Hamilton turned pale. "You are too young to have headaches," he said.

"Perhaps you have been studying too hard. I am so ambitious for my

children; but the boys have taken to books as they have to kites and

fisticuffs. I should have remembered that girls--" His memory gave up

the stories of his mother's precocity. But this child, who was so

startlingly like the dead woman, was far less fitted to carry such

burdens. So sensitive an intelligence in so frail a body might suddenly

flame too high and fall to ashes. He resolved to place her in classes of

other little girls at once, and to keep her in the fields as much as

possible. None knew better than he how close the highly strung

unresting brain could press to madness. He had acquired a superhuman

control over his. If this girl's brain had come out of his own, it must

be closely watched. She had not inherited his high light spirits, but

the melancholy which had lain at the foundations of his mother's nature;

she would require the most persistent guarding. He took her face between

his hands and kissed it many times.

"Very well," he said, "we will have our little secrets. I will tell you

when I am disturbed, and you will sit close beside me with your doll

until I feel better. But remember, I expect as much confidence in

return. You will never have a care nor a terror nor an annoyance that

you will not confide it to me directly."

She nodded. "I'm always telling you things to myself. And I won't cry

any more in the night, when I think you have felt badly and could not

tell anyone. It will all go away if you talk to me about it," she added

confidently.

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

room.

"The child is uncanny," he thought. "Can there be anything in that old

theory that tormented and erring souls come back to make their last

expiation in children? That means early death!" He dismissed the thought

promptly.

XXXI

After dinner he called on Oliver Wolcott, the Comptroller, one of his

closest friends, and related the scene of the morning, adding the

explanation. Wolcott was a Puritan, and did not approve of the marital

digressions of his friends. But in this case the offence was so much

less than the accusation that he listened with frequent ejaculations of

content. He agreed at once to call at Hamilton's house at eight o'clock,

look over the papers, and read them aloud when the trio arrived.

"And may the devil damn them," he added. "It will be one of the keenest

pleasures of my life to confound them. The unpatriotic villains! They

know that in disgracing you they would discredit the United States, and

in their hearts they know that your measures are the only wheels for

this country to run on; but to their party spite they would sacrifice

everything. I'll be there."

And when the men called that night at nine o'clock, he read them the

correspondence from beginning to end--Reynold's letters, and those of

the woman. More than once Muhlenberg begged him to desist, but he was

merciless. When he had finished, Hamilton explained that he had

disguised his handwriting lest the man forge or make other use of it.

The three rose as soon as the ordeal was over. "It is no use for me to

attempt to express my regret or my humiliation," said Muhlenberg, "I

shall be ashamed of this as long as I live."

"I feel like an ass and a spy," exclaimed Venable. "I heartily beg your

pardon, sir."

"Your mistake was justifiable. Are you satisfied?"

"More than satisfied."

Hamilton turned to Monroe.

"I made a mistake," said the Senator from Virginia. "I beg your pardon."

"And I shall hear no more of this?"

He received the solemn promise of each, then let them go. But he locked

the letters carefully in their drawer again.

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

you sick to listen to them."

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

trust Monroe."

XXXII

Hamilton was not long kept in ignorance of the next tactics of his

enemies. They made their deadliest assault soon after Christmas.

Immediately upon the assembling of Congress it was suggested that the

Secretary of the Treasury be asked to furnish a plan for reducing the

public debt. Madison arose and fired the first gun. What Congress

wanted was not a plan, but a statement of the national finances. The

Federalists replied that the information would come in due course, and

that the House was in duty bound to ask the Secretary to furnish a

scheme. The Republicans, led by Madison, protested that already too much

power had been invested in the Secretary of the Treasury, that it had

exceeded constitutional limits. Moreover, he overwhelmed them with

volumes, deliberately calculated to confuse their understandings. One

Giles, who did the dirty work of the party, announced that the Secretary

was not fit to make plans, and added the numerous and familiar

denunciations. But the Republicans were outvoted, and the suggestions

were called for. Hamilton furnished them immediately. His plan to reduce

the debt was met by so strenuous an opposition from the Republicans that

it was defeated, and by the party which had been most persistent in

their detestation of the obnoxious burden. Rather than add to the

laurels of Hamilton, they would shoulder it with equanimity. But this

defeat was but an incident. The Secretary of the Treasury, as the result

of a series of resolutions, was bidden to lay before Congress an account

of the moneys borrowed at Antwerp and Amsterdam; the President to

furnish a statement of the loans made by his authority, their terms,

what use had been made of them, how large was the balance; the chiefs of

departments to make a return of the persons employed and their salaries.

Hamilton, by this time, was fully alive to the fact that he was about to

be subjected to fresh persecution, and the agility of his enemies could

not keep pace with his. He furnished the House with an itemized

list--which it took the Committee days to plod through--of his

bookkeepers, clerks, porters, and charwomen, and the varying emoluments

they had received since the Department was organized, three years and a

half before. He further informed them that the net yield of the foreign

loan was eighteen millions six hundred and seventy-eight thousand

florins, that the loans were six in number, that three bore five per

cent interest, two four and a half, and one four per cent The enemy was

disconcerted but not discouraged. Five fresh resolutions were moved

almost immediately. Impartial historians have agreed that Jefferson

suggested these shameful resolutions, and that Madison drew them up.

Giles brought them forward. In a vociferous speech he asserted that no

man could understand the Secretary's report, that his methods and

processes were clothed in a suspicious obscurity. It was his painful

duty to move the adoption of the following resolutions: That copies of

the papers authorizing the foreign loans should be made; that the names

of the persons to whom and by whom the French debt had been paid be sent

to Congress; that a statement of the balances between the United States

and the Bank be made; that an account of the sinking-fund be rendered,

how much money had come into it and where from, how much had been used

for the purchase of the debt and where the rest was deposited. The fifth

demanded an account of the unexpended revenue at the close of the

preceding year. Giles charged that a serious discrepancy existed between

the report of the Secretary and the books of the Bank--not less than a

million and a half. It had been the purpose of Jefferson and Madison to

bring forward the resolutions with an air of comparative innocence. But

the vanity of Giles carried him away, and his speech informed Congress,

and very shortly the country, that the honesty of the Secretary of the

Treasury had been impeached, and that he was called upon to vindicate

himself.

In crises Hamilton never lost his temper. The greater the provocation,

as the greater the danger, the colder and more impersonal he became. Nor

was it in his direct impatient nature to seek to delay an evil moment

any more than it was to protect himself behind what the American of

to-day calls "bluff." In this, the severest trial of his public career,

he did not hesitate a moment for irritation or protest. He called upon

his Department to assist him, and with them he worked day and night,

gathering, arranging, elaborating all the information demanded by

Congress. When he was not directing his subordinates, he was shut up in

his library preparing his statements and replies. His meals were taken

to him; his family did not see him for weeks, except as he passed them

on his way to or from the front door. He sent in report after report to

Congress with a celerity that shattered his health, but kept his enemies

on the jump, and worked them half to death. The mass of manuscript he

sent would have furnished a modest bookstore, and the subjects and

accounts with which he was so familiar drove Madison and others, too

opposed to finance to master the maze of it, close upon the borders of

frenzy. It had been their uncommunicated policy to carry the matter over

to the next session, but Hamilton was determined to have done with them

by adjournment.

And in the midst of this tremendous pressure arrived George Washington

Lafayette.

It was on the first Saturday of his retirement into the deep obscurity

of his library, with orders that no one knock under penalty of driving

him from the house, that Hamilton, opening the door suddenly with intent

to make a dash for his office, nearly fell over Angelica. She was

standing just in front of the door, and her face was haggard.

"How long have you been here?" demanded her father.

"Three hours, sir."

"Three! Have you stood all that time?"

Angelica nodded. She was determined not to cry, but she was wise enough

not to tax the muscles of her throat.

Hamilton hesitated. If the child fidgeted, she would distract his

attention, great as were his powers of concentration; but another

searching of her eyes decided him.

"Very well," he said. "Go in, but mind you imagine that you are a mouse,

or you will have to leave."

When he returned, she was sitting in a low chair by his desk, almost

rigid. She had neither doll nor book. "This will never do," he thought.

"What on earth shall I do with the child?" His eye fell upon the chaos

of his manuscript. He gathered it up and threw it on the sofa. "There,"

he said, "arrange that according to the numbers, and come here every

five minutes for more."

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

happy.

One day Hamilton was obliged to attend a Cabinet meeting, and to spend

several hours at his office just after. Returning home in the early

winter dusk, he saw two small white faces pressed against the hall

window. One of them was Angelica's, the other he had never seen. As he

entered, his daughter fell upon him.

"This is George Washington Lafayette," she announced breathlessly. "He

came to-day, and he doesn't speak any English, and he won't go near

Betsey or anyone but me, and he won't eat, and I know he's miserable and

wretched, only he won't cry. His tutor's ill at the Inn."

The little Frenchman had retired to the drawing-room. Angelica darted

after him and dragged him forward into the light. He was small for his

age, but his features had the bold curious outline of his father's. He

carried himself with dignity, but it was plain that he was terrified and

unhappy. Hamilton gave him a warm embrace, and asked him several

questions in French. The boy brightened at once, answered rapidly and

intelligently, and took firm possession of his new friend's hand.

"I am more happy now," he announced. "I don't like the other people

here, except this little girl, because they do not speak French, but you

are a Frenchman, and I shall love you, as my father said I should--long

ago! I will stay with you day and night."

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

with my boys."

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

many strangers on that dreadful ship, and in France--we hid here,

there--moving all the time. I wish to live with you and be your little

boy."

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

"He is a very quiet little boy," interposed Angelica, who was three

years his junior. "He would not move if he sat in your room, and I will

take him for a walk every day. He will die if he has to sit in a room by

himself all day."

"I shall sleep with you, sir, I hope?" asked young Lafayette, eagerly.

"I have thought all day of the dark of to-night. I have seen such

terrible things, sir!"

"Good Heaven!" thought Hamilton, "is it not enough to be dry nurse to a

nation?" But he could not refuse, and during the few hours he snatched

for sleep he was half strangled. By day the boy sat quietly in a corner

of the library, and studied the text-books his guardian bought him.

Betsey did all she could to win him, but he had no faith in people who

could not speak his language. Angelica, like all of Hamilton's children,

knew something of French, and he liked her and accepted her motherly

attentions; but Hamilton he adored. The moment his absorbed friend made

for the front door he was after him, and Hamilton let him run at his

heels, lest he get neither air nor exercise. He had no time at present

to take him to call on his august godfather, and, in truth, he dreaded

the prospect. Washington knew nothing of children, and his diminutive

namesake would probably be terrified into spasms.

XXXIII

The three long and exhaustive reports, accounting honourably for every

penny entrusted to the Secretary of the Treasury, and justifying every

payment, measure, and investment, had gone to the Congress. Nine days

later Giles brought forward nine resolutions of censure against the

Secretary of the Treasury. But by this time Congress had made up its

mind, and many of the Republicans were disgusted and humiliated. The

Federalists were triumphant, and amused themselves with Giles, drawing

him on, to confound him with ridicule and proof of the absurdity of his

charges. Madison, desperate, lost his head and the respect of many of

his colleagues, by asserting hysterically that the House was impotent to

change the truth of the accusations, and that in the tribunal of public

opinion the Secretary would be condemned. But Hamilton was triumphantly

vindicated by Congress and the Nation at large. His house was in a state

of siege for weeks from people of all parts of the country, come to

congratulate him; his desk obliterated by letters he had no time to

read. The Federals were jubilant. Their pride in Hamilton was so great

that a proclamation from above would not have disturbed their faith, and

they were merciless to the discomfited enemy. In truth, the Virginian

trio and their close adherents were mortified and confounded. In their

hearts they had not believed Hamilton guilty of dishonesty, but they had

been confident that his affairs were in chaos, that large sums must have

escaped, not conceiving that any mortal could at the same time create

gigantic schemes, and be as methodical as a department clerk in every

detail of his great office.

Although Hamilton had commanded his brain to dwell exclusively upon the

vindication and its means, the deeps below were bitter and hot. When the

work was over, and exhausted in body and mind he went about his duties

mechanically, or attempted to find distraction in his family, he felt as

if the abundant humanity in him were curdled; and he longed for a war,

that he might go out and kill somebody. It was small compensation that

the Virginian ring were grinding their teeth, and shivering under daily

shafts of humiliation and ridicule. So terrible was the position in

which they had placed him, so immeasurably had they added to the sum of

his contempt for human kind, that individually they occupied, for a

time, but a corner of his thought.

His only solace during this trial had been Washington; he had been too

busy and too frozen for Mrs. Croix. But that closest of his friends,

although forced by his high office to a position of stern neutrality,

did all he could in private to convince Hamilton of his unaltered

affection and regard. As soon as the vindication was complete he fell

into the habit of finishing his daily walk with an hour in Hamilton's

library. But if his visits were a pleasure to his Secretary, they were

wretchedness unleavened for two other members of the family. The

President never failed to ask for Angelica and George Washington

Lafayette; and upon their prompt but unwilling advent he would solemnly

place one on either knee, where they remained for perhaps half an hour

in awe-stricken misery. They had orders to show no distress, and they

behaved admirably; but although young Lafayette was rapidly learning

English, the fact did not lessen his fear of this enormous man, who

spoke so kindly, and looked as if he could have silenced the Terror with

the awful majesty of his presence. Angelica, being an independent little

American, was less overwhelmed, but she was often on the verge of

hysterics. It was the short session of Congress, and in March, George,

with scalding but dignified tears, accompanied his godfather to Mount

Vernon, whence he wrote Hamilton a daily letter of lament, until habit

tempered his awe; from that point he passed with Gallic bounds into an

ardent affection for the great man, who, if of an unearthly dignity, was

always kind, and, when relieved of the cares of State, uniformly genial.

The respite in Philadelphia was brief. In April came the first news of

the beheading of the French king; and the same tardy packets brought

word that France was at war with England and Spain. Hamilton sent the

news, express haste, to Washington, and dismissed every consideration

from his brain but the terrible crisis forced upon the United States,

and the proper measures to save her from shipwreck. In the early stages

of the French Revolution he had predicted the developments with such

accuracy to Henry Walter Livingston that the new Secretary of Legation,

upon his arrival in Paris, told Gouverneur Morris--United States

minister since 1792--that to his astonishment he found nothing to

surprise him. Therefore the prophet had long been determined upon the

policy the United States should pursue when this crisis shot out of the

eastern horizon; he had now but to formulate it in such a manner that

every point could be grasped at once by the Cabinet, and acted upon.

When Washington arrived in Philadelphia and summoned his advisers,

Hamilton presented twelve questions for discussion, the most pressing of

which were: Shall a proclamation issue for the purpose of preventing

interferences of the citizens of the United States in the war between

France and Great Britain, etc.? Shall it contain a declaration of

neutrality? Shall a minister from this Republic of France be received?

Jefferson was in a far less enviable position than Hamilton. He neither

wished for war, nor dared he machinate for it; but with all his

democratic soul he loved the cause which was convulsing the world from

its ferocious centre in France. Had Jefferson come of stout yeoman

stock, like John Adams, or of a long line of patrician ancestors, like

Hamilton, and, to a lesser degree, like Washington, he might, judging

from certain of his tastes, and his love of power, have become, or been,

as aristocratic in habit and spirit as were most men of his wealth,

position, and importance in the young country. But the two extremes met

in his blood. The plebeianism of his father showed itself in the

ungainly shell, in the indifference to personal cleanliness, and in the

mongrel spirit which drove him to acts of physical cowardice for which

his apologists blush. But his mother had belonged to the aristocracy of

Virginia, and this knowledge induced a sullen resentment that he should

be so unlike her kind, so different in appearance from the courtly men

of his State. Little was wanting to accelerate his natural desire to

level his country to a plane upon which with his gifts he easily could

loom as a being of superior mould; but when a British sovereign publicly

turned his back upon him, and the English court, delighted with its cue,

treated him with an unbearable insolence, nothing more was needed to

start the torrent of his hate against all who stood for aristocracy.

Democracy rampant on all sides of him, during his sojourn in France,

found in him not only an ardent sympathizer, but a passionate advocate.

He quite overlooked the fact that he failed to persuade the country of

his enthusiasm to accord the United States fair commercial treatment: it

embodied and demonstrated his ideal of liberty, equality, fraternity,

and he was its most devoted friend, unresting until he had insinuated

his own admiration into the minds of his followers in America, and made

Jacobinism a party issue.

To turn his back upon France, therefore, to help her neither in money

nor moral support, was a policy he had no intention to pursue, could he

avoid it; but knowing his weakness in the Cabinet, he suggested an extra

session of Congress. It would then be an easy matter to throw the

responsibility upon his followers in both Houses, while he stood to the

country as working consistently and harmoniously in his great office.

But Hamilton, who understood him thoroughly, would listen to no

proposition which would involve weeks of delay, inflame further the

public mind, and give Jefferson an opportunity to make political

capital. Moreover, he would have no such confession of weakness go out

from the Administration. He prevailed, and in that first meeting

Jefferson was forced to consent also to the immediate issue of a

proclamation to the people. He argued with such fervour, however,

against the use of the word "neutrality," declaring that the Executive

had no constitutional authority so far to commit the people, that

Washington, to humour him, omitted the word, while declaring

authoritatively for the substance. It was also agreed that Genet, the

new Minister from France, sent by the Revolutionists to succeed M.

Ternant, should be received. The first meeting closed tranquilly, for

both Hamilton and Jefferson had tacitly admitted that it was no time for

personal recrimination.

But the Cabinet met daily, and other subjects, notably Hamilton's

contention that their treaties made with a proper French government no

longer existed, came up for elaborate discussion; Hamilton had an

exhaustive report prepared on each of them. The two Secretaries, who

hated each other as two men hardly have hated before or since, and who

realized that they had met for their final engagement in official life,

soon dismissed any pretence at concord, and wrangled habitually--with

cutting sarcasm or crushing force on Hamilton's part, with mild but

deadly venom on Jefferson's; until he too was maddened by a jagged dart

which momentarily routed his tender regard for his person. Jefferson

wrenched one victory from the Cabinet despite Hamilton's determined

opposition: Genet's reception should be absolute. But on all other

important points the Secretary of the Treasury scored, and stone by

stone built up the great policy of neutrality which prevailed until the

year 1898; impressed into the Government the "Doctrine"--he had

formulated it in "The Federalist"--which was to immortalize the name of

a man who created nothing. Hamilton, with all the energy and obstinacy

of his nature, was resolved that the United States should not have so

much as a set-back for the sake of a country whose excesses filled him

with horror, much less run the risk of being sucked into the whirlpool

of Europe; and he watched every move Jefferson made, lest his secret

sympathies commit the country. When, after a triumphal procession

through miles of thoughtless enthusiasts, who remembered only the

services of France, forgot that their friends had been confined entirely

to the royalty and aristocracy that the mob was murdering, and were

intoxicated by the extreme democracy of the famous Secretary of State,

Genet arrived in Philadelphia, inflated and bumptious, his brain half

crazed by the nervous excitement of the past two years, and was received

with frigid politeness by Washington, Hamilton was not long discovering

that Jefferson was in secret sympathy and intercourse with this

dangerous fire-brand. The news had preceded and followed the new

minister that he had been distributing blank commissions to all who

would fit out privateers to prey upon British commerce, opening

headquarters for the enlistment of American sailors into the French

service, and constituting French consuls courts of admiralty for the

trial and condemnation of prizes brought in by French privateers.

As soon as he arrived in Philadelphia he demanded of Hamilton the

arrears of the French debt, which the Secretary had refused to pay until

there was a stable government in France to receive it. Hamilton laughed,

locked the doors of the Treasury, and put the key in his pocket. To

Genet's excited volubility and pertinacity he paid as little attention

as to Jefferson's arguments. Moreover, he reversed all Citizen Genet's

performances in the South; and in course of time, even the captured

British ships, to the wrath and disgust of Jefferson, were returned to

their owners.

Freneau's _Gazette_ supported the Secretary of State with the

desperation of an expiring cause; in this great final battle, were

Jefferson driven from the Cabinet, his faithful organ must scurry to the

limbo of its kind. It assailed the Administration for ingratitude and

meanness, then turned its attention almost exclusively to the Secretary

of the Treasury. It accused him of abstracting the moneys due to France,

of plundering the industrious farmer with the Excise Law, destroying the

morals of the people by Custom House duties; resurrected the old

discrimination cry and asserted vehemently that he, and he alone, had

robbed the poor soldiers. It raked every accusation, past and present,

from its pigeon holes. Jefferson, on the other hand, was held up as a

model of the disinterested statesman, combining virtues before which

those falsely attributed to Washington paled and expired; and as the

only man fit to fill the Executive Chair. Genet accepted all this as

gospel, fortunately, perhaps, for the country; for his own excesses and

impudence, his final threat to appeal from the President to the people,

ruined him with the cooling heads of the Republican party, and finally

lost him even the support of Jefferson.

Meanwhile, after stormy meetings of the Cabinet, Hamilton, in the peace

of his library, with Angelica sorting his pages,--until she went to the

North,--had written a series of papers defending the proclamation. They

were so able and convincing, so demonstrable of the treasonable efforts

of the enemy to undermine the influence of the Administration, so cool

and so brilliant an exposition of the rights and powers of the

Executive, that on July 7th Jefferson wrote to Madison: "For God's sake,

my dear sir, take up your pen. Select the most striking heresies, and

cut him to pieces in the face of the public."

Madison hastened to obey his chief in a series of papers which tickled

the literary nerve, but failed to convince. That the laurels were to

Hamilton was another bitter pill which Jefferson was forced to swallow.

Nevertheless, Hamilton, despite his victories, felt anything but

amiable. He was so exhausted that he was on the verge of a collapse, and

triumphs were drab under the daily harassment of Jefferson, Genet, and

Freneau. Matters came to a climax one day in August, shortly before the

outbreak of yellow fever.

XXXIV

Hamilton laid down a copy of Freneau's _Gazette_, whose editorial

columns were devoted, as usual, to persuading the people of the United

States that they were miserable, and that they owed their misery to the

Secretary of the Treasury. It also contained a shameful assault upon the

President. As he lifted another paper from the pile on his library

table, his eyes fell on the following address to himself:--

O votary of despotism! O abettor of Carthaginian faith! Blush! Can

you for a moment suppose that the hearts of the yeomanry of America

are becoming chilled and insensible to the feelings of insulted

humanity like your own? Can you think that gratitude, the most

endearing disposition of the human heart, is to be argued away by

your dry sophistry? Do you suppose the people of the United States

prudently thumb over Vattel and Pufendorf to ascertain the sum and

substance of their obligations to their generous brethren, the

French? No! no! Each individual will lay his hand on his heart and

find the amount there. He will find that manly glow, both of

gratitude and love, which animated his breast when assisted by this

generous people in establishing his own liberty and shaking off the

yoke of British despotism!

In the _Aurora_ he was denounced as the foe of France and the friend of

Great Britain and Spain, the high priest of tyranny, the bitterest enemy

of the immortal French trio, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité; the subtle

and Machiavellian adviser of Washington, who, relieved of this

pernicious influence, would acknowledge the debts of gratitude and

follow the will of the American people.

"Are they mad?" he thought, flinging the entire pile into the

waste-basket. "Or are they merely so eager for power and our ruin that

they are indifferent to the fact that the Administration, and the

foundations upon which it stands, never has needed the support of the

people more than now? Can only the party in power afford to be

patriotic? What a spectacle is this, that I, an alien born, am wearing

out my life and sacrificing my character, to save from themselves a

people who pant for my ruin! Has the game been worth the candle? Debt,

my family crowded into a house not half large enough to hold them, my

health almost gone, my reputation, in spite of repeated vindications,

undermined by daily assault--for the fools of the world believe what

they are told, and I cannot compromise my dignity by replying to such

attacks as these; above all, a sickening and constant disgust for life

and human nature! _Is_ the game worth the candle? Had I remained at the

bar, I should have given my family abundance by now; with only the kind

and quantity of enemies that stimulate. It is only politics that rouse

the hellish depths in the human heart. It is true that I have saved the

country, made it prosperous, happy, and honoured. But what guaranty have

I that this state will last beyond the administration of Washington?

With the Republicans in power the whole edifice may be swept away, the

country in a worse plight than before, and the author of its brief

prosperity forgotten with his works. I shall have lived in vain, and

leave my sons to be educated, my family to be supported, by my

father-in-law."

He was in no mood to see the reverse side of the picture; and indeed his

cares were so many and overwhelming at this time that it is little

wonder he believed he had lost for ever the gay buoyancy of his spirits.

In addition to the predominating trials, financial matters were

demanding all the leisure he should have given to rest, heavy failures

in England having seriously affected the money concerns of the United

States; and the rebellions in the West against the Excise Law were

sounding a new alarm. Moreover, his constant efforts to obtain Duer's

release were unavailing; he could get no word of Lafayette; and the last

packet had brought a rumour of the murder of Gouverneur Morris by the

mob. Altogether, he may be excused for forgetting that he was still the

most dazzling figure in America, in the full tide of actual success, and

an object of terrified hatred to a powerful ring who could reach their

zenith over his political corpse, and by no other means whatever.

He picked up his hat, and went forth reluctantly to a Cabinet meeting.

It was early, and he saw Washington for a few moments alone in the

library. The President was in a no more cheerful or amiable frame of

mind than himself. His responsibilities in this terrible crisis wore on

his spirits and temper; and the daily fear that his Secretaries would

come to blows,--for Jefferson was in the worst humour of the

quintette,--to say nothing of the assaults of the press, made him openly

regret the hour he was persuaded into the Executive Chair. But his

entire absence of party spirit, despite his secret sympathy with every

measure of Hamilton's, his attitude of stern neutrality, never emerged

more triumphantly from any trial of his public career; nor did he ever

exhibit the magnanimity of his character more strikingly than in his

undisturbed affection for Hamilton, while daily twitted with being the

tool of his "scheming and ambitious Secretary."

Hamilton saw a copy of Freneau's _Gazette_ in the waste-basket, but by

common consent they ignored the subjects which would be unavoidable in a

few moments, and spoke of the stifling heat, of the unhealthy state of

Philadelphia, the menace of the San Domingo refugees pouring into the

city, of the piles of putrid coffee and hides on the wharves at the foot

of Mulberry Street, and of the carcasses of rotting hogs and horses

which lay everywhere.

"Thank Heaven, we can get our women and children out of it," said the

President. "And unless we can finish this business in another week, I

shall take the Government to the country. I suppose we are entitled to

escape with our lives, if they leave us nothing else."

They entered the Council Chamber and found the others in their

accustomed seats. Jefferson's brow was corrugated, his weak and mincing

mouth pressed out of shape. He had just finished reading the last of

Hamilton's "No Jacobin" papers, published that morning, in which Genet's

abominable breaches of decorum, violation of treaties, and deliberate

insults to the Executive--and through him to the American people--had

been set forth in so clear pointed and dispassionate a manner, that no

thinking Republican who read could fail to be convinced of the

falseness of his position in supporting this impudent and ridiculous

Frenchman. Furthermore, the Secretary of State had been forced, through

the exigencies of his position, to sign despatch after despatch, letter

after letter, in violation of his private sympathies. He was feeling not

only as angry as a cornered bull, but extremely virtuous. He hated what

he firmly believed to be the cold and selfish policy of the

Administration, as he hated every other policy it had executed; and the

knowledge that he had sacrificed his personal feelings to save his

country from discord, made him feel a far better man than the Secretary

of the Treasury, who had a diabolical talent for getting his own way. He

had some reason to be pleased with his conduct, and with his share in

contributing to a series of measures which later on won for the Cabinet

at that crucial period the encomiums of history; and when time had

abated the fevers, Hamilton would have been the first to acknowledge

that Jefferson not only was the brake which the Administration needed at

that time, but that, owing to his popularity with the French and the

masses of the United States, he reduced the danger of a popular

uprising.

As Hamilton took his seat this morning, however, the blood was in his

head, and he and Jefferson exchanged a glance of sullen hate which made

Washington extend his long arms at once. All went well until the

President, with a premonitory sigh, introduced the dynamic name, Genet.

Hamilton forgot his debility, and was all mind, alert and energetic.

Jefferson, who had come to hate Genet as an intolerable nuisance, would

have been the first at another moment to counsel the demand for recall

which he knew was now inevitable, but he was in too bad a humour to-day

to concur in any measure agreeable to Hamilton.

The latter had replied promptly to Washington's remark that the time had

come to take definite action with regard to the light-headed Frenchman,

who continued to fit out and despatch privateers, and was convulsing the

country generally.

"Pray send him home, bag and baggage, sir. He is not entitled to the

dignity or consideration of the usual formalities. Moreover, he is the

trigger of the United States so long as he remains at liberty in it. I

estimate that there is a new Jacobin club formed daily. At any moment he

may do something which will drive these fools, under their red caps and

cockades, mad with admiration."

Jefferson brought his brows down to the root of his nose. "'Fools' is

not the word for an honest enthusiasm for liberty, sir. I regret the

present excitement--its manifestations at this moment--as much as

anyone--"

"Indeed? I am amazed. Who, then, is responsible for them?"

"Not I, sir."

"Oh, let us have no more hypocrisy, at all events," said Hamilton,

contemptuously. He had his wrath under control, but he suddenly

determined to force the climax. "If you had employed your secret pen to

better purpose, or not employed it at all, there would not be a Jacobin

club in the country; this ridiculous Frenchman, unencouraged by your

private sympathy, by your assurances of my inability to withhold the

residue of the debt, would have calmed down long since. I accuse you

here, deliberately and publicly, instead of writing private letters to

the public, both because I have not your commanding talent for patient

and devious ways, and because I wish you to declare, unequivocally,

whether or not you purpose to continue this policy of obstruction. Time

presses. We must act at once with regard to this Frenchman. Reserve

subterfuge for some more opportune time, and let us know what you intend

to do."

Jefferson looked with appeal at Washington, who usually interposed when

his Secretaries arrived at personalities. But Washington, although his

face was as immobile as stone, was so sick with anger and disgust over

the whole situation, at what appeared to be the loss of the popular

faith in himself, and the ridicule and abuse which had filled the

columns of Freneau's paper that morning, that it was a relief to him to

hear Hamilton explode.

"I repudiate every word you have said, sir," growled Jefferson. "More I

will not say. As to Citizen Genet, with whom I have never had a word of

private intercourse--" Here, even Washington lifted his head, and

Hamilton laughed outright. Jefferson continued, determined upon

martyrdom rather than rouse the terrible passions opposite: "As to

Citizen Genet, if the Cabinet agree that it is best he leave this

country. I shall demand that his recall be requested in the regular

manner, in accordance with every principle of international courtesy. He

may be imprudent, intoxicated with the glorious wine of liberty, but he

is a Frenchman, a distinguished citizen of the great country that came

so nobly to our rescue, and I protest against the base ingratitude which

would fling insults in the teeth of an unfortunate people."

Hamilton threw back his head impatiently, and drummed with his fingers

on the table. "The primary motive of France for the assistance she gave

us was, obviously, to enfeeble a hated and powerful rival. A second

motive was to extend her relations of commerce in the new world, and to

acquire additional security for her possessions there, by forming a

connection with this country when detached from Great Britain. To

ascribe to her any other motives, to suppose that she was actuated by

friendship toward us, is to be ignorant of the springs of action which

invariably regulate the cabinets of princes. A despotic court aid a

popular revolution through sympathy with its principles! For the matter

of that, if you insist upon American statesmen being sentimental fools,

the class that assisted us has been murdered by the rabble, which I

refuse to recognize as France. And if it be your object to reduce this

country to a similar position that you may climb over maddened brains to

power--"

"Hear!" roared Jefferson, justly indignant. "I? Never a man loved peace

as I do. My life has been hell since you have forced me into daily

conflict, when, God knows, I perish with desire for the peace of my

homely life in Virginia. Power! I scorn it, sir. I leave that to

restless upstarts like yourself--"

He stopped, choking. Hamilton laughed contemptuously. "You are at work

with your pen day and night, strengthening your misnamed party, and

preparing the way by which you can lift yourself to a position where you

can undo all that the party you hate, because it is composed of

gentlemen, has accomplished for the honour and prosperity of your

country. You are perfectly well aware that Genet was sent here to stir

up a civil war, and embroil us with Europe at the same time, and you

have secretly sympathized with and encouraged him. I cannot make up my

mind whether you are a villain, or merely the victim of a sublimated and

paradoxical imagination. But in either case, I wish to be placed on

record as asserting that you are the worst enemy the United States is

cursed with to-day."

This was too much for Jefferson, who had convinced himself that he was a

high-minded and self-sacrificing statesman, stooping to devious ways for

the common good. He forgot his physical fear, and shouted, pounding the

table with his fist:--

"How dare you, sir? How dare you? It is you who are ruining, corrupting,

and dishonouring this unhappy country, with your Banks, your devilish

methods to cement the aristocracy, your abominable Excise Law--"

"Oh, but you have counteracted that so effectively! I was coming to that

point. I conceived a measure by which to meet an imperative financial

demand, and you, by your agents, by your secret machinations, have been

the author of insurrection after insurrection, of the most flagrant

breaches of the laws of your country. You have cost innumerable men,

engaged in the pursuit of plain duty, their self-respect, and in several

cases their lives. Another hideous problem is approaching--one, I am

persuaded, that can be solved by arms and bloodshed alone; and to your

pen, to your deliberate unsettling of men's minds, to the hatred you

have inspired for the lawful government of this country, to you, and to

you alone--"

"It's a lie! a lie!" shouted Jefferson. "You are speaking to an

honourable man, sir! one who occupies a position in this country both by

birth and breeding that you would give your soul--you adventurer!--to

possess. Go back to your Islands! You have no place here among men of

honourable birth. It's monstrous that this country should be ruled by a

foreign bastard--!"

For a moment, every one present had a confused idea that a tornado was

in the room. Then two doors were wrenched open, Jefferson fled down the

street, with Randolph, bearing his hat, in pursuit; Knox was holding

Hamilton firmly in his arms; and Washington, who had risen some moments

since, and stood staring in grim disgust, awaiting the end, was divided

between a desire to laugh, and to give way to a burst of fury himself.

Hamilton had made no attempt to struggle when Knox caught him, but he

now withdrew from the relaxing arms, and the Secretary of War left the

room hastily. Hamilton, to Washington's astonishment, flung himself into

a chair, and dropped his head on his arms. In a moment, he began to sob

convulsively. A malignant fever was breeding in his depressed system;

the blood still surged in his head. He had a despairing sense that his

character was in ruins; he was humiliated to his depths; he despised

himself so bitterly that he forgot the existence of Jefferson.

The humour and anger died out of Washington. He went forward hastily and

locked the door. Then he stooped over Hamilton, and pressed him closely

in his arms.

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

XXXV

That was the last of Hamilton's battles in the Cabinet. Jefferson

resigned; although, in order that the Administration might, until the

crisis was past, preserve an unbroken front to the country, he

reluctantly consented to withhold his resignation until the assembling

of Congress. He retired to Monticello, however; and apologized to the

Secretary of the Treasury.

Hamilton, almost immediately, was taken down with yellow fever, which

broke out suddenly and raged with a fearful violence. To the ordinary

odours of carcasses and garbage, were added those of vinegar, tar,

nitre, garlic, and gunpowder. Every disinfectant America had ever heard

of was given a trial, and every man who possessed a shot-gun fired it

all day and all night. The bells tolled incessantly. The din and the

smells were hideous, the death carts rattled from dawn till dawn; many

were left unburied in their houses for a week; hundreds died daily; and

the city confessed itself helpless, although it cleaned the streets.

Hamilton had a very light attack, but Dr. Stevens dropped in frequently

to see him; he privately thought him of more importance than all

Philadelphia.

Lying there and thinking of many things, too grateful for the rest to

chafe at the imprisonment, and striving for peace with himself, Hamilton

one day conceived the idea of immersing yellow-fever patients in

ice-water. Microbes were undiscovered, but Hamilton, perhaps with a

flashing glimpse of the truth, reasoned that if cold weather invariably

routed the disease, a freezing of the infected blood should produce the

same result. He succeeded in convincing Stevens, with the issue that

when the scourge was over, the young West Indian doctor had so many

cures to his credit, where all other physicians had failed, that the

City Council presented him with a silver tankard, gratefully inscribed,

and filled with golden coins. Hamilton's fecund brain, scattering its

creations, made more than one reputation.

Meanwhile, he awoke one day to find Mrs. Croix sitting beside his bed.

She had left town in June, and usually did not return until late in

September. She wore a white frock and a blue sash, and looked like an

angel about to do penance.

"I have come back to take care of the sick, including yourself," she

announced, "I was born to be a nurse, and I felt that my place was here.

I have come to see you first, and I shall call daily, but otherwise I am

in Dr. Stevens's hands."

Hamilton stared at her. He was not surprised, for she was kind hearted

in her erratic imperious fashion, and much beloved by the poor; nor was

she afraid of anything under heaven. But she was the last person he had

wished to see; she was for his triumphant hours, or his furious, not for

helpless invalidism. He had longed consistently for his wife, and

written to her by every packet-boat, lest she suspect his illness and

return to the plague-stricken city. He was filled with a sudden

resentment that any other woman should presume to fill her chair. To

forget her under overwhelming provocation he had reconciled to his

conscience with little difficulty, for his extenuations were many, and

puritanism had not yet invaded the national character; but to permit

another woman to ministrate to him when ill, he felt to be an

unpardonable breach of his Eliza's rights, and his loyalty rebelled. So,

although he treated Mrs. Croix with politeness while she remained, he

gave orders to Dr. Stevens to keep her away upon any pretext he chose.

"I am too nervous to be bothered with women," he added; and Stevens

obeyed without comment.

Hamilton's convalescence was cheered by two facts: the revival of his

spirits and equilibrium, and frequent assurances from his wife that for

the first time in five years she was entirely well. She wrote that she

had regained all her old colour, "spring," vivacity, and plumpness, and

felt quite ten years younger. Hamilton was delighted; for her courage

had so far exceeded her strength that he had often feared a collapse.

Although she detested the sight of a pen, she was so elated with her

recovered health that she wrote to him weekly. Suddenly, and without

explanation, the letters stopped. Still, he was quite unprepared for

what was to follow, and on the first of October, his health improved by

a short sojourn in the country, he went to the wharf to meet the

packet-boat which invariably brought his family; his pockets full of

sweets, and not a misgiving in his mind.

As he stood on the wharf, watching the boat towed slowly to dock, his

four oldest children suddenly appeared, waving their hats and shouting

like young Indians. James, who was as broad as he was long, and was

wedged firmly between Angelica and Philip lest he turn over, swelled a

chorus which excited much amusement among by-standers. To Hamilton's

surprise his wife did not occupy her usual place behind that

enthusiastic group, but as the boat touched the pier, and all four

precipitated themselves upon him at once,--the three oldest about his

neck, and James upon his pockets,--he forgot her for the moment in the

delight of seeing and embracing his children after three months of

separation. He emerged from that wild greeting, dishevelled and

breathless, only to disappear once more within six long arms and a

circle of sunburned faces. Hamilton received from his children an almost

frantic affection; indeed, few people merely liked him; it was either

hate or a love which far transcended the bounds of such affection as the

average mortal commands. The passion he inspired in his children cost

one his life, another her reason, and left its indelible mark on a

third; but for what they gave, they received an overflowing measure in

return; no man was ever more passionately attached to his brood, nor

took a greater delight in its society.

Suddenly, through the web of Angelica's flying locks, he saw that his

wife had appeared on deck and was about to land. He disentangled himself

hastily and went forward to greet her. In a flash he noted that she was

prettier than ever, and that she was affected by something far more

extraordinary than an increase of health. She threw back her head, and

her black eyes flashed with anger as he approached with the assurance of

thirteen years of connubial ownership; but she greeted him politely and

took his arm. No explanation was possible there; and he escorted her and

the children to the coach as quickly as possible. Philip, Angelica, and

Alexander were sensible at once of the chasm yawning between the seats;

they redoubled their attentions to their father, and regarded their

mother with reproving and defiant eyes. Poor Betsey, conscious that she

was entirely in the right, felt bitter and humiliated, and sought to

find comfort in the indifference of James, who was engaged with a

cornucopia and blind to the infelicity of his parents.

When they reached the house, Hamilton dismissed the children and opened

the door of his library.

"Will you come in?" he said peremptorily.

Mrs. Hamilton entered, and sat down on a high-backed chair. She was very

small, her little pigeon toes were several inches above the floor; but

no judge on his bench ever looked so stern and so inexorable.

"Now," said Hamilton, who was cold from head to foot, for he had an

awful misgiving, "let us have an explanation at once. This is our first

serious misunderstanding, and you well know that I shall be in misery

until it is over--"

"I have not the least intention of keeping you in suspense," interrupted

Betsey, sarcastically. "I am too thankful that you did not happen to

come to Saratoga when _I_ was prostrated with misery. I have gone

through everything,--every stage of wretchedness that the human heart is

capable of,--but now, thank Heaven, I am filled with only a just

indignation. Read that!"

She produced a letter from her reticule and flipped it at him. Even

before he opened it he recognized the familiar handwriting, the profuse

capitals, of Mrs. Reynolds. Fortunately, he made no comment, for the

contents were utterly different from his quick anticipation. It

contained a minute and circumstantial account of his visits during the

past year to Mrs. Croix, with many other details, which, by spying and

bribing, no doubt, she had managed to gather. Failing one revenge, the

woman had resorted to another, and fearing that it might be lost among

the abundant and surfeiting lies of the public press, she had aimed at

what he held most dear. The letter was so minute and circumstantial that

it would have convinced almost any woman.

There was but one thing for Hamilton to do, and he lied with his

unsurpassable eloquence. When he paused tentatively, his wife

remarked:--

"Alexander, you are a very great man, but you are a wretchedly poor

liar. As Mr. Washington would say, your sincerity is one of the most

valuable of your gifts, and without it you could not convince a child.

As if this were not enough, only yesterday, on the boat, I overheard two

of your intimate friends discussing this intrigue as a matter of course.

There was not a word of censure or criticism; they were merely wondering

when you would add to your enemies; for as this woman was desperately in

love with you, she was bound to hate you as violently when you tired of

her. I think men are horrors!" she burst out passionately. "When, unable

to bear this terrible affliction any longer, and unwilling to worry my

poor mother, I took that letter and my grief to my father--what do you

suppose he said? After he had tried to convince me that the story was a

base fabrication, and that an anonymous communication should be

destroyed unread--as if any woman living would not read an anonymous

letter!--he said, crossly, that women did not understand men and never

made allowances for them; and he went on to make as many excuses for you

as if he were defending himself; and then wound up by saying that he did

not believe a word of it, and that the letter was written by someone you

had flouted. But it seemed to me in those awful days that I was awake

for the first time, that for the first time I understood you--and your

horrid sex, in general--I do! I do!"

She looked so adorable with her flashing eyes, the hot colour in her

cheek, and the new personality she exhibited, that Hamilton would have

foregone a triumph over his enemies to kiss her. But he dared not make a

false move, and he was terribly perplexed.

"I can only reiterate," he said, "that this letter is a lie from

beginning to end. It is written by a woman, who, with her husband, has

blackmailed me and jeopardized my reputation. I treated them as they

deserved, and this is their next move. As for Mrs. Croix, I repeat, she

is a most estimable person, whose brilliant wit and talent for politics

draw all public men about her. There is hardly one among them who might

not be victimized by a similar attack. I doubt if I have called half as

often as many others. As for the friends whom you heard discussing my

visits--you know the love of the human mind for scandal. Please be

reasonable. You have made me the most wretched man on earth, I shall be

unfit for public duty or anything else if you continue to treat me in

this brutal manner. I hardly know you. No woman was ever more loved by

her husband or received more devotion."

Betsey almost relented, he looked so miserable. But she replied firmly:

"There is one condition I have a right to make. If you agree to it, I

will consider if I can bring myself to believe your denial and your

protestations. It is that you never enter Mrs. Croix's house again, nor

see her willingly."

Hamilton knew what the promise would mean, but his mind worked with the

rapidity of lightning in great crises, and never erred. He replied

promptly:

"I will see her once, and once only--to give her a decent reason for not

calling again--that I understand I am compromising her good name, or

something of the sort. I have accepted too much hospitality at her hands

to drop her brusquely, without a word of explanation."

"You can write her a letter. You can merely send polite excuses when she

invites you. You are very busy. You have every excuse. Gradually, she

will think no more about you--if it be true that she is nothing to you.

You have your choice, sir! Either your promise, or I return by the next

packet to Albany."

But Hamilton, always considerate of women, and despising the weakness

and brutality which permits a man to slink out of an amour, would not

retreat, and Betsey finally settled herself in her chair, and said, with

unmistakable determination:--

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

you return."

Hamilton caught his hat and left the house. Although he was possessed by

the one absorbing desire to win back his wife, who had never been so

dear as to-day, when for the first time she had placed him at arm's

length and given him a thorough fright, still his brain, accustomed to

see all sides of every question at once, and far into the future, spoke

plainly of the hour when he would regret the loss of Mrs. Croix. He

might forget her for weeks at a time, but he always reawakened to a

sense of her being with a glowing impression that the world was more

alive and fair. The secret romance had been very dear and pleasant. The

end was come, however, and he was eager to pass it.

His eye was attracted to a chemist's window, and entering the shop

hastily, he purchased a bottle of smelling salts. The act reminded him

of Mrs. Mitchell, and that he had not heard from her for several months.

He resolved to write that night, and permitted his mind to wander to the

green Island which was almost lost among his memories. The respite was

brief, however.

To his relief he found Mrs. Croix in her intellectual habit. The lady,

who was reading in the door of her boudoir above the garden steps,

exclaimed, without formal greeting:--

"I am transported, sir. Such descriptions never were written before.

Listen!"

Hamilton, who hated descriptions of scenery at any time, and was in his

most direct and imperative temper, stood the infliction but a moment,

then asked her attention. She closed the book over her finger and smiled

charmingly.

"Forgive me for boring you," she said graciously. "But you know my

passion for letters; and if truth must be told, I am a little piqued. I

have not laid eyes on you for a fortnight. Not but that I am used to

your lapses of memory by this time," she added, with a sigh.

Hamilton went straight to the point. He told her the exact reason for

the necessary breach, omitting nothing but the episode of Mrs. Reynolds;

one cause of reproach was as much as a man could be expected to furnish

an angry woman.

For Mrs. Croix was very angry. At first she had pressed her hand against

her heart as if about to faint, and Hamilton had hastily extracted the

salts; but the next moment she was on her feet, towering and expanding

like an avenging queen about to order in her slaves with scimitars and

chargers.

"Do you mean," she cried, "that I am flouted, flung aside like an old

cravat? I? With half the men in America in love with me? Good God, sir!

I have known from the beginning that you would tire, but I thought to be

on the watch and save my pride. How dare you come like this? Why could

you not give me warning? It is an outrage. I would rather you had killed

me."

"I am sorry I have blundered," said Hamilton, humbly. "But how in

Heaven's name can a man know how a woman will take anything? I had such

respect for your great intelligence that I thought it due you to treat

you as I would a man--"

"A man?" exclaimed Mrs. Croix. "Treat me like a man! Of all the

supremely silly things I ever heard one of your sex say, that is the

silliest. I am not a man, and you know it."

Hamilton hastened to assure her that she was deliberately averting her

intelligence from his true meaning. "You have never doubted my sincerity

for a moment," he added. "You surely know what it will cost me never to

see you again. There is but one cause under heaven that could have

brought me to you with this decision. You may believe in my regret--to

use a plain word--when you reflect upon all that you have been to me."

He was desperately afraid that her anger would dissolve in tears, and he

be placed in a position from which he was not sure of emerging with a

clear conscience,--and he dared take home nothing less. But Mrs. Croix,

however she might feel on the morrow, was too outraged in her pride and

vanity to be susceptible either to grief or the passion of love. She

stormed up and down the room in increasing fury, her eyes flashing blue

lightning, her strong hands smashing whatever costly offering they

encountered. "Wives! Wives! Wives!" she screamed. "The little fools!

What are wives for but to keep house and bring up babies? They are a

class apart. I have suffered enough from their impertinent interference.

Am I not a woman apart? Will you assert that there is a 'wife' in

America who can hold her own with me for a moment in anything? Was I not

created to reveal to men--and only the ablest, for I waste no time on

fools--the very sublimation of my sex--a companionship they will find

in no silly little fool, stupid with domesticity? Am I to submit, then,

to be baulked by a sex I despise--and in the greatest passion that ever

possessed a woman?" She stopped and laughed, bringing her lashes

together and moving forward her beautiful lips. "What a fool I am!" she

said. "You will come back when the humour seizes you. I had forgot that

your family returned to-day. You are in your most domestic mood--and I

have been inflicted with that before. But there will come an hour when

neither your wife nor any other mortal power will keep you away from me.

Is it not true?"

Hamilton had turned pale; his ready imagination had responded with a

presentiment of many desperate struggles. He rose, and took her hand

forcibly.

"No," he said. "I shall not return. Believe me, that is the hardest

sentence I have ever pronounced upon myself. And forgive me if I have

been rude and inconsiderate. It was the result of the desire to have the

agony over as quickly as possible. I should have found the anticipation

unbearable, and I do not believe it would have been more soothing to

you. There is no reason why your pride should be wounded, for this is

not the result of satiety on my part, but of an imperative necessity.

Shake hands with me."

She wrenched her hand free and, seizing a vase, flung it into a mirror.

Hamilton retreated.

XXXVI

He had been gone just thirty-five minutes, Betsey received him with

stern approval and announced that she had implicit faith in his promise

to avoid Mrs. Croix in the future. But it was quite evident that his

punishment was unfinished, and with due humility and some humour he

bided her pleasure. Between the two women he had a lively month. Mrs.

Croix wrote him a letter a day. At first it was evident that she had

taken herself in hand, that her pen was guided by her marvellous

intelligence. She apologized charmingly for her exhibition of temper,

and for any reflection she might have made upon the most estimable of

women, who (with a sigh) had the happiness to be the wife of Alexander

Hamilton. She ignored his ultimatum and asked him to come at once, and

talk the matter over calmly. Hamilton replied with the graceful

playfulness of which he was master, but left no doubt of his continuity

of purpose. After the interchange of several letters of this complexion,

in which Mrs. Croix was quite conscious of revealing the ample resources

of her wit, spirit, and tact, she broke down and went through every

circumstance of a despairing woman fighting to recover the supreme

happiness of her life. At times she was humble, she prostrated herself

at his feet. Again she raved with all the violence of her nature. Her

pride, and it was very great, was submerged under the terrible agony of

her heart. Even passion was forgotten, and she was sincere for the

moment when she vowed that she had no wish beyond his mere presence.

Hamilton was horribly distressed. He would rather she had turned upon

him at once with all her tigerish capacity for hate. But he had given

his word to his wife, and that was the end of it. He answered every

letter, but his gallantry and kindness were pitch and oil, and it was

with profound relief that he watched the gradual stiffening of her

pride, the dull resentment, even although he knew it meant that an

enemy, subtle, resourceful, and venomous, was in the process of making.

In her final letter she gave him warning--and a last opportunity. But of

this he took no notice.

Meanwhile, Betsey had led him a dance. Naturally bright, but heretofore

too sheltered and happy, too undisturbed in her trust, she had done

little thinking, little analysis, felt nothing but amusement for the

half-comprehended vagaries of men. But jealousy and suffering give a

woman, in a week, a fill of knowledge and cunning that will serve her a

lifetime. Betsey developed both coquetry and subtlety. She knew that if

she obtained command of the situation now, she should hold it to the

end, and she was determined that this crisis should result in a close

and permanent union. If she finally believed his denial, she was much

too shrewd to give him the satisfaction of regaining his former mastery

of her mind; but she ceased to speak of it. Meanwhile, he was devoting

his energies to winning her again, and he had never found life so

interesting. She radiated a new bewitchment, and he had always thought

her the most adorable woman on the planet. He divined a good many of her

mental processes; but if he was a trifle amused, he was deeply

respectful. She was sufficiently uncertain in this new character to

torment him unbearably, and when she occasionally betrayed that she was

interested and fascinated, he was transported. When she finally

succumbed, he was more in love than he had ever been in his life.

XXXVII

The next seven years of Hamilton's life must be reviewed very rapidly.

Interesting as they might be made, space diminishes, and after all they

were but the precursor of the last great battle of the giants.

In the spring of 1794 the Virginian ring rallied for their final assault

in Congress. Their spokesman this time was a worthless man, named

Fraunces, and he brought forth a charge against the Secretary of the

Treasury of unfaithfulness in office. Hamilton promptly demanded another

investigation. The result may be found in the following letters from

eminent Federals in Virginia. The first is from Colonel Carrington,

dated Richmond, July 9th.

I do not write this letter as congratulatory upon the final issue

of the Inquiry into the Treasury Department, as I never conceived

you exposed to receive injury therefrom. I write to express my most

sincere wishes that you will not suffer the illiberality with which

you have been treated to deprive the public of your services, at

least until the storm which hangs over us, and is to be dreaded,

not less from our own follies and vices than the malignance and

intrigues of foreigners, blows over. It is true you have been

abused, but it has been and still is, the fate of him who was

supposed out of the reach of all slander. It is indeed the lot, in

some degree, of every man amongst us who has the sense or fortitude

to speak and act rationally, and such men must continue so to speak

and act if we are saved from anarchy.

On July 20th, Thomas Corbin wrote to Hamilton deploring the political

conditions in Virginia created by Thomas Jefferson, in which these

significant passages occur:--

Calumny and misrepresentation are the only weapons made use of by

the faction of Virginia. By a dexterous management of these they

have brought into popular disrepute, and even into popular odium,

some of the wisest and best characters in the United States.

War is waged by this faction against every candidate who possesses

the union of requisites. Independent fortune, independent

principles, talents, and integrity are denounced as badges of

aristocracy; but if you add to these good manners and a decent

appearance, his political death is decreed without the benefit of a

hearing. In short, with a few exceptions everything that appertains

to the character of a gentleman is ostracized. That yourself and

Mr. Jay should be no favorites in Virginia, is not to be wondered

at. But all those whose good opinion is worth your acceptance

entertain for you both the same veneration and esteem, and hear the

aspersions of your enemies with the same indignation that I do;

who, after the closest examination, and the purest conviction can

conscientiously subscribe myself etc.

In the autumn the whiskey disturbances in western Pennsylvania assumed

such serious proportions that Hamilton insisted upon recourse to arms.

With his usual precision he had calculated the numbers of the

insurgents, and the amount of troops necessary to overwhelm them.

Washington issued requisitions for fifteen thousand men, and set out

with the troops, his first intention being to command in person.

Hamilton accompanied him, and upon the President's return to

Philadelphia, assumed the general superintendence of the army, whose

commander, Henry Lee, was one of his devoted adherents. Many motives

have been ascribed to Hamilton for this exceptional proceeding, and

Washington was bitterly assailed for "not being able to move without his

favourite Secretary at his elbow," and for giving additional

conspicuousness to a man whose power already was a "menace to Republican

liberties." Randolph, then the nominal Secretary of State, but quite

aware that while Hamilton remained in the Cabinet he was but a

figurehead, was so wroth, that later, in his futile "Vindication,"

following what practically was his expulsion from the Cabinet, he

animadverted bitterly upon a favour which no one but Hamilton would

have presumed to ask. Fauchet, the successor of Genet, in the

intercepted letter to his government, which brought about the fall of

Randolph, convicting him of corruption and treachery, has this to say:--

The army marched; the President made known that he was going to

command it; Hamilton, as I have understood, requested to follow

him; the President dared not refuse him. It does not require much,

penetration to divine the object of this journey. In the President

it was wise, it might also be his duty. But in Mr. Hamilton it was

a consequence of the profound policy which directs all his steps; a

measure dictated by a perfect knowledge of the human heart. Was it

not interesting for him, for his party, tottering under the weight

of events without and accusations within, to proclaim an intimacy

more perfect than ever with the President, whose very name is a

sufficient shield against the most formidable attacks? Now, what

more evident mark could the President give of his intimacy than by

suffering Mr. Hamilton, whose name, even, is understood in the west

as that of a public enemy, to go and place himself at the head of

the army which went, if I may use the expression, to cause his

system to triumph against the opposition of the people? The

presence of Mr. Hamilton with the army must attach it more than

ever to his party.

There were depths in Hamilton's mind which no wise mortal will ever

attempt to plumb. It is safe to say he did nothing without one eye on a

far-reaching policy; and aside from the pleasure of being in the saddle

once more, riding over the wild Alleghanies in keen October weather,

after four years of the stenches and climatic miseries of Philadelphia,

aside from his fear of Governor Miffin's treachery, and his lack of

implicit confidence in Lee's judgement, it is quite likely that he had

some underlying motive relative to the advantage of his party, which had

been weakened by the incessant assaults upon himself. By going with the

army he not only demonstrated the perfect confidence reposed in him by

Washington, and his determination that his laws should be enforced, but

he gave emphasis to his belief that the resistance to the Excise Law had

been deliberately instigated by the Republicans under the leadership of

his avowed enemies. In this connection the following extract from

Fauchet's letter is highly interesting, intimate as he was with the

Republican leaders.

Such therefore were the parts of the public grievance, upon which

the western people most insisted. Now, these complaints were

systematizing by the conversations of influential men, who retired

into those wild countries, and who from principle, or from a series

of particular heart-burnings, animated discontents already too near

to effervescence. At last the local explosion is effected. The

western people calculated on being supported by some distinguished

characters in the east, and even imagined they had in the bosom of

the government some abettors, who might share in their grievance or

their principle.

The rioters, sobered by the organized force and its formidable numbers,

surrendered without bloodshed.

In January of the following year Hamilton resigned from the Cabinet. The

pressing need of his services was over, and he had many reasons for

retiring from office: his health was seriously impaired, he had a

growing family of boys to educate; he expected his father by every ship

from the Windward Islands, to spend his last years in the home to which

his son had so often invited him; Mrs. Mitchell was now a widow and

almost penniless; and his disgust of office was so uncompromising that

no consideration short of an imperative public duty would have induced

him to continue. But his principal reason, as he wrote to Mrs. Church,

was that he wished to indulge his domestic happiness more freely.

Washington let him go with the less reluctance because he promised

immediate response to any demand the President might make upon him. He

went with his wife, Angelica, and the younger children to Albany and the

Saratoga estate, where he remained until the first of June, endeavouring

to regain his health in the forest and on the river. Young Lafayette

lived with him until his return to France, in 1798.

Upon Hamilton's return to New York he immediately engaged in practice,

which he supplemented by coaching students; but he continued to be

Washington's chief adviser, and the correspondence was continuous upon

every problem which confronted the harassed President. Indeed, when one

reads its bulk, one wonders if the Cabinet did anything but execute

Hamilton's suggestions. Randolph kicked his heels in impotent wrath, and

his successor's correspondence with Hamilton was almost as voluminous

as Washington's. So was Wolcott's, who hardly cancelled a bond without

his former chief's advice; William Smith, the auditor-general, was

scarcely less insistent for orders. Hamilton wrote at length to all of

them, as well as to the numerous members of Congress who wanted advice,

or an interpretation of some Constitutional provision hitherto on the

shelf. What time he had for his practice and students would remain a

mystery, were it not for the manifest price he paid in the vigours of

all but will and brain.

During the summer of 1794 Talleyrand visited the United States. He

brought a package from Mrs. Church to Mrs. Hamilton, and a cordial

letter from the same important source to the statesman whom he ranked

higher than any man of his time. "He improves upon acquaintance," wrote

Mrs. Church to her sister; "I regret that you do not speak French." But

her sister's husband spoke French better than any man in America, and

after the resignation from the Cabinet, Talleyrand spent most of his

time in the little red brick house at 26 Broadway, where Hamilton was

working to recover his lost position at the bar. "I have seen the eighth

wonder of the world," wrote the Frenchman, one morning, after a ramble

in the small hours, which had taken him past the light in Hamilton's

study, "I have seen the man who has made the fortune of a nation,

toiling all night to supply his family with bread." The men found great

delight in each other's society. Hamilton was the most accomplished and

versatile man in America, the most brilliant of conversationists, the

most genial of companions, and hospitable of hosts. Talleyrand

epitomized Europe to him; and the French statesman had met no one in his

crowded life who knew it better. If he gave to Hamilton the concentrated

essence of all that ardent brain had read and dreamed of, of all that

fate had decreed he never should see in the mass, Talleyrand placed on

record his tribute to Hamilton's unmortal powers of divination, and

loved and regretted him to the close of his life.

Different as the men were in character, they had two points in

common,--a passionate patriotism, and the memory of high ideals. Public

life had disposed of Talleyrand's ideals, and Hamilton, after an

education in the weakness and wickedness of human nature which left

nothing to be desired, would have been equally destitute, had it not

been for his temperamental gaiety and buoyant philosophy. There were

times when these deserted him, and he brooded in rayless depths, but his

Celtic inheritance and the vastness of his intellect saved him from

despair until the end. Talleyrand was by no means an uncheerful soul;

but his genius, remarkable as it was, flowed between narrower lines, and

was unwatered by that humanity which was Hamilton's in such volume. Both

men had that faculty of seeing things exactly as they are, which the

shallow call cynicism; and those lost conversations appeal to the

imagination of the searcher after truth.

Jay's treaty was the most formidable question with which Hamilton was

called upon to deal before the retirement of Washington to private life,

and it gave him little less trouble than if he had remained in the

Cabinet.

It had been his idea to send a special envoy to England to remonstrate

with the British Government for her abominable oppressions and

accumulating outrages, decide if possible upon a treaty with her which

would soothe the excitement in the United States,--as wild in the spring

of 1794 as the Jacobin fever,--and avert war. It was the desire of

Washington and the eminent Federalists that this mission be undertaken

by Hamilton, for he had an especial faculty for getting what he wanted:

however obstinate he might be, his diplomacy was of the first order when

he chose to use it. But he believed that, having suggested the mission,

he could not with propriety accept it, and that his services could be

given more effectively in the Cabinet. Moreover, the violent opposition

which the proposal immediately raised among the Republicans, notably

Randolph and Monroe,--the latter so far transcending etiquette as to

write to Washington, denouncing his Secretary of the Treasury,--made it

probable that his enemies would defeat his confirmation in the Senate.

He suggested the name of Chief Justice Jay; and after the usual bitter

preliminaries, that exalted but not very forcible personage sailed for

England in the latter part of April, 1794. Negotiations were very slow,

for Britain still felt for us a deep and sullen resentment, nourished by

our Jacobin enthusiasms. In January, however, news came that the treaty

was concluded; and Hamilton, supposing that the matter was settled,

resigned from the Cabinet. It has been asserted that when he read this

famous instrument, he characterized it as "an old woman's treaty," and

it is very probable that he did. Nevertheless, when, after a stormy

passage through the Senate, it was launched upon the country, and,

systematically manipulated by the practised arts of Jacobinism, carried

the United States almost to the verge of civil war, Hamilton accepted

the treaty as the best obtainable, and infinitely preferable to further

troubles. He took up his pen, having previously been stoned while

attempting to speak in its defence, and in a series of papers signed

"Catullus," wrote as even he had not done since the days of "The

Federalist." Their effect was felt at once; and as they continued to

issue, and Hamilton's sway over the public mind, his genius for moulding

opinion, became with each more manifest, Jefferson, terrified and

furious, wrote to Madison:--

Hamilton is really a Colossus to the anti-Republican party. Without

numbers he is a host in himself. They have got themselves into a

defile where they might be finished; but too much security on the

Republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness

to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose

him. In truth when he comes forward there is no one but yourself

can meet him.... For God's sake take up your pen and give a

fundamental reply to "Curtius" and "Camillus."

But Madison had had enough of pen encounter with Hamilton. "He who puts

himself on paper with Hamilton is lost," Burr had said; and Madison

agreed with him, and entered the lists no more. The excitement gradually

subsided. It left ugly scars behind it, but once more Hamilton had saved

his party, and perhaps the Union. In connection with the much disputed

authorship of the Farewell Address I will merely quote a statement,

heretofore unpublished, made by Mrs. Hamilton, in the year 1840.

Desiring that my children shall be fully acquainted with the

services rendered by their father to our country, and the

assistance rendered by him to General Washington during his

administrations, for the one great object, the independence and

stability of the government of the United States, there is one

thing in addition to the numerous proofs which I leave them, and

which I feel myself in duty bound to state: which is that a short

time previous to General Washington's retiring from the Presidency,

in the year 1796, General Hamilton suggested to him the idea of

delivering a farewell address to the people on his withdrawal from

public life, with which idea General Washington was well pleased,

and in his answer to General Hamilton's suggestion, gave him the

heads of the subject on which he would wish to remark, with a

request that Mr. Hamilton would prepare a draft for him. Mr.

Hamilton did so, and the address was written principally at such

times as his office was seldom frequented by his clients and

visitors, and during the absence of his students to avoid

interruption; at which times he was in the habit of calling me to

sit with him, that he might read to me as he wrote, in order, as he

said, to discover how it sounded upon the ear, and making the

remark, "My dear Eliza, you must be to me what old Molière's nurse

was to him."

The whole or nearly all the "address" was read to me by him, as he

wrote it, and the greater part if not all was written in my

presence. The original was forwarded to General Washington, who

approved of it with the exception of one paragraph; of, I think,

from four to five lines, which, if I mistake not, was on the

subject of the public schools; which was stricken out. It was

afterward returned to Mr. Hamilton who made the desired alteration,

and was afterward delivered to General Washington, and published in

that form, and has since been known as "General Washington's

Farewell Address." Shortly after the publication of the address, my

husband and myself were walking in Broadway when an old soldier

accosted him with the request of him to purchase General

Washington's farewell address, which he did, and turning to me

said, "That man does not know he has asked me to purchase my own

work."

The whole circumstances are at this moment so perfectly in my mind

that I can call to mind his bringing General Washington's letter to

me, who returned the address, and remarked on the only alteration

which he (General Washington) had requested to be made.

New York, Aug. 7th, 1840.

ELIZABETH HAMILTON. JAMES A. WASHINGTON. JA.R. MACDONALD.

In 1797 Hamilton was forced by treachery and the malignancy of

Jacobinism into the most painful and mortifying act of his public

career. He had been hailed by certain enthusiastic Federalists as the

legitimate successor of Washington. It was a noble ambition, and there

is no doubt that Hamilton would have cherished it, had he been less of a

philosopher, less in the habit of regarding a desire for the impossible

as a waste of time. Not only were older men in the direct line of

promotion, but he knew that as the author of the Excise Law he was hated

by one section of the Commonwealth, and that as the parent of the

manufacturing interest, to say nothing of the Assumption measure, he had

incurred the antagonism of the entire South. Lest these causes for

disqualification be obscured by the brilliancy of his reputation,

Jefferson's unresting and ramifying art had indelibly impressed the

public mind with the monarchical-aristocratical tendencies and designs

of the former Secretary of the Treasury, and of his hatred for a beloved

cause overseas. Hamilton had given an absolute negative to every

suggestion to use his name; but one at least had found its way into

print, and so terrified the enemy that they determined upon one more

powerful blow at his good name. Monroe had a fresh cause for hatred in

his humiliating recall from France, which he ascribed to the influence

of Hamilton. No doubt the trio were well satisfied for a time with their

carefully considered scheme. The pamphlet published in 1797, called "The

History of the United States for 1796," and edited by a disreputable man

named Callender, was the concentrated essence of Jacobinical fury and

vindictiveness against Alexander Hamilton. It surpassed any attack yet

made on him, while cleverly pretending to be an arraignment of the

entire Federalist party; shrieking so loudly at times against

Washington, Adams, and Jay, that the casual reader would overlook the

sole purport of the pamphlet. "It is ungenerous to triumph over the

ruins of declining fame," magnanimously finished its attack upon

Washington. "Upon this account not a word more shall be said!"

It omitted a recital of the two Congressional attacks upon Hamilton's

financial integrity, as to refrain from all mention of the vindications

would have been impossible; but it raked up everything else for which

it had space, sought to prove him a liar by his defence of the Jay

treaty in the Camillus papers, and made him insult Washington in

language so un-Hamiltonian that to-day it excites pity for the

desperation of the Virginians. When it finally arrived at the pith and

marrow of the assault, however, it was with quite an innocent air. This

was a carefully concocted version of the Reynolds affair. Callender had

obtained possession of the papers which Monroe, Muhlenberg, and Venable

had prepared to submit to the President, before hearing Hamilton's

explanation. He asserted that this explanation was a lie, and that the

Secretary of the Treasury had not only speculated with the public funds,

but that he had made thirty thousand pounds by the purchase of army

certificates. It was also alleged that Hamilton ordered his name

withdrawn as a Presidential candidate, in consequence of a threat that

otherwise these same papers would be published.

It is a curious instance of the fatuity of contemporaries, that

Hamilton's enemies reckoned upon a sullen silence, in the face of

damning assault, from the greatest fighter of his time. Indubitably,

they argued that he would think it best to pass the matter over; no man

could be expected to give to the public the full explanation. But they

reckoned with an insufficient knowledge of this host, as they had done

many a time before. Hamilton had no desire to hold office again, but he

was still the great leader of a great party, as determined as ever that

at no cost should there be a stain on his public honour. He consulted

with his closest friends, among them his wife. As the sin was now five

years old--and the woman a derelict--Mrs. Hamilton found it easier to

forgive than an unconfessed liaison with the most remarkable woman of

her time. Although she anticipated the mortification of the exposure

quite as keenly as her husband, she cherished his good name no less

tenderly, and without hesitation counselled him to give the facts to the

public. This he did in a pamphlet which expounded the workings of the

"Jacobin Scandal Club," told the unpleasant story without reserve, and

went relentlessly into the details of the part played in it by Monroe,

Muhlenberg, and Venable. He forced affidavits from those bewildered

gentlemen, the entire correspondence was published, and the pamphlet

itself was a masterpiece of biting sarcasm and convincing statement. It

made a tremendous sensation, but even his enemies admired his courage.

The question of his financial probity was settled for all time, although

the missile, failing in one direction, quivered in the horrified brains

of many puritanical voters. Mrs. Reynolds, now living with Clingman,

made no denial, and it is doubtful if even she would have echoed the one

animadversion of the discomfited enemy,--that Hamilton had given the

name of a mistress to the public. It is a weak and dangerous

sentimentalism which would protect a woman of commerce against the good

name of any man. The financial settlement makes her a party in a

contract, nothing more, and acquits the payer of all further

responsibility. She has no good name to protect; she has asked for

nothing but money; she is a public character, whom to shield would be a

thankless task. When this Reynolds woman added the abomination of

blackmail to her trade, and further attempted the ruin of the man who

had shown her nothing but generosity and consideration, it need hardly

be added that Hamilton would have been a sentimental fool to have

hesitated on any ground but detestation of a public scandal.

He never traced the betrayal of a secret which all concerned had

promised to keep inviolate, but he had his suspicions. Mrs. Croix, now

living in a large house on the Bowling Green, was the animated and

resourceful centre of Jacobinism. She wore a red cap to the theatre and

a tri-coloured cockade on the street. Her _salon_ was the headquarters

of the Republican leaders, and many a plot was hatched in her inspiring

presence. The Virginian Junta were far too clever to put themselves in

the power of a drunkard like Callender, but they were constantly in

collusion with Mrs. Croix. They knew that she feared nothing under

heaven, and that she had devoted herself to Hamilton's ruin. Callender

drew upon her for virus whenever his own supply ran down, and would

have hailed the Reynolds concoction, even had it gone to him naked and

begging. Hamilton saw the shadow of a fair hand throughout the entire

pamphlet, and, indeed, could have traced many an envenomed shaft, since

1793, to a source which once had threatened to cloy him with its

sweetness.

Meanwhile John Adams had been elected President of the United States,

and Thomas Jefferson, Vice-President. Hamilton had made no secret of the

fact that he should prefer to see Thomas Pinckney succeed Washington,

for he contemplated the possibility of Adams in the Executive Chair,

with distrust and uneasiness. In spite of that eminent statesman's

intrepidity, integrity, and loyal Federalism, he was, in Hamilton's

opinion, too suspicious, jealous of influence, and hot headed, to be a

safe leader in approaching storms. With Pinckney as a brilliant and

popular figurehead, Hamilton well knew that his own hand would remain on

the helm. With the irascible old gentleman from Massachusetts in the

Chair, his continued predominance was by no means certain. Washington

once said of Hamilton that he undoubtedly was ambitious, but that his

ambition was of that laudable kind which prompts a man to excel in

whatever he takes in hand; adding that his judgement was intuitively

great. The truth was that Hamilton regarded the United States as his

child. He had made her wealthy and respected, he foresaw a future

importance for her equal to that of any state in Europe. "I anticipate,"

he wrote to Rufus King, "that this country will, ere long, assume an

attitude correspondent with its great destinies--majestic, efficient,

and operative of great things. A noble career lies before it." The first

of the "Imperialists," he had striven for years to awaken the Government

to the importance of obtaining possession of Louisiana and the Floridas,

and he also had his eye on South America. Naturally, he wanted no

interruption; the moment the security of the country was threatened, he

was as alert and anxious as if his nursery were menaced with an Indian

invasion. Without conceit or vanity no man ever was more conscious of

his great powers; moreover, no American had made such sacrifices as he.

Washington and almost all the leading men possessed independent

fortunes. Hamilton had manifested his ability from the first to equal

the income of the wealthiest, did he give his unbroken services to the

pursuit of his profession. But he had lived for years upon a pittance,

frequently driven to borrow small sums from his friends, that he might

devote his energies entirely to his country. And no man ever gave more

generously or with less thought of reward; although he would have been

the last to deny his enjoyment of power. For a born leader of men to

care little whether he had a few trusted friends or an army at his back,

would merely indicate a weak spot in his brain.

It was quite natural, therefore, that he thought upon John Adams's

idiosyncrasies with considerable disquiet. Nevertheless, with the high

priest of Jacobinism in the field, his first object was to secure the

office for the Federalist party. The race was too close for serious

consideration of any other ultimate. He counselled every Federalist to

cast his vote for Adams and Pinckney; better a tie, with the victory to

Adams, than Thomas Jefferson at the head of the Nation. Of course there

was a hope that Pinckney might carry the South. But the Adams

enthusiasts dreaded this very issue, and threw away their votes for the

Vice-Presidency. Pinckney's followers in the South pursued the same

policy. The consequence was that Adams won by three votes only. Again

his pride was bruised, and again he attributed his mortification to

Hamilton. If he had disliked him before, his dislike in a constant state

of irritation through the ascendency and fame of the younger man, he

hated him now with a bitterness which formed a dangerous link between

himself and the Republican leaders. The time came when he was ready to

humiliate his country and ruin his own chance of reelection, to dethrone

his rival from another proud eminence and check his upward course.

Another source of bitterness was Hamilton's continued leadership of the

Federalist party, when himself, as President, was entitled to that

distinction. But that party was Hamilton's; he had created, developed

it, been its Captain through all its triumphant course. Even had he

been content to resign his commission,--which he did not contemplate for

a moment,--the great majority of the Federalists would have forced it

into his hand again. Adams declared war. Hamilton, always ready for a

fight, when no immediate act of statesmanship was involved, took up the

gauntlet. Adams might resist his influence, but the Cabinet was his, and

so were some of the most influential members of Congress, including

Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts, the president pro tem. of the

Senate. It was some time before Adams realized the full extent of this

influence; but when he did discover that his Secretary of State, Timothy

Pickering, his Secretary of the Treasury, Oliver Wolcott, and his

Secretary of War, James M'Henry, were in the habit of consulting

Hamilton upon every possible question before giving the President their

valuable opinions, and that upon one occasion, at least, a letter of

Hamilton's had been incorporated by the Secretary of War into a

Presidential Message, he was like to die of apoplexy. He wrote, in his

wrath:--

Hamilton is commander-in-chief of the Senate, of the House of

Representatives, of the heads of departments, of General

Washington, and last, and least, if you will, of the President of

the United States!

But the President's advisers were free to seek advice without the

Cabinet if they chose, and Washington had encouraged them to go to

Hamilton. Hamilton was at liberty to give it, and Adams could find no

evidence that he had counselled rebellion against himself; nor that he

had used his great influence for any purpose but the honour of the

country.

And never had the country needed his services more. When Adams, grim and

obstinate, stepped forward as head of the Nation, he found himself

confronted with the menace of France. In retaliation for Genet's

disgrace, the Revolutionists had demanded the recall of Gouverneur

Morris, whose barely disguised contempt, and protection of more than one

royalist, had brought him perilously near to the guillotine. Burr had

desired the vacant mission, and his pretensions were urged by Monroe and

Madison. Washington recognized this as a device of the Opposition to

embarrass him, and he had the lowest opinion of Burr's rectitude and

integrity. Pressure and wrath produced no effect, but he offered to

appoint Monroe. It might be wise to send a Jacobin, and the President

hoped that ambition would preserve this one from compromising the

country. He made the mistake of not weighing Monroe's mental capacity

more studiously. The least said of the wild gallop into diplomacy of our

fifth President the better. He was recalled, and Charles Cotesworth

Pinckney sent in his place. The French, who had found Monroe entirely to

their taste, refused to receive the distinguished lawyer and soldier. To

escape indignity he was forced to retire to Holland. The new Republic

violated her treaties with increasing insolence, and Bonaparte was

thundering on his triumphant course. France was mocking the world, and

in no humour to listen to the indignant protests of a young and distant

nation. To dismember her by fanning the spirit of Jacobinism, and, at

the ripe moment,--when internal warfare had sufficiently weakened

her,--reduce her to a French colony, was a plot of which Hamilton, Rufus

King, then minister to England, and other astute statesmen more than

suspected her. But although Hamilton abhorred France and was outraged at

her attitude, the spirit of moderation which had regulated all his acts

in public life suffered no fluctuation, and he immediately counselled

the sending of a commission to make a final attempt before recourse to

arms. War, if inevitable, but peace with honour if possible; it was not

fair to disturb the prosperity of the young country except as a last

resort. For once he and Adams were agreed. Hamilton suggested Jefferson

or Madison as a sop to the Revolutionists, with two Federalists to keep

him in order. But the President would have his own commissioners or

none. He despatched Marshall and Gerry and ordered C.C. Pinckney to join

them. Talleyrand refused them official reception, and sent to them, in

secret, nameless minions--known officially, later on, as X.Y.Z.--who

made shameful proposals, largely consisting of inordinate demand for

tribute. Marshall and Pinckney threw up the commission in disgust. The

Opposition in Congress demanded the correspondence; and Adams, with his

grimmest smile, sent it to the Senate. It was a terrible blow to the

Jacobins, not only the manner in which France had prejudiced her

interests in this country; some of the disclosures were extremely

painful to ponder upon. "Perhaps," one of the backstairs ambassadors had

remarked, "you believe that, in returning and exposing to your

countrymen the unreasonableness of the demands of this Government, you

will unite them in resistance to those demands. You are mistaken. You

ought to know that the diplomatic skill of France, and the means she

possesses in your country, are sufficient to enable her, with _the

French party in America_, to throw the blame, which will attend the

rupture, on the Federalists, as you term yourselves, but the British

party, as France terms you; and you may assure yourselves this will be

done." Jefferson retired to weep alone. Several of the faction resigned

from Congress. Hamilton published his pamphlets, "The Stand," "France,"

and "The Answer," and the whole country burst into a roar of vengeance,

echoing Pinckney's parting shot: "Millions for defence, not a cent for

tribute!" "Hail Columbia" was composed, and inflamed the popular

excitement. Federalist clubs paraded, wearing a black cockade, and one

street riot followed another. Brockholst Livingston had his nose pulled,

and killed his man. With the exception of the extreme Jacobins, who

never swerved from their devotion to France and the principles she had

promulgated with the guillotine, the country was for war to a man, and

the President inundated with letters and memorials of encouragement. The

immediate result was the augmentation of the Federalist party, and the

decline of Jacobinism.

For a long while past, Hamilton had been urging naval and military

preparations. A bold front, he thought, would be more effective than

diplomacy; and the sequel proved his wisdom. When the crisis came a bill

for a Provisional Army was passed at once, another for the increase of

the Navy, and liberal appropriations were made. The proposed alliance

with Great Britain, Hamilton effectually opposed, for he was almost as

exasperated with England as with France; in her fear that the French

party in the United States would triumph and declare war upon her, she

had renewed her depredations upon our commerce.

Few believed that Washington would serve again, and the Nation turned

naturally to Hamilton as its General-in-chief. He had manifestly been

born to extricate them from difficulties. Even the Presidential faction

put their pride in their pockets, and agreed that he was the one man in

the country of matchless resource and military genius; they passed over

the veterans of the war without controversy. But there was one man who

never put his pride in his pocket, and that was John Adams. Rather than

present to Alexander Hamilton another opportunity for distinction and

power, he would himself cull fresh laurels for George Washington; the

supply of his old rival was now so abundant that new ones would add

nothing. Hamilton already had written to Washington as peremptorily as

only he dared, urging that he must come forth once more and without

hesitation. Washington replied that he would as cheerfully go to the

tombs of his ancestors, but admitted the obligation, and asked Hamilton

would he serve with him? Hamilton answered that he would on condition

that he be second in command to himself; he would make no further

sacrifice for an inconsiderable reward. When Washington, therefore,

received Adams's invitation, he made his acceptance conditional upon

being given the power to appoint his generals next in rank. Adams,

meanwhile, without waiting for his answer, had sent his name to the

Senate, and it had been confirmed as a matter of course. Washington was

irritated, but persisted in his condition, and sent in the names of

Alexander Hamilton for Inspector-General, with the rank of

Major-General, C.C. Pinckney and Knox for Major-Generals, and a list of

Brigadiers and Adjutant-Generals. Adams, fuming, sent the names to the

Senate, and they were confirmed in the order in which Washington had

written them; but when they came back, jealousy and temper mastered him,

and he committed the intemperate act which tolled the death-knell of the

Federalist party: he ordered the commissions made out with Hamilton's

name third on the list. Knox and Pinckney, he declared, were entitled to

precedence; and so the order should stand or not at all. He had not

anticipated an outcry, and when it arose, angry and determined, he was

startled but unshaken. The leading men in Congress waited upon him; he

received a new deluge of letters, and the most pointed of them was from

John Jay. Hamilton alone held his peace. He saw the terrible mistake

Adams had made, and dreaded the result. He wrote to Washington that he

should be governed entirely by his wishes, that he should not embarrass

him in any manner, and that it never should be said of himself that his

ambition or interest had stood in the way of the public welfare. But

when Adams stood with his head down, like an angry bull, and it was

plain to be seen that his astonishing attitude was prompted by personal

hatred alone, when the Cabinet and all the eminent men in the Nation,

with the exception of the Republican leaders, faced him with an equally

determined front, there was nothing for Hamilton to do but to stand his

ground; and he stood it. Washington put an end to the unfortunate

controversy. He gave Adams his choice between submission or the

selection of another General-in-chief. Adams submitted, but Hamilton had

in him an enemy no less malignant than Thomas Jefferson himself. Adams

had roused the deep implacability of Hamilton's nature. All hope of even

an armed truce for party advantage between the two great Federalists was

over. Hamilton had one cause for resentment which alone would have made

him ardently desire retaliation: General Knox, who had loved him

devotedly for twenty years, was bitterly alienated, and the breach was

never healed.

Hamilton made his headquarters in New York, where he could, after a

fashion, attend to his law practice,--he was now the leading counsel at

the bar,--but he entered upon his new duties with all his old spirit and

passionate energy. Although France might be discomfited by the readiness

and resource of the United States, the imposing front erected by a

universal indignation, there were reasons which made the reverse

possible; and Hamilton thrilled with all the military ardours of his

youth at the prospect of realizing those half-forgotten ambitions. He

had, in those days, sacrificed his burning desire for action and glory

to a sense of duty which had ruled him through life like a tyrannical

deity. Was he to reap the reward at this late hour? finish his life,

perhaps, as he had planned to begin it? Once more he felt a boundless

gratitude for the best friend a mortal ever made. Washington passed

Hamilton over the heads of those superior in military rank, because he

knew that he alone was equal to the great task for which himself was too

old and infirm; but Hamilton never doubted that he did it with a deep

sense of satisfied justice and of gratitude.

Never had Hamilton's conspicuous talent for detail, unlimited capacity

for work, genius for creating something out of nothing, marshalled for

more active service than now. He withheld his personal supervision from

nothing; planning forts, preparing codes of tactics, organizing a

commissariat department, drafting bills for Congress, advising M'Henry

upon every point which puzzled that unfinished statesman, were but a few

of the exercises demanded of the organizer of an army from raw material.

The legislation upon one of his bills finally matured a pet project of

many years, the Military Academy at West Point. Philip Church, the

oldest son of Angelica Schuyler, was his aide; John Church, after a

brilliant career as a member of Parliament, having returned to American

citizenship, his wife to as powerful a position as she had held in

London.

It is hardly necessary to inform any one who has followed the fortunes

of Hamilton as far as this that he purposed to command an army of

aggression as well as defence. A war with France unrolled infinite

possibilities. Louisiana and the Floridas should be seized as soon as

war was declared, and he lent a kindly ear to Miranda, who was for

overthrowing the inhuman rule of Spain in South America. "To arrest the

progress of the revolutionary doctrines France was then propagating in

those regions, and to unite the American hemisphere in one great

society of common interests and common principles against the

corruption, the vices, the new theories of Europe," was an alluring

prospect to a man who had given the broadest possible interpretation to

the Constitution, and whose every conception had borne the stamp of an

imperialistic boldness and amplitude.

But these last of his dreams ended in national humiliation. This time he

had sacrificed his private interests, his vital forces, for worse than

nothing. One enemy worked his own ruin, and Louisiana was to add to the

laurels of Jefferson.

Talleyrand, astonished and irritated by these warlike preparations and

the enthusiasm of the infant country, wisely determined to withdraw with

grace while there was yet time. He sent a circuitous hint to President

Adams that an envoy from the United States would be received with proper

respect. For months Adams had been tormented with the vision of Hamilton

borne on the shoulders of a triumphant army straight to the Presidential

chair. His Cabinet were bitterly and uncompromisingly for war; Hamilton

had with difficulty restrained them in the past. Adams, without giving

them an inkling of his intention, sent to the Senate the name of William

Vans Murray, minister resident at The Hague, to confirm as envoy

extraordinary to France.

For a moment the country was stupefied, so firm and uncompromising had

been the President's attitude hitherto. Then it arose in wrath, and his

popularity was gone for ever. As for the Federalist party, it divided

into two hostile factions, and neither had ever faced the Republicans

more bitterly. A third of the party supported the President; the rest

were for defeating him in the Senate, and humiliating him in every

possible way, as he had humiliated the country by kissing the

contemptuous hand of France the moment it was half extended.

Hamilton was furious. He had been in mighty tempers in his life, but

this undignified and mortifying act of the President strained his

statesmanship to the utmost. It stood the strain, however; he warned

the Federalist leaders that the step taken was beyond recall and known

to all the world. There was nothing to do but to support the President.

He still had an opportunity for revenge while openly protecting the

honour of the Nation. Did Murray, a man of insufficient calibre and

prestige, go alone, he must fail; Adams would be disgraced; war

inevitable, with glory, and greater glory, for himself. But when

circumstances commanded his statesmanship, he ceased to be an

individual; personal resentments slumbered. He insisted that Murray be

but one of a commission, and Adams, now cooled and as disquieted as that

indomitable spirit could be, saw the wisdom of the advice; Oliver

Ellsworth and General Davie, conspicuous and influential men, were

despatched. Once more Hamilton had saved his party from immediate wreck;

but the strength which it had gathered during the war fever was

dissipated by the hostile camps into which it was divided, and by the

matchless opportunity which, in its brief period of numerical strength,

it had given to Thomas Jefferson.

The Federalist party had ruled the country by virtue of the

preponderance of intellect and educated talents in its ranks, and the

masterly leadership of Alexander Hamilton. The Republican party numbered

few men of first-rate talents, but the upper grade of the Federalist was

set thick with distinguished patriots, all of them leaders, but all

deferring without question to the genius of their Captain. For years the

harmonious workings of their system, allied to the aggregate ability of

their personnel, and the watchful eye and resourceful mind of Hamilton,

the silent but sympathetic figure of Washington in the background, had

enabled them to win every hard-fought battle in spite of the often

superior numbers of the Opposition. That Jefferson was able in the face

of this victorious and discouraging army to form a great party out of

the rag-tag and bobtail element, animating his policy of

decentralization into a virile and indelible Americanism, proved him to

be a man of genius. History shows us few men so contemptible in

character, so low in tone; and no man has given his biographers so

difficult a task. But those who despise him most who oppose the most

determined front to the ultimates of his work, must acknowledge that

formational quality in his often dubious intellect which ranks him a man

of genius.

His party was threatened with disorganization when the shameful conduct

of the France he adored united the country in a demand for vengeance,

and in admiration for the uncompromising attitude of the Government. Not

until the Federalists, carried away by the rapid recruiting to their

ranks, passed the Alien and Sedition laws, did Jefferson find ammunition

for his next campaign. As one reads those Resolutions to-day, one

wonders at the indiscretion of men who had kept the blood out of their

heads during so many precarious years. Three-quarters of a century later

the Chinese Exclusion Act became a law with insignificant protest; the

mistake of the Federalists lay in ignoring the fears and raging

jealousies of their time. If Hamilton realized at once that Jefferson

would be quick to seize upon their apparent unconstitutionality and

convert it into political capital, he seems to have stood alone,

although his protests resulted in the modification of both bills.

Let us not establish a tyranny! [he wrote to Wolcott]. Energy is a

very different thing from violence. If we make no false step we

shall be essentially united; but if we push things to an extreme,

we shall then give to faction body and solidity.

In their modified form they were sufficiently menacing to democratic

ideals, and Jefferson could have asked for nothing better. He

immediately drafted his famous Kentucky Resolutions, and the obedient

Madison did a like service for Virginia. The Resolutions of Madison,

although containing all the seeds of nullification and secession, are

tame indeed compared with the performance of a man who, enveloped in the

friendly mists of anonymity, was as aggressive and valiant as Hamilton

on the warpath. These Resolutions protested against the

unconstitutionality of the Federal Government in exiling foreigners, and

curbing the liberty of the press, in arrogating to itself the rights of

the States, and assuming the prerogatives of an absolute monarchy. If

Jefferson did not advise nullification, he informed the States of their

inalienable rights, and counselled them to resist the centralizing

tendency of the Federal Government before it was too late. Even in the

somewhat modified form in which these Resolutions passed the Kentucky

legislature, and although rejected by the States to which they were

despatched, they created a sensation and accomplished their primary

object. The war excitement had threatened to shove the Alien and

Sedition laws beyond the range of the public observation. The Kentucky

and Virginia Resolutions roused the country, and sent the Republicans

scampering back to their watchful shepherd. It is one of the

master-strokes of political history, and Jefferson culled the fruits and

suffered none of the odium. That these historic Resolutions contained

the fecundating germs of the Civil War, is by the way.

Such was the situation on the eve of 1800, the eve of a Presidential

election, and of the death struggle of the two great parties.

It was in December of this year of 1799 that Hamilton bent under the

most crushing blow that life had dealt him. He was standing on the

street talking to Sedgwick, when a mounted courier dashed by, crying

that Washington was dead. The street was crowded, but Hamilton broke

down and wept bitterly. "America has lost her saviour," he said; "I, a

father."