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 The life of Alexander Hamilton / 
 
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 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032743753 
 
Hahi&on Club Series. 
 
Hamilton Club Series. 
 
 No I. 
 
IN PRESS, 
 
 And will be published early in April, No. z of the Hamilton 
 Club Series. 
 
 Observations on Certain Documents contained in No. 
 V. and VI. of " The History of the United States 
 FOR THE Year 1796," in which the charge of specula- 
 tion against Alexander Hamilton, late Secretary of the 
 Treasury, is fully refuted. Written by himself. 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 Alexander Hamilton 
 
 JOHN WILLIAMS. 
 
 (Anthony PAsqyiN.) 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 Printed for the Hamilton Club. 
 
 1865. 
 
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LIFE 
 
 ALEXAIDER HAMILTOI 
 
 jonosr ■sA7"iXiLijft.3sa:s. 
 
 " If there be merit in a man, hold it well forth 
 To the admiring world, forming for him a wreath of fame, 
 A stimulus to th' indolence of others : — but if there be 
 Aught evil, or mistaken, set it up a Beacon unto all ; 
 Boldly declaring everywhere the Truth unleaven'd, 
 According to the dictates of calm, well-pois'd judgement." 
 
 Anon,, 1689. 
 
 " I cannot Bwear your chief was six feet high !" 
 
 BOSTON: 1804. 
 
EN. ALEXANDER HAMILTON was 
 a native of a British island in the West 
 Indies, from whence he was sent to the 
 college at New York for education. 
 When the continental war broke out, he 
 was in the trammels of the classics — how far he had 
 proceeded in the Gradus ad Parnassum we cannot 
 affirm; but we have some reason to believe, that it 
 was not to a very enviable height, although he had 
 unusual accomplishments. In the dawnings of the 
 revolutionary struggle, he evinced a desire to be- 
 come a soldier, and enlisted on the side of popular 
 virtue. His courage and his constancy recommended 
 him to the notice and protection of the immortal 
 Washington, and his address secured what his gal- 
 lantry had engendered. 
 
 1 
 
Missing Page 
 
Missing Page 
 
4 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 His eulogists assert (and no man's reputation ever 
 suffered more from eulogies) that he commanded a 
 forlorn hope at the siege of Yorktown, and, it appears, 
 that in political relations he was destined to com- 
 mand a forlorn hope likewise. At the termination 
 of the revolutionary war, he commenced the study of 
 law. In 1782, he was sent to Congress by the Legis- 
 lature of New York, and in 1786 he was chosen a mem- 
 ber of Assembly for the same city. — During the 
 Washington administration, he was appointed Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury, and it was in this situation that 
 he began to develope the latent workings of his mind, 
 by extending the influence of an infant exchequer, to 
 entrap the covetous and unwary, and engrafting a 
 public debt upon the nation, which, like a millepedal 
 polypus, should create a disease that would corrode 
 and expand with time, and give being to an order of 
 capitalists, who are uniformly at the devotion of an 
 immoral state. 
 
 As a Financier, he must pass in review before re- 
 flecting men as a personage scarcely secondary in 
 rank. Those who regarded him as a fiscal prophet, 
 
LIFE OP ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 must have been vicious in their expectations, if they 
 considered his views with satisfaction ; as they all 
 tended to enervate the principles of public integrity 
 by artfully gratifying the vanities and cupidity of the 
 moment. He rushed forward to the human heart, and 
 demanded an audience with its worst and meanest 
 passions, avarice and pride, which are ever ready to 
 listen to a corrupt visitor. To those ministers of base- 
 ness, he unfolded his plans of finance, and while he 
 pourtrayed his loans of eight per cent, and his bot- 
 tomless abyss of a sinking fund, they fluttered with a 
 pleasurable anticipation of the future. They knew all 
 that Machiavel had written, and had his vilest apo- 
 thegms by rote ; they knew all that Sir Robert Wal- 
 POLE had done in the last age, and all that William 
 Pitt the younger had done in this age, to unhinge the 
 dignity of his own country, and embitter all mankind, 
 and they derived a high consolation from the prospect 
 before them ! They knew, by instinct, the force and 
 the extent of human weakness ; and in their efficient 
 prosecution of Mr. Hamilton's measures, they were as- 
 sured of the downfall and prostration of the nobler 
 
6 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 affections, such as the love of our country, and the 
 love of our neighbour. The solitary love of ourselves, 
 which must consist of a promise without an enjoy- 
 ment, was to be the only swallowing consideration : 
 the excluding serpent of the bosom, which, like the 
 metamorphosed rod of the Hebrew, was to ingulph 
 and extirpate all the rest! — Miserable attempt, and 
 more miserable and thoughtless were they who be- 
 lieved that they could strengthen their own happiness 
 by such atrocious means : yet this has been denomin- 
 ated an instance of superior address, which has neither 
 originality nor virtue to recommend it ; which la- 
 boured to pamper the appetites of the corrupt, by hold- 
 ing forth the allurements of an enormous interest, 
 that, in its mining operation, must destroy the foun- 
 dation upon which the principal rested for its secu- 
 rity. There is not much merit in making wicked men 
 prefer the instant, to the future advantage, nor does 
 he deserve a statue, who would apply to our corrup- 
 tion for that support which should emanate from our 
 confidence. 
 We know of few traits among considerable men, 
 
LIFE OP ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 7 
 
 that is so much and so frequently overcharged with 
 praise, as this financiering faculty; and Mr. Hamilton 
 deserves as little of this praise of oflSce as most men : 
 all he did was borrowed from the precedent of Mr. 
 Pitt, and a more obnoxious precedent he could not 
 have selected. He perused the British Acts of Parlia- 
 ment relative to Loans and the Funding System, and 
 endeavoured to introduce their scrophulus and con- 
 taminating influence into the Republican constitu- 
 tions of America. The poison of this procedure worked 
 in a partial sense, and it gnawed and consumed in 
 proportion as it was allowed to spread : yet, thank 
 heaven, it was repelled by a correspondent antidote, 
 before it had made a lodgment upon the vital parts. 
 The Ex-President dozed amidst this work of ruin, 
 while the anglo-minions chuckled at the rapidity of 
 our decay, and were prepared with a Te Deum, to 
 chaunt at the grave of our national independence, 
 when the Empire caught the alarm : a comparison was 
 drawn between the principles which actuated our re- 
 sistance to tyranny in 1775, and the principles of the 
 Hamiltonian school of anglo-federalism. The result 
 
8 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 of this investigation was one blaze and burst of in- 
 dignation. The drum of republicanism beat to arms, 
 and Thomas Jefferson was seated, with acclamation, 
 in the chair of state ; while the monarchic sorcerers 
 ran to their dells and cells, to prepare the ingredients 
 for an illiberal incantation, to enable them to recover 
 their lost power : and, like the fallen demons of old, 
 calumniate and envenom that system of moral order 
 and popular government, which the care of Heaven 
 will not permit them to destroy. 
 
 As ingenuity is ascertained by original thinking, 
 and wisdom by the consequences of the direction of 
 that ingenuity, how can the eulogists for this gentle- 
 man establish the boast that he was so pre-eminent 
 for either genius or wisdom ? Any clerk of the treas- 
 ury could have done all that Mr. Hamilton did, and 
 none could have been more pernicious in the inten- 
 tion, or more disastrous in the operation of what he 
 might intend. Away with this inflated nonsense about 
 his calling order out of chaos, when there was nothing 
 chaotic but in the elementary principle of his own 
 contradictory policy; which was, in practice, wholly 
 
LIFE OP ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 9 
 
 inconsonant with the demands of a Republican insti- 
 tution, or the happiness and security of the people. 
 We never heard but of one minister who did not snuff 
 up this vile incense of office, and that was Count Ox- 
 BNSTiERNj the most sagacious statesman that Sweden 
 ever knew : when the son of that nobleman was ex- 
 pressing wonder that his father could do so much, in 
 conducting the affairs of the kingdom, he modestly 
 and honestly replied, that the world were mistaken in 
 their admiration of ministers, as the intricacy and 
 weight of calculation was dependent upon the minor 
 agents of the treasury, and but little remained for any 
 premier to effect, that had common intelligence and 
 common honesty. It is necessary, in England, to de- 
 lude the people with this ideal superiority of talent 
 and fitness for office, that they might be dazzled with 
 what they dare not investigate, but it is not necessary 
 here, where every delusion of the public is an action 
 of impolicy. 
 
 As a writer he was a sophist, rather than a reasoner: 
 he was too circuitous and declamatory, and had less of 
 that estimable gift in composition, which the ancients 
 
10 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 called ad wnguem, than any other writer we have 
 known, who had obtained any celebrity in society. 
 The most perfect of his literary labours are the "Fede- 
 ralist" and his intemperate "Letter to John Adams." 
 In the first, he had a glorious coadjutor in Mr. Madi- 
 son, and derived some assistance from Mr. Jay ; but, 
 we should suppose, that the subject could not be 
 much elucidated by any knowledge which the latter 
 may possess : he might stand as a foil to his compeers, 
 but he could not assimilate in a deed of brilliancy. 
 It appears to our inefficient comprehension, that there 
 is frequently a redundancy of similar ideas in this 
 work, and a tautological vein of expression, which ig 
 irrelevant to a polite taste, and injurious to the re- 
 quired perspicuity of such a performance; but this 
 defect may arise from a plurality of writers being en- 
 gaged on the same theme. Yet, with all its blemishes, 
 it is certainly a work of much merit, and considering 
 the intention of those who composed and published 
 it, to harmonize contending and dissatisfied States, 
 and bring them within the secure pale of national con- 
 federation, it receives a stamp of benignity that puts 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON, 11 
 
 criticism to silence, and makes the formulas of the 
 Stagyrite and Quinctillian become lesser objects of 
 thought. 
 
 His "Letter to John Adams," is an irrefragable testi- 
 mony of human weakness : it is a proof that when 
 thwarted in the career of his ambition, he would suffer 
 his irascibility, perhaps his malice, to frustrate the 
 final operation of his cooler desires, and unravel the 
 hard wrought web of his own party ! In its principle 
 it is vindictive, in its expression uncharitable, and in 
 its tendencies supremely detrimental to Anglo-federal 
 policy. 
 
 The origin of this rude and memorable publication 
 is well understood. Mr. Hamilton had long sighed for 
 the establishment of a standing army in the United 
 States, as the best means, perhaps the only one, of 
 introducing his neto energies into the system of gov- 
 ernment, and by which our liberties were to be ex- 
 punged at the point of the bayonet. When Mr. Adams 
 became President, Mr. H. exercised that unaccountable 
 power which he possessed over a higher character, to 
 have Mr. Adams induced to establish this military 
 
 2 
 
12 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 force. The pretence was given in with the design. 
 Mr. Adams was to seize the first practicable opportu- 
 nity of noticing some inaccuracy of conduct in a 
 French naval officer, or create some diplomatic mys- 
 tery at Paris to give a feeble countenance for arming 
 the Aristocracy, and all the dependents on the Aris- 
 tocracy in America. When the temper is prepared to 
 meet offence, the opportunities are not distant. A 
 military force of 50,000 men was voted by a flimsy 
 majority; every dissolute idler was made an officer 
 who would bellow — 'Pitt forever and confusion to 
 French liberty P Poor Mr. Adams was impelled to write 
 answers to addresses, calling upon his "Nobility" to 
 defend what had never been assailed, and to expose 
 his understanding and his honour in the same epistile. 
 Mr. H. was upon the alert, during this martial panto- 
 mime; he procured himself to be appointed as a Major 
 General (over the heads of many veterans) and Inspec- 
 tor General of the army. Washington was the source 
 of all these comic distinctions : he vouched for his 
 adequacy, and John Adams bit his lips and signed the 
 appointment. Now the sports of energy were to com- 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 13 
 
 mence; the recruiting parties took a post in every vil- 
 lage, and the peace of the shepherd was banished by 
 the sonorous invasion of the drum and fife ! While 
 the most illustrious president the ci-devant plenipo- 
 tentiary and adjust civilian, put on his helmet and 
 grappled the batton of command. They infused a 
 false heat in his excellency's blood, by the Cantharides 
 of British insolence ; and did not cease to drench him 
 with the murderous potation, until he was in the im- 
 perative mood : potentially bephiltered and duly ini- 
 tiated as a man of war ! 
 
 Thus JoHJTNT, and his fifty thousand men, 
 
 Marched up the hill, and then — -marched down again ! 
 
 So far, so smooth ; but as the fondness for power in- 
 creases with its possession, a jealousy naturally arose 
 between these renowned commanders. Joh.v scowled 
 at Alexander, and Alexander despised John. At 
 length the rupture occurred. The murmurs and 
 curses of the community had convinced Mr. A. that 
 all his expensive foolery was not congenial to the 
 desires of the people, and some personal hints that he 
 
14 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 had received, compelled him to relax somewhat in 
 the mighty preparation. The flattery of Mr. Liston 
 was but a wretched counterpoise for the malediction 
 of his country — his days were cheerless, and his 
 nights without repose. 'Alexander had murdered 
 sleep !' His agitated nerves required a narcotic which 
 he could not imbibe from the beauties of his draw- 
 ing-room, nor the bloodless\^ heroes in the tented 
 field. He would turn his mental eye towards the 
 sylvan s of Braintree, and sigh for that privacy and 
 insignificance from which fortune had wantonly torn 
 him at the expense of nature. Mr. H. saw the return 
 of reason with dismay by its dawnings upon the pre- 
 sidential mind, and, as no time was to be lost, he 
 hurried to Trenton, where the Government then sat, 
 to furnish his imperious advice; but he was not 
 suffered to put the saddle, as usual, on the horse of 
 state. Mr. A. assumed a firmness which did him 
 credit — he ordered Mr. H. to join the army, and leave 
 Trenton, where his presence was not necessary ! This 
 was wormwood ; this was a thunderbolt ; this was the 
 cause of that most indecent letter ! But such things 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 15 
 
 are, and such an exasperating M'riter may be desig- 
 nated in future as " A lamb led to the slaughter !" — 
 very like a lamb indeed ! 
 
 This droll event produced a schism among the 
 Anglo-federalists, which has led them into very dis- 
 tressing situations. It formed a Scylla and Charybdis 
 between which the eulogists for our aristocracy are 
 enforced to steer ; they have placed Cunning to stand 
 at the helm, in all weathers, lest Truth might step in 
 and dash them upon the rocks of ridicule. Some of 
 the recent Orators have been much gravelled to know 
 how to proceed securely on this head ; as all they said 
 in favour of Mr. Hamilton's perception, was at the 
 open expense of Mr. Adams's dignity, as he has im- 
 mortalized for impotency in the art of governing, and 
 an inconstant in his own desires. 
 
 The publication of this letter caused a material 
 emotion in society, and was very conducive to the in- 
 terests of freedom. It proved that Mr. A. had dis- 
 cernment enough to perceive, that all the measures of 
 Mr. H. were directed to the furtherance of the wishes 
 of the British minister ; and this discovery produced 
 
16 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 a hesitation on Hs part, which was utterly fatal to the 
 General's schemes. Mr. A. was willing to constitute 
 a probationary nobility, in a permanent Senate, and 
 to hold the community in fetters; but he was not 
 prepared to degrade his nation into a state of vas- 
 salage. Circumstances compelled him to feel that he 
 had been duped into a situation of peril, and he en- 
 deavoured to appease the rising wrath of the Citizens, 
 by disbanding this army of shreds and patches. Mr. 
 Hamilton saw the tempest of opprobrium gathering 
 round his head, and he laboured to divert the storm, 
 by affecting surprise that he should be implicated as 
 a minion of the British cabinet. As a precursor to 
 this attempt, he wrote the following laconic epistle, 
 which served as an example to Col. Burr, in opening 
 the late unj)leasant correspondence : — 
 
 New Yoek, August 1, 1800. 
 Sir,— 
 
 It has been repeatedly mentioned to me, that 
 you have, on different occasions, asserted the exist- 
 ence of a British faction in this country ; embracing 
 a number of leading and influential characters of the 
 Federal party, (as usually denominated) and that you 
 have sometimes named me, at others, plainly alluded 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 17 
 
 to me, as one of this description of persons. And I 
 have likewise been assured, that of late, some of your 
 warm adherents, for electioneering purposes, have 
 employed a corresponding language. 
 
 I must, sir, take it for granted, that you cannot 
 have made such assertions or insinuations with- 
 out being willing to avow them, and to assign the 
 reasons to a party who may conceive himself injured 
 by them. I therefore trust that you will not deem it 
 improper, that I apply directly to yourself to ascertain 
 from you, in reference to your own declarations, whe- 
 ther the information I have received has been correct 
 or not; and, if correct, what are the grounds upon 
 which you have founded the suggestion. 
 
 With respect, I have the honour to be, sir, 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 To John Adams, Esq., President of the United States. 
 
 Mr. Hamilton may justly be regarded as the founder 
 of the Royal Faction of this country. He raised it 
 from the dregs and ernbers of toryism, and placed it 
 for security in the circle of anti-Gallican antipathies ; 
 he certainly had the credit of being contributary to 
 every evil that threatened our liberties with ruin. His 
 great moving principle of action was passive obedi- 
 ence and non-resistance to the will of his political 
 momentum at St. James ; to insist as he insisted ; to 
 
18 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 run as he ran ; and to twist as he twisted. In return 
 for this docility, he was to he upheld hy every tory 
 agent in America, sustained by the aurum potabile, 
 while living, and deified when dead — at least so far as 
 deification is dependent on illiterate journalists and 
 monarchic scribblers. On this contract the federal 
 Parca of New Haven, Dedham and Charlestown, 
 chanted — Amen ! 
 
 The Advocates for Mr. H. have declared that he was 
 generous and explicit, which is an assertion that (in a 
 political sense) we will oppose ; he had a governing 
 secret which he never dared to avow : he was co-oper- 
 ating with the British to introduce a monarchial estab- 
 lishment in this nation. He was thus actuated when 
 he was the confidential adviser of General Washing- 
 ton, and the last years of that great man form the best 
 comment on this fact. His federal disciples in New- 
 England act upon this hope, with a perseverance that 
 would honour a purer cause. 
 
 That confederacy of which Mr. H. was the chief, 
 and which has been justly called the British Faction, 
 has an undeviating feature in its movements, which. 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 19 
 
 like the polar needle, never essentially varies. It is 
 not to be diverted from its plans of innovation upon 
 the Republican Constitution of this country by any 
 event. It is an Antcean conspiracy against our liber- 
 ties which gathers force from the repetition of its over- 
 throws ; it has no reference to despair, but builds its 
 hope of success upon the growing dominion of pride, 
 the relaxation of popular principles, and the corrupti- 
 bility of men ! 
 
 " Like to the Pontic sea, 
 
 Whose icy current and compulBive course 
 
 Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on 
 
 To the Propontio and the Hellespont : 
 
 Even so their bloody thoughts, with violent pace, 
 
 Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love, 
 
 'Till that a capable and wide revenge 
 
 Swallow us up !" 
 
 It is well known that Mr. H. was fond of implying 
 that he held Gen. Washington in leading strings, and 
 notwithstanding there was a subtle affectation of power 
 in the inuendo, there were too many fatal illustrations 
 of this influence to doubt its existence. The toad was 
 
 3 
 
20 
 
 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 not more inimical to the morals of our original mother, 
 than he was to Republicanism at the ear of his credu- 
 lous military master. He acted, apparently, as the 
 lieutenant or tocum tenens of the British minister, to 
 effect that by sap and mining in "which force and tyr- 
 anny had failed. His private associates were all of 
 the same monarchial tinge, and if he was not, pen- 
 sioned, the largesses of British patronage were com- 
 mensurate to the efficacy of such a reward. This de- 
 duction is neither violent nor unjust ; all his speeches 
 and writings tended to the aggrandizement of Britain 
 and the humiliation of America. Whether in the 
 treasury of Philadelphia, or as a jurist in New York 
 we found him travelling with his arbitrary prejudices 
 about him, like a squaw with her papooses ! While he 
 recommended an unconditional truckling to the fe- 
 rocity of the English navy, he libelled France on every 
 possible opportunity, and conjured up a myriad of ob- 
 structions to hinder that abused nation from the 
 attainment of their social rights. He was the Cis- 
 Atlantic echo for that tyrant Pitt — around whose legis- 
 lative neck he clung and hung, and who is the most 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 21 
 
 pernicious instrument that ever desolated a nation or 
 blighted human joy! 
 
 Every wise man must wish the national independ- 
 ence of England to be preserved, but all good men 
 must condemn its corrupt and corrupting government, 
 which will not suffer the world to have peace or kind- 
 ness for each other. Ferrum est quod amant. Mr. Pitt 
 has introduced a spirit of insolence that is now en- 
 grafted upon the British character, which was hereto- 
 fore brave, and merciful, and modest. The scrophula of 
 this insolence is visible in all their transactions. Their 
 state papers, their senatorial debates, their journals, 
 and their literature, have all one predominating char- 
 acteristic, and that is insolence ! If we were solicitous 
 for the destruction of that proud and besotted island, 
 would we have a fitter agent for such a purpose than 
 the fatal William Pitt ? 
 
 Mr. H. expressed a chagrin that Fries was not exe- 
 cuted, and brought it forward as a public charge 
 against Mr. Adams ; yet, in proportion as Mr. A. re- 
 jected the dictation of this gentleman, he regained 
 the popular esteem. The conduct of Judge Chase 
 
22 LIFE or ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 towards that miserable offender will immortalize his 
 name, but it will be an unenviable species of immor- 
 tality. 
 
 " Damn'd to everlasting fame !" 
 
 This exterminating energy may be very palatable to 
 the admirers of despotism, but Mr. Adams had been 
 instructed to know that the security of a free govern- 
 ment consisted in the clemency of the First Magis- 
 trate. Those doleful accents and sighs of disappoint- 
 ment which were ejaculated by Mr. H. because the 
 gibbets of Pennsylvania were untenanted, would not 
 have dishonoured a Jefferies or a Robespierre ; but, 
 with deference to the sacerdotal authority of the Rev. 
 Dr. Mason, they favoured more of the wolf than " the 
 lamb." 
 
 It is evident from the cloud of facts, and from his 
 own confession, if such collateral evidences were re- 
 moved, that he was the adviser and abettor in the na- 
 tional council, of the accursed British Treaty ; that 
 inglorious instrument, which tarnished the American 
 character, and gave to the common enemy of our lib- 
 erties that commanding influence over our emerging 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 23 
 
 prosperity which her navies and her armies could not 
 effect. When Gen. Washington signed that terrible 
 obligation, the good Genii of his fame should have 
 wrested the pen from his hand. It was a circumstance 
 which we must never cease to lament ; it caused a 
 paralysis in the body of the Union ; it was a surren- 
 der of the charter of nature, and rounded with mean- 
 ness, retraction, and pusillanimity. 
 
 It is observable that a disposition to calumniate the 
 French nation is exhibited on every opportunity by 
 those persons who have signalized themselves as 
 friends to Mr. H., and this must be done to please 
 their British connexions, as there is neither policy nor 
 truth in what they utter ; nor are there any active 
 Frenchmen in the United States to interfere with the 
 designs of the government : which is not the case with 
 respect to Britain, who has a faction among us, trained, 
 disciplined, and formidable ! France appears so care- 
 less of her interests upon this continent, that her 
 Charge des Affairs is known but in a limited sense, 
 and her Consuls seem inert upon every point that is 
 not materially connected with the routine of their pre- 
 
24 LIFE OP ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 scribed duty. The British act as if they expected that 
 serious crisis which Mr. H. embodied in his warm im- 
 aginatioD, and the whole party were riding on spring 
 cables, whereas the French are sleepy, confident and 
 innoxious, and evidently unwilling to disturb or be 
 disturbed. They are but thinly sprinkled among us, 
 like honest men upon earth, and should be shielded 
 from a preconcerted insult, upon the statutes of nation- 
 al hospitality. 
 
 The aristocracy which he would have formed would 
 have been an aristocracy of wealth, the most repulsive 
 of all, as it would have embraced the pride of distinc- 
 tion without its refinement. We should have had, in 
 the completion of his design, an Adamitish nobility, 
 lording it over the paramount claims of useful men, 
 driving the farmers and the artizans into the shades of 
 contempt and silent woe — as the barons of Germany 
 and Britain goad the tillers of the soil and the manu- 
 facturers of raiment. We should have had an eques- 
 trian order, but no generosi : haughty bipeds decked 
 with armorial trappings, but no graceful examples of 
 high taught endowment and mellowed dignity ; arro- 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 25 
 
 gant fungi, a forced fruit tliat would have borne tlie 
 appearance of patricans, witliout the inward zest and 
 ripeness. Having knowledge enough to be vain and in- 
 solent, hut not enough to be wise and forbearing, we 
 should have been annoyed with saucy ignorance and 
 bloated rank. This was the aristocratic superstition 
 that Mr. Hamilton desired to found in this country, 
 and his party do not forego a similar hope in their 
 present detection and discomfiture. But no theorist in 
 polity, from the Olympic sera to the immediate time, 
 had a wider dominion over the faculties of his bigots : 
 for had he cut the throats of the cardinal virtues in 
 the open forum, the British presses of New York, 
 Philadelphia and Boston would have extenuated if not 
 praised the enormity. 
 
 He seemed to think that man was an animal, not 
 susceptible of good and equitable government, and 
 forestalled the idea of the viciousness of humanity to 
 qualify his opposition to a liberal system of rule. 
 Like Mr. Burke, in the decay of his life and his phil- 
 anthropy, he was in the constant pursuit of partial 
 examples of wrong, to justify an habitual resistance to 
 
26 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 common right. He boldly declared to the author of 
 these comments, that " liberty was the highest note in 
 the gamut of nonsense" — and we have no hesitation 
 in believing that he was sincere in that unconditional 
 and ruthless assertion. Yet he aifected to have some 
 regard for liberty, when it was convenient for the pur- 
 poses of his ambition to address the public passions. 
 It was a melancholy prospect to see a man of his parts 
 so disdainful of those attributes which feed and sus- 
 tain the noblest sentiments of our nature. It was the 
 unalterable aim of him, and his party, to introduce 
 artificial distinctions, and make the many the vassals 
 of the few : but the experiment was impracticable, or 
 at least, it was premature. The community have but 
 a small concern with the intrigues of party, in a coun- 
 try so happily circumstanced as this. It is an objec- 
 tion with the royal faction, particularly in New Eng- 
 land, that every citizen may be a legislator ; but we 
 rejoice that he has the power, and hope that he will 
 always retain it, while his plain, but sound intelli- 
 •gence, is correspondent with the simplicity of the 
 governing law. Whether the best possible government 
 
LIFE or ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 27 
 
 for man lias been discovered, we do not know, but we can 
 ardently affirm tbat the present administration of the 
 United States is more pure and perfect than any other 
 which has obtained an establishment. Rights, in the. 
 people, to be defended by the government, and power 
 in the supreme authority to defend those rights, is all 
 that can be effected for social advantage, and that sys- 
 tem of beaiity and strength we enjoy, under the influ- 
 ence of Mr. Jefferson. 
 
 Had this fortuitous offspring of fortune and calam- 
 ity continued honest in his attachment to that Con- 
 stitution which he unwillingly embraced, and reluc- 
 tantly endured, we should not have had the religious 
 intellect of the United States insulted with those face- 
 tious apologies for guilt, and this tissue of blasphe- 
 mous idolatry. The aristocratic presses would have 
 consigned him to a pacific oblivion ; they would not 
 have assumed microscopes to take the length and 
 breadth of his ability, nor have teazed the firmament 
 with their prodigious sorrow at his decease. He 
 would have been left to the common repose destined 
 for the inanimate mortal, nor would the incumbent 
 
28 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 carcase in the adjoining grave have been considered 
 as peculiarly honoured by the proximity of his particu- 
 lar body! But he was the pleader for the Royal Fac- 
 tion, the pride and the solacement of our unformed 
 nobility : he was the choice bit of legislation, that was 
 to dovetail and bind the loose and angular substances 
 of the American Oligarchy. He was their catholicon 
 for all political diseases ; their compass in the gale, 
 their nil desperandum in the tornado — and when this 
 notorious practitioner of duelling, fell in a duel, " a 
 thousand bursting hearts," as Dr. Mason pathetically 
 says, " reiterated, why should he expose his precious 
 life ? " All this may be very correct, as there are about 
 a thousand Aristocrats in New York. Yet, as he had 
 challenged Mr. Monroe, and Commodore Nicholson, 
 and in effect Mr. John Adams (which by the way did 
 his gallantry no credit), why should he be pourtrayed 
 as "a lamb led to the slaughter," when he had, per- 
 haps, shewn a deeper propensity to duelling than any 
 other person in this country ? But they are all lambs, 
 if you are inclined to believe their own protestations, 
 from the Pope of Connecticut down to Judge Chase. 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDEE. HAMILTOK. 29 
 
 We repeat that posterity will not know whether it was 
 proposed that we should be merry or sad, by the tes- 
 timonials of these injudicious and whimpering eulo- 
 gists, who have run in the race of grief with such un- 
 necessary velocity, that they could not stop before 
 they had arrived at a point of solemn folly ! 
 
 Mr. H. has been ardently supported by the ecclesi- 
 astic orators ; Dr. Mason talks of him as a phenome- 
 non of piety, forbearance, and self denial ; and we have 
 
 no doubt but Bishop Moore and Mr. have said 
 
 as much. Another compares him to Abner, the 
 prince, in Holy Writ, and another to Prince Pretty- 
 man, in the Comedy. We merely notice these high 
 flying distinctions, to prove, that even in the memento 
 of sorrow, and on the margin of the grave, their re- 
 gards for the precedence of the Aristocracy do not for- 
 sake them. Why is the American Republic to be 
 dinned and stunned with their protracted lamenta- 
 tions, which has much of personal disappointment in 
 its nature ? Is ihe linch-pin of the elements to be 
 withdrawn, because Bishop Moore and Mr. Governeur 
 Morris have chosen to be voluntary actors in thia 
 
30 LIFE OP ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 royal tragedy ? Are we to supplicate Heaven, with the 
 
 hosanna, because Mr. and Mr. Coleman have 
 
 been abruptly married in the zenith of sorrow, with- 
 out the consent of their friends or the due ceremonies 
 of the parish? Are we to be told that the Naiads and 
 the Dryades will leave the floods and the woods for- 
 ever, because Col. Burr has unfortunately killed Gen. 
 Hamii-ton in a duel, who had heretofore organized the 
 means to kill others in the same melancholy way ; are 
 we to give our warrant to the hue and cry of an un- 
 authorized and savage resentment, because the fortune 
 of the hour has been against the head of an unnatu- 
 ral party ? In the generous flow of decent regret, for 
 the loss of a legislator who was brave and intelligent, 
 we can willingly unite. Though the tendency of his 
 politics was not in accordance with our notions of 
 civil right, we cannot sufler such a consideration to 
 abrogate the sympathy of the heart. The exalted 
 commiseration of a gentleman, on such an event, is 
 not to be shaken by lesser objections, when there is 
 no admitted instance that the object of his pity had 
 stained his honour by a conscious meanness. 
 
LIPE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 31 
 
 As an Orator he was more plausable than com- 
 manding. He rather won his award by an insinuation 
 of manner, than by a bold and impetuous stream of 
 eloquence. He was deficient in those lofty energies 
 of soul which characterized Patrick Henry when he 
 determined to relieve his country from bondage. He 
 had none of that florid copiousness of Mirabeau ; the 
 rapid conception of Charles Fox; or the poignancy 
 of Sheridan. His manner was his own, and better 
 suited to forensic disputation than legislative dis- 
 cussion. He was habituated to be pleasing by his 
 address, but he was not fitted to astonish by his 
 power ; nor could he have shaken and controuled a 
 senate, for the emancipation of his fellow-citizens, 
 provided the prejudices of his mind would have al- 
 lowed him to have been a vindicator of the natural 
 privileges of society. He had a propensity to sophis- 
 tication, which was indicative of the crookedness of 
 his ambition ; for the furtherance of which he was 
 necessitated to take a Protean diversity of shapes, — 
 but these circumfluent movements would not have 
 been expedient had he uniformly meant what he 
 
32 LIFE OP ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 uttered. True generosity and true merit delight in 
 sunshine, and feeling themselves amiable, they are 
 most happy in being explicit. As a barrister, defend- 
 ing the cause of private interest, his logic was skil- 
 fully applied to the developement of fact and legal 
 right ; but when applied in a political direction it 
 was entangled with artifices, and lost much of its 
 legitimate beauty. When we view him as a lawyer, 
 it is but justice to allow that his zeal was exemplary 
 and his integrity invulnerable. The lawyers are a/ 
 body of gentlemen that we have been accustomed 
 to esteem, in all nations, as we have been gladdened 
 by their friendship, and refined by their intelligence. 
 The oratorical powers of Mr. H. seemed more calcu- 
 lated, in a pleading sense, to rouse the judgment to a 
 revision of what had passed, than to affect the heart : 
 he made a cool and deliberate appeal to the minds 
 of his hearers, but frequently defeated his own de- 
 sires by refining too much upon his subject, and 
 giving a metaphysical complexion to an idea that 
 would have been most powerful when delivered in 
 the plainest language. This failing was frequently 
 
LIFE OF ALEXAMDEE. HAMILTON. 33 
 
 visible in his earlier -writings, but in his latter pro- 
 ductions he had a more brief and happy mode of ex- 
 pression. For cursory observers, he was a very alluring 
 speaker ; but in the view of men of cultivated minds, 
 he did not appear with so much grace. He was defi- 
 cient in emphatic ardour, and had no distinct notion 
 of the efficacy of the sublime in composition : he was 
 gifted to convince rather than inspire. 
 
 "Thoughts, that breathe, and words, that burn," 
 were not at his disposal; his comprehension of a 
 subject was more admirable than his manner of em- 
 bellishment ; and he seemed in his exterior so urbane 
 and unwilling to ofi'end, that we have often won- 
 dered how the operations of party impulse could 
 induce him to give his countenance to such a series 
 of rudenesses and untruths, respecting the First Offi- 
 cers of the State, as have appeared in the paper 
 exclusively devoted to his public purposes. It is 
 asserted that he was consistent, and we are so little 
 inclined to resist this opinion, that we are ready to 
 concede every possible honour to his memory that 
 can result from a consistency in error. He stood 
 
34 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 committed, as the leader of a faction, and it did not 
 remain within his own choice, whether he should be 
 politically just or otherwise ; as, when a point is to 
 be gained in which the pride or interest of a foreign 
 faction is involved, the morality of the means be- 
 comes an inferior object of adoption. 
 
 ' As to that rare faculty of the mind, which, in mod- 
 ern times, has been denominated genius, he did not 
 possess any — or, if any, it was of that ordinary sort 
 
 I which we meet with in the usual circles of life. He 
 has left no instances of genius; no works which be- 
 speak a creative and glowing fancy, that can conceive 
 what shall please and amaze, and aptly embody what 
 it has so richly conceived. Mr. H. had a powerful 
 understanding and a plodding disposition, and we 
 have some reason to believe that few men laboured 
 harder for the knowledge that he had acquired. We 
 shall proceed, in a proper place, to touch upon the 
 evidences of that knowledge, with its bearing upon 
 the common good or infelicity of society. De Moivre, 
 or Cocker, or Roddiman, or even Noah Webster, might 
 have some feeble pretences to this peculiar emana- 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 35 
 
 tion of tlie god upon the mind, if Mr. H. may be 
 allowed to have had any. Surely those who have 
 been so prodigal in their direction of this term, could 
 not have understood its luminous meaning. He had 
 no Orphean charm to hold the senses in captivity. 
 Mr. H. was the point of a restless, corrupt and enslav- 
 ing party, which he had greatly formed by his own 
 trait of policy. In the midst of this intricate web, 
 he sat in domination, like Arachne in her toils ; every 
 political insect that was allowed to buzz within his 
 attractive circles, did homage to his power — and such 
 tomage is uniformly characterized by such idolaters : 
 but it belongs to the observant to correct these ex- 
 cesses of adulation, and make the act and renown run 
 parallel with each other. When the royalists bestow 
 an encomium on a monarchial principal, whether 
 alive or dead, they are so profuse in the letter of 
 commendation that they overshoot the intention, 
 and appear as very facetious when they merely mean 
 to be very civil! 
 
 Among the orations, which we have heard and read, 
 as issuing from the federal party, that which was 
 
 5 
 
36 UFE OF ALEXANDEH. HAMILTON. 
 
 most pertinently written, was the more imperfectly 
 delivered; and that which was most imperfectly 
 written, was more ably delivered. In the first in- 
 stance, we allude to Mr. Otis's eulogy, on the subject 
 of these comments; and in the other, to Dr. Dan- 
 forth's oration on the 4th July ; which, he must suf- 
 fer us to say, was such a knot of verbal inflation and 
 disjointed imagery; such antiology of expression; 
 such an assassination of Syntax, and all the children 
 of Ratiocination, that we scarcely could believe the 
 orator was serious in his endeavours. Our principal 
 objection to these orations is, that they are too simi- 
 lar in feature. They catch and borrow error from 
 each other — more attention seems to be paid to 
 words than ideas, although the words should be 
 merely subordinate and instrumental to the uses of 
 the thought. If some of these gentlemen were deep- 
 ly acquainted with the dead languages, we should 
 have Grecisms in the van and rear of a sentiment, 
 and Hebraisms in the vis a vis of an antithesis. A 
 delicate and just genius will proportion his language 
 to his figure, and only depart from simplicity to en- 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 87 
 
 force ridicule or criticism. We do not mean to 
 repress imitation, but to regulate its spirit for the 
 maintainance of a correct taste. When Horace con- 
 sulted the odes of Pindar, and Boccalini the pages of 
 LuciAN, it was not to assimilate with them in letter, 
 but in manner. As there is a laudable propensity to 
 be oratorical among our students in the learned pro- 
 fessions, and as that desire is analogous to the princi- 
 ples of Republican institutions, we are somewhat eager 
 to facilitate their progress towards refinement; but 
 especially as the habits of the rising generation will 
 be greatly dependent upon their document and their 
 example. 
 
 As the Royal Faction in the United States consid- 
 ered it necessary to their cause, to give a theatrical air 
 and costume to all their public demonstrations of woe, 
 on account of the untimely death of the late Gen. Ham- 
 ilton, we deemed it equally necessary to make some 
 remarks upon the probable effects that such a series 
 of over-strained ceremony may have upon the public 
 mind, and how far the morals and happiness of the 
 people may be improved by such an exhibition of 
 party pageantry, on such an occasion. 
 
38 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 Having tErown out a preparatory beacon of caution, 
 relative to the eulogy by Mr. Otis on Mr. H., we 
 thought it probable that the wiser part of his friends 
 would have seen the impropriety of the design, and 
 have induced him to abandon the idea. But we were 
 deceived in this supposition. 
 
 In regard to the private motives which might in- 
 fluence Mr. Otis, in this measure, we have no doubt. 
 We believe them to have arisen from the most delicate 
 sources of friendship, and such as every friend should 
 indulge, in such circumstances, in a domestic sense : 
 but in regard to the public application of this sorrow, 
 we beg leave to offer our decided disapprobation. 
 Our reasons are these, — ^First, because it may be detri- 
 mental to popular morals to deliver a methodical 
 apology for the practice of duelling, by praising the 
 unfortunate gentleman who has fallen in the barbar- 
 ous act. Secondly, because the permission to deliver 
 such an eulogy in the interior of a christian church, 
 consecrated to holy ordinances, may be contemplated 
 with horror, as a profane intrusion before the Almighty, 
 
 and as an impious stain upon the hallowed character 
 of his temple. 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 39 
 
 But lest our arguments should be deficient in 
 authority, to arrest the currency of such profanity, we 
 have environed ourselves with an irresistible power, 
 composed of all the sects who trace the letter of their 
 salvation in the text and context of the sacred writings, 
 Philadelphia, July 18. At a meeting of clergymen 
 of several denominations, conveyed by public notice, 
 for the purpose of taking into consideration a com- 
 munication from a respectable number of citizens, 
 who met at the coffee-house in this city on the 10th 
 instant, in which communication the clergy are re- 
 quested to conduct the religious exercise of the 
 ensuing Lord's day, in such a manner as to notice a 
 late mournful event: — There were present clergymen 
 from the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian do., the 
 Roman Catholic do., the Baptist do., the Associate 
 Reformed do., the Hebrew do. 
 
 On motion, Resolved, That the clergy composing this 
 meeting are sincerely desirous to gratify the wishes 
 of any of their fellow-citizens, so far as can be done 
 consistent with their views of duty. 
 
 Resolved, That the practice of duelling is mani- 
 festly a violation of the most sacred laws both of God 
 
40 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 and man, and has often been represented and repre- 
 hended as such, in our public addresses ; so that we 
 think every suitable opportunity ought to be em- 
 braced to discountenance and discourage this wicked, 
 savage, and murderous practice ; and that those of the 
 clergy who shall judge that the next Lord's day will 
 _ present a favourable opportunity for exposing said 
 practice from the pulpit, may do so with propriety, 
 while those who may, from any circumstance, judge 
 it inconvenient or unreasonable there to perform this 
 service with propriety, may omit it. 
 
 Resolved, That the offering up of such prayers and 
 thanksgivings as are recommended by the citizens in 
 their meeting, or otherwise noticing a late mournful 
 event, (farther than has been alluded to in the pre- 
 ceding resolution) would, as we conceive, be for 
 various reasons at this time highly inexpedient. 
 
 Ordered, that the above resolutions, signed by the 
 chairman and secretary, be published in all the news- 
 papers in this city. 
 
 Signed agreeably to order by 
 
 William White, Chairman. 
 
 Jacob J. Janeway, Secretary. 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 41 
 
 While Mr. Hamilton remained in. office, what were 
 the consequences of his administration ? Mr. Gover- 
 NEUR Morris, and Mr. Otis, have each answered that 
 question. The former gentleman publicly, but not 
 decently, told the citizens of New York, that Mr. 
 Hamilton " had toiled incessantly with manly firmness 
 against popular zeal, and snatched them in spite of 
 themselves from impending ruin." As to his toiling 
 against popular zeal, there can be no doubt : and we 
 will add, that he toiled likewise against popular 
 happiness, but why this should be selected as the 
 subject of an eulogy, we cannot determine, when it 
 operates so much against the credit of the deceased. 
 As to his snatching them from impending ruin, we 
 utterly deny the position : he used his influence with 
 the illustrious Washington, (and a malignant influence 
 it was,) to harass and coerce the community with 
 measures that brought the well earned popularity of 
 that great man into imminent peril ; but he retired 
 from the scene before the contamination had fastened 
 too deeply on his unsuspicious nature. No, Mr. Gov- 
 ERNEUR Morris, the people were snatched from im- 
 
42 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 pending ruin, not by Mr. H. but Mr. Jefferson, who 
 1 restored the accustomed privileges of the community, 
 and, by timely saving us from the scourge of monarchy, 
 a standing army and a sedition bill, merited and en- 
 joyed the blessing of the people. From such oppo- 
 nents as GovERNEUR Morris, liberty and her mild 
 associates have but little to apprehend. Bid him 
 carry his panegyric to the sepulchre of the royalist, 
 and breathe a ridicule over its dust, by the unfitness 
 of his praise. Mr. Fisher Ames, and Mr. John Jay, 
 have nestled in the royal hospital for incurables, and 
 the sooner Mr. Governeur Morris makes up a trium- 
 viate the better. 
 
 " Time was when the brains were out, the man would die." 
 
 Mr. Otis (the least objectional of these eulogists, 
 because the least false and fulsome) asserts thus, 
 " the flame of insurrection viras kindled in the western 
 counties of Pennsylvania, and raged with such violence 
 that large detachments of military force were march- 
 ed to the scene of the disturbance, and the presence 
 of the great Washington was necessary to quell the 
 
LIFE OP ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 43 
 
 increasing spirit of revolt. He ordered tlie Secretary 
 ( Mr. H.) to quit the duties of his department, and 
 attend him on the expedition. His versatile powers 
 were immediately and efficaciously applied to restore 
 the authority of the laws." On this passage, which 
 Mr. Otis delivered with a peculiar pressure of empha- 
 sis, we shall remark, that there is but too clear an 
 evidence to beleive that this lamented insurrection 
 was produced hy the vexatious imposts introduced by 
 this Mr. Hamilton ; and all the military parade which 
 ensued, was probably a desirable event with the ad- 
 ministration of that day, to exhibit what Mr. H. was 
 so fond of denominating the energy of the govern- 
 ment. But such sanguinary energies are not necessary 
 when the government is faithful to the interests of 
 the people and its own security. As to Mr. H.'s boast- 
 ed versatility of power, in restoring the authority of 
 the laws, it was only necessary that he should have 
 removed the obnoxious cause of irritation, and the 
 effect of tranquillity would naturally ensue. This 
 sort of quelling a self-created commotion, reminds us 
 of Mr. Bayes, in the Rehearsal, who raised a rebellion 
 
 6 
 
44 LIFE OP ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 at Knights bridge, that he might have the pleasure 
 of slashing the maiden swords of his new levies, and 
 frightening the neighbourhood to confirm their obedi- 
 ence. Poor Mr. Adams was gulled into an attempt to 
 shew the energy of his government, and he pursued 
 the energetic folly until he sunk gradually into the 
 morass of impotence and scorn. The energy which 
 Mr, Jefferson employs, is of another nature, and 
 consists merely in the comprehensive virtue of his 
 measures. The liberties of America were more in dan- 
 ger during the " reign of terror," than in any period of 
 the Revolution, and it was the hand of heaven that pro- 
 pelled the disunion between Mr. Hamilton and Mr. 
 Adams : on that imminent jera, the mask of sophistry 
 fell off when the declared hideousness was such, that 
 the affrighted people ran to Mr. Jefferson for succor 
 and protection. 
 
 In regard to the declaration, which is said to have 
 been written before his death, and which has been 
 published since, in moral ostentation, we must 
 observe, that it may have been an artifice of his 
 overweening adherents, or it may have been the pro- 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 45 
 
 duction of Mr. H.; but, in either point of view, we 
 deem the publication of it as disadvantageous to his 
 renown. If it be genuine, he can no longer be repre- 
 sented as a hero, in a temporal sense, as a generalis- 
 simo ought, but must rely for his support upon the 
 spiritual interpretation of his remorse. If this paper 
 be admitted as effectual evidence of the innocent ten- 
 dencies of his mind, while in an attitude of hostility 
 against the person (it had been presumed), he had 
 maligned, his apologists must have conceded that 
 privilege to him, which Philo and Josephus gave to 
 Moses, and which Saint Augustine, and other Fathers 
 of the Apostolic Church, have exclusively obtained in 
 behalf of the Scriptures : namely, the divine preroga- 
 tive of narrating before the fact, as well as after! 
 Like the chorus in the Greek Drama, he is allowed to 
 antedate and aver, that " long before the beginning of 
 this tragedy !" but, if such allowances are suffered, we 
 shall never be able to ascertain in what the truth 
 consists. Subtlety and management may usurp the 
 place of candour, and authenticity be destroyed in the 
 alliance between ingenuity, belief and imposture. 
 
46 LIFE OP ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 We are not inclined to suppose tliat Mr. H. was marked 
 by ferocious habits, yet we think that the documents 
 of his last hour received no additional force as coming 
 from one who had been a wholesale dealer in duels ; 
 and whose repentance was merely signified when his 
 powers of offending had ceased. This is direct reason- 
 ing, and cannot be explained away. 
 
 It has appeared that we have given indelible offence 
 by our observations upon the British Treaty ; yet, as 
 they are the result of evidence, we are not disposed to 
 relinquish that ground of reasoning, though the 
 whole Essex Junto should 
 
 " Bid ruffian murder drink the dregs of life." 
 
 The intellectual character of this nation suffered an 
 irrecoverable wound, in Britain, by the facility with 
 which Lord Grenvillb circumvented Mr. Jay, in the 
 construction of that treaty. Lord Grenville is con- 
 sidered in England as but a diminished politician, in 
 comparison with Mr. Fox, Mr. Pitt, or even Lord Mel- 
 ville : but it is evident from Gen. Hamilton's letter to 
 Mr. Adams, that Mr. Jay was privately instructed not 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 47 
 
 to have too much rigidity in negotiation ; and, to do 
 him justice, he carried this plastic civility so far, that 
 the rights and importance of his country seemed occa- 
 sionally to be entirely out of his sphere of contempla- 
 tion. They encircled him with a mass of tawdry 
 images, bedizened with coronets, and stars and garters, 
 and caps and bells; and so infatuated his ductile 
 brain, that he lost the equilibrium of his reason, and 
 signed the death warrant of America, out of mere 
 civility to his splendid associates, and to prove that 
 he had some good breeding, though he had no good 
 policy. 
 
 From the time that Mr. Jay arrived, after this fatal 
 transaction, we may date a new order of things to have 
 taken place among us. The Essex Junto was formed, 
 and its political relations and ramifications were 
 extended over the United States. These persecutors 
 of human freedom suborned every press that could be 
 corrupted, and established others to confound and 
 destroy the civic privileges of their fellow-citizens. 
 They affected to brand the Patriots of '75 with igno- 
 miny, and had the audacity to walk up to the teeth 
 
48 
 
 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 /V 
 
 
 of our best and wisest men, and insult them for their 
 constancy to public virtue. A reign of terror was 
 enforced to sustain this woeful delusion, and every 
 man was threatened with the bow string who would 
 not abandon his regards for his native land, and 
 defend this tory treaty in all its parts and bearings. 
 
 The greater part of the funding schemes, which 
 Mr. Hamilton adopted in the latter part of his official 
 duty as Secretary of the Treasury, were suggested by 
 the late Col. William Duer, who afterwards broke, on 
 a land speculation, for several million of dollars, and 
 died, in coniinement, at New York. It has been 
 rumoured that Mr. H. was in possession of some part 
 of a negotiation, for bringing in the present Duke of 
 Kent, the fourth son of his Britannic Majesty, as Sov- 
 ereign of North America ; but we do not believe that 
 this report was ever duly authenticated: yet it is 
 certain, that such an idea has been embraced by 
 persons of high credit in the United States. Mr. H. 
 calculated upon his successes, from the extention of 
 our weaknesses — We will not pronounce that he was an 
 Epicurean in his philosophy, but, if we may be allowed 
 
LIFE OP ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 49 
 
 to form an opinion from his practice, he regarded 
 human movements with the same organs as Philip 
 Stanhope, and supposed that men were governed by 
 interest, and women by their senses! 
 
 The Federal Monarchists, when they began that 
 horrid system of proscription, obloquy, and violence, 
 which has since been properly denominated " the 
 reign of terror," made a political speculation on 
 grounds that were nearly secure : they were aware 
 that should their diabolical machination against hu- 
 man liberty be inefficacious, that the principle of that 
 republican liberty would not admit of a retaliation of 
 similar cruelty. All their schemes were to be carried 
 by a coup de main, before the understanding could 
 thoroughly investigate their evils, or the conspirators 
 must be discomfited ; yet, in the dernier resort, they 
 had the latent satisfaction of knowing, that nothing 
 fraught with an unmanly insolence of character, would 
 be visited on their fallen heads. That it would be 
 sufficient to humble the crest of their faction, and that 
 then they would be permitted (as they are) to shake off 
 the errors of their arrogance, and commix, in quietude 
 
60 LIFE OF ALEXANDEH HAMILTON. 
 
 and fraternal decency, with their forbearing fellow- 
 citizens. But political repentance has not made a 
 lodgement in their souls, for whether they speak or 
 write, it is yet in such a high tone of rudeness as was 
 unprecedented before their party was known. 
 
 There is one remarkable confession which has burst 
 upon the nation, in consequence of this event, which 
 we should not have been enabled to establish without 
 a concurrence of evidence, which has been extract- 
 ed from the alembick of their own vanity : in the 
 paroxisms of their adulation they have admitted, 
 what has uniformly been suspected by the Repub- 
 licans, namely, that they (the Anglo-Federal Royal 
 Faction of the United States) considered General 
 Hamilton as an infinitely greater personage, and more 
 imitable and deserving than our adored Washington. 
 If this idea, which is nearly impious in its extent and 
 meaning, should be doubted, you shall have it, as 
 literally transcribed from the British presses of 
 Charleston and New York. Mr. Coleman, as the abler 
 man, shall speak for himself, and his Carolinian coad- 
 jutor also — "The following production containing. 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 51 
 
 striking- correct, and original observations, is from the 
 clear head of Mr. S. C. Carpenter, Editor of the 
 Charleston Courier" — (whose real name is Stephen 
 CuLLEN, and who was, a few years since, one of the 
 understrappers belonging to the True Briton, a minis- 
 terial paper of London ; it seems that he has been ap- 
 pointed, as an Editor, by the Royal Faction, in the 
 Southern States, and his folly and his fury, may be 
 adequate qualifications with that agonized and declin- 
 ing body). The following is a faithful extract, from 
 the paper of this faithful monarchist — 
 
 "If we make a, fair estimate of the value of those 
 great men, who have distinguished themselves in this 
 most important era of the history of man, and judge 
 of the services they would hereafter confer, by those 
 they have already rendered to the states, we must con- 
 sider the death of Gen. Hamilton as the greatest loss, 
 not only which the country has hitherto sustained, but 
 far greater than it is possible for it to sustain at this 
 time by the death of any single individual." 
 
 The only remark which it is necessary for a Repub- 
 lican to make, on such an instance of extravagant 
 party sycophancy, is, that it is the nature of enthusi- 
 asm to become ridiculous ! 
 
 7 
 
52 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 It has appeared to us, that in the consequent man- 
 agement of the representation of this fatal transac- 
 tion, the adherents to Gen. H. have leaned too heavily 
 upon the reputation of Col. Burr. We can allow these 
 gentlemen great latitude of grief, for the abrupt loss 
 of such a man, but we cannot allow that any thing 
 should have been manifested, at such a crisis of re- 
 sponsibility to the survivor, but what was in perfect 
 accordance with liberality and truth. We feel no 
 pleasure in the demise of Gen. H., but we feel a strong 
 repugnance to the attempt to give such an undue col- 
 ouring to the progress of events, as may create an ab- 
 horrence towards one of the parties, which may not be 
 proportioned to the measurement of his intentions, or 
 the infelicity of his mind. 
 
 In the issue of the published correspondence be- 
 tween Mr. H. and Mr. B., we will venture to predict 
 that Mr. Burr's fame will not suffer in the polished 
 societies of Europe. We cannot discover any spirit of 
 determination to destroy the gentleman who has fall- 
 en ; but we discover an ardent solicitude that his ri- 
 val should disavow expressions of a harsh tendency, 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 53 
 
 relating to himself, and under which he could not ex- 
 ist with honourable satisfaction. The implication of 
 the necessity of a duel, seems, to our imperfect mind, 
 to be admitted by Gen. H. — then why is this unusual 
 tumult of execration, this storm of words, directed 
 exclusively against the devoted combatant who has 
 outlived the miserable contest ? 
 
 The preposterous labours to upraise the name of 
 Gen. H. so much above his appropriate standard, are 
 somewhat ludicrous. The absurd flatterers of his 
 memory would rank him among the Dii Minnrum 
 Gentium, and make him the associate of the Julian 
 Star : and yet Samuel Adams and Dr. Priestley, who 
 were the Cato and Verulam of the nation, were placed 
 quietly in the sepulchre without such a pagan toil for 
 an Apotheosis! 
 
 In reflecting upon the ambitious life and regretted 
 death of this interesting gentleman, we cannot avoid 
 recurring to the admirable soliloquy of C^sar over 
 the ashes of Pompey; which is sympathetic, moral, 
 and didactic, and, as Shakespeare says, in very choice 
 Italian : 
 
54 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 Alma del gran Pompeo, 
 
 Che al cener suo d' intomo 
 
 Invisihil I' aggiri, 
 
 Fur ombra i tuoi trofei, 
 
 Orribra la tua grandezzo, e un omlraftil 
 
 Cosi iermina alfine ilfasto umano ! 
 
 Jeri chi vivo eccupo un mondo in guena, 
 
 Oggi, risolto in polve, un urna serra I 
 
 Tal di ciascuno ahi lasso I 
 
 II principo e di terra e ilfine un sassol 
 
 Misera vita! quanta efral tuo stalo ! 
 
 Ti forma un sqffio, e ti dislrugge unfiato. 
 
 These are thy ashes, Pompey, this the mound, 
 Thy soul, invisible, is fluttering round! 
 Thy splendid trophies and thy honours fade, 
 Thy grandeur, like thyself, is now a shade. 
 Thus sinks the hope in which we most confide, 
 And thus must terminate all human pride ! 
 What, yesterday, eould hold a world in chains. 
 To-day, resolv'd in dust, an urn contains. 
 Such is our fate, from meanness to the throne, 
 Our origin is, dast, our end, a stone ! 
 Ah wretched life, how frail and short thy joys, 
 A breath creates thee, and a breath destroys ! 
 
 These are the honest sentiments of our understand- 
 ing, in respect to the public character of Mr. H., and 
 we are not to be intimidated from giving them circu- 
 lation, by the Janizaries and Gladiators of the British 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 55- 
 
 Ministry in this country. We know that a confedera- 
 cy was formed for the abolition of an equality of rights, 
 and he was at the head of that political association. The 
 hisses of these traitors may be heard in every federal 
 echo of New England, and we will not repose until 
 the hydra is crushed ! 
 
 The varying arts which they practice to undermine 
 the privileges of the Farmer and the Mechanic, are of 
 the most subtle nature. They know that the base of 
 human freedom is affixed upon the liberty of the 
 press, and under this conviction they violate and stain 
 that liberty, upon every possible event, in order to 
 make that privilege odious, which they are so eager to 
 destroy. Every reasoner in the cause of the people, 
 however learned, polite and kind, is denounced by 
 this Royal Junto, as a Jacobin, an Infidel, and a Re- 
 publican villain ! He is assailed by a hideous clamour, 
 to traduce his honour and annul his morals. They will 
 depict him as an Atheist, because he opposes an hier- 
 archy ; and they will exhibit him as a popular flat- 
 terer, because he is unwilling to see the useful classes 
 despised, and the weaker orders of his fellow-citizens 
 
56 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 in misery ! Their local devotion is absurd : a Jos is 
 worshipped as a deity by the Chinese, but this mere- 
 tricious image is not admitted as god in any other re- 
 gion. Mr. H. might be a proper instrument to hold 
 up as the idol of the Essex Junto ; but he was very 
 far from being a great man, unless they take the meas- 
 urement of eddowment by the altitudes of Lilliput. 
 Before an example of ponderous intellect, profound 
 learning, and experimental virtue, he would melt and 
 shrink into an ordinary man of merit — but even this 
 concession may offend. 
 
 It is amusing to witness the sublimated irritability 
 of this Royal Faction ; they are all naked, all nerve, 
 all soreness ; though we touch them with a gentleness 
 of demeanour on the flayed parts of their political 
 system, their keen sense of guilt is such, that shouts 
 of terror fill the air, and the whole Tory confederation 
 exclaim, with Pistol, in similar dudgeon and diverting 
 wrath, 
 
 "All Hell shall etir for this." 
 
 Though some have appeared to suppose that I have 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 57 
 
 been unmerciful in these strictures, his more immedi- 
 ate friends at New York, are convinced of the truth of 
 my argument. The portrait is rather tenderly col- 
 oured than otherwise. I know, in the most assured 
 sense, that he was the instrument of Mr. Liston, the 
 British Ambassador, in the year 1798 ; and that tem- 
 pest of calumny and oppression, which was raised 
 against me in London, and illegally enforced at the 
 instigation of the most abandoned Administration that 
 ever disgraced an Empire, to overwhelm me, with a 
 mountain of power, was copied at that period, by Mr. 
 CoBBETT, in the Porcupine, on my arrival in America, 
 at the express command of this party. Since that 
 epoch, it has been repeatedly published by every 
 whipster in the United States, who might envy my 
 name, or be solicitous to be lifted from obscurity by 
 my chastisement. The immoderate eagerness which 
 Mr. H. displayed to prove that he had no connexion 
 with this British host of foes, was equal to a proof 
 with me, that his declaration was fallacious. As none 
 assume importance but those who are conscious of not 
 possessing it, so none feel it necessary to be outrage- 
 
58 LIFE OP ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 OTIS in protestation, whose principles are uncontami- 
 nated with deception. When men boast vehemently 
 of an extreme piety, the ladies of an exceeding mod- 
 esty, and statesmen of being incorruptible, all the 
 parties become legal objects of suspicion. 
 
 In concluding our remarks upon this memorable 
 transaction, and the memorable person who is no more, 
 we must declare that we have done " nothing in hatred, 
 but all in honour ;" — we have endeavoured to present 
 the world with such a recital as a philanthropist should 
 write, and a republican peruse. Could we believe the 
 panegyrists of his name, the pigeon of Mahomet, or 
 the wand of Merlin, become nothing, in the scale of 
 necromancy, on a comparison with his address! We 
 deemed it expedient to prevent these tales of fraud 
 and ruin from becoming circular in the Union; we 
 may smile at a lesser imposture, but human credulity 
 must not be incumbered too deeply. If the sad con- 
 viction of the calamities that are attendant upon a de- 
 parture from the regulations of civil society, should 
 reduce the accustomed coarseness of party invective, 
 we shall rejoice, as the Sabbath charities of the 
 
LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 59 
 
 tongue are insufficient for the restriction of human 
 infirmity, if those charities do not emanate in our 
 principle of action. 
 
 Our motives have been morally good and nationally 
 just. The execrators of Mr. Burr, have been silenced, 
 because they were hypocritical, and we have stopped 
 the canonization of Mr. H. from a regard for Christian 
 decency. No parts were ever so much overacted as 
 they were on this melancholy occasion, for rage be- 
 came contemptible in its own excesses. It was the 
 Funeral, or Grief a la mode ; every puny insect was 
 affecting to be perturbed, and tilting in a fog, with 
 his rapier, to exterminate the Vice-President ! In this 
 whirlwind of deception, pity lost all her interest, and 
 resentment all her dignity. Erasmus wrote in praise 
 of folly, but we dare not : the world's market has been 
 overcharged since his apology for its sufferance. It 
 has been asserted by our opponents that we have been 
 malignant in these remarks, but that charge is so far 
 from being founded in fact, that we have uniformly 
 suppressed whatever might have a reference to the 
 PRIVATE actions of this gentleman. But what can 
 
60 
 
 LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 be said to such adversaries ? As they have not the 
 habits to write as gentlemen, nor wit to invalidate our 
 arguments, we must leave them to those means of de- 
 fence which they possess. When any of the party may 
 appear, whom we do not disdain, we will give him a 
 serious reply. — Peace to his manes I