The Conqueror

XVI

It was not long af­ter this that he wrote the pam­phlets in re­ply to the tracts as­sail­ing the Congress and aimed par­tic­ular­ly at set­ting the farm­ers against the mer­chants. These tracts were by two of the ablest men on the To­ry side, and were clever, sub­tle, and in­sin­uat­ing. Hamil­ton's pam­phlets were en­ti­tled, “A Full Vin­di­ca­tion of the Mea­sures of Congress from the Calum­nies of Their En­emies,” and “The Farmer Re­fut­ed; or a More Com­pre­hen­sive and Im­par­tial View of the Dis­putes be­tween Great Britain and the Colonies, In­tend­ed as a Fur­ther Vin­di­ca­tion of the Congress.” It is not pos­si­ble to quote these pam­phlets, and they can be found in his “Works,” but they were re­mark­able not on­ly for their unan­swer­able log­ic, their com­pre­hen­sive ar­raign­ment of Britain, their close dis­cus­sion of the rights of the colonists un­der the British Con­sti­tu­tion, their philo­soph­ical def­ini­tion of “nat­ural rights,” and their re­minder that war was in­evitable, but for their an­tic­ipa­tion of the fu­ture re­sources of the coun­try, par­tic­ular­ly in re­gard to cot­ton and man­ufac­tures, and for the prophe­cies re­gard­ing the treat­ment of the colonies by Eu­rope. The style was clear, con­cise, and bold, and with a fin­ish which alone would have sug­gest­ed a pen point­ed by long use.

These pam­phlets, which cre­at­ed a pro­found sen­sa­tion, were at­tribut­ed to William Liv­ingston and John Jay, two of the ablest men on the pa­tri­ot side. That side was pro­found­ly grate­ful, for they put heart in­to the timid, de­cid­ed the wa­ver­ing, and left the To­ry writ­ers with­out a leg to stand on. Noth­ing so bril­liant had been con­tribut­ed to the cause.

It was not long be­fore the pub­lic had the au­thor's name. Troup had been present at the writ­ing of the pam­phlets, and he called on Dr. Coop­er, one day, and an­nounced the au­thor­ship with con­sid­er­able gus­to.

“I'll not be­lieve it,” ex­claimed the pres­ident, an­gri­ly; “Mr. Jay wrote those pam­phlets, and none oth­er. A mere boy like that--it's ab­surd. Why do you bring me such a sto­ry, sir? I don't like this Hamil­ton, he's too for­ward and in­de­pen­dent--but I have no de­sire to hear more ill of him.”

“He wrote them, sir. Mul­li­gan, in whose house he lives, and I, can prove it. He's the finest brain in this coun­try, and I mean you shall know it.”

He left Dr. Coop­er foam­ing, and went to spread the news else­where. The ef­fect of his rev­ela­tion was im­me­di­ate dis­tinc­tion for Hamil­ton. He was dis­cussed ev­ery­where as a prodi­gy of in­tel­lect; mes­sages reached him from ev­ery colony. “Sears,” said Wil­lets, one of the lead­ers of the Lib­er­ty par­ty, “was a warm man, but with lit­tle re­flec­tion; Mc­Dougall was strong-​mind­ed; and Jay, ap­pear­ing to fall in with the mea­sures of Sears, tem­pered and con­trolled them; but Hamil­ton, af­ter these great writ­ings, be­came our or­acle.”

Congress met in May, 1775, and word hav­ing come that Chatham's con­cil­ia­tion bill had been re­ject­ed, and that Britain was about to send an army to sup­press the Amer­ican re­bel­lion, this body as­sumed sovereign pre­rog­atives. They be­gan at once to or­ga­nize an army; Wash­ing­ton was elect­ed Com­man­der-​in-​chief, and they or­dered that five thou­sand men be raised to pro­tect New York, as the point most ex­posed. The roy­al troops were ex­pelled, and the city placed in com­mand of Gen­er­al Charles Lee, an En­glish sol­dier of for­tune, who had fought in many lands and brought to the raw army an ex­pe­ri­ence which might have been of in­es­timable ser­vice, had he been high-​mind­ed, or even well bal­anced. As it was, he very near­ly sac­ri­ficed the cause to his jeal­ousy of Wash­ing­ton and to his in­sane van­ity.

Hamil­ton, mean­while, pub­lished his two pam­phlets on the Que­bec Bill, and took part in a num­ber of pub­lic de­bates. At one of these, as he rose to speak, a stranger re­marked, “What brings that lad here? The poor boy will dis­grace him­self.” But the mer­chants, who were present in force, lis­tened in­tent­ly to all he had to say on the non-​im­por­ta­tion agree­ment, and ad­mit­ted the force of his ar­gu­ments to­ward its re­moval, now that war prac­ti­cal­ly had been de­clared. One of the most in­ter­est­ing of the phe­nom­ena in the ca­reer of Hamil­ton was the en­tire ab­sence of strug­gle for an ear­ly hear­ing. Peo­ple rec­og­nized his ge­nius the mo­ment they came in con­tact with it, and old­er men saw on­ly the ex­traor­di­nary and ma­ture brain, their judge­ment quite un­af­fect­ed by the boy­ish face and fig­ure. Those who would not ad­mit his great gifts were few, for ex­cept in the in­stances where he in­curred jeal­ous hate, he won ev­ery­body he met by his charm­ing man­ner and an en­tire ab­sence of con­ceit. He was con­scious of his pow­ers, but took them as a mat­ter of course, and thought on­ly of what he would do with them, hav­ing no leisure to dwell on their qual­ity. In con­se­quence, he al­ready had a large fol­low­ing of un­hesi­tat­ing ad­mir­ers, many of them men twice his age, and was ac­cept­ed as the lead­ing po­lit­ical philoso­pher of the coun­try.

Dr. Coop­er sent for him af­ter his third pam­phlet. He, too, was a pa­tri­ot in his way, and al­though he bris­tled when­ev­er Hamil­ton's name was men­tioned, he had come in con­tact with too many minds not to rec­og­nize abil­ity of any sort; he knew that Hamil­ton would be in­valu­able to the Roy­al­ist cause.

“Ask your own price, sir,” he said, af­ter sug­gest­ing the high­er ser­vice to which he could de­vote his pen. “You will find us more lib­er­al--” But Hamil­ton had bolt­ed. It is im­pos­si­ble to knock down one's ven­er­able pres­ident, and his tem­per was still an ac­tive mem­ber in the fam­ily of his fac­ul­ties. To the nu­mer­ous oth­er of­fers he re­ceived from the To­ry side he made no re­ply, be­yond in­sert­ing an ad­di­tion­al sting in­to his pen when writ­ing for Holt's _Jour­nal_. In the press he was re­ferred to, now, as “The Vin­di­ca­tor of Congress,” and it was gen­er­al­ly con­ced­ed that he had done more to has­ten mat­ters to a cli­max, by prepar­ing and whet­ting the pub­lic mind, than any­one else in Amer­ica.

There is no doubt that the swift­ness and sud­den­ness of Hamil­ton's con­ver­sion, his abrupt de­scent from a back­ground of study and alien in­dif­fer­ence, gave him a clear­er and more com­pre­hen­sive view of the wrongs and needs of the colonists than they pos­sessed them­selves. They had been mut­ter­ing ev­er since the pas­sage of the first stamp tax, threat­en­ing, per­mit­ting them­selves to be pla­cat­ed, hop­ing, de­spair­ing, hop­ing again. Hamil­ton, from the first mo­ment he grasped the sub­ject, saw that there was no hope in min­is­te­ri­al Eng­land, no hope in any­thing but war. More­over, his courage, nat­ural­ly of the finest tem­per, and an au­dac­ity which no one had ev­er dis­cour­aged, leapt out from that far back­ground of the West In­dies in­to an are­na where the na­tives moved in an at­mo­sphere whose damps of doubt and dis­cour­age­ment had cor­rod­ed them for years. Even among men whose courage and in­de­pen­dence were of the first qual­ity, Hamil­ton's pas­sion­ate en­er­gy, fear­less­ness of thought, and au­dac­ity of ex­pres­sion, made him re­mark­able at once; and they drew a long breath of re­lief when he un­com­pro­mis­ing­ly pub­lished what they had long agreed up­on over the din­ing-​ta­ble, or built up the doc­trine of re­sis­tance with ar­gu­ment as pow­er­ful as it was new.

But the time rapid­ly ap­proached for deeds, and Hamil­ton had been oc­cu­pied in oth­er ways than writ­ing pam­phlets. Dur­ing the past six months he had stud­ied tac­tics and gun­nery, and had joined a vol­un­teer corps in or­der to learn the prac­ti­cal de­tails of mil­itary sci­ence. All his friends be­longed to this corps, which called it­self “Hearts of Oak,” and looked very charm­ing in green uni­forms and leath­ern caps, in­scribed “Free­dom or Death.” They soon at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of Gen­er­al Greene, a su­pe­ri­or man and an ac­com­plished of­fi­cer. He took an es­pe­cial fan­cy to Hamil­ton, and great as was their dis­par­ity in years, they were close friends un­til the Gen­er­al's death. It was Greene who first at­tract­ed Wash­ing­ton's at­ten­tion to the youngest of his cap­tains, and Hamil­ton was able to ren­der the old­er man, whose ser­vices and tal­ents have even yet not been prop­er­ly rec­og­nized by his coun­try, ex­cep­tion­al ser­vice. The com­pa­ny ex­er­cised in the church­yard of St. George's chapel, ear­ly in the morn­ing; for in spite of the swarms of re­cruits clad in ev­ery va­ri­ety of uni­form, de­sert­ed hous­es, and dai­ly flights of the timid in­to Jer­sey, earth­works and for­ti­fi­ca­tions, col­lege went on as usu­al.

It was not long be­fore the “Hearts of Oak” had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­tin­guish them­selves. The provin­cial com­mit­tee or­dered them to re­move the can­non sta­tioned at the Bat­tery. In the har­bour was the British war-​ship, _Asia_, which im­me­di­ate­ly sent off a boat to en­quire in­to this pro­ceed­ing. A large num­ber of armed cit­izens had es­cort­ed the lit­tle corps to the Bat­tery, and sev­er­al lost their heads and fired at the boat. There was an im­me­di­ate broad­side from the _Asia_. Three of the mili­tia were wound­ed, and one fell dead by Hamil­ton's side. “It is child's play to a hur­ri­cane,” he thought. “I doubt if a man could have a bet­ter train­ing for the bat­tle­field.” They re­moved the guns.

The re­sult of this at­tack was an­oth­er ex­plo­sion of New York's nerves. The Sons of Lib­er­ty made it un­safe for a To­ry to ven­ture abroad. They marched through the streets shout­ing vengeance, burn­ing in ef­fi­gy, and mak­ing alarm­ing demon­stra­tions be­fore the hand­some hous­es of cer­tain loy­al­ists. Sud­den­ly, about ten o'clock at night, they were an­imat­ed by a de­sire to of­fer up Dr. Coop­er, and they co­hered and swarmed down to­ward King's. Hamil­ton and Troup hap­pened to be walk­ing in the grounds when the sud­den flare of torch­es and the ap­proach­ing tide of sound, warned them of the in­va­sion. They ran like deer to head them off, but reached the por­ti­co on­ly a mo­ment ahead of the mob, which knew that it must be sud­den and swift to be vic­to­ri­ous.

“I can talk faster than you,” whis­pered Hamil­ton, “I'll ha­rangue them, and it won't take Dr. Coop­er long to un­der­stand and flee through the back door--and may the dev­il fly away with him.”

“A mo­ment!” he cried, “I've some­thing to say, and I may not have an­oth­er chance, war is so close up­on us.”

“'Tis young Hamil­ton,” cried some­one in the crowd. “Well, make us a speech; we're al­ways glad to hear you, but we'll not go home with­out old Coop­er. Don't think it.”

Hamil­ton nev­er re­mem­bered what non­sense he talked that night. For­tu­nate­ly words al­ways came with a rush, and he could mix up pol­itics, wrongs, the cler­gy, and pa­tri­otism, in so pic­turesque a jum­ble that an ex­cit­ed crowd would not miss his usu­al con­cise log­ic. “Do you sup­pose he's gone?” he whis­pered, paus­ing to take breath.

“Go on, go on,” said Troup ner­vous­ly, “I hear some­one mov­ing.”

“Ah-​h-​h!”

There was a wild yell from the crowd, and a hoarse roar from above. Hamil­ton and Troup looked up. Dr. Coop­er's in­fu­ri­at­ed vis­age, sur­round­ed by a large frill, pro­ject­ed from his bed­room win­dow. “Don't lis­ten to him,” he shrieked, thrust­ing his fin­ger at Hamil­ton. “He's crazy! He's crazy!”

“The old fool,” fumed Troup, “he thinks you're tak­ing your just re­venge. If I could get in­side--”

Dr. Coop­er was jerked back by a friend­ly hand and the win­dow slammed. “Some­one un­der­stands,” whis­pered Troup, ex­cit­ed­ly; “and they'll have him out in two min­utes. Go on, for heav­en's sake.”

Hamil­ton, who had been tear­ful with laugh­ter, be­gan again:--

“I ap­peal to you, my friends, am I crazy?” In­dig­nant shouts of “No! No!” “Then let me, I pray, make a few re­marks on the pos­si­bil­ity of hold­ing New York against the ad­vanc­ing fleet, that you can tes­ti­fy to my san­ity to-​mor­row, and save me from what­ev­er un­hap­py fate this iras­ci­ble gen­tle­man has in store for me.”

“Go ahead! Go ahead!” cried some­one in the mob. “We won't let him touch you.”

And again Hamil­ton ha­rangued them, un­til Troup slipped round to the rear of the big build­ing and re­turned with word that Dr. Coop­er was safe­ly over the back fence and on his way to the _Asia_. When Hamil­ton an­nounced the flight, there was mut­ter­ing, but more laugh­ter, for the mob was in a bet­ter hu­mour than when it came.

“Well, that sil­ver tongue of yours did the old man a good turn to-​night, but you shan't make fools of us again.” And a few days lat­er, when Alexan­der at­tempt­ed to head off the same mob as it made for the press of Riv­ing­ton, the To­ry print­er, they would not lis­ten to him. But the ef­fort raised him still high­er in the es­ti­ma­tion of the pa­tri­ots, for they saw that his love of law and or­der was as great as his pas­sion for war.