Then followed his closing appeal, recommending its adoption in language which every revolving year renders more impressive.

"To balance a large society on general laws," it had been said, "the judgments of many must unite in the work. EXPERIENCE must guide their labour, TIME must bring it to perfection, and the FEELING of inconveniences must correct the mistakes which they inevitably fall into in their first trials and experiments." "These judicious reflections," Hamilton remarked, " contain a lesson of moderation to all the sincere lovers of the union, and ought to put them upon their guard against hazarding anarchy, civil war, a perpetual alienation of the states from each other, and perhaps the military despotism of a victorious demagogue, in the pursuit of what they are not likely to obtain but from TIME and EXPERIENCE. It may be in me a defect of political fortitude, but I acknowledge that I cannot entertain an equal tranquillity with those who affect to treat the dangers of a longer continuance in our present situation as imaginary. A NATION without a NATIONAL government, is an awful spectacle. The establishment of a constitution, in time of profound peace, by the voluntary consent of a whole people, is a PRODIGY, to the completion of which I look forward with trembling anxiety."

Hume's Essays, v. 1, p. 128.

CHAPTER XLIX.

FROM this scene of deepest interest, Hamilton now returned to the toils of his profession, often interrupted by public avocations.

Of the many causes in which he was engaged, one greatly moved the feelings of those around him. It was the defence of a member of the Society of Friends on a charge of libel, for having publicly exposed a person who had been detected kidnapping free blacks in the city of New York, and selling them in Charleston. The effort was such as a crime of this atrocity would call forth, and was successful. Nor did his grateful client forget that the proffered fee was returned with a request, " as they were both engaged in the cause of humanity that his declining it might not be mentioned."

Another occurrence at this time indicates his benignity. Colonel Antil of the Canadian Corps, a friend of General Hazen, retired penniless from the service-his military claims, a sole dependence, being unsatisfied. Hoping to derive subsistence from the culture of a small clearing in the forest, he retired to the wilds of Hazenburgh. His hopes were baffled, and in his distress he applied to Hamilton for relief. His calamities were soon after embittered by the loss of his wife, leaving infant children. With one of these Antil visited New York,

to solicit the aid of the Cincinnati, and there sank under the weight of his sorrows. Hamilton immediately took the little orphan home, who was nurtured with his own children, and became the wife of a prosperous merchant.*

An officer of the American army relates another instance of his kindness. After various unsuccessful efforts to gain a livelihood, this gentleman repaired to New York, waited on his comrade, and in great despondence recounted his mishaps. "Cheer up, my friend," said Hamilton, "the prospect is not very bright, but let us see. I will assist you." "You," rejoined the Colonel, "when you have not more money than is necessary for yourself." "But I can borrow," Hamilton replied. He immediately drew a note, sent it to the bank, and handed the proceeds to his comrade, who ascribed the ease and comforts of his declining years to this opportune aid.

These personal kindnesses were not lost on the brave men with whom it was his delight to associate. Nor was his private influence ever withheld from the national good. "To men," he wrote, at a meeting of the Cincinnati in New York, "whose views are not unfriendly to those principles which form the basis of the Union, and the only sure foundation of the tranquillity and happiness of this country, it can never appear criminal, that a class of citizens who have had so conspicuous an agency in the American Revolution as those who compose the Society of the Cincinnati, should pledge themselves to each other, in a voluntary association, to support, by all the means consistent with the laws, that noble fabric of united independence, which, at so much hazard, and with

* Arthur Tappan.

so many sacrifices, they have contributed to erect; a fabric on the solidity and duration of which the value of all they have done must depend! and America can never have cause to condemn an institution calculated to give energy and extent to a sentiment favorable to the preservation of that Union, by which she established her liberties, and to which she must owe her future peace, respectability, and prosperity.

"Experience, we doubt not, will teach her, that the members of the Cincinnati, always actuated by the same virtuous and generous motives which have hitherto directed their conduct, will pride themselves in being, through every vicissitude of her future fate, the steady and faithful supporters of her liberties, her laws, and her government."

This tranquil calm was but a prelude to the stormy contentions which now began to agitate the bosom of the confederacy-a period when the interests, principles, prejudices, and passions of an excitable population, jealous of control, keenly alive to the value of their liberties, are all beheld in violent conflict; when, during nearly two years of probation, the American character was put to the severest trial-resulting in a signal triumph.

In a time of such national commotion, it could not have been expected, that he who had been so conspicuously active would escape the shafts of hostility.

Hamilton's comments on the conduct of Governor Clinton have been mentioned. A reply to those comments appeared over the signature of a "Republican," in which he was not only reproved for having rebuked the Chief Magistrate of the State, but was charged with having entered the family of the Commander-in-chief by solicitation, and with having left it in discredit.

This charge was pointed out to him, and he replied over his own signature. In a beautiful appeal, he vindicated his previous publication, "as an honorable and open attempt to unmask what appeared to him the pernicious intrigue of a man high in office, to preserve power and emolument to himself at the expense of the union, peace, and happiness of America." A clamor had been raised that this publication was an invasion of the right of the first magistrate of the State to deliver his sentiments on a matter of public concern. Hamilton admitted this to be an undoubted right, and often a duty. "But," he said, "every right may be abused by a wrong exercise of it. The only question is, whether he has used this right in the present instance properly or improperly, and whether it became him by anticipation to endeavor to prejudice the community against the unknown and undetermined measures of a body to which the general voice of the Union had delegated the important trust of concerting and proposing a plan for reforming the National Constitution.

"The apologists for the Governor," he observes, “in the intemperate ardor of their zeal for his character, seem to forget another right very precious to the citizens of a free country, that of examining the conduct of their rulers. These have an undoubted right, within the bounds of the Constitution, to speak and to act their sentiments; but the citizen has an equal right to discuss the propriety of these sentiments, or of the manner of advocating or supporting them. To attempt to abridge the last right by rendering the exercise of it odious, is to attempt to abridge a privilege, the most essential of any to the security of the people. The laws which afford sufficient protection to the magistrate will punish the excess of this privilege. Within the bounds they allow, it is the BULWARK OF PUB