NOW when young Aaron, in the throbbing metropolis of New York, finds
himself a lawyer and a married man, with an office by the Bowling Green
and a house in fashionable Maiden Lane, he gives himself up to a cool
survey of his surroundings. What he sees is fairly and honestly set
forth by the good Dr. Bellamy, after that dominie returns to Bethlehem
and Madam Bellamy. The latter, like all true women, is curious, and
gives the doctor no peace until he relates his experiences.
“The city,” observes the veracious doctor, looking up from tea and
muffins, “is large; some say as large as twenty-seven thousand. I
walked to every part of it, seeing all a stranger should. There is much
opulence there. The rich, of whom there are many, have not only town
houses, but cool country seats north of the town. Their Broad Way is a
fine, noble street!--very wide!--fairer than any in Boston!”
“Doctor!” expostulates Madam Bellamy, who is from Massachusetts.
“Mother, it is fact! They have, too, a new church, which cost twenty
thousand pounds. At their shipyard I saw an East Indiaman of eight
hundred tons--an immense vessel! The houses are grand, being for the
better part painted--even the brick houses.”
“What! Paint a brick house!”
“It is their ostentation, mother; their senseless parade of wealth. One
sees the latter everywhere. I was to breakfast at General Schuyler’s; it
was an elaborate affair. They assured me their best people were present;
Coster, Livingston, Bleecker, Beekman, Jay were some of the names. A
more elegant repast I never ate--all set as it was with a profusion of
massive plate. There were a silver teapot and a silver coffeepot-----”
“Solid silver?”
“Ay! The king’s hall-mark was on them; I looked. And finest linen,
too--white as snow! Also cups of gilt; and after the toast, plates of
peaches and a musk melon! It was more a feast than a breakfast.”
“Why, it is a tale of profligacy!”
“Their manners, however, do not keep pace with their splendid houses and
furnishings. There is no good breeding; they have no conversation, no
modesty. They talk loud, fast, and all together. It is a mere theater
of din and witless babble. They ask a question; and then, before you can
answer, break in with a stream of inane chatter. To be short, I met but
one real gentleman------”
“Aaron!”
“Ay, mother; Aaron. I can say nothing good of his religious side; since,
for all he is the grandson of the sainted Jonathan Edwards, he is no
better than the heathen that rageth. But his manners! What a polished
contrast with the boorishness about him! Against that vulgar background
he shines out like the sun at noon!”
Young Aaron, beginning to remember his twenty-seven years, objects to
the descriptive “young.” He has ever scorned it, as though it were some
epithet of infamy. Now he takes open stand against it.
“I am not so young,” says he, to one who mentions him as in the morning
of his years--“I am not so young but what I have commanded a brigade,
sir, on a field of stricken battle. My rank was that of colonel! You
will oblige me by remembering the title.”
In view of the gentleman’s tartness, it will be as well perhaps to
hereafter drop the “young”; for no one likes to give offense. Besides,
our tart gentleman is married, and a father. Still, “colonel” is but a
word of pewter when no war is on. “Aaron” should do better; and escape
challenge, too, that irritating “young” being dropped.
As Aaron runs his glance along the front of the town’s affairs, he notes
that in commerce, fashion, politics, and one might almost say religion,
the situation is dominated of a quartette of septs. There are the
Livingstons--numerous, rich. There are the Clintons, of whom Governor
Clinton is chief. There are the Jays, led by the Honorable John of that
ilk. Most and greatest, there are the Schuylers, in the van of which
tribe towers the sour, self-seeking, self-sufficient General Schuyler.
Aaron, in the gossip of the coffee houses, hears much of General
Schuyler. He hears more of that austere person’s son-in-law, the
brilliant Alexander Hamilton.
“I shall be glad to make his acquaintance,” thinks Aaron, when he is
told of the latter. “I met him after the battle of Long Island, when in
his pale eagerness to escape the English he had left baggage and guns
behind. Yes; I shall indeed be glad to see him. That such as he can come
to eminence in the town possesses its encouraging side.”
There is a sneer on Aaron’s face as these thoughts run in his mind;
those praises of son-in-law Hamilton have vaguely angered his selflove.
Aaron’s opportunity to meet and make the young ex-artilleryman’s
acquaintance, is not long in coming. The Tories, whom the war stripped
of their property and civil rights, are praying for relief. A conference
of the town’s notables has been called; the local great ones are to come
together in the long-room of the Fraunces Tavern. Being together,
they will consider how far a decent Americanism may unbend toward Tory
relief.
Aaron arrives early; for the Fraunces long-room is his favorite lounge.
The big apartment has witnessed no changes since a day when poor Peggy
Moncrieffe, as the modern Ariadne, wept on her near-by Naxos of Staten
Island, while a forgetful Theseus, in that same longroom, tasted his
wine unmoved. Aaron is at a corner table with Colonel Troup, when
son-in-law Hamilton arrives.
“That is he,” says Colonel Troup, for they have been talking of the
gentleman.
Already nosing a rival, Aaron regards the newcomer with a curious black
narrowness which has little of liking in it. Son-in-law Hamilton is
a short, slim, dapper figure of a man, as short and slim as is Aaron
himself. His hair is clubbed into an elaborate cue, and profusely
powdered. He wears a blue coat with bright buttons, a white vest,
a forest of ruffles, black velvet smalls, white silk stockings, and
conventional buckled shoes.
It is not his clothes, but his countenance to which Aaron addresses
his most searching glances. The forehead is good and full, and rife of
suggestion. The eyes are quick, bright, selfish, unreliable, prone to
look one way while the plausible tongue talks another. As for the face
generally: fresh, full, sensual, brisk, it is the face of a flatterer
and a politician, the face of one who will seek his ends by nearest
methods, and never mind if they be muddy. Also, there is much that is
lurking and secret about the expression, which recalls the slanderer and
backbiter, who will be ever ready to serve himself by lies whispered in
the dark.
Son-in-law Hamilton does not see Aaron and Colonel Troup, and goes
straight to a group the long length of the room away. Taking a seat, he
at once leads the conversation of the circle he has joined, speaking
in a loud, confident tone, with the manner of one who regards his own
position as impregnable, and his word decisive of whatever question is
discussed. The pompous, self-consequence of son-in-law Hamilton arouses
the dander of Aaron. Nor is the latter’s wrath the less, when he
discovers that General Schuyler’s self-satisfied young relative thinks
the suppliant Tories should be listened to, as folk overharshly dealt
with.
As Aaron considers son-in-law Hamilton, and decides unfavorably
concerning that young gentleman’s bumptiousness and pert forwardness,
the company is rapped to order by General Schuyler himself. Lean, rusty,
arrogant, supercilious, the general explains that he has been asked
to preside. Being established in the chair, he announces in a rasping,
dictatorial voice the liberal objects of the coming together. He submits
that the Tories have been unjustly treated. It was, he says, but natural
they should adhere to King George. The war being over, and King George
beaten, he does not believe it the part of either a Christian or
a patriot to hold hatred against them. These same Tories are still
Americans. Their names are among the highest in the city. Before the
Revolution they were one and all of a first respectability, many with
pews in Trinity. Now when freedom has won its battle, he feels that
the victors should let bygones be bygones, and restore the Tories,
in property and station, to a place which they occupied before that
pregnant Philadelphia Fourth of July in 1776.
All this and more to similar effect the austere, rusty Schuyler rasps
forth. When he closes, a profound silence succeeds; for there is no one
who does not know the Schuyler power, or believe that the rasping word
of the rusty old general is equal to marring or furthering the fortunes
of every soul in the room.
The pause is at last broken by Aaron. Self-possessed, steady, his remarks
are brief but pointed. He combats at every corner what the rusty general
has been pleased to advance. The Tories were traitors. They were worse
than the English. It was they who set the Indians on our borders to
torch and tomahawk and scalping knife. They have been most liberally,
most mercifully dealt with, when they are permitted to go unhanged.
As for restoring their forfeited estates, or permitting them any civil
share in a government which they did their best to strangle in its
cradle, the thought is preposterous. They may have been “respectable,”
as General Schuyler states; if so, the respectability was spurious--a
mere hypocritical cover for souls reeking of vileness. They may have had
pews in Trinity. There are ones who, wanting pews in Trinity, still hope
to make their worldly foothold good, and save their souls at last.
As Aaron takes his seat by Colonel Troup, a murmur of guarded agreement
runs through the company. Many are the looks of surprised admiration
cast in his young direction. Truly, the newcomer has made a stir.
Not that his stir-making is to go unopposed. No sooner is Aaron in his
chair, than son-in-law Hamilton is upon him verbally; even while those
approving ones are admiringly buzzing, he begins to talk. His tones
are high and patronizing, his manner condescending. He speaks to Aaron
direct, and not to the audience. He will do his best, he explains, to be
tolerant, for he has heard that Aaron is new to the town. None the less,
he must ask that daring person to bear his newness more in mind. He
himself, he says, cannot escape the feeling that one who is no better
than a stranger, an interloper, might with a nice propriety remain
silent on occasions such as this. Son-in-law Hamilton ends by declaring
that the position taken by Aaron, on this subject of Tories and what
shall be their rights, is un-American. He, himself, has fought for the
Revolution; but, now it is ended, he holds that gentlemen of honor and
liberality will not be guided by the ugly clamor of partisans, who would
make the unending punishment of Tories a virtue and call it patriotism.
He fears that Aaron misunderstands the sentiment of those among whom he
has pitched his tent, congratulates him on a youth that offers an excuse
for the rashness of his expressions, and hopes that he may live to gain
a better wisdom. Son-in-law Hamilton does himself proud, and the rusty
old general erects his pleased crest, to find himself so handsomely
defended.
The rusty general exhibits both surprise and anger, when the rebuked
Aaron again signifies a desire to be heard. This time Aaron, following
that orator’s example,-talks not to the audience but son-in-law Hamilton
himself.
“Our friend,” says Aaron, “reminds me that I am young in years; and I
think this the more generous on his part, since I have seen quite as
many years as has he himself. He calls attention to the battle-battered
share he took in securing the liberties of this country; and, while
I hold him better qualified to win laurels as a son-in-law than as
a soldier, I concede him the credit he claims. I myself have been a
soldier, and while serving as such was so fortunate as to meet our
friend. He does not remember the meeting. Nor do I blame him; for it was
upon a day when he had forgotten his baggage, forgotten one of his
guns, forgotten everything, in truth, save the English behind him, and
I should be much too vain if I supposed that, under such forgetful
circumstances, he would remember me. As to my newness in the town, and
that crippled Americanism wherewith he charges me, I have little to say.
I got no one’s consent to come here; I shall ask no one’s permission to
stay. Doubtless I would have been more within a fashion had I gone with
both questions to the gentleman, or to his celebrated father-in-law, who
presides here today. These errors, however, I shall abide by. Also, I
shall content myself with an Americanism which, though it possess none
of those sunburned, West Indian advantages so strikingly illustrated in
the gentleman, may at least congratulate itself upon being two hundred
years old.”
Having returned upon the self-sufficient head of son-in-law Hamilton
those courtesies which the latter lavished upon him, Aaron proceeds to
voice again, but with more vigorous emphasis, the anti-Tory sentiments
he has earlier expressed. When he ceases speaking there is no applause,
nothing save a dead stillness; for all who have heard feel that a feud
has been born--a Burr-Schuyler-Hamilton feud, and are prudently inclined
to await its development before pronouncing for either side. The
feeling, however, would seem to follow the lead of Aaron; for the
resolution smelling of leniency toward Tories is laid upon the table.