“Stand up on the table,” cried Troup.  “It is where you belong; and you’re the biggest man in New York, to-day.”  As Hamilton, although self-confident, was modest, Troup put down his bumper, seized the hero in his big arms and swung him to the middle of the table.  Then the three, raising their glasses again, stood in a semi-circle.  Hamilton threw back his head and raised his own glass.  His hand trembled, and his lips moved for a moment without speaking, after his habit when excited.

“The pledge!  The pledge!” cried Fish.  “We want it.”

“It is this,” said Hamilton.  “I pledge myself, body and soul and brain, to the most sacred cause of the American colonies.  I vow to it all my best energies for the rest of my life.  I swear to fight for it with my sword; then when the enemy is driven out, and all the brain in the country needed to reconstruct these tattered colonies and unify them into one great state, or group of allied states, which shall take a respectable place among nations, to give her all that I have learned, all that my brain is capable of learning and conceiving.  I believe that I have certain abilities, and I solemnly swear to devote them wholly to my country.  And I further swear that never, not in a single instance, will I permit my personal ambitions to conflict with what must be the lifelong demands of this country.”

He spoke slowly and with great solemnity.  The hands of the three young men shook, as they gulped down a little of the wine.  Hamilton rarely was serious in manner; even when discussing literature, politics, or any of the great questions before the world, his humour and wit were in constant play, a natural gift permitting this while detracting nothing from the weight of his opinions.  But his words and his manner were so solemn to-day that they impressed his hearers profoundly, and they all had a vague presentiment of what the unborn Country would owe to that pledge.

“You’ll keep that, Alexander,” said Fish.  “Perhaps it were better for you had you not made it so strong.  I burn with patriotism, but I’d not have you sacrificed—­”

“I’ve made my vows,” cried Hamilton, gaily, “and I’ll not have you mention the fact again that I’m not an American born.  Here’s not only to liberty, but to a united people under the firmest national constitution ever conceived by man.”

“Amen,” said Troup, “but that’s looking well ahead.  Hard as it will be to get England out, it will be harder still to make New York and New England love each other; and when it comes to hitching Massachusetts and Virginia about each other’s necks, I vow my imagination won’t budge.”

“It will come,” said Hamilton, “because in no other way can they continue to exist, much less become one of the nations of the earth.  This war is but an interlude, no matter how long it may take.  Then will come the true warfare of this country—­the Great Battle of Ideas, and our real history will begin while it is raging, while we are experimenting; and there will be few greater chapters in any country.  I shall take part in that battle; how, it is too soon to know, except that for union I shall never cease to strive until it is a fact.  But it has grown cooler.  Let us ride up to the village of Harlem and have supper under the trees.”