Complete Works. Hamilton Alexander

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      Chapter IX

      Friends and Enemies

       Table of Contents

      From an early period in the war until after the overthrow of Louis XVI, a number of brilliant Frenchmen landed on our shores. Some, like La Fayette, the Duc de Lauzun, the Vicomte de Noailles, the Marquis François Jean de Chastellux, Rochambeau, Tousard, Pont de Gibaud, Duportail, Maudiut Duplessis, the Comte de la Rouarie, or Colonel Armand as he was known to his fellows, came to fight.

      Others, like Louis Philippe, the Comte de Volney, the Comte Alexandre de Tilly, Moreau de St. Méry, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, J. P. Brissot de Warville, came as èmigrès or to travel; and the ubiquitous Bishop of Autun, otherwise Charles Maurice Talleyrand, after stirring up all the mischief he could in Great Britain, and starting an Irish rebellion, came here to spy. These, and many other clever and witty men from different parts of Europe, among them the veteran soldier Steuben, gave to society at the time of the American Revolution a decided charm. We find them in Philadelphia, as well as at every large army camp, and in the gloom incident to the hardship and struggles of a poorly equipped force fighting against superior numbers of well-trained troops, they were cheerful and welcome visitors. They certainly brought with them a fund of gayety, which did much to raise the drooping spirits of the hardy patriots, and with most of them Hamilton was on very good terms. Of him Oliver draws this picture, which, perhaps, applies to a later period, but according to those French travellers and writers who knew him in the field, he was always fascinating: "This serious young statesman we gather to have been remarkable in private life, chiefly for his high spirits, his good looks, his bright eyes, and his extraordinary vivacity. He loved the society of his fellow-creatures, and shone in It. He loved good wine and good company and beautiful things—even clothes and ruffles of fine lace. He despised slovens and people like Jefferson, who dressed ostentatiously in homespun. He belonged to the age of manners, and silk stockings, and handsome shoe-buckles. In Bagehot's excellent phrase, 'he was an enjoying English gentleman'; companionable and loyal, gay and sincere, always masterful and nearly always dignified."

      Let us see, then, who were his friends. As a rule, they were men who were honorable and well educated, of good courage and good breeding, gallant and chivalrous, and who possessed the other attractions of an heroic age.

      As his capacity for making lasting friends was greatly inferior to the ease with which he made enemies, this can be explained by the statement of one of his historians that "his love for his country was always greater than his love for his countrymen," and it can be easily conceived how a man with so critical a sense, and with such strong ideas regarding unselfish requirements for the public weal, must not only fail to exert himself for the mere shallow fascination of his fellow men, as did Burr, for instance, but must antagonize many men with less lofty aims.

      His attachments were strangely assorted, but, as a rule, were very deep, very affectionate, and very lasting; and, as is usually the case, the less brilliant and more sober-minded friends were those that remained loyal and unselfishly devoted to him until the end, and did more for his family after his death than any of the others. It may be said that they were divided into two categories: those that were drawn to him by his humorous and almost feminine traits, which were coupled with a fascinating culture and a flow of spirits that almost bubbled over; and others, who had been engaged with him in the war, and in his legal practice, and the many public affairs which were so vital at the time. These really loved him for his great intellectual gifts and his absolute sense of justice. Although Lodge has gravely declared that he had no imagination, it does, on the contrary, appear that he had a lively sense of humor, and was at times exceedingly witty.

      This is shown in his letters to John Laurens, to La Fayette, and a few of his early friends, and in the rather short and unsatisfactory remaining correspondence with his wife and sister-in-law. In 1780, at a time when the condition of affairs was certainly not conducive to high spirits, we find that he wrote, in the field, to General Anthony Wayne in regard to a Rev. Dr. Mendey, "who is exceedingly anxious to be in the service, and I believe has been forced out of it not altogether by fair play. He is just what I should like for a military parson, except that he does not drink, and he will not insist upon your going to heaven whether you will or not."

      There is the jauntiness of the gay soldier in his few words to one of his warmest army friends, Otho Williams (1779): "Mind your eye, my dear boy, and if you have an opportunity, fight hard," but a tenderer note in his long letter to John Laurens, which is not so well known as to lose its charm by abridged repetition; probably none of his com-

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