"That is just it," interrupted Troup; "the man is desperate. So are his

followers, his 'little band.' They were sick and gasping after Burr's

failure to receive one vote in the Republican caucus for even the

Vice-Presidency, and they know that the Louisiana Purchase has made

Jefferson invincible with the Democrats--or the Republicans, as

Jefferson still persists in calling them. They know that Burr's chance

for the Presidency has gone for ever. So New York is their only hope.

Secession and empire or not, their hope, like his, is in the spoils of

office; they are lean and desperate. If you balk them--"

"What a spectacle is this!" cried Hamilton, gaily. He threw himself back

on the grass, and clasped his hands behind his head. "Troup, of all men,

reproaching me for keeping a vow he once was ready to annihilate me for

having broken. That offence was insignificant to the crime of supinely

permitting our Catiline to accomplish his designs."

"If I could agree with you, I should be the last to counsel

indifference; no, not if your life were the forfeit. But I never

believed in Burr's talent for conspiracy. He is too sanguine and

visionary. He desires power, office, and emolument--rewards for his

henchmen before they desert him; but I believe he'd go--or get--no

farther, and the country is strong enough to stand a quack or two;

while, if we lose you--"

"You will live to see every prophecy I have made in regard to Burr

fulfilled. I will not, because so long as I am alive he shall not even

attempt to split the Union, to whose accomplishment and maintenance I

pledged every faculty and my last vital spark. Sanguine and visionary he

may be, but he is also cunning and quick, and there is a condition ready

to his hand at the present moment. Jefferson is bad enough, Heaven

knows. He has retained our machinery, but I sometimes fancy I can hear

the crumbling of the foundations; the demoralizing and the

disintegrating process began even sooner than I expected. He is

appealing to the meanest passion of mankind, vanity; and the United

States, which we tried to make the ideal Republic, is galloping toward

the most mischievous of all establishments, Democracy. Every cowherd

hopes to be President. What is the meaning of civilization, pray, if the

educated, enlightened, broad-minded, are not to rule? Is man permitted

to advance, progress, embellish his understanding, for his own selfish

benefit, or for the benefit of mankind? And how can his superiority

avail his fellows unless he be permitted to occupy the high offices of

responsibility? God knows, he is not happy in his power; he is, indeed,

a sacrifice to the mass. But so it was intended. He is the only

sufferer, and mankind is happier."

"Jefferson and Burr both have a consummate knowledge of the limited

understanding; they know how to tickle it with painted straws and bait

it with lies. Bonaparte is not a greater autocrat than Jefferson, but

our tyrant fools the world with his dirty old clothes and his

familiarities. But I am not to be diverted. I want to keep you for my

old age. I believe that you have done your part. It has been a

magnificent part; there is no greater in history. Your friends are

satisfied. So should you be. I want you to give up politics before it is

too late. I fear more than one evil, and it has kept me awake many

nights. Burr is not the only one who wishes you under ground. His

'little band' is composed of men who are worse than himself without one

of his talents. Any one of them is capable of stabbing you in the dark.

The Virginia Junta know that the Federalist party will exist as long as

you do, and that some external menace might cohere and augment it again

under your leadership. At every Federalist banquet last Fourth you were

toasted as the greatest man in America; and I know this undiminished

enthusiasm--as well as the influence of the _Evening Post_--alarms them

deeply. They are neither great enough nor bad enough to murder you, nor

even to employ someone to do it; but more than one needy rascal knows

that he has only to call you out and kill you according to the code, to

be rewarded with an office as soon as decency permits. There is another

menace. I suppose you have heard that Mrs. Croix married a Frenchman

named Stephen Jumel while you were in Albany?"

"Yes!" exclaimed Hamilton, with interest; "who is he?"

"A Parisian diamond merchant and banker, a personal friend of Bonaparte.

The belief is that he came over here as a special emissary of the

Consulate. Of course he brought a letter to that other illustrious

agent, and to the amazement of everybody he married her. They must

handle thousands of French money between them. France would be

something more than glad to hear of your elimination from this

complicated American problem; particularly, if you demonstrate your

power by crushing this last hope of Burr's. I doubt if Burr would call

you out with no stronger motive than a desire for personal revenge. He

is no fool, and he knows that if he kills you, he had better put a

bullet through his own brain at once. He is a sanguine man, but not so

sanguine as not to know that if he compassed your death, he would be

hounded into exile. But he is in a more desperate way financially than

ever. He can borrow no more, and his debtors are clamouring. If he is

defeated in this election, and the Jumels are sharp enough to take

advantage of his fury and despair,--I think she has been watching her

chance for years; and the talk is, she is anxious, for her own reasons,

to get rid of Burr, besides,--I believe that a large enough sum would

tempt Burr to call you out--"

"He certainly is hard up," interrupted Hamilton, "for he rang my front

door bell at five o'clock this morning, and when I let him in he went on

like a madman and begged me to let him have several thousands, or

Richmond Hill would be sold over his head."

"And you gave them to him, I suppose? How much have you lent him

altogether? I know from Washington Morton that Burr borrowed six hundred

dollars of you through him."

"I lent him the six hundred, partly because his desperate plight appeals

to me--I believe him to be the unhappiest wretch in America--and more

because I don't want Europe laughing at the spectacle of a

Vice-President of the United States in Debtor's prison. Of course I

can't lend him this last sum myself, but I have promised to raise it for

him."

"Well, I argue with you no more about throwing away money. Did you

listen to what I said about Madame Jumel?"

"With the deepest interest. It was most ingenious, and does honour to

your imagination." Troup, with an angry exclamation, sprang to his

feet. Hamilton deftly caught him by the ankle and his great form

sprawled on the grass. He arose in wrath.

"You are no older than one of your own young ones!" he began; then

recovered, and resumed his seat. "This is the latest story I have heard

of you," he continued: "Some man from New England came here recently

with a letter to you. When he returned to his rural home he was asked if

he had seen the great man. 'I don't know about the _great_' he replied;

'but he was as playful as a kitten.'"

Hamilton laughed heartily. "Well, let me frolic while I may," he said.

"I shall die by Burr's hand, no doubt of that. Whether he kills me for

revenge or money, that is my destiny, and I have known it for years. And

it does not matter in the least, my dear Bob. I have not three years of

life left in me."

IX

Burr was defeated by a majority of seven thousand votes; and New

England, which had hoped, with the help of a man who was at war with all

the powerful families of New York,--Schuylers, Livingstons, and Clintons

at the head of them,--to break down the oligarchy of which it had been

jealous for nearly a century, deserted the politician promptly.

Incidentally, Hamilton had quenched its best hope of secession, for the

elected Governor of New York, Judge Lewis, was a member of the

Livingston family. Burr was in a desperate plight. Debtor's prison and

disgrace yawned before him; his only followers left were a handful of

disappointed politicians, and these deserted him daily. But although his

hatred of Hamilton, by now, was a foaming beast within him, he was wary

and coolheaded, and history knows no better than he did that if he

killed the man who was still the most brilliant figure in America, as

well as the idol of the best men in it, cunning, and skill, and mastery

of every political art would avail him nothing in the future; every

avenue but that frequented by the avowed adventurer would be closed to

him. Moreover, he must have known that Hamilton's life was almost over,

that in a very few years he could intrigue undisturbed. Nor could he

have felt a keen interest in presenting to Jefferson so welcome a gift

as his own political corpse. But desperate for money, crushed to the

earth, his hatred for Hamilton cursing and raging afresh, the only

conspicuous enemy who might be bought with gold of the man who was still

a bristling rampart in the path of successful Jacobinism, he was in a

situation to fall an easy victim to greater plotters than himself. His

act, did he challenge Hamilton, would be ascribed to revenge, and the

towering figures in the background of the tragedy would pass unnoticed

by the horrified spectators in front.

On June 18th William Van Ness, Burr's intimate friend, waited upon

Hamilton with a studiously impertinent note, demanding an acknowledgment

or denial of the essence of certain newspaper paragraphs, which stated

that the leader of the Federalists had, upon various occasions,

expressed his low opinion of the New York politician, and in no measured

terms. Hamilton replied, pointing out the impossibility of either

acknowledging or denying an accusation so vague, and analyzed at length

the weakness of Burr's position in endeavouring to pick a quarrel out of

such raw material. He said, in conclusion:--

I stand ready to avow or disavow promptly and explicitly any

precise or definite opinion which I may be charged with having

declared of any gentleman. More than this cannot fitly be expected

from me; and especially, it cannot reasonably be expected that I

shall enter into an explanation upon a basis so vague as that which

you have adopted. I trust on more reflection you will see the

matter in the same light with me. If not I can only regret the

circumstance and must abide the consequences.

Hamilton foresaw the inevitable end, and commenced putting his affairs

in order at once; but, for both personal and abstract reasons, holding

the practice of duelling in abhorrence, he was determined to give Burr

any chance to retreat, consistent with his own self-respect. Burr

replied in a manner both venomous and insulting, and Hamilton called

upon Colonel Pendleton, General Greene's aide during the Revolution, and

asked him to act as his second. On the 23d he received a note from Van

Ness, inquiring when and where it would be most convenient for him to

receive a communication, and the correspondence thereafter was conducted

by the seconds.

It was Sunday, and Hamilton was at The Grange, when the note from Van

Ness arrived. He was swinging in a hammock, and he put the missive in

his pocket, shrugged his shoulders, and lifted himself on his elbow. His

entire family, with the exception of his wife and Angelica, were

shouting in the woods. The baby, a sturdy youngster of two, named for

the brother who had died shortly before his birth, emerged in a state of

fury. He had eighty-two years of vitality in him, and he roared like a

young bull. Hamilton's children inherited the tough fibre and the

longevity of the Schuylers. Of the seven who survived him all lived to

old age, and several were close to being centenarians.

Angelica was busy in her aviary, close by. She was now twenty, and one

of the most beautiful girls in the country, but successive deaths had

kept her in seclusion; and the world in which her parents were such

familiar figures was to remember nothing of her but her tragedy. Betsey,

still as slim as her daughter, ran from the house at the familiar roar,

and Gouverneur Morris came dashing through the woods with a half-dozen

guests, self-invited for dinner. It was an animated day, and Hamilton

was the life of the company. He had no time for thought until night. His

wife retired early, with a headache; the boys had subsided even earlier.

At ten o'clock Angelica went to the piano, and Hamilton threw himself

into a long chair on the terrace and clasped his hands behind his head.

"So," he thought, "the end has come. My work is over, I suppose.

Personally, I am of no account. All I would have demanded, by way of

reward for services faithfully executed, was the health to make a decent

living and ten or fifteen years of peaceful and uninterrupted intimacy

with my family. For fame, or public honours, or brilliant successes of

any sort, I have ceased to care. Nothing would tempt me to touch the

reins of public life again unless in the event of a revolution. I

believe I have crushed that possibility with this election; otherwise, I

doubt if my knell would have sounded. On the bare possibility that such

is not the case, and that my usefulness may not be neutralized by public

doubt of my courage, I must accept this challenge, whether or not I have

sufficient moral courage to refuse it. I believe I have; but that is

neither here nor there, and I shall fall. Should I survive, the sole

reason would be danger ahead. For the last two years I have felt myself

moving steadily deathward. By this abrupt exit I but anticipate the

inevitable a year or two, and doubtless it seems to the destiny that

controls my affairs as the swiftest way to dispose of Burr, and awaken

the country to the other dangers that menace it. To the last I am but a

tool. No man was ever so little his own master, so thrust upon a planet

for the accomplishment of public and impersonal ends alone. I have been

permitted a certain amount of domestic felicity as my strength was best

conserved thereby, my mind free to concentrate upon public duties. I was

endowed with the gift of fascination, that men should follow me without

question, and this country be served with immediate effectiveness, I

have received deep and profound satisfaction from both these

concessions, but it would not matter in the least if I had not. They

were inevitable with the equipment for the part I had to play. I have

had an astonishing and conquering career against the mightiest

obstacles, and I may as a further concession, be permitted an enduring

place in history; but that, also, is by the way. I conquered, not to

gratify my love of power and to win immortal fame, but that I might

accomplish the part for which I was whirled here from an almost

inaccessible island fifteen hundred miles away--to play my part in the

creation of this American empire. It has been a great part, creatively

the greatest part. The proof that no native-born American could have

played it lies in the fact that he did not. The greatest of her men have

abetted me; not one has sought to push me aside and do my work. My only

enemies have been those who would pull my structure down; the most

ambitious and individual men in the Union, of the higher sort, are my

willing followers. To win them I never plotted, nor did I ever seek to

dazzle and blind them. Part of my equipment was the power to convince

them without effort of my superior usefulness; there was no time to

lose. I am nothing but a genius, encased in such human form as would

best serve its purpose; an atom of the vast creative Being beyond the

Universe, loaned for an infinitesimal part of time to the excrescence

calling itself The United States of North America, on the dot called

Earth. Now the part is played, and I am to be withdrawn. That my human

heart is torn with insupportable anguish, matters not at all. I leave

that behind."

Hamilton had been bred in the orthodox religion of his time, and its

picturesqueness, including its ultimates of heaven and hell, had taken

firm hold of his ardent imagination. But in his cosmic moments the

formulations of this planet played no part.

"I have not even a mother-country," he thought. "I am a parent, not a

child. My patriotism has been that of a tigress for her young, not of a

man for his fatherland. God knows I am willing, and always have been, to

die for this country, which is so much my own, but why--why--need I have

been made so human? Could I not have understood men as well? Could I not

have performed my various part without loving my wife and children, my

friends, with the deepest tenderness and passion of which the human

heart is capable? Then I would go without a pang, for I am tired, and

death would be a relief. But, since all humanity was forced into me, why

should not I, now that I have faithfully done my part, be permitted a

few years of happiness by my hearthstone?"

He raised his hands as if to shut out the cold high stars. He had had

few bitter moments since the night, four years before, when he had

deliberately exorcised bitterness and hate; and that mellowness had come

to him which came to his great rivals in their old age. But to-night he

let the deeps rise. He ached with human wants, and he was bidden to

work out his last act of service to the country for whose sole use he

had been sent to Earth.

He dropped his hands and stared at the worlds above. "Must I go on?" he

thought. "Is that it? Does other work await me elsewhere? Has the

Almighty detached from himself a few creative egos, who go from world to

world and do their part; removed the day their usefulness is over, that

they shall not dissipate their energy, nor live until men regard with

slighting wonder the work of the useless old creature in their midst,

withdraw from it their first reverence? I go in the fulness of my

maturity and the high tide of respect and affection; I go in the

dramatic manner of my advent, and my work will be a sacred thing;--even

my enemies will not dare to pull it down until such time as they are

calm enough to see it as it is; and then the desire will have passed.

Doubtless all things are best and right.... Maturity? I feel as old as

time and as young as laughter."

He sat up suddenly and bent his head. Millions of tiny bells were

ringing through the forest. So low, so golden, so remote they sounded,

that they might have hung in the stars above or in the deeps of the

earth. He listened so intently for a moment that life seemed suspended,

and he saw neither the cool dark forest nor the silver ripple of the

Hudson, but a torn and desolate land, and a gravestone at his feet. Then

he passed his hand over his forehead with a long breath, and went softly

into the drawing-room.

Angelica sat at the piano, with her head thrown back, her long fair hair

hanging to the floor. Her dark eyes were blank, but her fingers shook

from the keys the music of a Tropic night. It was a music that Hamilton

had not sent a thought after since the day he landed in America,

thirty-one years ago. It had come to her, with other memories, by direct

inheritance.

He went to the dining room hastily and poured out a glass of wine. When

he returned, Angelica, as he expected, was half lying in a chair, white

and limp.

"Drink this," he said, in the bright peremptory manner to which his

children were accustomed. "I think you are not strong enough yet to

indulge in composition. You have grown too fast, and creation needs a

great deal of physical vigour. Now run to bed, and forget that you can

play a note."

Angelica sipped the wine obediently, and bade him good night. As she

toiled up the stairs she prayed for the physical strength that would

permit her to become the great musician of her ambitious dreams. Her

prayer was answered; the great strength came to her, and her music was

the wonder of those who listened; but they were very few.

Hamilton went into his library, prepared to write until morning.

Bitterness and cosmic curiosity had vanished; he was the practical man,

with a mass of affairs to arrange during the few days that were left to

him. But he did no work that night. The door-knocker pounded loudly. The

servants had gone to bed. He took a lamp, and unchained and unlocked the

front door, wondering what the summons meant, for visitors in that

lonely spot were rare after nightfall. A woman stood in the heavy shade

of the porch, and behind her was a carriage. She wore a long thin

pelisse; and the hood was drawn over her face. Nevertheless, she

hesitated but a moment. She lifted her head with a motion of haughty

defiance that Hamilton well remembered, and stepped forward.

"It is I, Hamilton," she said. "I have come to have a few words with you

alone, and I shall not leave until--"

"Come in, by all means," said Hamilton, politely. "You were imprudent to

choose such a dark night, for the roads are dangerous. When you return I

will send a servant ahead of you with a lantern."

He led the way to the library and closed the door behind them. Madame

Jumel threw off her cloak, and stood before him in the magnificence of

cloth of gold and many diamonds. Her neck blazed, and the glittering

tower of her hair was a jewel garden. She was one of the women for whom

splendour of attire was conceived, and had always looked her best when

in full regalia. To-night she was the most superb creature that man had

ever seen or dreamed of. Even her great eyes looked like jewels, deep

and burning as that blue jewel of the West Indies, the Caribbean Sea;

but her lips and cheeks were like soft pink roses. Hamilton had seen her

many times since the day of parting, for she went constantly to the

theatre, and had been invited to the larger receptions until her

reckless Jacobinism had put the final touch to the disapproval of

Federal dames; but he had never seen her in such beauty as she was

to-night. Eleven years had perfected this beauty, taken from it nothing.

He sighed, and the past rose for a moment; but it seemed a century

behind him.

"Will you not sit down?" he asked. "Can I fetch you a glass of wine? I

remember you never liked it, but perhaps, after so long a drive--"

"I do not wish any wine," said Madame Jumel, shortly. She was nonplussed

by this matter-of-fact acceptance of a situation which she had intended

should be intensely dramatic. She was not yet gone, however.

"No one ever could get the best of you, Hamilton," she exclaimed. "I

have come here to-night--how terribly delicate you look," she faltered,

with a sudden pallor. "I have not seen you for so long--"

"My health does not give me the least concern," said Hamilton,

hurriedly, wondering if he could lay his hand on a bottle of

smelling-salts without awaking his wife. "Pray go on. To what am I

indebted for the honour of this visit?"

Madame Jumel rose and swept up and down the long room twice. "Can there

be anything in that tale of royal blood?" thought Hamilton. "Or in that

other tale of equally distinguished parentage?"

She had paused with her back to him, facing one of the bookcases.

"Classics, classics, classics!" she exclaimed, in a voice which grew

steadier as she proceeded. "That was the only taste we did not share.

Don Quixote in Spanish, Dante and Alfieri in Italian; and all the German

brutes. Ah! Voltaire! Rousseau! What superb editions! No one can bind

but the French. And the dear old _Moniteur_--all bound for posterity,

which will never look at it."

She returned and stood before him, and she was quite composed.

"I came to tell you," she said, "that when you die, it will be by the

hand of my deputy. I tell you because I am determined that your last

earthly thought shall be of me."

"_Cherchez la femme--toujours!_ Why are you doing this?" he asked

curiously. "You no longer love me, and your hate should have worn out

long since."

"Neither my hate nor my love has ceased for a second. I married Jumel

for these jewels, for the courts of Europe, for a position in this

country which the mighty Schuylers cannot take from me again. But I

would fly with you to-morrow, and live with you in a hole under ground.

I came to make no such proposal, however; I know that you would

sacrifice even your family to your honour, and everything else in life

to them. For years I waited, hoping that you would suddenly come back to

me, hating you and injuring you in every way my Jacobinism could devise,

but ready to wipe your shoes with my hair the moment you appeared. Now

the hard work of your life is over. You look forward to years of

happiness with your family on this beautiful estate, while I am married

to a silly old Frenchman--who, however, has brought me my final means of

revenge. I know you well. You would rather be alive now than at any time

of your life. Well, you shall go. And I would pray, if that were my

habit, that into these last days you may condense all the agonies of

parting from those you love that I have ached and raged through in these

eleven long years."

"God knows I have bitterly regretted that you should suffer for my

passions. And, if it is any satisfaction to you, I go unwillingly, and

the parting will be very bitter."

She drew a sharp breath, and flung her head about. "One cannot triumph

over you!" she cried. "Why was I such a fool as to come here to-night?

My imagination would have served me better."

"Is it French money?" asked Hamilton.

"Yes, but I alone am responsible. We handle immense sums, and its

disposal is left to our discretion. This will be distasteful neither to

France nor Virginia,--I suppose I may have Louisiana, if I want it!--but

I am no man's agent in this matter."

"You are magnificent! It is quite like you to disdain to share your

terrible responsibility. I can lighten it a little. I shall not shoot

Burr."

"I should rather you did. Still, it does not matter. He will be disposed

of, and I shall lead the hue and cry."

"You are young to be so brutal. Will your conscience never torment you?"

"I have too much brain to submit to conscience, and you know it. I shall

suffer the torments of the damned, but not from conscience. But I would

rather suffer with you out of the world than in it. I have stood that as

long as a mere mortal can stand anything. Revenge is not my only motive.

Either you or I must go, and as I have now found the means of boundless

distraction, I live. I have been on the point of killing myself and you

more than once. But my power to injure you gave me an exquisite

satisfaction; and then, I always hoped. Now the time for the _period_

has come." Her chin sank to her neck, and she stared at him until her

eyes filled. "Do you love them so much more than you ever loved me?" she

asked wistfully.

Hamilton turned away his head. "Yes," he said.

She drew a long shivering breath. "Ah!" she said. "You are a frail

shadow of yourself. You have no passion in you. And yet, even as you

are, I would fling these jewels into the river, and live with you until

you died in my arms. You may think me a monster, if you like, but you

shall die knowing that your wife does not love you as I do."

Hamilton leaned forward and dried her tears. "Say that you forgive me,"

she said; for audacity was ever a part of genius.

"Yes," he said grimly, "I forgive you. You and Bonaparte are the two

magnificent products of the French Revolution. I am sorry you are not

more of a philosopher, but, so far as I alone am concerned, I regret

nothing."

"Oh, men!" she exclaimed, with scorn. "They are always philosophers when

they are no longer in love with a woman. But you will give me your last

conscious moment?"

"No," he said deliberately, "I shall not."

She sprang to her feet. "You will! Thank you for saying that, though! I

was about to grovel at your feet. Take me to my coach! What a fool I was

to come here!" She seized her pelisse, and wound it about her as she ran

down the hall. Hamilton followed, insisting that she give him time to

awaken a servant. But she would not heed. She flung herself into her

coach, and called to the driver to gallop his horses, unless he wished

to lose his place on the morrow. Hamilton stood on the porch, listening

to the wild flight down the rough hill through the forest But it was

unbroken, so long as he could hear anything, and he laughed suddenly and

entered the house.

"The high farce of tragedy," he thought. "Probably a mosquito will

settle on Burr's nose as he fires, and my life be spared."

X

The challenge was delivered on Wednesday. Hamilton refused to withdraw

his services from his clients in the midst of the Circuit Court, and

July 11th, a fortnight later, was appointed for the meeting. When

Hamilton was not busy with the important interests confided to him by

his clients, he arranged his own affairs, and drew up a document for

publication, in the event of his death, in which he stated that he had

criticised Burr freely for years, but added that he bore him no

ill-will, that his opposition had been for public reasons only, that his

impressions of Burr were entertained with sincerity, and had been

uttered with motives and for purposes which appeared to himself

commendable. He announced his intention to throw away his fire, and

gave this reason for yielding to a custom which he had held in avowed

abhorrence: "The ability to be in future useful, whether in resisting

mischief or effecting good, in those crises of our public affairs which

seem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable from a conformity

with public prejudice in this particular."

Burr spent several hours of each day in pistol practice, using the

cherry trees of Richmond Hill as targets. Thurlow Weed, in his

"Autobiography," has told of Burr's testament, written on the night

before the duel. Having neither money nor lands, but an infinitude of

debts, to bequeath his daughter, he left her a bundle of compromising

letters from women. The writers moved in circles where virtue was held

in esteem, and several were of the world of fashion. They had, with the

instinct of self-defence, which animates women even in that stage where

they idealize the man, omitted to sign their names. Burr supplied the

omission in every case and added the present address. That Hamilton

would throw away his fire was a possibility remote from the best effort

of Burr's imagination, and although he knew that no one could fire more

quickly than himself, he was not the man to go to the ground unprepared

for emergencies: if his daughter, now Mrs. Alston, would obey his hint

and blackmail, she might realize a pretty fortune. That Theodosia Burr,

even with the incentive of poverty, would have sunk to such ignominy, no

one who knows the open history of her short life will believe; but the

father, whose idol she was, insulted her and stained her memory, too

depraved and warped to understand nobility in anyone, least of all in

one of his own blood. In the study of lost souls Burr has appealed to

many analysts, and by no one has been made so attractive as by Harriet

Beecher Stowe; who, knowing naught by experience of men of the world,

either idealized them as interesting villains or transformed them into

beasts. In Burr she saw the fallen angel, and bedewed him with many

Christian tears. But I doubt if Burr, the inner and real Burr, had far

to fall. His visible divergence from first conditions was as striking

as, no doubt, it was natural. As the grandson of Jonathan Edwards, the

son of the Reverend Aaron Burr, and reared by relatives of that same

morbid, hideous, unhuman school of early New England theology, it only

needed a wayward nature in addition to brain and spirit to send him

flying on his own tangent as soon as he was old enough to think. After

that his congenital selfishness did the rest. For a time he climbed the

hill of prizes very steadily, taking, once in a way, a flight, swift as

an arrow: in addition to great ability at the bar, and a cunning which

rose to the dignity of a talent, he was handsome, magnetic, well-bred,

and polished, studied women with the precision of a vivisectionist,

assumed emotions and impulses he could not feel with such dexterity that

even men yielded to his fascination until they plumbed him; had in fact

many of the fleeting kindly instincts to which every mortal is subject

who is made of flesh and blood, or comes of a stock that has been bred

to certain ideals. Every wretch has a modicum of good in him, and in

spite of the preponderance of evil in Burr, had he been born under

kindly Southern skies with a gold spoon in his mouth, if, when ambitions

developed, he had had but to stretch out his hand to pluck the prizes of

life, instead of exercising the basest talents of his brain to overreach

more fortunate men, why it is possible that his nature might not have

hardened into a glacier: its visible third dazzling and symmetrical, its

deadly bulk skulking below the surface of the waters which divided the

two parts of him from his victims; might have died in the chaste

reclusion of an ancestral four-poster, beneficiaries at his side. But

that immalleable mind lacked the strong fibre of logic and

foresight--which is all that moral force amounts to--that lifts a man

triumphant above his worst temptations; and he paid the bitter and

hideous penalty in a poverty, loneliness, and living death that would

have moved the theologians of his blood to the uneasy suspicion that

punishment is of this earth, a logical sequence of foolish and

short-sighted acts. Both men and women are allowed a great latitude in

this world; they have little to complain of. It is only when the brain

fails in its part, or the character is gradually undermined by lying

and dishonour, that the inevitable sequence is some act which arouses

the indignation of society or jerks down the iron fist of the law. When

Burr took to the slope he slid with few haltings. In his long life of

plottings and failures, from his sympathy with the Conway Cabal to his

desperate old age, there were no depths of blackguardism that he did not

touch. Whether Madame Jumel spoke the truth or not to Hamilton on that

night of their last interview, it was entirely in keeping with his life

and character that he should kill for hire.

On the Fourth of July, the Society of the Cincinnati gave its annual

dinner. This society, then the most distinguished in the Union, and

membered by men who had fought in the War of Independence, had, upon the

death of Washington, their first President, elected Hamilton to the

vacant office. He presided at this banquet, and never had appeared nor

felt happier. Not only did that peculiar exaltation which precedes

certain death possess him, as it possesses all men of mettle and brain

in a like condition, but the philosophy which had been born in him and

ruled his imagination through life had shrugged its shoulders and

accepted the inevitable. Hamilton knew that his death warrant had been

signed above, and he no longer experienced a regret, although he had

often felt depressed and martyred when obliged to go to the courts of

Albany and leave his family behind him. He had lost interest in his

body; his spirit, ever, by far, the strongest and the dominant part of

him, seemed already struggling for its freedom, arrogant and blithe as

it approached its final triumph. There is nothing in all life so selfish

as death; and the colossal ego which genius breeds or is bred out of,

isolated Hamilton even more completely than imminent death isolates most

men. The while he gave every moment he could spare to planning the

future comfort and welfare of his family, he felt as if he had already

bade them farewell, and wondered when and how he should meet them

again.

At this gathering he was so gay and sportive that he infected the great

company, and it was the most hilarious banquet in the society's history.

The old warriors sighed, and wondered at his eternal youth. When he

sprang upon the table and sang his old camp-song, "The Drum," he looked

the boy they remembered at Valley Forge and Morristown. There was only

one member of the company who was unelectrified by the gay abandon of

the evening, and his sombre appearance was so marked in contrast that it

was widely commented on afterward. Burr frequently leaned forward and

stared at Hamilton in amazement. As the hilarity waxed, his taciturnity

deepened, and he finally withdrew.

The secret was well kept. Few knew of the projected meeting, and none

suspected it, although Burr's pistol practice aroused some curiosity. He

had been a principal in a number of duels, and killed no one. But he was

known to have more than one bitter score to pay, for this last campaign

had exceeded every other in heat and fury. So many duels had studded it,

and so many more impended, that the thinking men of the community were

roused to a deep disapproval of the custom. The excitement and horror

over the sacrifice of Hamilton, full-blew this sentiment.

On Saturday, Hamilton gave a dinner at the Grange, and a guest was one

of Washington's first aides, Colonel Trumbull. As he was leaving,

Hamilton took him aside and said, with an emphasis which impressed

Trumbull even at the moment: "You are going to Boston. You will see the

principal men there. Tell them from me, as my request, for God's sake to

cease these conversations and threatings about a separation of the

Union. It must hang together as long as it can be made to. If this Union

were to be broken, it would break my heart."

The following day preceded the duel. Hamilton attended an entertainment

given by Oliver Wolcott, whose fortunes he had made, raising the capital

of a business that could be presided over by no one so well as a former

Secretary of the Treasury. It was a large reception, and he met many of

his old friends. Lady Kitty Duer, widowed, but pleasantly

circumstanced, was there, and Kitty Livingston, once more bearing her

old name in a second marriage. Bitter as the feeling between her house

and Hamilton still was, she had declared long since that she would not

cut him again; and although they never met in private, they often

retired to a secluded corner at gatherings and talked for an hour. His

first reason for attending this reception was to shake her hand as they

parted. Madame Jumel was there, paling the loveliness of even the young

daughters of Mrs. Jay and Lady Kitty Duer. Those who did not mob about

Hamilton surrounded her, and although her cheek was without colour, she

looked serene and scornful.

After the reception Hamilton spent an hour with Troup. This oldest of

his friends, and Angelica, were the only people whose suspicion he

feared. Troup was quite capable of wringing Burr's neck, and his

daughter of taking some other desperate measure. But it was long now

since he had given Angelica reason for anxiety, and she had ceased to

watch him; and to-day, Troup, whom he had avoided hitherto, was treated

to such a flow of spirits that he not only suspected nothing, but

allowed himself to hope that Hamilton's health was mending. Hamilton

dared not even hold his hand longer than usual at parting, although he

longed to embrace him.

That night, in the late seclusion of his library, Hamilton wrote two

letters to his wife, in one of which he recommended Mrs. Mitchell to her

care; then the following to Sedgwick, still a close friend, and probably

the most influential man in New England:--

NEW YORK, July 10th, 1804.

MY DEAR SIR: I have received two letters from you since we last saw

each other--that of the latest date being the twenty-fourth of May.

I have had on hand for some time a long letter to you, explaining

my view of the course and tendency of our politics, and my

intentions as to my own future conduct. But my plan embraced so

large a range, that, owing to much avocation, some indifferent

health, and a growing distaste for politics, the letter is still

considerably short of being finished. I write this now to satisfy

you that want of regard for you has not been the cause of my

silence.

I will here express but one sentiment, which is, that DISMEMBERMENT

of our EMPIRE will be a clear sacrifice of great positive

advantages, without any counterbalancing good; administering no

relief to our real disease, which is DEMOCRACY; the poison of

which, by a subdivision, will only be the more concentrated in each

part, and consequently the more virulent. King is on his way to

Boston where you may chance to see him and hear from himself his

sentiments. God bless you.

A.H.

As he folded and sealed the letter he suddenly realized that the act was

the final touch to the order of his earthly affairs, and he lifted his

hand as though to see if it were still alive. "To-morrow night!" he

thought. "Well, now that the hour has come, I go willingly enough. I

have been permitted to live my life; why should I murmur? There has been

sufficient crowded into my forty-seven years to cover a century. I have

been permitted to play a great part in history, to patch together a

nation out of broken limbs and inform it with a brain. It is right that

I should regard myself in this final hour as a statesman and nothing

more, and that I should go without protest, now that I have no more to

do. I can only be deeply and profoundly thankful that out of three

millions of Americans I was selected, that I have conquered in spite of

all obstacles, and remained until I have nothing more to give. It is

entirely right and fitting that I should die as I have lived, in the

service of this country. Only a sacrifice can bring these distracted

States to reason and eliminate the man most dangerous to their peace. If

I have been chosen for this great part, I should be unworthy indeed if I

rebelled."

XI

Hamilton crossed the river to Weehawken at seven the next morning. He

was accompanied by Pendleton, and his surgeon, Dr. Hosack. It was

already very hot. The river and the woods of the Jersey palisades were

dim under a sultry blue haze. There was a swell on the river, and

Pendleton was very sick. Hamilton held his head with some humour, then

pointed out the great beauty of the Hudson and its high rugged banks,

to distract the unhappy second's mind.

"The majesty of this river," he said, "its suggestion of a vast wild

country almost unknown to the older civilizations, and yet peopled with

the unembodied spirits of a new and mighty race, quicked my unborn

patriotism, unconsciously nourished it until its delivery in Boston."

"It would have curdled mine," said Pendleton. "Who knows--if you had

been of a bilious temperament, the face of our history might wear a pug

nose and a weak chin."

Hamilton laughed. "It never could have done that while Washington's

profile was stamped on the popular fancy. But lesser causes than

seasickness have determined a man's career. Perhaps to my immunity I owe

the fact that I am not a book-worm on St. Croix. If I had even once felt

as you did just now, my dear Pendleton, I should never have set sail for

America."

"Thank God!" said Pendleton. They were beaching. A moment later he and

Hamilton had climbed to the ledge where Burr and Van Ness awaited them.

It was the core of a thick grove, secluded from the opposite shore and

from the high summit of the great palisade.

Hamilton and Burr nodded pleasantly. The men were dressed in the silken

finery of their time, and looked like a pleasuring quartette in that

green and lovely spot. Through leafy windows they saw the blue Hudson,

the spires and manor-houses, the young city, on the Island. The image of

Philip rose to Hamilton, but he commanded it aside.

Pendleton had the choice of position and was to give the word. He had

brought with him John Church's pistols, now in their fourth duel. Their

first adventure caused the flight of Church to America. Since then, they

had been used in his duel with Burr and by Philip Hamilton.

He handed one of the pistols to Hamilton, and asked him if he should set

the hair-spring.

"No, not this time," said Hamilton.

Pendleton gave the word. Burr raised his arm, deliberately took aim,

and fired, Hamilton lifted himself mechanically to the tips of his feet,

turned sideways, and fell on his face. His pistol went off, and

Pendleton's eye involuntarily followed the direction of the ball, which

severed a leaf in its flight. Often afterward he spoke of the impression

the cloven leaf made on him, a second of distraction at which he caught

eagerly before he bent over Hamilton. Hosack scrambled up the bank, and

Burr, covered with an umbrella by Van Ness, hastily withdrew.

Hamilton was half sitting, encircled by Pendleton's arm, when the

surgeon reached the spot. His face was gray. He muttered, "This is a

mortal wound," then lost consciousness. Hosack ascertained, after a

slight examination, that the ball was in a vital part, and for a few

moments he thought that Hamilton was dead; he did not breathe, nor was

any motion of heart or pulse perceptible. With Pendleton's assistance,

Hosack carried him down the bank and placed him in the barge. William

Bayard had offered his house in case of disaster, and the boat was

propelled over to the foot of Grand Street as rapidly as possible.

Before reaching the shore the surgeon succeeded in reviving Hamilton,

who suddenly opened his eyes.

"My vision is indistinct," he said. In a moment it grew stronger, and

his eye fell on the case of pistols. His own was lying on the top. "Take

care of that pistol," he said. "It is undischarged and still cocked.

Pendleton knows that I did not intend to fire at him." He closed his

eyes, and said nothing further except to enquire the state of his pulse,

and to remark that his lower extremities had lost all feeling. As the

boat reached the pier, he directed that his wife and children be sent

for at once, and that hope be given them. Bayard was standing on the

shore in a state of violent agitation. It was in these pleasant grounds

of his that the great banquet had been given to Hamilton after the

Federalists had celebrated their leader's victory at Poughkeepsie, and

he had been his friend and supporter during the sixteen years that had

followed.

Hamilton was placed in bed on the lower floor of Bayard's house; and, in

spite of the laudanum that was liberally administered, his sufferings

were almost intolerable. His children were not admitted to the room for

some time, but his wife could not be kept from him. She knew nothing of

the duel, but she saw that he was dying; and the suddenness and horror,

the end of her earthly happiness, drove her frantic. She shrieked and

raved until Hamilton was obliged to rouse himself and attempt to calm

her. The children were huddled in the next room, and when the pain

subsided for a time, they were brought in. Hamilton's eyes were closed.

When he was told that his children were beside his bed, he did not open

them at once. In those moments he forgot everything but the agony of

parting. Finally, he lifted his heavy eyelids. The children stood there,

the younger clinging to the older, shivering and staring in terror.

Hamilton gave them one look, then closed his eyes and did not open them

again for several moments. As the children were led from the room, one

of the boys fainted.

Through Hamilton's heavy brain an idea forced itself, and finally took

possession. Angelica had not stood in that little group. He opened his

eyes, half expecting that which he saw--Angelica leaning over the

foot-board, her face gray and shrunken, her eyes full of astonishment

and horror.

"Are you going to die--to die?" she asked him.

"Yes," said Hamilton. He was too exhausted to console or counsel

submission.

"To die!" she repeated. "To die!" She reiterated the words until her

voice died away in a mumble. Hamilton was insensible for the moment to

the physical torments which were sending out their criers again, and

watched her changed face with an apprehension, which, mercifully, his

mind was too confused by pain and laudanum to formulate. Angelica

suddenly gripped the foot-board with such force that the bed shook; her

eyes expanded with horror only, and she cowered as if a whip cracked

above her neck. Then she straightened herself, laughed aloud, and ran

out of the room. Hamilton, at the moment, was in the throes of an

excruciating spasm, and was spared this final agony in his harsh and

untimely death. Angelica was hurried from the house to a private asylum.

She lived to be seventy-eight, but she never recovered her reason.

Meanwhile, the grounds without were crowded with the friends of the

dying man,--many of them old soldiers,--who stood through the night

awaiting the end. Business in New York was entirely suspended. The

populace had arisen in fury at the first announcement on the bulletin

boards, and Burr was in hiding lest he be torn to pieces.

Hamilton slept little, and talked to his wife whenever he succeeded in

calming her. Her mental sufferings nearly deprived her of health and

reason; but she lived a half a century longer, attaining the great age

of ninety-seven. It was a sheltered and placid old age, warm with much

devotion; her mind remained firm until the end. Did the time come when

she thought of Hamilton as one of the buried children of her youth?

Troup, Fish, Wolcott, Gouverneur Morris, Rufus King, Bayard, Matthew

Clarkson, some twenty of Hamilton's old friends, were admitted to the

death room for a moment. He could not speak, but he smiled faintly. Then

his eyes wandered to the space behind them. He fancied he saw the

shadowy forms of the many friends who had preceded him: Laurens,

Tilghman, Harrison, Greene, André, Sterling, Duane, Duer,

Steuben,--Washington. They looked at him as affectionately as the

living, but without tears or the rigid features of extremest grief. It

is a terrible expression to see on the faces of men long intimate with

life, and Hamilton closed his eyes, withdrawing his last glance from

Morris and Troup.

Of whom did Hamilton think in those final moments? Not of Eliza Croix,

we may be sure. Her hold had been too superficial. Perhaps not even of

Elizabeth Schuyler, although he had loved her long and deeply. What more

probable than that his last hour was filled with a profound

consciousness of the isolation in which his soul had passed its mortal

tarrying? Surrounded, worshipped, counting more intimate friends

sincerely loved than any man of his time, gay, convivial, too active for

many hours of introspection, no mortal could ever have stood more

utterly alone than Hamilton. Whether or not the soul is given a sentient

immortality we have no means of discovering, but the most commonplace

being is aware of that ego which has its separate existence in his

brain, and is like to no other ego on earth; and those who think realize

its inability to mingle with another. Hamilton, with his unmortal gifts,

his unsounded depths, must have felt this isolation in all its tragic

completeness. There may have been moments when the soul of Washington or

Laurens brushed his own. Assuredly no woman companioned it for a

fraction of a second. Whatever his last thoughts, no man has met his end

with more composure.

He died at two o'clock in the afternoon.

XII

The humour and vivacity which had seldom been absent from Hamilton's

face in life withdrew its very impress with his spirit. His features had

something more than the noble repose, the baffling peace, of death; they

looked as if they had been cast long ago with the heads of the Caesars.

Gouverneur Morris, staring at him through blistered eyeballs as he lay

in his coffin, recalled the history of the House of Hamilton, of its

direct and unbroken descent--through the fortunate, and famed, and

crowned of the centuries--from the Great Constantine, from "The

Macedonian," founder of a dynasty of Roman Emperors, and from the first

of the Russian monarchs. Throughout that history great spirits had

appeared from time to time, hewed the foundations of an epoch, and

disappeared. What long-withdrawn creators had met in this exceptionally

begotten brain? Did those great makers of empire, whose very granite

tombs were dust, return to earth when their immortal energies were

invoked to create a soul for a nation in embryo? Morris reviewed the

dead man's almost unhuman gift for inspiring confidence, exerted from

the moment he first showed his boyish face to the multitude; for

triumphing to his many goals as if jagged ramparts had been grass under

his feet. He had been the brain of the American army in his boyhood; he

had conceived an empire in his young twenties; he had poured his genius

into a sickly infant, and set it, a young giant, on its legs, when he

was long under twoscore. Almost all things had come to him by intuition,

for he had lived in advance of much knowledge.

He communicated these thoughts to Troup, who left the room with him, his

head bent, his arms hanging listlessly. "He might have come in some less

human form," added Morris, bitterly. "This is the worst time of _my_

life. I am not ashamed to say I've cried my eyes out."

"I have cried my heart out," said Troup.

The funeral took place from the house of John Church, in Robinson

Street, near the upper Park. Express messengers had dashed out from New

York the moment Hamilton breathed his last, and every city tolled its

bells as it received the news. People flocked into the streets, weeping

and indignant to the point of fury. Washington's death had been followed

by sadness and grief, but was unaccompanied by anger, and a loud desire

for vengeance. Moreover, Hamilton was still a young man. Few knew of his

feeble health; and that dauntless resourceful figure dwelt in the high

light of the public imagination, ever ready to deliver the young country

in its many times of peril. His death was lamented as a national

calamity.

On the day of the funeral, New York was black. Every place of business

was closed. The world was in the windows, on the housetops, on the

pavements of the streets through which the cortège was to pass:

Robinson, Beekman, Peal, and Broadway to Trinity Church. Those who were

to walk in the funeral procession waited, the Sixth Regiment, with the

colours and music of the several corps, paraded, in Robinson Street,

until the standard of the Cincinnati, shrouded in crêpe, was waved

before the open door of Mr. Church's house. The regiment immediately

halted and rested on its reversed arms, until the bier had been carried

from the house to the centre of the street, when the procession

immediately formed. This was the order of it:--

The Military Corps

The Society of the Cincinnati

Clergy of all Denominations

The Body of Hamilton

The General's Horse

The Family

Physicians

The Judges of the Supreme Court (in deep mourning)

Mr. Gouverneur Morris in his carriage

Gentlemen of the Bar and students at law (in deep mourning)

Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of the State

Mayor and Corporation of the City

Members of Congress and Civil Officers of the United States

The Minister, Consuls, and Residents of Foreign Powers

The Officers of the Army and Navy of the United States

Military and Naval Officers of the Foreign Powers

Militia Officers of States

Presidents, Directors, and Officers of the respective Banks

Chamber of Commerce and Merchants

Marine Society, Wardens of the Port, and Masters and Officers

of the Harbour

The President, Professors, and students of Columbia College

The different Societies

The Citizens in general, including the partisans of Burr

On the coffin were Hamilton's hat and sword. His boots and spurs were

reversed across his horse. The fine gray charger, caparisoned in

mourning, was led by two black servants, dressed in white, their turbans

trimmed with black.

The military escorted him in single file, with trailing arms, the band

playing "The Dead March in Saul," minute guns from the Artillery in the

Park answered by the British and French warships in the harbour. But for

the solemn music, its still more solemn accompaniment, the tolling of

muffled bells, and the heavy tramp of many feet, there was no sound;

even women of an hysterical habit either controlled themselves or were

too impressed to give way to superficial emotion. When the procession

after its long march reached Trinity Church the military formed in two

columns, extending from the gate to the corners of Wall Street, and the

bier was deposited before the entrance. Morris, surrounded by Hamilton's

boys, stood over it, and delivered the most impassioned address which

had ever leapt from that brilliant but erratic mind. It was brief, both

because he hardly was able to control himself, and because he feared to

incite the people to violence, but it was profoundly moving. "He never

lost sight of your interests!" he reiterated; "I declare to you before

that God in whose presence we are now so especially assembled, that in

his most private and confidential conversations, his sole subject of

discussion was your freedom and happiness. Although he was compelled to

abandon public life, never for a moment did he abandon the public

service. He never lost sight of your interests. For himself he feared

nothing; but he feared that bad men might, by false professions, acquire

your confidence and abuse it to your ruin. He was ambitious only of

glory, but he was deeply solicitous for you."

The troops formed an extensive hollow square in the churchyard, and

terminated the solemnities with three volleys over the coffin in its

grave. The immense throng, white, still aghast, and unreconciled,

dispersed. The bells tolled until sundown. The city and the people wore

mourning for a month, the bar for six weeks. In due time the leading men

of the parish decided upon the monument which should mark to future

generations the cold and narrow home of him who had been so warm in

life, loving as few men had loved, exulted in the wide greatness of the

empire he had created.

It bears this inscription:

TO THE MEMORY OF

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

THE CORPORATION OF TRINITY HAVE ERECTED THIS MONUMENT IN TESTIMONY OF

THEIR RESPECT FOR THE PATRIOT OF INCORRUPTIBLE INTEGRITY THE SOLDIER OF

APPROVED VALOUR THE STATESMAN OF CONSUMMATE WISDOM

WHOSE TALENTS AND VIRTUES WILL BE ADMIRED BY GRATEFUL POSTERITY LONG

AFTER THIS MARBLE SHALL HAVE MOULDERED TO DUST

HE DIED JULY 12TH 1804, AGED 47

NOTES

PAGE XI. "Nevis" is pronounced Neevis.

PAGE 3. Of the Gingerland estate nothing remains to-day but a negro

hamlet named Fawcett. Its inhabitants are, beyond a doubt, the

descendants of slaves belonging to Hamilton's grandparents, for there is

no trace of any other family named Fawcett in the Common Records of

Nevis.

PAGE 6. This deed of separation is entered in the Common Records of

Nevis, 1725-1746, page 429, and is dated the fifth day of February,

1740.

PAGE 11. I have hesitated over the spelling of the name Levine. John

Church Hamilton, in his life of Hamilton, spells it Lavine, and in one

of Hamilton's letters, page 7, Vol. 11, of this same Life, it is spelt

in the same manner. But four times in the Records of St. Croix it is

spelt Levine. The half-brother to whom Hamilton refers in his letter had

himself baptized in Christianstadt in the year 1769, and the entry

reads: Peter, son of John Michael and Rachael Levine. In the interment

entry of Rachael Levine it is spelt in this fashion, and in the

government records of Levine's business transactions. It seems to me

probable that in copying Hamilton's letter the name was misspelled, and

although he no doubt mentioned the name freely to his family, it is

possible that he did not write it upon any other occasion. I have,

therefore, used the method for which there is a considerable authority.

PAGE 29. James Hamilton was the fourth son of Alexander Hamilton, Laird

of Grange, and his wife, Elizabeth (eldest daughter of Sir Robert

Pollock), who were married about 1730. The Hamiltons of Grange belonged

to the Cambuskeith branch of the great house of Hamilton, and the

founder of this branch, in the fourteenth century, was Walter de

Hamilton, a son of Sir Gilbert de Hamilton, who was the common ancestor

of the Dukes of Hamilton, the Dukes of Abercorn, Earls of Haddington,

Viscounts Boyne, Barons Belhaven, several extinct peerages, and of all

the Scotch and Irish Hamilton families. He was fifth in descent from

Robert, Earl of Mellent, created by Henry I, Earl of Leicester, who

married a granddaughter of King Henry I of France and his Queen, who was

a daughter of Jeroslaus, Czar of Russia. See "The Lineage of Alexander

Hamilton," in the _New York Genealogical and Biographical Review_, for

April, 1889, or "The Historical and Genealogical Memoirs of the House of

Hamilton, with Genealogical Memoirs of Several Branches of the Family,"

by John Anderson, Edinburgh, 1825, a copy of which is to be found in the

British Museum. In the latter work, against the name of James Hamilton,

is the following statement: A proprietor in the West Indies, and father

of Alexander Hamilton, the celebrated statesman and patriot in the

United States of America, who fell, greatly regretted, in a duel with a

Mr. Burr.

PAGE 35. There is still so widespread misconception of the term

"creole," that it is necessary, even at this late date, to reiterate

that it was not invented as a euphemism for coloured blood. In the

United States creoles are Southerners of French or Spanish extraction;

in the West Indies any person born on one of the islands is a creole,

even if he be an undiluted Dane.

PAGE 49. This deed of trust was entered in Vol. X, No. 1, page 180, of

the Common Records of St. Christopher, on the fifth day of May, 1756,

eight months before the birth of Alexander Hamilton.

PAGE 60. This dialect, or rather this curious mispronunciation of words,

and inability to make use of certain letters and more than one or two

personal pronouns, is gathered from old books on the islands, for the

coloured people of the present generation in the Caribbees, even those

of the lower class, now speak, save for their singsong inflection, much

like any one else. But in those days there was no education for the

blacks, and they spoke the barbarous lingo I have transcribed without

embellishment.

PAGE 65. Dr. Hamilton died in June, 1764.

PAGE 68. A piece of eight, then the principal coin in the Danish West

Indies, was worth sixty-four cents.

PAGE 69. Hugh Knox married and left two children, Ann Knox, who married

James Towers, and John Knox, who, I think, became a clergyman on St.

Thomas.

PAGE 79. The lower story of this fine building, built by Mr. Mitchell,

is in a state of entire preservation, and is now one of the largest

stores in Christiansted.

PAGE 87. The private burying-ground of the Lyttons was on the Grange

estate, owned, at the time of Rachael's death, by Chamberlain Robert

Tuite.

PAGE 88. Two candlesticks of this fashion have been preserved in

Frederiksted, and are said to have been used by Hamilton while there.

PAGE 91. I am convinced that Hugh Knox baptized Hamilton, and have had

the old records of St. Croix, deposited in the archives of Copenhagen,

thoroughly searched. But they are in so dilapidated a condition that one

might as profitably appeal to the recording angel. In 1782 the French

destroyed the church registers of Nevis, but it is hardly likely that

Rachael Levine had Hamilton baptized. The islanders were indifferent to

baptism under the most amiable conditions, usually waiting until it was

reasonable to suppose that their brood was complete, when they took it

to the font _en bloc_. But Hugh Knox would have attached great

importance to this ceremony.

PAGE 120. There is no doubt in my mind that Hamilton and young Stevens

were either first or second cousins, and that the resemblance between

them which subsequently, in the United States, gave rise to the gossip

that they were brothers, was due to this fact. I was not able to

discover that Mrs. Stevens was a daughter of John and Mary Fawcett, but

she or her husband might well have been closely related to Hamilton's

grandparents, for the few prominent families of Nevis and St.

Christopher intermarried again and again. The Fawcetts were married at

least twenty-two years before Rachael was born, and doubtless had one of

the large families of that time.

PAGE 131. "The Fields" was the old name for the City Hall Park.

PAGE 133. I have inferred that the speech Hamilton made on this occasion

was a spontaneous outburst of the same thought which he elaborated a few

weeks later in his history-making pamphlets. Wherever it has been

possible, I have used his own words, for he must have talked much as he

wrote.

PAGE 136. "Indeed he was the first to perceive and develop the idea of a

real union of the people of the United States"--"History of the

Constitution of the United States" by George Ticknor Curtis, who also

comments at length upon his having been the chief force in bringing the

discontent of the colonists to a head and precipitating the Revolution.

PAGE 145. There is space only for Hamilton's share in these battles. I

am obliged to assume that the reader knows his Revolutionary history.

PAGE 165. Nothing can be told here of Laurens's private history beyond

the statements that his too sensitive mind held him responsible for the

accidental death of a younger brother, and that he had married a woman

in England, whom he had left at the altar, to join, with all possible

haste, the fighting forces in America, and whom he never saw again. If

this meets the eye of his family and they care to trust me with the

necessary papers, I shall be glad to write a life of Laurens.

PAGE 196. This verse was found in a little bag on Mrs. Hamilton's neck

when she died at the age of ninety-seven.

PAGE 208. "At the age of three and twenty he had already formed

well-defined, profound, and comprehensive views on the situation and

wants of these states. He had clearly discerned the practicability of

forming a confederated government and adapting it to their peculiar

condition, resources, and exigencies. He had wrought out for himself a

political system, far in advance of the conceptions of his

contemporaries, and one which in the case of those who most opposed him

in life, became, when he was laid in a premature grave, the basis on

which this government was consolidated; on which to the present day it

has been administered; and on which, alone, it can safely rest in that

future which seems to stretch out its unending glories before

us."--GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS.

PAGE 209. This letter from Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, from which

this extract is taken, was first published in Martha Lamb's "History of

New York," A.S. Barnes & Co., New York.

PAGE 226. Burr was aide-de-camp to Washington for six weeks, beginning

the last week in May, 1776. He hated the work and left abruptly,

incurring Washington's contempt and dislike. The charge of his friends

that Hamilton poisoned the Chief's mind against him is wholly unfounded.

Washington made up his own mind about men, and there is no evidence that

the two young men met except in the most casual manner before this

spring of 1782. Of course it is possible that a diligent reading of

obscure correspondence might bring to light an earlier acquaintance, but

the matter is not worth the waste of time. Matthew Davis, the only

responsible biographer of Burr, gives two years as the time consumed by

Burr for his legal studies. Parton was wholly indifferent to facts and

has no serious position as a biographer; but possessing a picturesque

and entertaining style, he has been widely read, and his estimate of

Burr accepted by the ignorant.

PAGE 233. Madison was born in 1751, Morris in 1752.

PAGE 257. "A long chapter might be written about Hamilton's other

labours in the State legislature;... he laboured hard to prevent

legislation in contravention of the treaty of peace; he corrected gross

theoretical blunders in a proposed system of regulating elections, and

strove hard though not altogether successfully to eliminate religious

restrictions; he succeeded in preventing the disfranchisement of a great

number of persons for having been interested, often unwillingly, in

privateering ventures; he stayed some absurd laws proposed concerning

the proposed qualifications of candidates for office; in the matter of

taxation he substituted for the old method of an arbitrary official

assessment, with all its gross risks of error and partiality, the

principle of allowing the individual to return under oath his taxable

property; he laboured hard to promote public education by statutory

regulations; his 'first great object was to place a book in the hand of

every American child,' and he evolved a system which served as the model

of that promulgated in France by the imperial decree of 1808; he had

much to do with the legislation concerning the relations of debtor and

creditor, then threatening to dissever the whole frame of society; he

was obliged to give no little attention to the department of criminal

law; finally he had to play a chief part in settling the long and

perilous struggle concerning the 'New Hampshire Grants,' the region now

constituting the State of Vermont: his efforts in this matter chiefly

averted war and brought the first new state into the Union."--MORSE'S

"Life of Hamilton," Vol. I.

PAGE 265. The classic narrative of the Constitutional Convention is by

George Ticknor Curtis, and there have been few more fascinating

chronicles of any subject. Of the condensed narratives the most coherent

and vivid is in Roosevelt's "Life of Gouverneur Morris."

PAGE 268. Hamilton also invited Gouverneur Morris to collaborate, but

that erratic gentleman was otherwise engaged.

PAGE 269. I take this apportionment from a copy of "The Federalist"

presented by Hamilton to his nephew Philip Church, and kindly lent to me

by Mr. Richard Church. In this copy one of Hamilton's sons, at his

father's dictation, wrote the initial of the writer or writers after

each essay. To Jay are allotted Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 54. To Madison, 10, 14,

37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48. To Hamilton and Madison

jointly: 13, 19, 20. The rest to Hamilton.

PAGE 271. "'The Federalist,' written principally by Hamilton, exhibits

an extent and precision of information, a profundity of research, and an

accurateness of understanding, which would have done honour to the most

illustrious statesmen of ancient or modern times."--_Edinburgh Review_,

No. 24.

"It is a work altogether, which, for comprehensiveness of design,

strength, clearness, and simplicity, has no parallel. We do not even

except or overlook Montesquieu and Aristotle among the writings of

men."--_Blackwood's Magazine_, January, 1825.

"In the application of elementary principles of government to practical

administration 'The Federalist' is the greatest work known to

me."--_Guizot_.

PAGE 300. This coup of Hamilton's was evidently not placed on

record,--for manifest reasons,--for it is not to be found in Elliot's

"Debates," and we should have lost it but for a letter from Clinton to

John Lamb. See Foster, "On the Constitution," page 4, Vol. I.

PAGE 304. On page 842, "History of the Republic," by J.C. Hamilton, is

the only letter from Hamilton to his brother James which has been

preserved. It is well known in the family, however, that he corresponded

with both his father and brother after his arrival in America. A letter

from his father promising to come to the United States as soon as

practicable will be found on page 567, Vol. V, Hamilton's Works (J.C.

Hamilton edition).

PAGE 304. I am at a loss to understand upon what authority certain of

Hamilton's biographers base their assertion that, shortly after his

arrival in this country, he cut his West Indian relatives, ignored their

many claims upon his affection and gratitude, and deliberately excluded

them from his memory. There is no such assertion in his son's biography,

and the lives of Hamilton that have followed have been little more than

a condensation of that voluminous work. This uncharitable

assumption--which must precede such a statement--cannot be the result of

an exhaustive reading of his correspondence, for there they would find

letters from Hugh Knox and Governor Walsterstorff and Edward Stevens,

extending over a period of many years; and reproaches in none of them.

Nor can it be the result of investigation among his descendants, for it

is well known in the Hamilton family, that he not only corresponded

regularly with his relatives, including his father, for a long while,

but that he supported Mrs. Mitchell after her husband's failure and

death. And even if this indisputable information were not accessible, it

is incredible to me that any one capable of understanding Hamilton even

a little should believe that so contemptible a quality as ingratitude

had any place in his nature. The most impetuous, generous, honest, and

tender of men, he was the last person to turn his back upon those who

had befriended and supported him in his precarious youth. Had he been

capable of such meanness, he would not have died lamented by the best

men in the country, many of whom had loved him devotedly for a quarter

of a century. Nor was there any motive for such a performance. One is

not at all surprised to find that Mrs. Mitchell was among the last of

his earthly thoughts; but were there not ample proof of the falsity of

these careless assertions, then indeed would Hamilton be an enigma.

PAGE 339. Burr was married to Madame Jumel for a short time when they

were both old enough to know better. She very quickly sent him about his

business and resumed the name of her second husband. Burr had

appropriated sixteen thousand dollars with which she had entrusted him,

and, as she told people still living, his charming manners were entirely

superficial, he was cross and exacting at home. Nevertheless she did not

hesitate to make use of him upon occasion. During the bread riots in

Italy her carriage was hemmed in one day and her richly attired self

threatened by the furious populace. When it became evident that her

terrified coachman could make no headway she arose to her majestic

height, and, sweeping out one hand with her haughtiest gesture, said in

a loud and commanding tone, "Make way! make way! for the widow of the

Vice-President of the United States." The crowd fell back properly awed.

Madame Jumel claimed to have the famous diamond necklace, but for the

truth of this claim I cannot vouch. She certainly had many personal

relics of Napoleon, confided to the care of Jumel, when the fallen

Emperor meditated flight on his faithful banker's frigate.

PAGE 387. It is impossible that Hamilton could have sat for all the

alleged portraits of himself, scattered over the United States, or he

would have had no time to do any work. Moreover, few realize his

personality or the contemporaneous description of him. That in the

Boston Museum of Fine Arts is the best. That in the City Hall, New York,

is one of the best, and the copy of it in the Treasury Department,

Washington, is better. Several others are charming, notably, the one at

Morristown Headquarters, New Jersey, and the one painted for his army

friends, now in the possession of Mr. Philip Schuyler. The one in the

Chamber of Commerce is a Trumbull, but looks like a fat boy with thin

legs. It is to be hoped there will be no further photographing of that

libel. Had Hamilton looked like it he would have accomplished nothing.

PAGE 413. As the visit of little Lafayette to the United States was of

no historical moment I have taken the liberty of bringing him over at my

own pleasure. Otherwise I should have been obliged merely to mention his

advent in the course of the rapid seven years' summary which comes

later.

PAGE 430. That Hamilton conceived the ice-water cure for yellow fever is

well known to doctors.

PAGE 435. Mr. Richard Church kindly brought me an old bundle of letters

from Mrs. Church to Mrs. Hamilton. Except for the faded ink they might

been written yesterday, so lively, natural, and _modern_ were they. It

was impossible to realize that the writer was dust long since. Indeed,

in all the matter, published and unpublished, that I have read for this

book, I find no excuse for the inverted absurdities and stilted forms

with which it is thought necessary to create a hundred-year-old

atmosphere.

PAGE 441. This letter of Thomas Corbin disposes of the asseverations of

Jefferson's biographers that the leader of the Democrats dressed himself

like a gentleman until he became President. His untidiness was probably

congenital to begin with, and in any case would have been a policy from

the first, of that deep and subtle mind.

PAGE 448. A clause had been inserted in Article II of the Constitution

which would permit Hamilton, although an alien born, to be a President

of the United States.

PAGE 451. It was Mr. James Q. Howard in a letter to the New York _Sun_,

May, 1901, who called attention to the fact that Hamilton was the first

of the "Imperialists," or "Expansionists."

PAGE 458. I wrote to Colonel Mills, Commander of West Point, to ask him

if any of Hamilton's codes were still in use. The librarian of the post,

Dr. Edward S. Holden, replied, among other things, as follows: "... As

circumstances have changed, the details of his codes have changed, and

the principles which guided him have been readapted to new conditions as

they have arisen. The best praise that can be given him is, then, that

he thoroughly understood the basic principles underlying military

affairs, and that with superb genius he applied them to the exigencies

of his time with that philosophical and at the same time practical

talent which was his special endowment."

PAGE 469. I made a copy from the original of a letter from Alexander

Baring (afterward Lord Ashburton) to his counsel, D.J. Rinnan,

containing full details of this transaction. One of the significant

points about the contemptuous opinions of Burr's dishonesty which one

comes upon constantly in the correspondence of this period, is that no

one claims to have made its discovery, or to think comment worth while.

It evidently became established at an early date. But brilliancy and

dexterity saved him at the bar, and he won many a case for those who

despised him most.

PAGE 471. Tammany Hall was highly respectable in the beginning of its

career. I have here used the term in the figurative sense; it is in

truth an epigram into which all political abomination is concentrated.

PAGE 474. For correspondence of Hamilton with his Scotch relatives, and

with Secretary of the Navy regarding Robert Hamilton, see Vol. VI,

Hamilton's Works.

PAGE 496.

Burials in 1799, Con. June 3d. James Hamilton--Father of General

Hamilton in America killed by Col. Baird.

NOTE: The Rev. I. Guilding was the Rector of the Parish at this time,

and the entry was made by him in the above form.

E.A. TURPIN.

I certify that the above entry is a true and correct copy from the

Register of Burials in the Cathedral Church of St. George, in the town

of Kingston, in the island of St. Vincent, West Indies, by me,

E.A. TURPIN, Rector of St. George and St. Andrew, and Archdeacon of St.

Vincent, this 13th day of May, 1901.

PAGE 501. Hamilton never would own a slave.

PAGE 509. The story of Burr's awakening Hamilton in the early morning to

borrow of him, is related in "The History of the Republic." Mrs.

Hamilton herself is the authority for the other loan. The story was told

her by Washington Morton, her brother-in-law, who arranged it, Burr, for

once, being ashamed to go openly to Hamilton. He repaid this sum after

Hamilton's death.

PAGE 516. The oft-told tale of Hamilton and Burr meeting at the house of

Madame Jumel on the night before the challenge, I have, after careful

investigation, utterly repudiated. In the first place, the lady had been

married but two months, and to a Frenchman at that. He was a rich man

and had undoubtedly married her for love, moreover was devoted to her as

long as he lived. It is not at all likely that he was permitting

Hamilton to call one night and Burr the next--so the story runs. In the

second place, Hamilton, whatever may have been his adventures in the

past, was in no condition for gallivanting at this period, as I think I

have demonstrated. Dr. Hosack, in the paper he prepared for the _Post_

on the day following Hamilton's death, asserted that owing to the

patient's feeble condition he had been unable to give the usual

medicines. At the same time Hamilton had been working from fourteen to

fifteen hours a day. The conclusions are obvious. Moreover, General

Hamilton, now eighty-seven, and in perfect possession of all his

faculties, has told me that he frequently accompanied his grandmother,

Hamilton's widow, to call on Madame Jumel. In the small town of New York

no such sensational meeting could have been kept a secret for long.

Madame Jumel lived in the city at the time, by the way, her husband not

buying the house on the Heights until 1815.

But that she was at the bottom of the matter I should not have had the

slightest doubt, even were it not an accepted fact by both Hamilton's

present family and hers, and I arrived at my conclusions, as the story

of all concerned, and of the history of the times, developed.

PAGE 522. Burr kept these letters until he died, at the age of 80, and

left them to Matthew Davis, who destroyed those whose writers were dead,

and returned the others to certain ancient and highly respected dames.

PAGE 527. These pistols are now in the possession of Mr. Richard Church.

PAGE 531. Hamilton's strong likeness to the Caesars is best seen in the

marbles of him, notably the one executed by Ceracchi. The painted

likenesses of him either do not resemble him at all or are so full of

his vivacity, mischievous humour, and indomitable youth that they are

wholly himself.

From "Statistical Account of Scotland," Vol. V, page 450, Edinburgh:

"The most remarkable person connected with the parish (Stevenston in

Ayrshire) was the late General Alexander Hamilton of the family of

Grange, though America was the field in which he distinguished himself.

He was excelled by none as a general, orator, financier, lawyer. In the

words of one who knew him, he was 'the mentor of Washington, the framer

of the present constitution of America, a man of strict honour and

integrity; equally esteemed in public and in private life.'"

The above came to my hand after the book went to press, and I publish it

to emphasize the fact that the Scotch Hamiltons eagerly claimed the

kinship of Hamilton, quite indifferent to the irregularity of his birth.

Hamilton's children were born and named as follows: Philip, January 22,

1782; Angelica, September 25, 1784; Alexander, May 16, 1786; James

Alexander, April 14, 1788; John Church, August 22, 1792; William

Stephen, August 4, 1797; Eliza, November 20, 1799; Philip, June 7,

1802.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is a pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to the following people

who have helped me with family papers, books and political pamphlets

long out of print, their knowledge of the unwritten history of the

United States, unpublished anecdotes of Hamilton, and general

suggestions: Mr. James Q. Howard of the Library of Congress; Dr. Allan

McLane Hamilton; General A. Hamilton; Colonel J.C.L. Hamilton; Mr.

Richard Church; Mr. Roger Foster; Mr. H.W. Parker of the Mechanics'

Institute Free Library of New York; Dr. Richard B. Coutant, and Mr.

Philip Schuyler; and to the following residents of the British and

Danish West Indies:

_On St. Christopher_

Mrs. Spencer Wigley

Dr. Joseph Haven, U.S. Consul

The Rev. William Evered

The Rev. George Yoe

Mr. E.P. Latouche, Registrar and Provost Marshal

_On Nevis_

The Hon. C.C. Greaves

The Rev. W. Cowley

The Rev. Mr. Shephard

Mr. G.V. Mercier

_On St. Croix_

The Rev. W.C. Watson

Also--The West Indian works of Dr. Taylor, and Lightbourne's Annuals.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Conqueror, by Gertrude Franklin Atherton