The men in the group were Governor Clinton, Hamilton’s bitterest opponent, but sufficiently amused at the incident; William Livingston, Governor of New Jersey, now with but a few hairs on the top of his head and a few at the base, his nose more penetrating, his eye more disapproving, than ever; James Duane, Mayor of New York; John Jay, the most faultless character in the Confederation, honoured and unloved, his cold eyes ever burning with an exalted fire; and John Marshall of Virginia, munching an apple, his attire in shabby contrast to the fashionable New Yorkers, the black mane on his splendid head unpowdered and tossing in the ocean breeze.

“I like your Hamilton,” he announced, “and I’ve come to the conclusion that I think with him on all matters.  He’s done more to educate the people up to a rational form of government during the last seven years than all the rest of us put together.  He’s shone upon them like a fixed star.  Other comets have come and gone, whirling them forward to destruction, but they have always been forced to turn and look at him again and again, and he has always shone in the same place.”

“Sir,” exclaimed Clinton, who was flushed with rage, “are you aware that I am present, and that I entirely disapprove of Mr. Hamilton’s attempt to reduce the States to a condition of ignominious subserviency to an ambitious and tyrannical central power?”

“I had heard of you, sir,” replied Marshall, meekly, “and I am glad to have the opportunity to ask you what your remedy is for the existing state of things?  You will admit that there must be a remedy, and quickly.  If not a common government with a Constitution empowering it to regulate trade, imposts, reduce the debt, enter into treaties with foreign powers which will not be sneered at, administer upon a thousand details which I will not enumerate, and raise the country from its slough of contempt, then what?  As the personage who has taken the most decided stand against the enlightened and patriotic efforts of Mr. Hamilton, I appeal to you for a counter suggestion as magnificent as his.  I am prepared, sir, to listen with all humility.”

Clinton, whose selfish fear of his own downfall with that of State supremacy was so well known that a smile wrinkled across the polite group of gentlemen surrounding him, deepened his colour to purple under this assault, and stammered:  “Sir, have I not myself proposed an enlargement of the powers of Congress, in order to counteract the damnable policy of Britain?  Did not your Hamilton harangue that crowd I sanctioned till he got nearly all he asked for?”

“But he knew better than to ask for too much, in the conditions,” replied Marshall, suavely.  “May I suggest that you have not answered my humble and earnest questions?”

“I answer no questions that I hold to be impertinent and unimportant!” said Clinton, pompously, and with a dignified attempt to recover his poise.  He swept his hat from his head; the New Yorkers were as punctilious; Marshall lifted his battered lid from the wild mass beneath, and the popular Governor sauntered down the street, saluted deferentially by Nationalists and followers alike.  When he had occasion to sweep his gorgeous hat to his knees, the ladies courtesied to the ground, their draperies taking up the entire pavement, and His Excellency was obliged to encounter the carriages in the street.