Page 17 of My Dear Hamilton
Chapter Fifteen
August 1784
New York City
H OW MUCH?” I asked, nauseated by the scent of the fishmonger’s wares.
As part of my project to reunite my husband’s military family, I was hosting a dinner for Lafayette, who’d recently returned to the United States, and the Baron von Steuben, the brilliant Prussian drillmaster who’d served with my husband, most crucially at Valley Forge.
It was said that Prussians loved smoked fish, though apparently my heavily pregnant body did not. So I was grateful to be accompanied to the fish market at Murray’s Wharf by Theodosia Burr, with whom I’d spent so many delightful days when our husbands were studying for the bar together. Separated as I was from my sisters, I cherished Theodosia’s companionship, for her worldliness and fearlessness reminded me of Angelica, and her brashness and willingness to say anything made me think of Peggy. With our husbands both lawyers and frequently gone riding circuit together from court to court, we spent much of our time together. Luckily, the Burrs lived not far from us on Wall Street, so it was easy to always be in one another’s houses, our children playing together.
And one of the things I appreciated about Theodosia, who was ten years my senior, was her ability to haggle. “No, that’s too much,” she said when the merchant barked an amount that was far more for a basket of smoked salmon than anyone ought to pay.
The merchant responded by giving a price in another currency altogether.
Truthfully, no one seemed to know what sort of money we ought to use. People tried to pay for goods with Spanish doubloons, French guineas, and Prussian carolines because the continental dollar was so worthless. To make matters worse, each of the states printed their own money, leading to such chaos that no one knew the rate of exchange.
We’d finally settled on a price in British shillings, when a man in a knitted cap and filthy homespun breeches spat at Theodosia from where he lurked behind us. “Tory scum .”
It was, of course, no small thing to be called a Tory in the days just after the war. Though our peace treaty had called for fair treatment, Loyalists had been stripped of their rights to serve in various professions and were subjected to the utmost suspicion. Even Theodosia sometimes got caught up in it. Everyone knew she’d previously been married to a British officer, that her sons were ensigns in the king’s service, and she’d once counted amongst her friends Peggy Shippen Arnold, wife of the traitor who’d fled to England within weeks of the British defeat of Yorktown. To some, it didn’t seem to matter that Mrs. Burr had supported the patriot cause and married a veteran in good standing.
Whatever the reason, Theodosia gasped as another knave loomed and said, “Their bodies are in America, but their heads remain in England. And their necks ought to be stretched.”
“Move on, now,” the fishmonger barked at the men with a scowl and a wave of his hand. “I’ll take whatever money holds value, and I’ll not have trouble here.”
“We’ll be back if you keep taking British money!” the rascals called as they moved on.
“How dreadful!” I said, my hand on Theodosia’s arm. “Please don’t let such ruffians wound your feelings.”
“They’re scoundrels . It would be bad enough were they driven by a mere thirst for vengeance against the British,” Theodosia said as we departed the stall. Rarely did I see her anything but entirely composed, but she shuddered now and released a shaky breath even as she was gracious enough to take the smelly basket of fish from me. She nearly kicked one of the snuffling pigs who were let loose to rove the streets and eat the garbage. “But they’ll accuse anyone for a fee. For any slight at all. Neighbor has to fear neighbor turning them in for profit.”
Fortunately, that night, Lafayette’s return and natural ebullience buoyed all of our moods and provided an occasion for celebrating. Seeing the two old friends reunite and witnessing such happiness come over Alexander as I hadn’t seen in many months made me forget the unpleasantness at the fish market altogether.
“My dear Hamilton,” Lafayette said, grinning.
“My dear marquis,” Alexander said, both men laughing and embracing. Lafayette greeted Baron von Steuben and his aide, then next came to me, where I stood holding Philip’s tiny hand. At two and a half, he was up past his bedtime, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity for our son to meet our good friend. Lafayette bowed playfully. “Madame Hamilton, how motherhood becomes you.”
Nearly eight months along, the lack of grace I was able to manage with my belly belied the compliment. But I was too happy to see him again to care. “Marquis, welcome to our home.”
“Bah.” Lafayette winked and gave a wave of his hand. “Please let us not stand on any ceremony of noble titles.” When I nodded and smiled, he crouched down to Philip’s eye level. “ Mon dieu, he is your exact likeness, Hamilton.” My husband beamed while Lafayette addressed our boy. “ Bonjour, young man.”
“ Bonjoo, Laffy, ” Philip said in his version of the words Alexander had made him practice.
Lafayette laughed and clapped his hands, and everyone joined him. “Oh, merci ! You make me feel the absence from my own little Anastasie, Georges, and Virginie even more acutely,” he said of his children, the last two of whom he’d named for our commander in chief and the state where the war had finally been won.
Meanwhile, Alexander lifted Philip, gave him a proud hug, and then handed him off to be put to bed by Jenny, who Papa had recently lent to us as a servant. And I escorted everyone into the dining room.
Our experience at the fishmonger that day became a subject of conversation at the table I’d carefully laid with frosted wine glasses and festive table mats I’d woven for the occasion.
After complimenting me on the meal—the heartiness of which wouldn’t have been possible without the shipments of produce my mother sent from Albany every week to “ensure the baby’s health”—Lafayette asked, “Is it true that New York now has roving commissioners tasked with ferreting out secret enemies?”
The question had been addressed to Alexander, and yet it was a still-disturbed Theodosia who replied. “Oh yes. And when these so-called enemies are taken to jail, their bails are set so high as to shock the senses, and their fines even higher.”
“Governor Clinton encourages these levelers, ” my husband ventured.
After they’d both served as delegates to Congress the previous year, Alexander had taken a loathing to Clinton, who was both a shameless self-seeker as well as an enemy to a strong federal government. “Like a populist demagogue he will have anarchy and bloodshed in the streets.”
The baron placed heavy elbows upon the table and spoke in his thick Germanic accent. “ Ja . This is why the Society of the Cincinnati is so vital. In bringing officers of the war to prominence, we can hold together the public order !”
Sipping at my wine, I thought that the baron’s sentiments were exactly the kind of talk that had made some of our countrymen suspicious of the new Society of the Cincinnati. Though my husband would hear nothing against it.
And neither would the fiery baron, who added, “Wait until you see the gold eagle badges we’re having made for all our members to wear. They’re extraordinary.” As if for confirmation, he looked to his very attentive aide sitting beside him, who profusely attested to the beauty of the pieces.
Amongst our company, only Burr seemed to have reservations. “Perhaps it’s not wise to draw such attention to the Cincinnati just yet. Not when Sam Adams is calling it a creation of American nobility and some state legislatures consider denouncing us as a military aristocracy...”
I worried Burr might have the right of it. The controversy had already lost Hamilton a few clients. Indeed, while Alexander could rarely hold any opinion to himself, Burr seemed always reticent to make his known, even to us, his closest friends. I’d hoped the man’s more reserved nature might influence my husband’s.
But sensing the growing tension around the table, I changed the subject. “Dear Lafayette, tell us where your travels will take you.”
“Ah, of course. By way of New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, I am to go to Virginia, where I will be reunited with our dear Monroe and finally with our dear general at Mount Vernon. And at some point, I go into the wilds to help America negotiate a treaty with the Iroquois at Fort Stanwix. Perhaps you should come with me, madame. For I recall how valuable you were at my negotiations with that great people so many years ago. And I remember our sweet talk over rum.”
Whereupon, to my embarrassment and delight, my husband raised a brow. “Sweet talk over rum?”
Lafayette laughed. “I would reassure you it was nothing, my friend, but I see you are jealous. And you deserve to be.”
Colonel Burr smiled and winked at me, raising his glass. “To what Hamilton deserves.”
Everyone laughed. Including Alexander, who then grinned and raised his glass. “To Mrs. Hamilton,” he said nodding at me, his blue eyes full of affection and amusement. “And Mrs. Burr, too. These ladies are more than either of us deserve.” The others joined in the toast, and the kind attention warmed my cheeks and heart in equal measure.
Returning his glass to the table, Hamilton told Lafayette, “You must pass on our regards to Monroe and General Washington. With my very sincere esteem. And compliments to Mrs. Washington as well.”
At long last, my husband seemed ready to set aside his quarrel with Washington. My heart lightened to hear it. And I believe Lafayette’s did, too. We shared across the table a secret conspiratorial smile as Lafayette proposed another toast. “To Washington: Savior of His Country, Benefactor of Mankind, the Pride of America, and the Admiration of Two Hemispheres. And, of course, my bosom friend and adoptive father.”
“ Ja. Gut! To Washington,” the baron said, standing and lifting his glass as he struck an ostentatious pose. Everyone joined in the toast with enthusiasm, including my husband, proving once more my suspicions that his prior aloofness about Washington’s farewell had stemmed from missing the company of his brothers-at-arms.
“Will you have an opportunity to look into the matter of James Armistead while you’re in Virginia?” I asked when we’d all settled again.
And I was a little delighted when Lafayette’s eyes flashed with surprise at me for asking. “ Oui , for it is an injustice, like so much about slavery, that cannot stand.”
Theodosia frowned. “Who is James Armistead?”
“Only the most vital American spy in the whole Virginia campaign,” the marquis replied. “An enslaved man who posed as a runaway so that the British would trust him. Without him, Cornwallis might well have reinforced Yorktown and then all would have been lost!”
The marquis recounted how Armistead, while enslaved, vol unteered with his master’s permission to serve as a soldier in the war and was assigned to Lafayette, who quickly recognized that the man’s knowledge of Virginia could make him a valuable spy. Armistead gained the trust of both Arnold and Cornwallis, who allowed him to guide troops through the state, permitted him free access to British army headquarters, and even bade him to spy on Lafayette!
“I shall never forget the look on Cornwallis’s face when he came to our camp to surrender,” Lafayette continued, holding the whole company rapt with his storytelling, “and saw Armistead already there. Here Cornwallis thought the man his personal slave, never once suspecting the truth.”
“The problem,” Alexander explained, “is that Virginia’s law emancipating those slaves who served on their masters’ behalves applies only to soldiers, not spies.”
“So Armistead remains enslaved,” I told Theodosia. “It’s an outrageous injustice.”
“Saul Matthews faces similar difficulty,” the baron said, shifting in his seat with agitation as he fed scraps off his plate to the thin pet greyhound he took with him everywhere. “Many times he supplied us with the intelligence of crucial British troop movements, yet he remains enslaved. These men deserve the applause of their country.”
It was a reminder of all the different sorts of people who had taken part in our revolution. Black and white. Slaves and free. Indians and immigrants. Rich and poor.
Women, too.
But my husband’s thoughts remained on the injustice of slavery and he sat forward, exchanging a glance with Burr. “There’s talk of a manumission society forming here in New York. We intend to join.”
I couldn’t help but wonder what Papa’s position would be about a society whose ultimate end was to abolish slavery, for the institution remained popular within the Dutch areas upstate, but I was proud that my husband planned to be involved. It might be controversial, but if my husband’s associations must be controversial, then let them be morally right.
At length, Theodosia and I excused ourselves to the kitchen to prepare dessert—stewed pears in spiced wine and fresh cream—while Jenny cleared away the dishes.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” I asked Theodosia, who had seemed pale since our encounter in the market, and unusually subdued during dinner.
She merely waved off my concern. But later, when the men had gone to the parlor to smoke, Theodosia glanced at Jenny’s retreating form and admitted, “I’m so tired all the time that I don’t know how you manage with just one slave.”
Sometimes, I didn’t know, either, but the conversation at dinner had left me even more uncomfortable to have full command of Jenny on my own. All our lives, she’d waited on me and my sisters—helping us dress, fixing our hair, tending to our room. Even assisting her mother in the kitchen. And though we’d all agreed we couldn’t have managed without her, we’d never once, any of us, given the reality of Jenny’s serving us a second thought. It was just how things were. But I remembered those black troops at Morristown and imagined Armistead and Matthews, enslaved again despite their crucial service, and it all felt... wrong.
“She’s only borrowed, ” I said, hearing how weak the distinction was even as I uttered the words. “But she’s skilled and trustworthy and a great help.” And I still didn’t know what I’d do without her.
Theodosia turned a warm smile to me. “Well, you’re an exemplary hostess.”
As Theodosia was well known for her lavish entertainments in the form of French-style salons, I managed a smile at the compliment despite the discomfiture in my breast. “You’re kind to say so. I’d been uneasy that the guest list was unbalanced without unattached ladies to round out the company of the baron and his aide.”
At this, Theodosia sputtered with laughter. “ Unbalanced, in deed. I daresay our baron and his very handsome aide are not the sort to have any special interest in unattached ladies.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“It isn’t by happenstance that the baron is unmarried,” Theodosia said, her voice hushing. “Don’t you know how he came to join the revolution?”
I didn’t have the slightest idea. Foreign mercenaries of all sorts had flooded to our shores to join our cause. I assumed the baron to be one of those, albeit more noble, stouthearted, and brilliant than almost all the others. Save Lafayette, of course.
Now I leaned close to hear more.
“He was ejected from the Prussian military for unsavory habits with men,” Theodosia confided. “Nearly jailed in France for the same. On account of the fact the baron was a brilliant soldier, Ben Franklin smuggled him on a ship to America before he could be arrested as a sodomite.”
This caused me to drop the half-emptied wineglass I held, spattering the table and my new woven mats with crimson.
It seemed apt since crimson was also the color of my rage that Theodosia should speak such black-hearted slander against one of my guests. About a hero of the revolution, no less. “That’s outrageous, ” I hissed, thinking less of Theodosia’s character than I had before. If she could accuse a good man of the abominable vice of buggery, an accusation that could end in his hanging, I wondered at the sins in her own heart. “People have been executed for such crimes.”
“And that is outrageous,” Theodosia said, bewildering me altogether.
By the time our guests said their farewells, I was still stewing about Theodosia’s gossip. I was, in truth, so bothered by it that I feared to even confide what she’d said to my husband lest he suspect that his wife was the sort of creature who dealt in such vile whispers. But that night, before we went upstairs, I asked, “The baron is a man of high character, is he not?”
Hamilton smiled. “He has his imprudencies, but upon the whole the baron is a gentleman of real intelligence for whom I have a particular esteem. I recall that when he first came to America he could speak no English. And yet, he made himself invaluable. Upon all occasions, he conducted himself like an experienced and brave officer. Did he not impress you at dinner, my dear girl?”
The truth was, the baron had impressed me. I liked him—and his... companion. I even liked his dog. And most of all, I liked the salutary effect that he had upon Alexander’s mood. So I didn’t ask about the baron’s imprudencies. And I promised myself that instead of spreading Theodosia’s gossip, I’d instead bask in the success of our party.
“You enjoyed yourself tonight,” I whispered, leaning back against my husband where we paused in the doorway to watch our boy sleep in his cradle.
“I enjoyed myself very much.” Alexander’s hands rested warmly upon my shoulders. “You are a better hostess even than your mother.”
I doubted that. I didn’t have Mama’s perfect understanding of everything that must be done at the dinner table and the order in which it must be done.
But before I could express those thoughts, my husband continued, “I’ve found a precious jewel in you.” Alexander wrapped his arms around me, and then his hands drifted down to my rounding belly. “Have I told you how pleased I am that you’re giving me another child?”
“I shall never tire of hearing it,” I said.
He turned me in his arms so that he could kiss me. He tasted of wine and exhilaration as he lifted me off my sore feet. I remembered how happy he’d been at the birth of Philip, and it filled my heart with hope for the future.
But when we finally had our fill of kisses and turned down the bed, the watchman passed our window crying, “Past ten o’clock and Cranston, the fishmonger, is a vile hypocrite and an enemy of freedom.”
***
T HE WAR HAD been won, but it had hardly brought peace.
Every day the clamor of the multitudes in the streets grew more menacing. While those streets were christened with new names—Crown Street became Liberty Street, Queen Street became Cedar, King became Pine—in coffeehouses, over bowls of grog, at the theater or wherever workmen struggled to clear away the debris and charred remains of war, we heard that no royalists should be suffered to live amongst patriots.
How, after all, could royalists think themselves deserving of forgiveness from their fellow citizens after having been the cause of eight years of death and destruction, war and mayhem?
The next day, I heard a commotion outside the front window and looked out to see that the usual ebb and flow of carriages and well-dressed people on our wide avenue was now choked by an ill-clad mob, all pointing and laughing at some spectacle at their center. Heedlessly, I rushed onto the front stoop to catch the scent of pine tar, sharp in the air.
And there, to my dread, I saw Cranston the fishmonger—being forcibly stripped to the waist.
I shouted in alarm, but the ruffians ignored me completely as they slathered the warm tar over the poor fishmonger’s chest and back and tore open a pillow for the feathers with which to humiliate him. This was followed by placement of a cowbell round his neck, and a sign that read “L OOK YE T ORY CREW, SEE WHAT G EORGE YOUR KING CAN DO . ”
Fighting back nausea and defying all reason, I took hold of my skirts and waded into the crowd. “Stop this at once!”
“Get back, Mrs. Hamilton,” one of the men said, daring to lay hands on me as the crack of a whip elicited a shriek of agony from its victim. “We Sons of Liberty ask you to remember all the times your husband came so near to death at Washington’s side, and you’ll know these traitors deserve whatever they get.”
Oh, how easily any man could lay claim to the title Son of Liberty now that the war, and the danger of being hanged for it, had passed. “How do you know he’s a traitor?” I asked, pulling away from the grubby self-styled patriot. “How could anyone know without giving the man a fair trial? Why the poor tailor Hercules Mulligan was thought to be a traitor until Washington himself revealed that he’d been our spy during the occupation.”
“The fishmonger is no Hercules Mulligan,” another man called. Perhaps he was unused to being spoken to in such a fashion by a woman, because the man stared with such contempt I thought he might strike me.
Fortunately, moments later it was Alexander who had me by both arms, forcing a retreat back to our house. I hadn’t expected my husband to return from his law office so early, but oh how grateful I was to see him, even as he scolded me for being in the street. “I cannot have you risk yourself,” Alexander said, his hand pressed protectively to my belly. “Especially not in your tender condition. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that they’re going to murder him,” I cried, shaking with impotent rage.
“They won’t,” he assured me. “They took his fish and made him bleed. That will be enough.”
I prayed my husband was right, remembering that we’d both seen worse horrors. But the lawlessness unleashed in America since our victory threatened my faith. When a Tory was acquitted by a judge in Charleston, his neighbors simply laid hold of him as soon as he left the courthouse and strung him up. I feared everything we’d struggled for was all coming undone. No sooner had we driven the king from our shores than we seemed intent on proving that we were uncivilized people who couldn’t live without a monarch to keep us from behaving as beasts.
“What kind of place is this in which to bring up our children?” I asked.
“I know, my angel,” Alexander said, holding me. “I, too, fear the revolution’s fruits will be blasted by the violence of rash or unprincipled men motivated by vindictive and selfish passions. So we must set the example and be kind to our neighbors.”
I remembered a time when I hadn’t set an example. When I’d failed to do the right thing. When I’d not given water to an injured Redcoat soldier for fear of what others might think of me. So I resolved to make up for that now and do just what my husband suggested.
That Sunday I put on my bonnet and marched, with great purpose, to Saint Paul’s Chapel. It was all that remained of the burned-down Episcopal Trinity Church, which had been a haven for Loyalists. I made a point to seat myself for prayers near to the shunned Tory families. And it was there that I first met sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Kortright, the daughter of a Loyalist merchant who’d lost much of his wealth during the war.
We exchanged a few pleasantries as I tried to ease the girl’s obvious tension, and before long she burst forth, as if the words couldn’t be held inside even before a stranger. “My father took no part in the war. He stayed because he loves New York. He shouldn’t be scorned because he also loved his king. And how can I help him rebuild his fortune if no man will have me for a wife?”
“You’re far too pretty to worry on that score,” I said reassuringly, certain that her sweet face and dignified manner would make any man overlook the sins of her father. And I invited her to tea at my house the next time I entertained ladies.
It was all I could think to do.
Fortunately, my husband did much more.
Alarmed at the violence—he set out to use the mightiest power he had at his disposal.
His pen.
And though I didn’t know it then, my husband was the best writer of the founding generation. Oh, there are those who will argue that honor goes to a certain Virginian, but he receives enough applause from the rabble without my praise, and I despise him too much to credit his talents.
It’s enough to know that it was my husband who, in this dark hour, held out so eloquently against the mob in a letter to his fellow citizens under the pseudonym Phocion, urging them to heed the principles of law and justice.
But if Alexander hoped his pen name—cleverly chosen to refer to yet another soldier from antiquity with murky parentage and noble wisdom—would shield his identity, he was wrong.
On my daily strolls with my little boy, I felt the glares of passersby. The baker was no longer content to extend me any sort of credit for bread. The delivery of fresh fruit from my father’s farm arrived smashed upon my front stoop, partially wrapped in a paper that featured an anonymous poem aimed, unquestionably, at my husband, for having become a supposed lackey for the royalists.
I burned this poem straightaway in the kitchen fire, but that didn’t stop Alexander from learning of it. And it wounded him gravely. Many of our friends, most especially Colonel Burr, advised him to let tempers cool and not risk his reputation, or our livelihood, to defend the Tories.
But my dear Hamilton wouldn’t listen.