The Conqueror

XXIX

The fol­low­ing po­lit­ical year was a live­ly one for Hamil­ton, per­haps the liveli­est of his ca­reer. As it ap­proached, those in­ter­est­ed in pub­lic af­fairs had many sub­jects for con­stant and ex­cit­ed dis­cus­sion: the pos­si­ble Vice-​Pres­ident, whose elec­tion was to de­ter­mine the fu­ture sta­tus of the Sec­re­tary of State, and ce­ment or weak­en the cen­tral­ized pow­ers of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion; the bat­tle in the two _Gazettes_, with the lau­rels to Hamil­ton, be­yond all con­tro­ver­sy, and hu­mil­ia­tion for Jef­fer­son and Madi­son; the grow­ing strength of the “Re­pub­li­can” par­ty un­der Madi­son's open and Jef­fer­son's lit­er­ary lead­er­ship; the prob­able pol­icy of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion to­ward the French Rev­olu­tion, with Jef­fer­son hot with rank Democ­ra­cy, and Hamil­ton hot­ter with con­tempt for the fe­roc­ity of the Rev­olu­tion­ists; the next move of the Vir­gini­ans did Hamil­ton win the Vice-​Pres­iden­cy for the Ad­min­is­tra­tion par­ty; and the var­ious poli­cies of the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury and their re­sults. At cof­fee-​hous­es, at pub­lic and pri­vate re­cep­tions, and in Mrs. Croix's draw­ing-​room, hard­ly an­oth­er sub­ject was broached.

“A fool could un­der­stand pol­itics in these days,” said Bet­sey, one evening in De­cem­ber, with a sigh. “Not a word does one hear of clothes, gos­sip, hus­bands, or ba­bies. Mrs. Wash­ing­ton told me the day af­ter she re­turned that she had de­lib­er­ate­ly thought of noth­ing but but­ter and patch­work dur­ing the en­tire re­cess, that her poor brain might be able to stand the strain of the win­ter. Shall you have to work hard­er than ev­er?”

“I do not know,” replied Hamil­ton, and at that mo­ment he did not. He was cor­rect­ing a French ex­er­cise of his son's, and feel­ing do­mes­tic and hap­py. Jef­fer­son and he had made no pre­tence at for­mal ami­abil­ity this sea­son; they did not speak at all, but com­mu­ni­cat­ed on pa­per when the busi­ness of their re­spec­tive de­part­ments re­quired an in­ter­change of opin­ion. He had van­quished his en­emy in print, made him ridicu­lous in the eyes of all who read the _Gazettes_. More­over, Wash­ing­ton, dis­turbed dur­ing the sum­mer by the con­stant nag­ging of Jef­fer­son and his agents, re­spect­ing the “monar­chi­cal schemes” and “cor­rupt prac­tices” of the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury, had for­mu­lat­ed the ac­cu­sa­tions and sent them to Hamil­ton for refu­ta­tion. The vin­di­ca­tion, writ­ten with­out pas­sion, as cold, clear, con­sis­tent, and log­ical, as if deal­ing with an ab­stract propo­si­tion, had con­vinced, and fi­nal­ly, all to whom it was shown; with the ex­cep­tion of Jef­fer­son, who had no in­ten­tion of be­ing con­vinced. Hamil­ton was con­scious that there was no vul­ner­able point in his pub­lic ar­mour. Of his pri­vate he was not so sure; Reynolds was in jail, for at­tempt­ing, in com­pa­ny with one Cling­man, to sub­orn a wit­ness to com­mit per­jury, and had ap­pealed to him for aid. He had ig­nored him, de­ter­mined to sub­mit to no fur­ther black­mail, be the con­se­quences what they might. But he was the last man to an­tic­ipate trou­ble, and on the whole he was in the best of hu­mours as the Christ­mas hol­idays ap­proached, with his boys home from their school on Stat­en Is­land, his lit­tle girl grow­ing love­li­er and more ac­com­plished, and his wife al­ways charm­ing and pret­ty; in their rare hours of un­in­ter­rupt­ed com­pan­ion­ship, pi­quant and di­vert­ing. He had gone out with her con­stant­ly since Congress as­sem­bled, and had en­joyed the recre­ations of so­ci­ety af­ter his sum­mer of hard work and an­gry pas­sions. Ev­ery­where he had a tri­umphal progress; men and wom­en jos­tled each oth­er about him, ea­ger for a word, a smile, mak­ing him talk at length, whether he would or not. The con­fi­dence in him was stronger than ev­er, but his en­emies were the most pow­er­ful, col­lec­tive­ly and in­di­vid­ual­ly, that had ev­er ar­rayed against a pub­lic man: Jef­fer­son, Madi­son, and Mon­roe, with the South be­hind them; the Liv­ingstons and the Clin­ton fac­tion in New York; Burr, with his smil­ing sub­ter­ranean in­dus­try; the grow­ing men­ace of the Re­pub­li­can par­ty. Pam­phlets were cir­cu­lat­ing in the States warn­ing vot­ers against all who sup­port­ed the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury. It was one man against odds of ap­palling strength and re­source; for by com­mon con­sent both of friends and en­emies Hamil­ton was the Fed­er­al par­ty. Did he fall, it must go; all blows were aimed at him alone. Could any one man stand for ev­er an im­preg­nable fortress be­fore such a bat­tery? Many vowed that he would, for “he was more than hu­man,” but oth­ers, as firm in their ad­mi­ra­tion, shrugged their shoul­ders. The en­emy were in­fu­ri­at­ed at the loss of the Vice-​Pres­iden­cy, for again Hamil­ton had been vin­di­cat­ed and Adams re­flect­ed. What would be their next move?

Bet­sey knew that her hus­band had en­emies, but the fact gave her lit­tle con­cern; she be­lieved Hamil­ton to be a match for the al­lied forces of dark­ness. She no­ticed when his hair was un­pow­dered that it was turn­ing gray and had quite lost its boy­ish bright­ness; here and there work and care had drawn a line. But he was hand­somer, if any­thing, and of the scars on his spir­it she knew noth­ing. In the peace and pleas­ant dis­trac­tions of his home his mer­cu­ri­al spir­its leaped high above his anx­ieties and en­mi­ties, and he was as gay and hap­py, as in­ter­est­ed in the man­ifold small in­ter­ests of his fam­ily, as were he a pri­vate man of for­tune, with­out an am­bi­tion, an en­emy, or a care. When most ab­sorbed or ir­ri­tat­ed he nev­er vic­tim­ized his house­hold by moods or tem­pers, not on­ly be­cause they were at his mer­cy, but be­cause his na­ture spon­ta­neous­ly gave as it re­ceived; his friends had his best al­ways, his en­emies the very worst of which his in­tense pas­sion­ate na­ture was ca­pa­ble. Nat­ural­ly his fam­ily adored him and stud­ied his hap­pi­ness.

Bet­sey con­tin­ued her some­what ram­bling re­marks, “The on­ly va­ri­ety is the French Rev­olu­tion.”

“By the way, Wash­ing­ton has had a dis­tress­ing let­ter from Madame Lafayette. She begs him to re­ceive her boy--George Wash­ing­ton--and keep him un­til the trou­ble is over. The Chief fears that in the present tem­per of the pub­lic his re­cep­tion of Lafayette's son would be giv­en an em­bar­rass­ing sig­nif­icance, and yet it is im­pos­si­ble to refuse such a re­quest,--with Lafayette in an Aus­tri­an dun­geon, his wife in dai­ly dan­ger of prison or guil­lo­tine, and this boy, his on­ly son, with no one but a tu­tor to pro­tect him. I of­fered at once to re­ceive the child in­to my fam­ily--sub­ject, of course, to your ap­proval. Should you ob­ject? It would add to your cares--”

“I have no cares, sir. I shall be de­light­ed; and he can talk French with the chil­dren.”

“I shall send him to Stat­en Is­land with Philip and Alex. Wash­ing­ton will make him a lib­er­al al­lowance for school and cloth­ing. I con­fess I am anx­ious to re­ceive him, more than anx­ious to show that my old friend­ship is undi­min­ished. I fear to open ev­ery pack­et from Eu­rope, lest I hear of Lafayette's death. For­tu­nate­ly, Mor­ris was able to ren­der some as­sis­tance to Madame Lafayette. Mor­ris is a source of suf­fi­cient wor­ry him­self, for he is much too in­de­pen­dent and bold for a for­eign en­voy in the thick of mob rule, mad with blood.”

“I hate to think of old friends in trou­ble,” said Bet­sey, re­mov­ing a tear. “Poor Kit­ty Duer! I had an­oth­er let­ter from her to-​day. It is piti­ful to think of her and the poor lit­tle chil­dren, with noth­ing but what La­dy Ster­ling, who has so lit­tle, and La­dy Mary can give them. Is there no way of get­ting Colonel Duer out of Debtor's prison?”

“I've moved heav­en and earth, but cer­tain of his cred­itors are in­ex­orable. Still, I hope to have him out and on his feet be­fore long. You are not to wor­ry about oth­er peo­ple this evening, for I am par­tic­ular­ly hap­py. Philip is re­al­ly re­mark­able, and I be­lieve that An­gel­ica is go­ing to turn out a mu­si­cal ge­nius. What a de­light it is to have one per­son in the world to whom one can brag about one's off­spring with­out apol­ogy.”

“Why, of course they are the most re­mark­able chil­dren in the world--all five of them,” said Bet­sey, placid­ly.

Ed­ward Stevens came in and threw him­self on the so­fa. “What a re­lief to come in­to this scene of do­mes­tic tran­quil­li­ty, af­ter the row out­side!” he ex­claimed. “All the world is in the streets; that is to say, all the daft Amer­ican world that sym­pa­thizes with that bloody hor­ror in France. The news that the al­lied armies have been beat­en and the Duke of Brunswick was in full re­treat when the pack­ets sailed, has ap­par­ent­ly driv­en them fran­tic with joy. They are yelling 'Ca ira,' bon­fires are flar­ing ev­ery­where, and bells ring­ing. All of the men are drunk, and some of the wom­en. And yet the states­man who must grap­ple with this por­ten­tous prob­lem is gos­sip­ing with his wife, and look­ing as if he had not a care in the world. Thank Heav­en!”

“I can do noth­ing to-​night,” said Hamil­ton, smil­ing. “I have had too much ex­pe­ri­ence as a prac­ti­cal philoso­pher not to be hap­py while I can.”

“You have the gift of eter­nal youth. What shall you do in this French mat­ter, Alexan­der the Great? All the world is wait­ing to know. I should wor­ry about you if I had time in this reek­ing town, where it is a won­der any man has health in him. Oh, for the cane-​fields of St. Croix! But tell me, what is the pol­icy to be--strict neu­tral­ity? Of course the Pres­ident will agree with you; but fan­cy Jef­fer­son, on his oth­er side, burn­ing with ap­proval for the very ex­cess­es of the Rev­olu­tion, since they typ­ify democ­ra­cy ex­ul­tant. And of course he is bur­row­ing in the dark to in­crease his Re­pub­li­can par­ty and in­spire it with his fa­nat­ical en­thu­si­asm for those in­hu­man wretch­es in France. I be­lieve he would plunge us in­to a war to-​mor­row.”

“No, he is an un­war­like crea­ture. He would like to trim, keep this coun­try from be­ing ac­tu­al­ly be­spat­tered with blood, but coax the Ad­min­is­tra­tion to give the Rev­olu­tion­ists mon­ey and moral sup­port. He will do noth­ing of the sort, how­ev­er. The pol­icy of this re­mote coun­try is ab­so­lute, un­com­pro­mis­ing, neu­tral­ity. Let Eu­rope keep her hands off this con­ti­nent, and we will let her have her own way across the wa­ter. The Unit­ed States is the nu­cle­us of a great na­tion that will spread in­def­inite­ly, and any fur­ther Eu­ro­peaniz­ing of our con­ti­nent would be a men­ace which we can best avoid by ob­serv­ing from the be­gin­ning a strict­ly de­fen­sive pol­icy. To weak­en it by an ag­gres­sive in­road in­to Eu­ro­pean pol­itics would be the fol­ly of school­boys not fit to con­duct a na­tion. We must have the Flori­das and Louisiana as soon as pos­si­ble. I have been urg­ing the mat­ter up­on Wash­ing­ton's at­ten­tion for three years. Spain is a con­stant source of an­noy­ance, and the soon­er we get her off the con­ti­nent the bet­ter--and be­fore Great Britain sends her. We need the Mis­sis­sip­pi for nav­iga­tion and must pos­sess the ter­ri­to­ries that are the key to it. How id­iot­ic, there­fore, to an­tag­onize any old-​world pow­er!”

“You _are_ long-​head­ed!” ex­claimed Stevens. “Good heav­ens! Lis­ten to that! The very lungs of Philadel­phia are bel­low­ing. Our peo­ple must be mad to see in this hideous French Rev­olu­tion any re­sem­blance to their own dig­ni­fied and or­der­ly strug­gle for free­dom.”

“It is so easy to drive men mad,” said Hamil­ton, con­temp­tu­ous­ly. “Par­tic­ular­ly when they are in con­stant and bit­ter op­po­si­tion to the par­ty in pow­er, and pos­sess a lead­er as sub­tle and ven­omous as Thomas Jef­fer­son--'Thomas,' as he signed a let­ter to Wash­ing­ton the oth­er day. You may imag­ine the dis­gust of the Chief.”

“Not an­oth­er word of pol­itics this night!” ex­claimed Mrs. Hamil­ton. “I have not ut­tered a word for just twen­ty-​five min­utes. Alexan­der, go and brew a beaker of ne­gus.”