XXXIV

Hamilton laid down a copy of Freneau’s Gazette, whose editorial columns were devoted, as usual, to persuading the people of the United States that they were miserable, and that they owed their misery to the Secretary of the Treasury.  It also contained a shameful assault upon the President.  As he lifted another paper from the pile on his library table, his eyes fell on the following address to himself:—­

O votary of despotism!  O abettor of Carthaginian faith!  Blush!  Can you for a moment suppose that the hearts of the yeomanry of America are becoming chilled and insensible to the feelings of insulted humanity like your own?  Can you think that gratitude, the most endearing disposition of the human heart, is to be argued away by your dry sophistry?  Do you suppose the people of the United States prudently thumb over Vattel and Pufendorf to ascertain the sum and substance of their obligations to their generous brethren, the French?  No! no!  Each individual will lay his hand on his heart and find the amount there.  He will find that manly glow, both of gratitude and love, which animated his breast when assisted by this generous people in establishing his own liberty and shaking off the yoke of British despotism!

In the Aurora he was denounced as the foe of France and the friend of Great Britain and Spain, the high priest of tyranny, the bitterest enemy of the immortal French trio, Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite; the subtle and Machiavellian adviser of Washington, who, relieved of this pernicious influence, would acknowledge the debts of gratitude and follow the will of the American people.

“Are they mad?” he thought, flinging the entire pile into the waste-basket.  “Or are they merely so eager for power and our ruin that they are indifferent to the fact that the Administration, and the foundations upon which it stands, never has needed the support of the people more than now?  Can only the party in power afford to be patriotic?  What a spectacle is this, that I, an alien born, am wearing out my life and sacrificing my character, to save from themselves a people who pant for my ruin!  Has the game been worth the candle?  Debt, my family crowded into a house not half large enough to hold them, my health almost gone, my reputation, in spite of repeated vindications, undermined by daily assault—­for the fools of the world believe what they are told, and I cannot compromise my dignity by replying to such attacks as these; above all, a sickening and constant disgust for life and human nature! Is the game worth the candle?  Had I remained at the bar, I should have given my family abundance by now; with only the kind and quantity of enemies that stimulate.  It is only politics that rouse the hellish depths in the human heart.  It is true that I have saved the country, made it prosperous, happy, and honoured.  But what guaranty have I that this state will last beyond the administration of Washington?  With the Republicans in power the whole edifice may be swept away, the country in a worse plight than before, and the author of its brief prosperity forgotten with his works.  I shall have lived in vain, and leave my sons to be educated, my family to be supported, by my father-in-law.”