It is a curious instance of the fatuity of contemporaries, that Hamilton’s enemies reckoned upon a sullen silence, in the face of damning assault, from the greatest fighter of his time.  Indubitably, they argued that he would think it best to pass the matter over; no man could be expected to give to the public the full explanation.  But they reckoned with an insufficient knowledge of this host, as they had done many a time before.  Hamilton had no desire to hold office again, but he was still the great leader of a great party, as determined as ever that at no cost should there be a stain on his public honour.  He consulted with his closest friends, among them his wife.  As the sin was now five years old—­and the woman a derelict—­Mrs. Hamilton found it easier to forgive than an unconfessed liaison with the most remarkable woman of her time.  Although she anticipated the mortification of the exposure quite as keenly as her husband, she cherished his good name no less tenderly, and without hesitation counselled him to give the facts to the public.  This he did in a pamphlet which expounded the workings of the “Jacobin Scandal Club,” told the unpleasant story without reserve, and went relentlessly into the details of the part played in it by Monroe, Muhlenberg, and Venable.  He forced affidavits from those bewildered gentlemen, the entire correspondence was published, and the pamphlet itself was a masterpiece of biting sarcasm and convincing statement.  It made a tremendous sensation, but even his enemies admired his courage.  The question of his financial probity was settled for all time, although the missile, failing in one direction, quivered in the horrified brains of many puritanical voters.  Mrs. Reynolds, now living with Clingman, made no denial, and it is doubtful if even she would have echoed the one animadversion of the discomfited enemy,—­that Hamilton had given the name of a mistress to the public.  It is a weak and dangerous sentimentalism which would protect a woman of commerce against the good name of any man.  The financial settlement makes her a party in a contract, nothing more, and acquits the payer of all further responsibility.  She has no good name to protect; she has asked for nothing but money; she is a public character, whom to shield would be a thankless task.  When this Reynolds woman added the abomination of blackmail to her trade, and further attempted the ruin of the man who had shown her nothing but generosity and consideration, it need hardly be added that Hamilton would have been a sentimental fool to have hesitated on any ground but detestation of a public scandal.