short of being finished.  I write this now to satisfy you that want of regard for you has not been the cause of my silence.

I will here express but one sentiment, which is, that DISMEMBERMENT of our EMPIRE will be a clear sacrifice of great positive advantages, without any counterbalancing good; administering no relief to our real disease, which is DEMOCRACY; the poison of which, by a subdivision, will only be the more concentrated in each part, and consequently the more virulent.  King is on his way to Boston where you may chance to see him and hear from himself his sentiments.  God bless you.

     A.H.

As he folded and sealed the letter he suddenly realized that the act was the final touch to the order of his earthly affairs, and he lifted his hand as though to see if it were still alive.  “To-morrow night!” he thought.  “Well, now that the hour has come, I go willingly enough.  I have been permitted to live my life; why should I murmur?  There has been sufficient crowded into my forty-seven years to cover a century.  I have been permitted to play a great part in history, to patch together a nation out of broken limbs and inform it with a brain.  It is right that I should regard myself in this final hour as a statesman and nothing more, and that I should go without protest, now that I have no more to do.  I can only be deeply and profoundly thankful that out of three millions of Americans I was selected, that I have conquered in spite of all obstacles, and remained until I have nothing more to give.  It is entirely right and fitting that I should die as I have lived, in the service of this country.  Only a sacrifice can bring these distracted States to reason and eliminate the man most dangerous to their peace.  If I have been chosen for this great part, I should be unworthy indeed if I rebelled.”

XI

Hamilton crossed the river to Weehawken at seven the next morning.  He was accompanied by Pendleton, and his surgeon, Dr. Hosack.  It was already very hot.  The river and the woods of the Jersey palisades were dim under a sultry blue haze.  There was a swell on the river, and Pendleton was very sick.  Hamilton held his head with some humour, then pointed out the great beauty of the Hudson and its high rugged banks, to distract the unhappy second’s mind.

“The majesty of this river,” he said, “its suggestion of a vast wild country almost unknown to the older civilizations, and yet peopled with the unembodied spirits of a new and mighty race, quicked my unborn patriotism, unconsciously nourished it until its delivery in Boston.”

“It would have curdled mine,” said Pendleton.  “Who knows—­if you had been of a bilious temperament, the face of our history might wear a pug nose and a weak chin.”

Hamilton laughed.  “It never could have done that while Washington’s profile was stamped on the popular fancy.  But lesser causes than seasickness have determined a man’s career.  Perhaps to my immunity I owe the fact that I am not a book-worm on St. Croix.  If I had even once felt as you did just now, my dear Pendleton, I should never have set sail for America.”