The wonder is, how a man of Hamilton's refinement and critical sense should ever have been led into an amour with a coarse and illiterate woman, apparently of a very low class, and this is quite inconceivable to most people. The letters and notes of Mrs. Re]molds to him are monuments of vulgarity and bad spelling, and it is to be wondered what he found to admire in such a person that would lead him to run the risk he did. There certainly could not have been anything but rather indifferent physical attractions. Such an entanglement can only be understood by those who are familiar with the sporadic lapses upon the part of other great men who have been tempted to give way to some such impulse, and for a time degrade themselves, often to their lasting ruin. To the psychiatrist the matter is simple, for it is a well-known fact that those possessing the highest order of intelligence; professional men, great statesmen, and others; even those teaching morals, manifest at times what can be only looked upon as a species of irresponsibility that accompanies the highest genius, and impulsively plunge into the underworld in obedience to some strange prompting of their lower nature.
Chapter III
Hamilton as a Writer and Orator
Hamilton's literary activity suffered no interruption from the time he wrote his well-known account of the hurricane in his West Indian home until his death. Not only was it his keen pleasure to write, but his pen was always at the service of others who appealed to him, the result being the production of an enormous amount of general correspondence, political and other essays, and even occasional verse. Laurens, in December, 1776, regarding General Lee's "Infamous Publication," and the fitness of Hamilton's answer, playfully wrote to the latter: "The ancient Secretary is the Recueil of modern history and anecdotes, and will give them to us with candour, elegance and perspicacity. The pen of Junius is in your hand and I think you will, without difficulty, expose in his defence letters and last productions, such a tissue of falsehood and inconsistency as will satisfy the world, and put him forever to silence." The part he played throughout the Revolution, as the secretary and aide-de-camp of Washington, was one requiring a great amount of literary work, his duties being ever of an onerous kind, and his writings of the most diversified nature. The collection of military papers that remain and are now at the Congressional Library show that most of Washington's orders in the field were largely Hamilton's work, and it is to be presumed from their nature that he had most to do with their preparation.
All of them are singularly free from correction, and are legibly and carefully written. This power of prolific creation seems to have increased until his death, and while his correspondence was not as voluminous as that of Jefferson, who is said to have written twenty-five thousand letters, Hamilton's facility for expressing himself on paper led him to write upon every occasion, and the newspapers of the day are a veritable repository of articles upon every conceivable political subject. Worthington C. Ford, in a personal letter, says in this connection: "Think of the man who writes himself hundreds of letters required of him when organizing the provisional army in 17981 It makes the modern General of Industry seem insignificant with his small following of typewriters and a highly organized system of red tape." In the twelve volumes that constitute Lodge's works, most of Hamilton's important reports, speeches, pamphlets, and letters are reproduced, and the list is by no means complete. His communications upon Foreign Relations were thirty-three in number, on Finance and the National Bank thirty-nine, on Commercial Relations twenty-seven, and on Manufacturing and the Whiskey Rebellion seventeen each. His published military letters number seventy-six, his other papers on Coinage, the Mint, Taxation, and the Fisheries seven; and there are no less than thirty-two speeches presented in this work alone. Other miscellaneous papers, relating to the Jefferson and the Adams controversy and the Reynolds affair, numbered seventeen. Of the eighty-five articles in The Federalist it is believed that he wrote sixty-three unaided, and three in collaboration with Madison.
In this collection we, therefore, find over three hundred and twenty-eight important productions brought forth in a period of less than thirty years. If we are to include the various other papers and letters contained in Hamilton's works, edited by his son, or reproduced elsewhere, the number would be very great. From time to time, as in the life and correspondence of McHenry, valuable and hitherto unpublished letters have been unearthed in the last few years. The writer's collection contains many papers relating to both public and legal matters, and that at Washington is still, to some degree, untouched by the historian.
As was the custom of the eighteenth century, Hamilton wrote under various pseudonyms, and these include the well-known James Montague, Phocion Continentalist Pericles, An American Citizen, A Plain Honest Many Pacificus, Tully, No Jacobin, Americanus, Horatius, Civis, Titus Manlius, Observer, Anti-Defamer Cato and Publius, the last having been made use of in the production of The Federalist. With Rufus King he adopted Camillus in writing in defence of Jay's treaty with Great Britain and many other matters. King is said to have written eight of this series. The first important communication of Hamilton was the well-known letter to Robert Morris in regard to the establishment of a national bank, which his modesty forbade him signing. This was in 1780,' at the time he was attached to Washington's staff, and but twenty-three years of age, and probably marked the first exhibition of his pent-up desires to identify himself with national affairs. The history of the subsequent action of Morris, who availed himself of Hamilton's suggestions, is too well known to need more than passing reference, but he promptly suggested the latter for the Treasury. Previous to this, as early as 1774, he wrote his remarkable pamphlet entitled "The Full Vindication," which was an answer to the "Westchester Farmer." The writer of the latter, who was believed to be Bishop Samuel Seabury, had indulged in offensive criticism of the Continental Congress. Upon the title-page of Hamilton's paper, which was printed by James Rivington, the printer and bookseller, who in later years became one of his clients, appears the motto, "Veritas magna est et prevalebit," and the sub-title "Sophistry is Exposed, his Cavils confuted, his Artifice detected, and his Wit is ridiculed," is appended. A reply to Hamilton appeared later, and the second answer prepared by him and entitled, "The Farmer Refuted," was still more drastic and convincing. As Lodge says: "These two productions in patriotic interest excited much attention were widely read, and were attributed by Dr. Myles Cooper, the President of King's College, to Jay. Few suspected that they would prove to be the work of a college boy, and all were amazed when the true author was known. These two pamphlets are the first important efforts of Hamilton's pen. They are, however, little short of wonderful when we remember they are the work of a boy not yet eighteen years old." He was ever a contributor to the newspapers and periodicals, among them the United States Gazette edited by his friend John Fenno, who had come from Boston. Even before this he had written an article for Holt's Gazette in defence of the destruction of tea in 1774. According to Hudson, the United States Gazette was started in New York, its original name being The Gazette of the United States, and it was first issued in New York, which was then the seat of the National Government, but afterward was transferred to Philadelphia when it became the capital, in 1790. It was always the organ of the Federalists and never lost an occasion to attack the Jacobins, as the Democratic sympathizers with the French Revolutionists were called. For this reason it was opposed to the Aurora and the Daily Advertisery edited by William Duane and Philip Freneau, which were the organs of Jefferson and his friends. Fenno died of yellow fever in 1798, and his son George Ward Fenno succeeded him, conducting the paper until it ceased to exist in 1820/ These papers conveyed to the Jays, Kings, Churches, and other Americans abroad the only information regarding the progress of events in their native country. Not only was such news delayed many months, on account of the slow progress of packets, but all manner of interruptions, which are strangely in contrast to the news gathering in the twentieth century, are evident in the New York newspapers of the day. The presses were even often stopped to publish fresh material that had come by stage-coach two days later than that printed by their contemporaries.