394 FRENCH DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE 1776. led was, that the two crowns should actively prepare means to resist or punish England, more especially as, of all possible issues, the maintenance of peace with that power was the least probable.* * [The high tone of political morality with which this paper opens, is in ludicrous contrast with the sharp practice it recommends at the close. It is like the inversion of a celebrated order, and amounts to desiring the apprentice to come to prayers first, and sand the sugar after. As a useful commentary on these bitter animadversions on England -unfortunately, common enough at this day—as well as upon the policy of France, then as now a trifle aggressive, it may not be out of place to extract a passage, cited by M. de Witt in his interesting article on Louvois (published in the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' of February last, p. 12) from a pamphlet by the Baron de Lisola, in the reign of Louis XIV., entitled 'Bouclier d'Etat et de Justice contre le dessein manifestement decouvert de la Monarchie Universelle.' Speaking of the French, Lisola says, 'Never did any people show the least disposition to rebel, but they at once became their allies. Their maxim is to thrust themselves into all sorts of affairs, right and left, and play the part of arbiters everywhere, whether by force or address, by influence or surprise, by threats or kindness. The genius of the nation naturally tends to war-ardent, restless, fond of novelty, desirous of conquest, prompt, meddling, and lending itself to any kind of expedient it thinks conducive to its ends. The policy of their government is always to foment foreign wars, and employ their young nobility at the expense of their neighbours—a policy very much adapted to their own advantage, but extremely inconvenient to the world at large. In fact, it is certain that the genius of the nation cannot bring itself to endure for any length of time the inactivity of peace; it requires fuel for its fire, and, if it cannot find it without, it will try to find it within.' Of this remarkable and not very flattering sketch, M. de Witt, with great candour and courage, expresses himself thus: 'Modern France has sometimes boasted of having nothing in common with ancient France. Here, however, is an old portrait in which, even at this day, we recognise a certain family likeness. It is not flattering and Heaven be praised! there have been times when it has ceased to be like. It has become a little more so of late. I even know people who wish that the resemblance were complete!' What Louvois thought of the portrait we also learn from M. de ON AMERICAN AFFAIRS. 395 Witt (ibid. p. 15). Lisola, as plenipotentiary from the Emperor to the Congress of Cologne in 1684, being on his way from Liége to that city, Louvois apprises the Count d'Estrades of the fact, for the purpose of informing him that he would do good service by making him prisoner, or—what would be a matter of little moment— by killing him, in case of any resistance on the part of his escort · equivalent to a positive instruction to assassinate him inasmuch as he is a man of a most impertinent tongue, and extremely bitter against France;' adding, 'If you succeed, you cannot conceive to what an extent you will pay your court to his Majesty.' What a minister! and, if the minister spoke truth, what a monarch!] 1776. 396 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. IV. ALEXANDER HAMILTON. CCORDING to his son and biographer, this dis Scotland whose name he bore, and we are informed by Dr. Renwick, the president of Columbia College, in his spirited little sketch of Hamilton's life,† that pride in the high distinction he obtained has led the European branches of this princely family to claim kindred with him.' On what authority this statement, which I confess seems little probable, is made, does not appear, but if correct, it is highly honourable to the noble house in question, and would show that Hamilton's name was better known formerly in England than it is now. His father, at all events, was of Scottish extraction, being the fourth son of Alexander Hamilton, of the Grange, an Ayrshire gentleman, married to a daughter of Sir John Pollock. He went to the West Indies early in life to establish himself as a merchant, where he married a lady of the name of Fauchette, the descendant of a French Huguenot family. Of the issue of this marriage, the youngest, Alexander, was born in the island of Nevis, then, as now, a possession of the British crown, on the 11th of January, 1757. His father having been unfortunate in business, he was indebted to his mother's family for his early education. At the tender age of twelve, he went to the Danish island of Santa Cruz, to find the means of supporting himself, and was fortunate enough to be admitted into the counting-house of Mr. N. Cruger, an eminent *Life of Hamilton, by J. C. Hamilton, vol. i. p. 1. ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 397 merchant, and excellent man. Letters are still extant, written when he was only fourteen,* which imply a remarkable familiarity with the details of his employment, and show that he was intrusted with the management of his principal's affairs in that island during the latter's necessary absence. A consciousness of his power, however, compelled him to desire a wider and more important sphere of action, and in one of his letters to a young friend, of that time, he expresses a scornful dislike of his actual occupation, and betrays his taste for a military career. 'I conclude,' he says, 'by wishing for a war;' not a very promising wish in the mouth of a commercial clerk. He had not long to wait. Fortunately for him, a literary attempt of some little merit attracted the notice of his friends, and he was furnished with the means of going to New York, and complete his education at King's, now Columbia College, then presided over by Dr. Cooper, a graduate of Oxford. While pursuing his studies in a way to attract the favourable notice of the president of his institution, he at the same time gave a portion of his time to a serious study of the controversy, then rapidly coming to a crisis, between the colonies and the mother country. The time was feverish. Hamilton, at first influenced by his early impressions to espouse the side of England, at length reluctantly gave way to the patriotic impulses around him, seconded by the fruits of his own enquiry, and flung himself with ardour into the continental cause. At an open-air meeting in the city of New York, a youth of slender form and short stature rose to address the assembly. Embarrassed at first, he at length poured forth a flood of argument which was accompanied and followed by loud bursts of applause. The name of the 'gifted stranger was Alexander Hamilton,' a lad of seventeen. The die was now cast. He had devoted to his new country the first fruits of that eloquence which was to stand her in good stead through many a stormy day; he was now also about to show her the first flashes of that pen which was to throw light on many a dark point, to excite her to the performance of many a great duty, and finally to guide her to that vast * Works of Hamilton, vol. i. p. 1. 398 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. confederation by which her power was consolidated, and which might, had not this faithful counsellor been prematurely destroyed, have preserved and perpetuated its renown. He first enters the lists anonymously, in a public newspaper, and the adversary with whom he wrestles is the head of his own college, Dr. Cooper. Congress having been attacked in a letter under the signature of a Westchester Farmer, Hamilton replies; there is a rejoinder; this is followed by another reply. Men, in their speculations about the authorship, attribute it to this and that experienced hand. No one dreamt of the boy orator; no one thought, to use the rather figurative language of an historian as esteemed on this side of the Atlantic as the other, that it was 'the young and gifted West Indian who so reasoned as though the voices of the Puritans had blended with the soft tropical breezes that rocked his cradle; or, rather, as one who had caught glimpses of the divine archetype of freedom.'* I am not quite sure that I understand what is here said, but I take it to mean, possibly, that he pleaded the cause of liberty without sourness; that the sternness of his logic was tempered by the generous warmth and sweetness of his tone; and, finally, that he had caught sight of the true and fundamental principles on which genuine and enlightened liberty must ever rest. It was certainly a performance creditable at any age, a very remarkable one for a boy of eighteen. It is not long before we see all the germs of his character developing, especially his love of liberty wherever it is, his hatred of despotism wherever that is. Just now the latter is exhibiting itself in the shape of mob violence. Dr. Cooper has made himself obnoxious by his Toryism, that is, his loyal sympathies; the mob, therefore, attack King's College; Hamilton interposes, and expostulates with them; the Doctor roused out of his sleep, and fancying his good pupil is exciting the people to rebellion, cries out: Don't mind him, he is crazy, he is crazy!' Warned, however, by another student, he has barely time to escape, half-dressed, to a place of refuge. On another occasion, the mob make an attack on the house of one Rivington, a Tory * Bancroft, History of the United States, &c., vol. vi. p. 129. |