The Federal leaders by no means shared the confidence of the people in Washington’s response to their call, and they were deeply uneasy.  They knew that he had been bombarded with letters for a year, urging upon him the acceptance of the great office which would surely be offered him, and that he had replied cautiously to each that he could not share their opinion of his indispensability, that he had earned the repose he loved after a lifetime spent in the service of his country, and had no desire to return to public life.  Hamilton, at least, knew the motive that lay behind his evasion; without ambition, he was very jealous of his fame.  That fame now was not only one of the most resplendent in history, but as unassailable as it was isolated.  He feared the untried field in which he might fail.

One evening, late in September, as Hamilton and his temporary household were entering the dining room, Gouverneur Morris drove down Wall Street in his usual reckless fashion, scattering dogs and children, and pulling his nervous sweating horses almost to their haunches, as he reached Hamilton’s door.  As he entered the house, however, and received the enthusiastic welcome to which he was accustomed, his bearing was as unruffled as if he had walked down from Morrisania reading a breviary.

“I grow desperately lonely and bored out on my ancestral domain, and long for the glare and glitter, the intrigues and women, of Europe—­our educated ones are so virtuous, and the others write such shockingly ungrammatical notes,” he announced, as he took his seat at the board.  “Educated virtue is beneficial for the country, but we will all admit that politics are our only excitement, and my blood dances when I think of Europe.  However, I did not come tearing through the woods on a hot night to lament the virtue of the American woman.  I’ve written to Washington, and he won’t listen to me.  We all know how many others have written, including Lafayette, I hear.  And we all know what the consequences will be if—­say John or Sam Adams, Hancock, or Clinton should be our first president.  I long for Paris, but I cannot leave the country while she is threatened with as grave a peril as any that has beset her.  Would that he had a grain of ambition—­of anything that a performer upon the various chords of human nature could impress.  I suppose if he were not so desperately perfect, we should not be in the quandary we are, but he would be far easier to manage.  As I awoke from my siesta just two hours ago, my brain was illuminated by the idea that one man alone could persuade him; and that was Alexander Hamilton.  He likes us, but he loves you.  If he has a weak spot, it has yearned over you since you were our infant prodigy in uniform, with your curls in your eyes.  You must take him in hand.”

“I have mentioned it to him, when writing of other things.”