IF ALEXANDER HAMILTON HAD NOT WRITTEN ABOUT THE HURRICANE
"He thought out the Constitution of the United States and the details of
the government of the Union; and out of the chaos that existed after the
Revolution raised a fabric every part of which is instinct with his
thought." So said one of his contemporaries, Ambrose Spencer, of
Alexander Hamilton; and another said: "He did the thinking of his time."
The thinking that Hamilton did for the young American republic was of
the most tremendous and vital importance to it. His services as a
financier were not merely of a negative or saving character--they were
positively constructive and permanently enduring; he "created a public
credit and brought the resources of the country into active efficiency."
It was Hamilton who founded the American system of business and finance.
Yet it is altogether likely that but for an accidental circumstance or
two Alexander Hamilton would never have come to the continental
colonies. He was born on the Island of Nevis, in the West Indies, and
upon that island, and upon St. Christopher and St. Croix, neighboring
islands, his life up to the age of fifteen was spent. His father, James
Hamilton, had proved "feckless and unfortunate," as a British biographer
of Hamilton expresses it, and early ceased to provide for the boy, or,
apparently, to take any interest in his education or welfare. His mother
died early, and left him to the charge of her relatives, and as she
bequeathed to them several other children, they had little thought about
Alexander except to make him of some use and lighten their own burden.
He was sent to school scarcely at all, and at the age of twelve was put
into the shop or store of Nicholas Cruger, a general dealer at St.
Croix, to earn his living as a clerk.
There he remained for about three years. He has often been described as
phenomenally precocious, and he certainly was, in the sense that his
mind ripened early. But there was nothing of the quality of smart,
self-satisfied immaturity about his genius. He read much, studied
deeply, and received some good training at the hands of Rev. Hugh Knox,
a Presbyterian minister.
But all at once there occurred the accident which resulted in his going
to the continental colonies. In the late summer of 1772 a fearful
hurricane swept over the Leeward Islands. The boy Hamilton, then
fifteen years old, had his full share in the adventures attending this
calamity, and wrote a long and vivid account of it for a newspaper
published at St. Christopher. By this brilliant piece of news work the
entire West Indies were electrified. The people there had had plenty of
hurricanes before, but none of them had ever been adequately "written
up." Young Hamilton awoke one morning to find himself in the enjoyment
of a fame which extended all the way from Jamaica to Trinidad.
The immediate result of this notoriety was to convince Alexander's
relatives that they possessed in him a prodigy, and to stimulate them to
find means to educate him. They raised a fund forthwith without any
particular difficulty, and shipped him, armed with a letter of
introduction from Rev. Mr. Knox, to Boston, en route to New York.
Lacking this assistance, it is unlikely that the youth would have found
his way to our shores. Perhaps he would, in spite of everything, have
risen to eminence in the West Indies. Very likely he would one day have
drifted to Scotland or England, and he might have become a famous man
there. But America would have lost him.
There is still another and vital contingency associated with Hamilton's
removal to the American continent. On its way to Boston, while in the
open ocean, the ship on which he had sailed took fire. For some time it
was in danger of destruction. But with great difficulty the flames were
extinguished. If they had prevailed, the career of the West Indian
genius would doubtless have been cut short by death.
Thus, by the aid, first, of a tropical hurricane, and, second, through
the efforts of the crew of the ship that bore him, in stifling a fire in
the hold, Alexander Hamilton reached the American colonies just in time
to be swept into the current of the movement for independence; to be
made over anew into an ardent American, and to put his stamp forever
upon the young nation which arose from the smoke of Bunker Hill. The
dark-skinned, dark-eyed, exotic-looking student at King's College, whom
the citizens of New York at first looked at askance as a very "queer
West Indian," became a great leader, a commander, a guide, a magnificent
constructive as well as restraining force.
What this country would have been without him, or rather, what it must
forever have failed to be, may be inferred from the things which it
became that were owed to him. He was the inventor of American
protection. American industry was founded upon his "report on
manufactures." As the first and greatest of Federalists, he saved the
confederation from disruption by supplying the idea of central
authority. Others might labor for freedom--he labored for security. He
put reason at the bottom of our commonwealth. Without his principles,
the republic would have lacked a balance wheel. The States' rights would
have been everything--the nation's rights nothing.
All our national expansion was wrapped up in Hamilton's views. McKinley
and Roosevelt have been his continuators. The sentiment which governs
our republic to-day is Hamiltonian; and the war and discord that have
afflicted us, as the result of the looseness of our confederation, must
long since have wrecked the nation but for the balance wheel with which
he supplied us.