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ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

THERE are few names of more lasting | Huguenot on the mother's. Students

influence, or more permanent regard, in our American history, than that of Hamilton. His fame is blended with the living growth of our commonwealth. While the labors of others survive on the pages of history connected with the past with the record of wars and struggles, which, while they, perhaps, gain in grandeur by the lapse of time, become every day more strange and foreign to our perceptions; it is his fortune to be associated with a monument of political wisdom, which, often sorely tried and always triumphant, has become the very bond, and, so to speak, guardian genius of the national welfare; that Constitution by which we live and hope to live. How brilliantly Hamilton shot upon the troubled scene of the Revolution; how suddenly and unhappily was the splendid flame extinguished in meridian brightness! The vicinity of the tropics has sent few sons of its burning soil so to calm and temper the rage of men in northern climes. We must look beyond the isles of the Antilles for the secret of this peculiar growth.

The parentage of Alexander Hamilton is given by his son and biographer as of mingled Scottish and French ancestry-Scottish on the father's side,

of the doctrine of temperaments may find something to ponder over in such a fusion under the genial ray of the southern sun. Given the key, they may unlock with it many cabinets in the idiosyncrasy of the future Hamilton; Scottish perseverance and integ rity, French honor and susceptibility, tropical fervor. Be that as it may, Alexander Hamilton first saw the light in the West India island St. Christophers, Jan. 11, 1757. His father was a trader or captain sailing between the islands of the archipelago, whose business brought him into relation with Nicholas Cruger, a wealthy merchant of Santa Cruz, in intimate relation with New York, in whose counting-house the son was placed at the age of twelve. He was a boy of quick intel lect, in advance of his years, and had already made much of limited oppor tunities of instruction, as we may learn from an exceedingly well penned epistle addressed thus early to a school-fellow who had found his way to New York. In this remarkable letter, the boy seems to have written with prophetic instinct. "To confess my weakness, Ned," he says, "my ambition is prevalent, so that I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk or the like, to

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which my fortune condemns me, and room-fellow, testifies to his carnest rewould willingly risk my life, though ligious feeling, a very noticeable thing not my character, to exalt my station in a youth of his powers. He wrote I mean to prepare the way for verses freely-among them doggerel futurity. I shall conclude by say- burlesques of the productions of the ing, I wish there was a war." This ministerial writers of the day. may be regarded as a boyish rhapsody; but all boys are not given to such rhapsodies.

The clerk had his hours for study as well as for the counting-room, and doubtless practised his pen in compo. sition, for we hear of his writing an account of a fearful hurricane which visited the island, a narrative which appears to have been published, since it attracted the attention of the governor. These evidences of talent determined his friends to send him to New York to complete his education. He came, landing at Boston in the autumn of 1772, and was received at New York by the correspondents of Dr. Knox, a clergyman who had become interested in his welfare in Santa Cruz. He was immediately introduced to the school of Francis Barber, at Elizabethtown, where he enjoyed the society of the Boudinots, Livingstons, and other influential people of the colony. He studied eagerly, and at the close of a year, presented himself to Doctor Witherspoon, at Princeton, with a request to be permitted to overleap some of the usual collegiate terms according to his qualifications. As this was contrary to the usage of the place, he entered King's College, now Columbia, in New York, with the special privileges he desired. In addition to the usual studies, he attended the anatomical course of Clossey. Col. Troup, at this time his

The Revolution was now fairly get ting under way, in the opening, tumultuous scenes in New York, and strong hands were wanted at the wheel. Hamilton, at the age of seventeen, in 1774, did not hesitate in making his decision. The old Continental Congress of that year, it will be remembered, met in September; it was now July, and New York was in debate as to her choice of delegates. A meeting of citizens was called in the fields, over which the patriot McDougal presided. Hamilton, whose ability had been noted, was urged to address the assembly. He complied, with hesitation, but proceeding, gained confidence, and poured forth in glowing rhetoric the story of parliamentary oppression, as he displayed the means of resistance and pictured "the waves of rebellion sparkling with fire, and washing back on the shores of England the wrecks of her power, her wealth and her glory." The speech of the young West Indian was a success.

He was now emboldened to enter the field with the dashing young president of the college, Myles Cooper, of convivial memory, in a reply in Holt's Gazette to some Tory manifesto of that divine. About this time, after the adjournment of Congress, at the close of the year, he also published a pamphlet in vindi cation of the measures of Congress, against the attacks of Seabury and

Wilkins. The contest, however, was refuge on the shore, wandering over one which was not to be decided by the island in the night to the old the pen alone. The old prerogative Stuyvesant mansion, whence he was lawyers and divines were not to be the next day finally removed from shaken out of their seats by the con- America in his majesty's vessel, the stitutional arguments of such young Kingfisher. The royal governor, Trycounsellors as Hamilton and Jay. The on, took refuge in the Asia shortly hard hands of the committee of after. mechanics were much more demonstrative. Myles Cooper, Seabury, and their brethren very naturally suspected the logic, and laughed at the novel measures of the day by which the popular party in their restrictive, nonimportation measures proposed to dispense with the wisdom of Lords and Commons, and starve themselves into independence. It is well sometimes to look at that side of the question too.

But all the pooh-poohing in the world over the best wine in the colony, was not to stop the affair which had commenced. Volunteers were drilling, men of sound heads and stout hearts were getting ready for action. There were certain cannon to be removed from the Battery: Hamilton was engaged in the duty with his comrades, "Hearts of oak" they called them selves; a boat approached from the man-of-war Asia, in the harbor; the citizens fired; the fire was returned from the ship, and one of Hamilton's company was killed. The Liberty Boys spread the alarm and gathered in a mob, threatening to attack the College and seize its president, Myles Cooper. Hamilton, who was no friend to riot, little as he was afraid of discussion or of force, interposed with a speech from the College steps, while the president, roused from his bed, half-naked, took

Hamilton now turned his attention in earnest to military affairs, making choice of the artillery service, in which he gained some instruction from a British soldier, and by the aid of the popular leader, McDougal, received from the convention the appointment of captain of the Provincial Company of Artillery. He had only recently completed his nineteenth year. It was early, but not so very early for a man of genius; for the child in such cases is the father of the man, and youth is an additional spur to exertion. But this was not all. The young captain was engaged not only in the gymnastics of drilling recruits, but he was reading, thinking and working out problems in political economy for himself—and the future. Dr. Johnson said that he learnt little after eighteen; Hamilton would seem to have laid the foundation at least of all his knowledge before twenty. "His military books of this period," says his son, "give an interesting exhibition of his train of thought. In the pay-book of his company, amid various general speculations and extracts from the ancients, chiefly relating to politics and war, are intermingled tables of political arithmetic, considerations on commerce, the value of the relative productions which are its objects, the balance of trade, the progress of population, and

the principles on which depend the value of a circulating medium; and among his papers there remains a carefully digested outline of a plan for the political and commercial history of British America, compiled at this time." There is the germ in all this of the Secretary of the Treasury.

It was at this time just previous to the occupation of the city by the British that Hamilton attracted the notice of General Greene, by whom he was introduced to Washington. The story is thus told by Irving: "As General Greene one day, on his way to Washington's headquarters, was passing through a field-then on the outskirts of the city, now in the heart of its busiest quarter, and known as 'the Park-he paused to notice a provincial company of artillery, and was struck with its able performances, and with the tact and talent of its commander. He was a mere youth, apparently about twenty years of age; small in person and stature, but remarkable for his alert and manly bearing. It was Alexander Hamilton. Greene was an able tactician, and quick to appreciate any display of military science; a little conversation sufficed to convince him that the youth before him had a mind of no ordinary grasp and quickness. He invited him to his quarters, and from that time cultivated his friendship."

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The battle of Long Island now ensued on the vain attempt to resist the landing of Howe and his British

"Life of Hamilton," by John C. Hamilton, I. 53. 'Irving's "Life of Washington," II. 251-2.

troops, followed by the masterly retreat of Washington, in which Hamilton brought up the rear. The subsequent American proceedings in the evacuation of the city, the passage from the island to Westchester, and the subsequent retreat before Cornwallis through the Jerseys under Washington, if they had little of glory, at least required their full share of military determination and endurance. Hamilton was active throughout the campaign. At White Plains, and on the Raritan, at Trenton and Princeton, his artillery did good service. When he entered Morristown, his original company of a hundred was reduced by the accidents of war to twenty-five. Here, on the first of March, 1777, leaving the line of the army, he became attached to the staff of Washington as his aid. This was the commencement of that half military, half civil relation which identified Hamilton in joint labors and councils with the Father of his Country.

Hamilton became, in fact, the right hand man of Washington, not only during the war, but throughout his subsequent political career, and no better proof than this can be had at once of the sagacity of Washington in selecting his instruments, and of the honor and worth of Hamilton in so long and so successfully maintaining this distinguished position. In the staff of the commander-in-chief, Hamil ton, we are told, acquired the title, "The Little Lion." His spirit and courage were shown in numerous instances, particularly in the battle of Monmouth, where Lee exposed bravery to such violent hazards, an affair out

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