The Conqueror

V

When the 17th of June ap­proached, Hamil­ton, John Jay, Chan­cel­lor Liv­ingston, and James Du­ane, start­ed on horse for Pough­keep­sie, not dar­ing, with Clin­ton on the spot, and the men­ace of an im­me­di­ate ad­journ­ment, to trust to the winds of the Hud­son. Gen­er­al Schuyler had promised to leave even a day soon­er from the North, and the ma­jor­ity of Fed­er­al del­egates had gone by pack­et-​boat, or horse, in good sea­son.

The old post road be­tween New York and Al­bany was, for the greater part of the way, but a rough belt through a vir­gin for­est. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly a farmer had cleared a few acres, the lawns of a manor house were open to the sun, the road was var­ied by the majesty of Hud­son and pal­isade for a brief while, or by the pre­cip­itous walls of moun­tains, so thick­ly wood­ed that even the wind bare­ly flut­tered their som­bre depths. Man was a mov­ing ar­se­nal in those long and lone­ly jour­neys, for the bear and the pan­ther were breed­ing undis­turbed. But the month was hot, and those for­est depths were very cool; the scenery was of­ten as mag­nif­icent as primeval, and a gen­er­ous hos­pi­tal­ity at many a board dis­pelled, for an in­ter­val, the po­lit­ical anx­iety of Hamil­ton and his com­pan­ions.

Hamil­ton, de­spite a mind trained to the sub­or­di­na­tion of pri­vate in­ter­ests to pub­lic du­ty, knew that it was the cri­sis of his own des­tiny to­ward which he was has­ten­ing. He had bound up his per­son­al am­bi­tions with the prin­ci­ples of the Fed­er­al­ist par­ty--so called since the pub­li­ca­tion in book form of the Pub­lius es­says; for not on­ly was he large­ly re­spon­si­ble for those prin­ci­ples, but his mind was too well reg­ulat­ed to con­sid­er the al­ter­na­tive of a com­pro­mise with a pos­si­bly vic­to­ri­ous par­ty which he de­test­ed. Per­haps his am­bi­tion was too vault­ing to adapt it­self to a re­strict­ed field when his imag­ina­tion had played for years with the big ninepins of his­to­ry; at all events, it was in­sep­ara­bly bound up with na­tion­al­ism in the bold­est sense achiev­able, and with meth­ods which days and nights of se­vere thought had con­vinced him were for the great­est good of the Amer­ican peo­ple. Union meant Wash­ing­ton in the supreme com­mand, him­self with the reins of gov­ern­ment in both hands. The fi­nan­cial, the for­eign, the do­mes­tic pol­icy of a har­mo­nious fed­er­ation were as fa­mil­iar to his mind as they are to us to-​day. On­ly he could achieve them, and on­ly New York could give him those reins of pow­er.

It is true that he had but to move his fur­ni­ture over to Philadel­phia to be wel­comed to cit­izen­ship with ac­cla­ma­tion by that am­bi­tious town; but not on­ly was his pride bound up in the con­quest of New York from Clin­ton­ism to Fed­er­al­ism, but New York left out of the Union, di­vid­ing as she did New Eng­land from the South and North, of the high­est com­mer­cial im­por­tance by virtue of her cen­tral po­si­tion and her har­bour, meant civ­il war at no re­mote pe­ri­od, dis­union, and the un­do­ing of the most care­ful and stren­uous labours of the na­tion's states­men. That New York should be forced in­to the Union at once Hamil­ton was de­ter­mined up­on, if he had to re­sort to a coup which might or might not meet with the ap­proval of the rest of the coun­try. Nev­er­the­less, he looked for­ward to the next few weeks with the deep­est anx­iety. An ac­ci­dent, an ill­ness, and the cause was lost, for he made no mis­take in es­ti­mat­ing him­self as the sole force which could bear Clin­ton and his mag­nif­icent or­ga­ni­za­tion to the ground. Hamil­ton was no par­ty ma­nip­ula­tor. He re­lied up­on his in­di­vid­ual ex­er­tions, abet­ted by those of his lieu­tenants,--the most high-​mind­ed and the ablest men in the coun­try,--to force his ideas up­on the mass­es by their own mo­men­tum and weight. In­deed, so in­di­vid­ual did he make the man­age­ment of the Fed­er­al­ist par­ty, that years lat­er, when the “Re­pub­li­can” lead­ers de­ter­mined up­on its over­throw, they aimed all their ar­tillery at him alone: if he fell the par­ty must col­lapse, on top of him; did he re­tain the con­fi­dence of the peo­ple, he would mag­ne­tize their obe­di­ence, no mat­ter what rifts there might be in his ranks.

He had es­tab­lished a horse-​ex­press be­tween Vir­ginia and Pough­keep­sie, and be­tween New Hamp­shire and the lit­tle cap­ital. Eight States hav­ing rat­ified, the sig­na­ture of New Hamp­shire, the next in or­der, would mean union and a tri­al of the Con­sti­tu­tion, a prospect which could not fail to in­flu­ence the think­ing men of the an­ti-​Fed­er­al par­ty; but it was from the rat­ifi­ca­tion of Vir­ginia that he hoped the great­est good. This State oc­cu­pied much the same po­si­tion in the South that New York did in the North, ge­ograph­ical­ly, com­mer­cial­ly, his­tor­ical­ly, and in the im­por­tance of her pub­lic men. And she was as bit­ter­ly op­posed to union, to what a nar­row provin­cial­ism held to be the hu­mil­ia­tion of the States. Patrick Hen­ry, her most pow­er­ful and elo­quent lead­er, not through the self­ish pol­icy of a Clin­ton, but in the lim­ita­tions of a too nar­row ge­nius, was ha­rangu­ing with all his re­cu­per­at­ed might against the sin­is­ter men­ace to the lib­er­ties of a peo­ple who had freed them­selves of one despo­tism so dear­ly; and even Ran­dolph, with char­ac­ter­is­tic hes­itan­cy when ap­proach­ing a point, was de­fi­cient in en­thu­si­asm, al­though he in­ti­mat­ed that he should vote for the un­con­di­tion­al adop­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion he had re­fused to sign. He and Mar­shall were Madi­son's on­ly as­sis­tants of im­por­tance against the formidable op­po­nent of union, and it was well un­der­stood among lead­ers that Jef­fer­son, who was then Amer­ican min­is­ter in France, gave the Con­sti­tu­tion but a grudg­ing and in­con­sis­tent ap­proval, and would pre­fer that it failed, were not amend­ments tacked on which prac­ti­cal­ly would nul­li­fy its en­er­gies. But al­though Hamil­ton had such lieu­tenants as John Jay, Philip Schuyler, Du­ane, and Robert Liv­ingston, Madi­son had the in­es­timable, though silent, back­ing of Wash­ing­ton. The great Chief had, months since, forcibly ex­pressed his sen­ti­ments in a pub­lic let­ter; and that colos­sal fig­ure, the more po­tent that it was in­vis­ible and mute, guid­ed as many wills as Madi­son's stren­uous ex­er­tions and unan­swer­able dis­pas­sion­ate log­ic.

But Wash­ing­ton, al­though suf­fi­cient­ly revered by New York­ers, was not their very own, as was he the Vir­gini­ans'; was by no means so im­ping­ing and in­sis­tent as his ex­cel­len­cy, Gov­er­nor Clin­ton, he whose pow­er­ful will and per­son­al­ity, aid­ed by an en­ter­prise and wis­dom that were not al­ways mis­guid­ed, for eleven years had com­pelled their grate­ful sub­mis­sion. It was dif­fi­cult to con­vince New York­ers that such a man was whol­ly wrong in his pa­tri­otism, par­tic­ular­ly when their own in­ter­ests seemed bound so firm­ly to his. It was this dom­inant, daunt­less, re­source­ful, po­lit­ical nabob that Hamil­ton knew he must con­quer sin­gle-​hand­ed, if he con­quered him at all; for his lieu­tenants, able as they were, could on­ly sec­ond and abet him; they had none of his fer­til­ity of re­source. As he rode through the for­est he re­hearsed ev­ery scheme of coun­ter­play and ev­ery method that made for con­quest which his fer­tile brain had con­ceived. He would ex­er­cise ev­ery ar­gu­ment like­ly to ap­peal to the de­cent in­stincts of those am­bi­tious of rank­ing as first-​class cit­izens, as well as to the con­gen­ital self­ish­ness of man, which could il­lu­mi­nate the dark­er re­cess­es of their Clin­tonized un­der­stand­ings, and ef­fect their le­git­imate con­ver­sion; then, if these high­er meth­ods failed, co­er­cion.

“What im­pe­ri­ous method are you de­vis­ing, Hamil­ton?” asked Liv­ingston. “Your lips are set; your eyes are al­most black. I've seen you like that in court, but nev­er in good com­pa­ny be­fore. You look as if con­sid­er­ing a chal­lenge to mor­tal com­bat.”

Hamil­ton's brow cleared, and he laughed with that mer­cu­ri­al light­ness which did more to pre­serve the bal­ance of what oth­er­wise would have been an over­weight­ed mind than any oth­er qual­ity it pos­sessed.

“Well, am I not to fight a du­el?” he asked. “Would that I could call Clin­ton out and set­tle the ques­tion as eas­ily as that. I dis­ap­prove of du­elling, but so crit­ical a mo­ment as this would jus­ti­fy any­thing short of trick­ery. We'll leave that to Clin­ton; but al­though there is no vast dif­fer­ence be­tween my po­lit­ical and my pri­vate con­science, there are re­cours­es which are as fair in po­lit­ical as in mar­tial war­fare, and I should be found in­gen­uous and in­ca­pable did I fail to make use of them.”

“Well, you love a fight,” said Jay, with­out ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the hu­mour of his re­mark. “I be­lieve you would rather fight than sit down in good com­pa­ny at any time, and you are no­to­ri­ous­ly con­vivial. But easy con­quest would de­mor­al­ize you. If I do not mis­take, you have the great­est bat­tle of your ca­reer, past or present, im­me­di­ate­ly ahead of you--and it means so much to all of us--I fear--I fear--”

“I will lis­ten to no fears,” cried Hamil­ton, who at all events had no mind to be tor­ment­ed by any but his own. “Are we not alive? Are we not in health? Are not our in­tel­lec­tu­al pow­ers at their ripest point of de­vel­op­ment? Can Clin­ton, Melanc­thon Smith, Yates, Lans­ing, Jones, make a bet­ter show­ing?”

“We are nine­teen against forty-​six,” said Jay, with con­ceiv­able gloom.

“True. But there is no rea­son why we should not short­ly be forty-​six against nine­teen.”

“We cer­tain­ly are Right against the most un­states­man-​like Self­ish­ness the world has ev­er seen,” ob­served Du­ane.

“Would that ex­pe­ri­ence jus­ti­fied us in think­ing well enough of the hu­man race to gath­er courage from that fact,” replied Hamil­ton. “It is to the self-​in­ter­est of the ma­jor­ity we shall have to ap­peal. Con­vince them that there is nei­ther ca­reer nor pros­per­ity for them in an iso­lat­ed State, and we may drag them up to a height which is safer than their mire, sim­ply be­cause it is bet­ter, or bet­ter be­cause it is safer. This is a time to prac­tice pa­tri­otism, but not to waste time talk­ing about it.”

“Your re­marks savour of cyn­icism,” replied Jay, “but I fear there is much truth in them. It is on­ly in the mil­len­ni­um, I sup­pose, that we shall have the un­think­able hap­pi­ness of see­ing on all sides of us an ab­so­lute con­for­mi­ty to our ide­als.”

In spite of the close, if some­what for­mal, friend­ship be­tween Jay and Hamil­ton, the lat­ter was of­ten mo­men­tar­ily de­pressed by the re­sem­blance of this flaw­less char­ac­ter to, and its rigid con­trasts from, his dead friend Lau­rens. Jay was all that Lau­rens had pas­sion­ate­ly wished to be, and ap­par­ent­ly with­out ef­fort; for na­ture had not bal­anced him with a re­deem­ing vice, con­se­quent­ly with no pow­er to in­spire hate or love. Had he been a de­gree greater, a tri­fle more am­bi­tious, or had cir­cum­stances iso­lat­ed him in pol­itics, he would have been an even lone­li­er and lofti­er fig­ure than Wash­ing­ton, for our Chief had one or two re­deem­ing hu­man­ities; as it was, he stood to a few as a char­ac­ter so per­fect that they mar­velled, while they de­plored his lack of per­son­al in­flu­ence. But his in­tel­lect is in the rank which stands just be­neath that of the men of ge­nius re­vealed by his­to­ry, and he hangs like a sil­ver star of the trop­ics up­on the some­times du­bi­ous fields of our an­ces­tral heav­ens. Nev­er­the­less, he fre­quent­ly in­spired Hamil­ton with so poignant a long­ing for Lau­rens that our im­petu­ous hero was tempt­ed to wish for an ex­change of fates.

“In the mil­len­ni­um we will all tell the truth and hate each oth­er,” an­swered Hamil­ton. “And we ei­ther shall all be fools, or those ir­ri­tants will be ex­tinct; in any case we shall be hap­py, par­tic­ular­ly if we have some­one to hate.”

“Ah, now you jest,” said Du­ane, smil­ing. “For you are log­ical or noth­ing. _You_ may be hap­py when on the warpath, but the rest of us are not. And you are the last man to be hap­py in a mil­len­ni­um by your­self.”

They all laughed at this sal­ly, for Hamil­ton was sel­dom silent. He an­swered light­ly:--

“Some­one to fight. Some­one to love. Three warm friends. Three hot en­emies. A suf­fi­cien­cy of del­icate food and wine. A West In­di­an swim­ming-​bath. Some­one to talk to. Some­one to make love to. War. Pol­itics. Books. Song. Chil­dren. Wom­an. A re­li­gion. There you have the essence of the mil­len­ni­um, em­broi­der it as you may.”

“And scenery,” added Jay, de­vout­ly.

The road for the last quar­ter of an hour had led up a steep hill, above which oth­er hills piled with­out an open­ing; and be­low lay the Hud­son. As they paused up­on the bare cone of the el­eva­tion, the riv­er looked like a chain of Adiron­dack lakes, with dense and up­right forests ris­ing tier be­yond tier un­til lost in the blue haze of the Catskills. The moun­tains looked as if they had pushed out from the main­land down to the wa­ter's edge to cross and meet each oth­er. So close were the op­po­site crags that the trav­ellers could see a deer leap through the brush, the red of his coat flash­ing through the gloomy depths. Be­low sped two pack­et-​boats in a stiff breeze.

“Friends or en­emies?” queried Liv­ingston. “I wish I were with them, for I must con­fess the plea­sures of horse trav­el for sev­en­ty-​five miles must be the cli­max of a dai­ly habit to be ful­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed. It is all very well for Hamil­ton, who is on a horse twice ev­ery day; but as I am ten years old­er and pro­por­tion­ate­ly stiffer, I shall leave pa­tri­otism to the rest of you for a day or two af­ter our ar­rival.”

Hamil­ton did not an­swer. He had be­come con­scious of the del­icate yet pierc­ing scent of vi­olets. Wild vi­olets had no per­fume, and it was long past their sea­son. He glanced ea­ger­ly around, but with­out re­al­iz­ing what prompt­ed a quick stir­ring of his puls­es. There was but one tree on the crag, and he stood against it. Al­most me­chan­ical­ly his glance sought its re­cess­es, and his hand reached for­ward to some­thing white. It was a small hand­ker­chief of cam­bric and lace. The oth­er men were star­ing at the scenery. He hasti­ly glanced at the ini­tials in the cor­ner of the scent­ed tri­fle, and won­dered that he should so eas­ily de­ci­pher a tan­gled E.C.C. But he mar­velled, nev­er­the­less, and thrust the hand­ker­chief in­to his pock­et.

They reached Pough­keep­sie late in the af­ter­noon. Main Street, which was the in­ter­rup­tion of the post road, and East Street, which ter­mi­nat­ed the Dutchess turn­pike, were gai­ly dec­orat­ed with flags and greens, the win­dows and pave­ments crowd­ed with peo­ple whose faces re­flect­ed the ner­vous ex­cite­ment with which the whole coun­try throbbed. The cap­ital for ten years, the orig­inal vil­lage had spread over the hills in­to a ram­bling town of many av­enues, straight and twist­ed, and there were pre­ten­tious hous­es and a cer­tain amount of busi­ness. Hamil­ton and his par­ty were stared at with deep cu­rios­ity, but not cheered, for the town was al­most whol­ly Clin­to­ni­an. The Gov­er­nor had his of­fi­cial res­idence on the Dutchess turn­pike, a short dis­tance from town; and this was his court. Nev­er­the­less, it was proud­ly con­scious of the dig­ni­ty in­cum­bent up­on it as the leg­isla­tive cen­tre of the State, and no mat­ter what the sus­pense or the is­sue, had no mind to make the vi­olent demon­stra­tions of oth­er towns. Near­ly ev­ery town of the North, in­clud­ing Al­bany, had burned Hamil­ton in ef­fi­gy, al­beit with bat­tered noses, for he had his fol­low­ers ev­ery­where; but here he was met with a re­fresh­ing cool­ness, for which the oth­ers of his par­ty, at least, were thank­ful.

They went first to Van Kleek's tav­ern, on the Up­per Land­ing Road, not far from the Court-​house, to se­cure the rooms they had en­gaged; but find­ing an in­vi­ta­tion await­ing them from Hen­ry Liv­ingston to make use of his house dur­ing the Con­ven­tion, re­paired with un­mixed sat­is­fac­tion to the large es­tate on the oth­er side of the town. The host was ab­sent, but his cousin had been re­quest­ed to do the hon­ours to as many as he would ask to share a peace­ful re­treat from the dai­ly scene of strife.

“And it has the ad­van­tage of an as­sured pri­va­cy,” said Hamil­ton. “For here we can hold con­fer­ence night­ly with no fear of eaves­drop­ping. More­over, to get a bath at Van Kleek's is as easy as mak­ing love to Clin­ton.”

Gen­er­al Schuyler joined them an hour lat­er. He had been in town all day, and had held sev­er­al con­fer­ences with the de­pressed Fed­er­al­ists, who, be­tween a mi­nor­ity which made them al­most ridicu­lous, and un­com­fort­able lodg­ings, were deep in gloomy fore­bod­ings. As soon as they heard of their Cap­tain's ar­rival they swarmed down to the Liv­ingston man­sion. Hamil­ton ha­rangued them cheer­ful­ly in the draw­ing-​room, drank with them, in his host's ex­cel­lent wine, to the suc­cess of their righ­teous cause; and they re­tired, buoy­ant, con­firmed in their al­most idol­atrous be­lief in the man who was re­spon­si­ble for all the ideas they pos­sessed.