led him to prefer short and arbitrary by-paths toward desirable ends, which can never be securely reached save along the broad but steep and arduous road of popular conviction. But with all Hamilton's splendid qualities, nothing about him is more remarkable than the early age at which these were developed. At the age of fifteen an able newspaper article brought him into such repute in the little island of Nevis that he was sent to New York to avail himself of the best advantages afforded by the King's College, now known as Columbia. He had at first no definite intention of becoming an American citizen, but the thrilling events of the time appealed strongly to the earnest heart and powerful intelligence of this wonderful boy. At a gathering of the people of New York in July, 1774, his generous blood warmed, till a resistless impulse brought him on his feet to speak to the assembled multitude. It was no company of half-drunken idlers that thronged about him, but an assemblage of grave and responsible citizens, who looked with some astonishment upon this boy of seventeen years, short and slight in stature, yet erect and Cæsar-like in bearing, with firm set mouth and great, dark, earnest eyes. His strong and clean-cut speech, full of sense and without a syllable of bombast, held his hearers entranced, and from that day Alexander Hamilton was a marked man. He began publishing anonymous pamphlets, which at first were attributed by some to Jay, and by others to Livingston. When their authorship was discovered, the loyalist party tried in vain to buy off the formidable youth. He kept up the pamphlet war, in the course of which he woefully defeated Dr. Cooper, the Tory president of the college; but shortly afterward he defended the doctor's house against an angry mob, until that unpopular gentleman had succeeded in making his escape to a British ship. Hamilton served in the army throughout the war for the most part as aid and secretary to Washington; but in 1781 he was a colonel in the line, and stormed a redoubt at Yorktown with distinguished skill and bravery. He married the daughter of Philip Schuyler, began the practice of law, and in 1782, at the age of twenty-five, was chosen a delegate to Congress. In 1784, when the Trespass Act threw New York into confusion, Hamilton had come to be regarded as one of the most powerful advocates in the country. In the test case which now came before the courts he played a bold and manly part. Elizabeth Rutgers was a widow, who had fled from New York after its capture by General Howe. Her confiscated estate had passed into the hands of Joshua Waddington, a rich Tory merchant, The case of and she now brought suit under the Trespass Act for its recovery. It was a case in which popular sympathy was naturally and strongly enlisted in behalf of the poor widow. That she should be turned out of house and home was one of the many gross instances of wickedness wrought by the war. On the other hand, the disturbance wrought by the enforcement of the Trespass Act was already creating fresh wrongs much faster than it was righting old ones; and it is for such reasons as this that both in the common law and in the law of nations the principle has been firmly established that "the fruits of immovables belong to the captor as long as he remains in actual possession of them." The Trespass Act contravened this principle, and it also contravened the treaty. It moreover placed the State of New York in an attitude of defiance toward Congress, which had made the treaty and expressly urged upon the states to suspend their legislation against the Tories. On large grounds of public policy, therefore, the Trespass Act deserved to be set aside by the courts, and when Hamilton was asked to serve as counsel for the defendant he accepted the odious task without hesitation. There can be no better proof of his forensic ability than his winning a verdict, in such a case as this, from a hostile court that was largely influenced by the popular excitement. The decision nullified the V Trespass Act, and forthwith mass meetings of the people and an extra session of the legislature condemned this action of the court. Hamilton was roundly abused, and his conduct was attributed to unworthy motives. But he faced the people as boldly as he had faced the court, and published a letter, under the signature of Phocion, setting forth in the clearest light the injustice and impolicy of extreme measures against the Tories. The popular wrath and disgust at Hamilton's course found expression in a letter from one Isaac Ledyard, a hot-headed pot-house politician, who signed himself Mentor. A war of pamphlets ensued between Mentor and Phocion. It was genius pitted against dulness, reason against passion; and reason wielded by genius won the day. The more intelligent and respectable citizens reluctantly admitted that Hamilton's arguments were unanswerable. A club of boon companions, to which Ledyard belonged, made the same admission by the peculiar manner in which it undertook to silence him. It was gravely proposed that the members of the club should pledge themselves one after another to challenge Hamilton to mortal combat, until some one of them should have the good fortune to kill him! The scheme met with general favour, but was defeated by the exertions of Ledyard himself, whose zeal was not ardent enough to condone treachery and murder. The incident well illustrates the intense bitterness of political passion at the time, as Hamilton's conduct shows him in the light of a courageous and powerful defender of the central government. For nothing was more significant in the verdict which he had obtained than its implicit assertion of the rights of the United States as against the legislature of a single state. In spite of the efforts of such men as Hamilton, life was made very uncomfortable for the Tories. In some states they were subjected to mob violence. Instances of tarring and feathering were not uncommon. The legislature of South Carolina was honourably distinguished for the good faith with which it endeavoured to enforce the recommendation of Congress; but the people, unable to forget the smoking ruins of plundered homes, were less lenient. Notices were posted ordering prominent loyalists to leave the country; the newspapers teemed with savage warnings; and finally, of those who tarried beyond a certain time, many were shot or hanged to trees. This extremity of bitterness, however, did not long continue. The instances of physical violence were mostly confined to the first two or three years after the close of the war. In most of the states the confiscating acts were after a while repealed, and many of the loyalists were restored |