temper was still an active member in the family of

his faculties. To the numerous other offers he received from the Tory

side he made no reply, beyond inserting an additional sting into his pen

when writing for Holt's _Journal_. In the press he was referred to, now,

as "The Vindicator of Congress," and it was generally conceded that he

had done more to hasten matters to a climax, by preparing and whetting

the public mind, than anyone else in America.

There is no doubt that the swiftness and suddenness of Hamilton's

conversion, his abrupt descent from a background of study and alien

indifference, gave him a clearer and more comprehensive view of the

wrongs and needs of the colonists than they possessed themselves. They

had been muttering ever since the passage of the first stamp tax,

threatening, permitting themselves to be placated, hoping, despairing,

hoping again. Hamilton, from the first moment he grasped the subject,

saw that there was no hope in ministerial England, no hope in anything

but war. Moreover, his courage, naturally of the finest temper, and an

audacity which no one had ever discouraged, leapt out from that far

background of the West Indies into an arena where the natives moved in

an atmosphere whose damps of doubt and discouragement had corroded them

for years. Even among men whose courage and independence were of the

first quality, Hamilton's passionate energy, fearlessness of thought,

and audacity of expression, made him remarkable at once; and they drew

a long breath of relief when he uncompromisingly published what they had

long agreed upon over the dining-table, or built up the doctrine of

resistance with argument as powerful as it was new.

But the time rapidly approached for deeds, and Hamilton had been

occupied in other ways than writing pamphlets. During the past six

months he had studied tactics and gunnery, and had joined a volunteer

corps in order to learn the practical details of military science. All

his friends belonged to this corps, which called itself "Hearts of Oak,"

and looked very charming in green uniforms and leathern caps, inscribed

"Freedom or Death." They soon attracted the attention of General Greene,

a superior man and an accomplished officer. He took an especial fancy to

Hamilton, and great as was their disparity in years, they were close

friends until the General's death. It was Greene who first attracted

Washington's attention to the youngest of his captains, and Hamilton was

able to render the older man, whose services and talents have even yet

not been properly recognized by his country, exceptional service. The

company exercised in the churchyard of St. George's chapel, early in the

morning; for in spite of the swarms of recruits clad in every variety of

uniform, deserted houses, and daily flights of the timid into Jersey,

earthworks and fortifications, college went on as usual.

It was not long before the "Hearts of Oak" had an opportunity to

distinguish themselves. The provincial committee ordered them to remove

the cannon stationed at the Battery. In the harbour was the British

war-ship, _Asia_, which immediately sent off a boat to enquire into this

proceeding. A large number of armed citizens had escorted the little

corps to the Battery, and several lost their heads and fired at the

boat. There was an immediate broadside from the _Asia_. Three of the

militia were wounded, and one fell dead by Hamilton's side. "It is

child's play to a hurricane," he thought. "I doubt if a man could have a

better training for the battlefield." They removed the guns.

The result of this attack was another explosion of New York's nerves.

The Sons of Liberty made it unsafe for a Tory to venture abroad. They

marched through the streets shouting vengeance, burning in effigy, and

making alarming demonstrations before the handsome houses of certain

loyalists. Suddenly, about ten o'clock at night, they were animated by a

desire to offer up Dr. Cooper, and they cohered and swarmed down toward

King's. Hamilton and Troup happened to be walking in the grounds when

the sudden flare of torches and the approaching tide of sound, warned

them of the invasion. They ran like deer to head them off, but reached

the portico only a moment ahead of the mob, which knew that it must be

sudden and swift to be victorious.

"I can talk faster than you," whispered Hamilton, "I'll harangue them,

and it won't take Dr. Cooper long to understand and flee through the

back door--and may the devil fly away with him."

"A moment!" he cried, "I've something to say, and I may not have another

chance, war is so close upon us."

"'Tis young Hamilton," cried someone in the crowd. "Well, make us a

speech; we're always glad to hear you, but we'll not go home without old

Cooper. Don't think it."

Hamilton never remembered what nonsense he talked that night.

Fortunately words always came with a rush, and he could mix up politics,

wrongs, the clergy, and patriotism, in so picturesque a jumble that an

excited crowd would not miss his usual concise logic. "Do you suppose

he's gone?" he whispered, pausing to take breath.

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

"Ah-h-h!"

There was a wild yell from the crowd, and a hoarse roar from above.

Hamilton and Troup looked up. Dr. Cooper's infuriated visage, surrounded

by a large frill, projected from his bedroom window. "Don't listen to

him," he shrieked, thrusting his finger at Hamilton. "He's crazy! He's

crazy!"

"The old fool," fumed Troup, "he thinks you're taking your just revenge.

If I could get inside--"

Dr. Cooper was jerked back by a friendly hand and the window slammed.

"Someone understands," whispered Troup, excitedly; "and they'll have him

out in two minutes. Go on, for heaven's sake."

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

"I appeal to you, my friends, am I crazy?" Indignant shouts of "No! No!"

"Then let me, I pray, make a few remarks on the possibility of holding

New York against the advancing fleet, that you can testify to my sanity

to-morrow, and save me from whatever unhappy fate this irascible

gentleman has in store for me."

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

you."

And again Hamilton harangued them, until Troup slipped round to the rear

of the big building and returned with word that Dr. Cooper was safely

over the back fence and on his way to the _Asia_. When Hamilton

announced the flight, there was muttering, but more laughter, for the

mob was in a better humour than when it came.

"Well, that silver tongue of yours did the old man a good turn to-night,

but you shan't make fools of us again." And a few days later, when

Alexander attempted to head off the same mob as it made for the press of

Rivington, the Tory printer, they would not listen to him. But the

effort raised him still higher in the estimation of the patriots, for

they saw that his love of law and order was as great as his passion for

war.

XVII

In January the convention of New York gave orders that a company of

artillery be raised. Hamilton, through Colonel McDougall of the First

New York regiment, at once applied for the captaincy, underwent an

examination that convinced the Congress of his efficiency, and on the

14th of March was appointed Captain of the Provincial Company of

Artillery. McDougall had already applied for "coarse blue cloth," with

which to clothe in a semblance of uniform those who already had

enlisted, and Hamilton took even better care of them. On May 26th he

wrote a brief, pointed, and almost peremptory letter to the Congress,

representing the injustice of paying his men less than the wages

received by the Continental artillery, adding that there were many marks

of discontent in his ranks, and that in the circumstances it was

impossible for him to get any more recruits. "On this account I should

wish to be immediately authorized to offer the same pay to all who may

be inclined to recruit," he wrote. He then went on to demand ten

shillings a head for every man he should be able to enlist, and that

each man of his company be allowed a frock as a bounty.

Congress passed a resolution as soon as the letter was read, granting

him all he asked for, but limiting his company to one hundred men. When

it was recruited to his satisfaction, it numbered ninety-one, exclusive

of himself and his four officers. Besides his Captain-Lieutenant, and

first, second, and third Lieutenants, he had three sergeants, three

corporals, six bombardiers, three gunners, two drummers, two fifers, a

barber, and seventy-one matrosses, or assistant gunners.

He had his troubles, and Congress came to the rescue whenever it

received one of his singularly unboyish letters, expressed, moreover,

with little more diffidence than if he had been Commander-in-chief. But

he knew what he wanted, and he never transcended courtesy; he was

evidently a favourite with the Congress. On July 26th he wrote demanding

a third more rations for his men, and on the 31st a resolution was

passed which marked an end to the disposition to keep his little company

on a level with the militia rather than with the regular army.

Thereafter he had no further complaints to carry to headquarters; but he

was annoyed to discover that one of his officers was a hard drinker, and

that the Lieutenant Johnson who had recruited the larger number of his

men before he assumed command, had disobeyed orders and enlisted them

for a year instead of for the term of war.

Meanwhile, although the very air quivered and every man went armed to

the teeth, if a war-ship fired a gun the streets were immediately filled

with white affrighted faces; and although redoubts were building day and

night, still Congress came out with no declaration, and the country

seemed all nerves and no muscle. The English fleet arrived and filled

the bay,--a beautiful but alarming sight. Washington came and made New

York his headquarters, called for more troops, and Brooklyn Heights were

fortified, lest the English land on Long Island and make an easy descent

on the city.

It is doubtful if the Americans have ever appreciated all they owe to

Lord Howe. He sat out in the harbour day after day, while they completed

their preparations, practically waiting until they announced themselves

ready to fight. But no man ever went to the wars with less heart for his

work, and he put off the ugly business of mowing down a people he

admired, hoping from day to day for an inspired compromise. It was not

until after the Declaration of Independence by the Congress, the wild

enthusiasm it excited throughout the colonies, and the repeated

declination of Washington to confer with Howe as a private citizen, that

our Chief received word the British Commander was landing troops on Long

Island, near Gravesend.

Several thousand troops were ordered across to reinforce the Brooklyn

regiments, and Hamilton's artillery was among them. He stood up in his

boat and stared eagerly at the distant ridge of hills, behind which some

twenty thousand British were lying on their arms with their usual easy

disregard of time, faint, perhaps, under the torrid sun of August. But

they were magnificently disciplined and officered, and nothing in

history had rivalled the rawness and stubborn ignorance of the American

troops. Hamilton had not then met Washington, but he knew from common

friends that the Chief was worried and disgusted by what he had seen

when inspecting the Brooklyn troops the day before. Greene, second only

to Washington in ability, who had been in charge of the Brooklyn

contingent, knowing every inch of the ground, was suddenly ill. Putnam

was in command, and the Chief was justified in his doubt of him, for

nothing in the mistakes of the Revolution exceeded his carelessness and

his errors of judgement during the battle of Long Island.

There were still two days of chafing inactivity, except in the matter of

strengthening fortifications, then, beginning with dawn of the 28th,

Hamilton had his baptism of fire in one of the bloodiest battlefields of

the Revolution.

The Americans were outgeneralled and outnumbered. Their attention was

distracted by land and water, while a British detachment, ten thousand

strong, crept over the ridge of hills by night, and through the Bedford

Pass, overpowering the guards before their approach was suspected. At

dawn they poured down upon the American troops, surprising them, not in

one direction, but in flank, in rear, and in front. The green woods

swarmed with redcoats, and the Hessians acted with a brutality

demoralizing to raw troops. Hamilton's little company behaved well, and

he was in the thick of the fight all day. The dead were in heaps, the

beautiful green slopes were red, there was not a hope of victory, but he

exulted that the colonies were fighting at last, and that he was acting;

he had grown very tired of talking.

He was driven from his position finally, and lost his baggage and a

field-piece, but did not take refuge within the redoubts until

nightfall. There, in addition to fatigue, hunger, a bed on the wet

ground, and the atmosphere of hideous depression which pressed low upon

the new revolutionists, he learned that Troup had been taken prisoner.

Then he discovered the depths to which a mercurial nature could descend.

He had been fiercely alive all day; the roar of the battle, the plunging

horses, the quickening stench of the powder, that obsession by the devil

of battles which makes the tenderest kill hot and fast, all had made him

feel something more than himself, much as he had felt in the hurricane

when he had fancied himself on high among the Berserkers of the storm.

In his present collapse he felt as if he were in a hole underground.

Washington arrived on the scene next morning, and for forty-eight hours

he barely left the saddle, encouraging the wretched men and exercising

an unceasing vigilance. For two long days they were inactive in the

rain. The Chief, having assured himself that the British aimed to obtain

command of the river, determined upon the retreat which ranks as one of

the greatest military achievements in history. On the night of the 29th,

under cover of a heavy fog, the feat of embarking nine thousand men,

with all the ammunition and field-pieces of the army, and ferrying them

across the East River with muffled oars, was accomplished within earshot

of the enemy. Washington rode from regiment to regiment, superintending

and encouraging, finally taking his stand at the head of the ferry

stairs. He stood there until the last man had embarked at four in the

morning. The last man was Hamilton. His was one of the regiments, and

the rear one, detailed to cover the retreat, to attract fire to itself

if necessary. His position was on the Heights, just outside the

intrenchments, at the point closest to the enemy. For nine hours he

hardly moved, his ear straining for the first indication that the

British heard the soft splashing of bare feet in the mud. The fog was so

thick that he could see nothing, not even the battalions of retreating

Americans; the forms of his own men were vague and gray of outline. He

never had fancied an isolation so complete, but his nerves stood the

strain; when they began to mutter he reminded himself of Mr. Cruger's

store and St. Croix. There was a false summons, and after turning his

back upon his post with a feeling of profound relief, he was obliged to

return and endure it for two hours longer. Did the fog lift he would

never see another. It was dawn when a messenger came with the news that

his turn positively had come, and he marched his men down the slope to

the ferry stairs. He passed close enough to Washington to see his

dejected, haggard face.

On the 15th of the following month, after much correspondence with

Congress, discussion, and voting, it was determined to abandon New York

City, and intrench the army on the Heights of Harlem. Hamilton was

bitterly disappointed; he wanted to defend the city, and so had three

of the generals, but they were overruled, and the march began on a

blazing Sunday morning. It was not only the army that marched, but all

the inhabitants of the town who had not escaped to the Jersey shore. The

retreat was under the command of General Putnam, and guided through all

the intricacies of those thirteen winding miles by his aide-de-camp,

Aaron Burr. The last man in the procession was Alexander Hamilton.

"So, you're covering again, Alexander," said Fish, as he passed him on

his way to his own regiment,--the New York, of which he was

brigade-major. "You can't complain that your adopted country doesn't

make use of you. By the way, Troup is in the Jersey prison-ship, safe

and sound."

"Can't we exchange him?" asked Hamilton, eagerly, "Do you think General

Washington would listen to us?"

"If we have a victory. I shouldn't care to approach him at present. God!

This is an awful beginning. The whole army is ready to dig its own

grave. The only person of the lot who has any heart in him to-day is

little Burr. He's like to burst with importance because he leads and we

follow. He's a brave little chap, but such a bantam one must laugh.

Well, I hate to leave you here, the very last man to be made a target

of. You won't be rash?" he added anxiously.

"No, granny," said Hamilton, whose gaiety had revived as he heard of

Troup's safety. "And I'd not exchange my position for any."

"Good-by."

Handshakes in those days were solemn. Fish feared that he never should

see Hamilton again, and his fear was close to being realized.

It was a long, hot, dusty, miserable march; some lay down by the wayside

and died. Hamilton had been bred in the heat of the Tropics, but he had

ridden always, and to-day he was obliged to trudge the thirteen miles on

foot. He had managed to procure horses for his guns and caissons, but

none for himself and his officers.

It was on the Hoagland farm at the junction of the Kingsbridge and

Bloomingdale roads that a serious skirmish occurred, and Hamilton and

his men stood the brunt of it. The tired column was almost through the

pass, when a detachment of British light infantry suddenly appeared on

the right. Fortunately the cannon had not entered the pass, and were

ready for action. Hamilton opened fire at once. There was a sharp

engagement, but the British were finally driven off. Then the defenders

of the column made good their own retreat, for they knew that by now the

redcoats were swarming over the island.

Toward night a cold wind and rain swept in from the ocean. When the

little army finally reached Harlem Heights they were obliged to sleep on

the wet ground without so much as a tent to cover them, then arise at

dawn and dig trenches. But by night they were men again, they had ceased

to be dogged machines: the battle of Harlem Heights had been fought and

won. The British had begun the battle in the wrong place and at the

wrong time, and all the natural advantages of that land of precipices,

forests, gorges, wooded hills, and many ravines, were with the

Americans. Again Hamilton worked in the thick of the fight during the

four hours it lasted, but like everybody else he went to sleep happy.

XVIII

He rose at dawn the next morning, and rousing his men, set them at work

throwing up redoubts. He was standing some distance from them, watching

the sun rise over the great valley they had been forced to abandon, with

its woods and beautiful homes, now the quarters of British officers,

when every nerve in his body became intensely aware that some one was

standing behind him. He knew that it was a man of power before he

whirled round and saw Washington.

"This is Captain Hamilton?" said the Chief, holding out his hand.

"General Greene spoke to me, weeks ago, about you, but I have been in no

mood until to-day for amenities. I know of your part in the retreat

from Long Island, and I noticed you as you passed me on the ferry

stairs. What a lad you are! I am very proud of you."

"I had asked for no reward, sir," cried Hamilton, with a smile so

radiant that Washington's set face caught a momentary reflection from

it, and he moved a step nearer, "but I feel as if you had pinned an

order on my coat."

"I have heard a great deal more about you," said Washington, "and I want

to know you. Will you come up and have breakfast with me?"

"_Oh, yes, I will_," said Hamilton, with such seriousness that they both

laughed. Hamilton's personal pride was too great to permit him to feel

deeply flattered by the attentions of any one, but the halo about

Washington's head was already in process of formation; he stood aloft,

whether successful or defeated, a strong, lonely, splendid figure, and

he had fired Hamilton's imagination long since. At that time he was

ready to worship the great Chief with all a boy's high enthusiasm, and

although he came to know him too well to worship, he loved him, save at

intervals, always. As for Washington, he loved Hamilton then and there,

and it is doubtful if he ever loved any one else so well. When they were

alone he called him "my boy," an endearment he never gave another.

On that September morning they breakfasted together, and talked for

hours, beginning a friendship which was to be of the deepest

consequences to the country they both were striving to deliver.

During the following month Hamilton had much leisure, and he spent it in

the library of the Morris house, which its owner, a royalist, had

abandoned on the approach of the American troops, fleeing too hurriedly

to take his books. The house was now General Washington's headquarters,

and he invited Hamilton to make what use of the library he pleased. It

was a cool room, and he found there many of the books he had noted down

for future study. He also wrote out a synopsis of a political and

commercial history of Great Britain. As the proclivities and furnishing

of a mind like Hamilton's cannot fail to interest the students of

mankind, a digression may be pardoned in favour of this list of books

he made for future study, and of the notes scattered throughout his pay

book:--

Smith's History of New York; Leonidas; View of the Universe;

Millot's History of France; Memoirs of the House of Brandenburgh;

Review of the Characters of the Principal Nations of Europe; Review

of Europe; History of Prussia; History of France; Lassel's Voyage

through Italy; Robertson's Charles V; Present State of Europe;

Grecian History; Baretti's Travels; Bacon's Essays; Philosophical

Transactions; Entick's History of the Late War; European

Settlements in America; Winn's History of America.

The Dutch in Greenland have from 150 to 200 sail and ten thousand

seamen.... It is ordered that in their public prayers they pray

that it should please God to bless the Government, the Lords, the

States, and their great and small fisheries.

Hamburg and Germany have a balance against England--they furnish

her with large quantities of linen.

Trade with France greatly against England.... The trade with

Flanders in favour of England.... A large balance in favour of

Norway and Denmark.

Rates of Exchange with the several Nations in 52, viz.: To Venice,

Genoa, Leghorn, Amsterdam, Hamburgh. To Paris--Loss, Gain.

Postlethwaite supposes the quantity of cash necessary to carry on

the circulation in a state one third of the rents to the land

proprietors, or one ninth of the whole product of the lands. See

the articles, Cash and Circulation.

The par between land and labour is twice the quantity of land whose

product will maintain the labourer. In France one acre and a half

will maintain one. In England three, owing to the difference in the

manner of living.

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

The proportion of gold and silver, as settled by Sir Isaac Newton's

proposition, was 1 to 14. It was generally through Europe 1 to 15.

In China I believe it is 1 to 10.

It is estimated that the labour of twenty-five persons, on an

average, will maintain a hundred in all the necessaries of life.

Postlethwaite, in his time, supposes six millions of people in

England. The ratio of increase has been found by a variety of

observations to be, that 100,000 people augment annually, one year

with another to--. Mr. Kerseboom, agreeing with Dr. Halley, makes

the number of people thirty-five times the number of births in a

year.

Extracts from Demosthenes' Orations.

Philippic. "As a general marches at the head of his troops, so

ought wise politicians, if I dare use the expression, to march at

the head of affairs; insomuch that they ought not to wait _the

event_, to know what measures to take; but the measures which they

have taken ought to produce the _event_."

"Where attack him? it will be said. Ah, Athenians--war, war, itself

will discover to you his weak sides, if you will seek them."

Sublimely simple. Vide Long. C. 16.

Are the limits of the several states and the acts on which they are

founded ascertained, and are our ministers provided with them? What

intelligence has been given to Congress by our ministers of the

designs, strength by sea and land, actual interests and views of

the different powers in Europe?

The government established (by Lycurgus) remained in vigour about

five hundred years, till a thirst of empire tempted the Spartans to

entertain foreign troops, and introduce Persian gold to maintain

them; then the institutions of Lycurgus fell at once, and avarice

and luxury succeeded.

He (Numa) was a wise prince, and went a great way in civilizing the

Romans. The chief engine he employed for this purpose was religion,

which could alone have sufficient empire over the minds of a

barbarous and warlike people to engage them to cultivate the arts

of peace.

Dr. Halley's Table of Observations exhibiting the probabilities of

life; containing an account of the whole number of people of

Breslau, capital of Silesia, and the number of those of every age,

from one to a hundred. (Here follows the table with comments by

A.H.)

When the native money is worth more than the par in foreign,

exchange is high; when worth less, it is low.

Portugal trade--Spanish trade--Artificers--Money--Exchange--Par of

exchange--Balance of

trade--Manufactures--Foundry--Coin--Gold--Silver--Naval

Power--Council of trade--Fishery.

Money coined in England from the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

Quere. Would it not be advisable to let all taxes, even those

imposed by the States, be collected by persons of Congressional

appointment; and would it not be advisable to pay the collectors so

much per cent. on the sums collected?

Hamilton was nineteen at this time, and while there are many instances

of mental precocity in the history of mankind, it is doubtful if there

is a parallel case of so great a _range_ of intellectual curiosity, or

such versatility combined with pursuit of knowledge as distinct from

information. But the above notes are chiefly significant as showing that

long before he could have dreamed of directing the finances of the

United States, while he was wild with delight at the prospect of

military excitement and glory, a part of his mind was imperiously

attracted to the questions which were to become identified in American

history with his name.

Washington often came in and sat for an hour with him; and although they

talked military science and future campaigns invariably,--for

Washington was a man of little reading and his thoughts moved in a

constant procession to one tune,--this was perhaps the happiest period

of their intercourse. The Chief demanded nothing, and his young friend

was free to give or not, as he chose. In that interval nothing gave

Hamilton such pleasure as to see Washington come into the cool library,

his face softening.

"You have a streak of light in you that never goes out," said the man of

many burdens once. "When I catch a spark of it, I am cheered for the

rest of the day. When I am close to it for a time, I can feel the iron

lid on my spirits lifting as if it were on a bubbling pot. I believe you

are something more than human."

During the first of these conversations Hamilton suggested the

advisability of keeping up the spirits of the raw troops by drawing the

enemy in separate detachments into constant skirmishes, a plan in which

the Americans were sure to have every advantage; and this policy was

pursued until Washington fell back into Westchester County.

The American troops under Washington numbered about nineteen thousand

men, in one-third of whom the Chief felt something like confidence. Many

were grumbling at the prospect of a winter in the discomforts of camp

life; others were rejoicing that their time of service drew to a close;

all were raw. Nevertheless, he determined to give the British battle on

the shore of the Bronx River, where they were camped with the intention

of cutting him off from the rest of the country.

Both armies were near White Plains on the morning of the 28th of

October. Most of the Americans were behind the breastworks they had

thrown up, and the British were upon the hills below, on the opposite

side of the Bronx. On the American side of the stream was an eminence

called Chatterton's Hill, and on the evening of the 27th Colonel Haslet

was stationed on this height, with sixteen hundred men, in order to

prevent the enfilading of the right wing of the army. Early the next

morning McDougall was ordered to reinforce Haslet with a small corps

and two pieces of artillery under Hamilton, and to assume general

command.

At ten o'clock the British army began its march toward the village, but

before they reached it, Howe determined that Chatterton's Hill should be

the first point of attack, and four thousand troops under Leslie moved

off to dislodge the formidable looking force on the height.

Hamilton placed his two guns in battery on a rocky ledge about halfway

down the hill, and bearing directly upon that part of the Bronx which

the British were approaching. He was screened from the enemy by a small

grove of trees. The Hessians, who were in the lead, refused to wade the

swollen stream, and the onslaught was checked that a bridge might

hastily be thrown together for their accommodation. Hamilton waited a

half-hour, then poured out his fire. The bridge was struck, the workmen

killed, the Hessians fell back in a panic. Leslie appealed to the

loyalty of the British, forded the river at another point, and rushed up

the hill with bayonets fixed, resolved to capture the guns. But the guns

flashed with extraordinary rapidity. Both the British and the watching

Americans were amazed. There were no tin canisters and grape-shot in the

American army, even the round shot were exhausted. Loading cannon with

musket balls was a slow process; but Hamilton was never without

resource. He stood the cannon on end, filled his three-cornered hat with

the balls, and loaded as rapidly as had he leaped a century. His guns

mowed down the British in such numbers that Leslie fell back, and

joining the Hessian grenadiers and infantry, who had now crossed the

stream, charged up the southwestern declivity of the hill and

endeavoured to turn McDougall's right flank. McDougall's advance opposed

them hotly, while slowly retreating toward the crown of the eminence.

The British cavalry attacked the American militia on the extreme right,

and the raw troops fled ignominiously. McDougall, with only six hundred

men and Hamilton's two guns, sustained an unequal conflict for an hour,

twice repulsing the British light infantry and cavalry. But the attack

on his flank compelled him to give way and retreat toward the

intrenchments. Under cover of a heavy rainstorm and of troops despatched

in haste, he retreated in good order with his wounded and artillery,

leaving the victors in possession of a few inconsiderable breastworks.

Fort Washington was betrayed, and fell on the 16th of November. Then

began that miserable retreat of the American army through the Jerseys,

with the British sometimes in full pursuit, sometimes merely camping on

the trail of the hapless revolutionists. For Washington's force was now

reduced to thirty-five hundred, and they were ragged, half fed, and

wretched in mind and body. Many had no shoes, and in one regiment there

was not a pair of trousers. They left the moment their leave expired,

and recruits were drummed up with great difficulty. Washington was

obliged to write eight times to General Lee, who was at North Castle

with a considerable force, before he was able to hope for relief in that

quarter.

Hamilton had a horse at times, at others not. But his vitality was proof

against even those endless days and nights of marching and

countermarching, through forests and swamps, in the worst of late autumn

and winter weather; and he kept up the spirits of his little regiment,

now reduced from bullets, exposure, and the expiration of service to

thirty men. Nevertheless, he held the British in check at the Raritan

River while the Americans destroyed the bridge, and when Washington,

after having crossed the Delaware, determined to recross it on Christmas

night and storm Trenton, he was one of the first to be chosen, with what

remained of his men and guns.

As they crossed the Delaware that bitter night, the snow stinging and

blinding, the river choked with blocks of ice, Hamilton for the first

time thought on St. Croix with a pang of envy. But it was the night for

their purpose, and all the world knows the result. The victory was

followed on the 3d of January by the capture of Princeton; and here

Hamilton's active military career came to an end for the present.

Well do I recollect the day [wrote a contemporary] when Hamilton's

company marched into Princeton. It was a model of discipline. At

their head was a boy, and I wondered at his youth; but what was my

surprise, when, struck with his slight figure, he was pointed out

to me as that Hamilton of whom we had heard so much.

I noticed [a veteran officer said many years after] a youth, a mere

stripling, small, slender, almost delicate in frame, marching

beside a piece of artillery, with a cocked hat pulled down over his

eyes, apparently lost in thought; with his hand resting on a

cannon, and every now and again patting it as if it were a

favourite horse or a pet plaything.