Hero Tales from History — Alexander Hamilton, The Orphan Boy from the West Indies

ALEXANDER HAMILTON, THE ORPHAN BOY FROM THE WEST INDIES

On the little island of Nevis, in the West Indies, lived a small boy who had lost his mother, a bright young woman from France.

His father, James Hamilton, who was a Scotch planter, soon left the island, and the boy, Alexander, heard little of him after that.

No one knows to-day what became of the father of Alexander Hamilton, but his grandfather was a Scottish laird, or lord.

The next that is known of Alexander is that he was a clerk in the store of a merchant on Santa Cruz, a smaller island, and that the lad was not contented there.

When he was twelve he wrote back to a friend in Nevis, “I would be willing to risk my life, but not my character, to exalt my station.

” Alexander studied with a minister of Santa Cruz who did all he could to help the boy to improve his position in life.

As Alexander was a devout lad it is believed that the good man was trying to fit him to be a minister.

The first thing young Hamilton did to win credit was to write a wonderful description of a hurricane, or violent wind storm, that did great damage on the island.

The article was printed in a London newspaper.

When the people who knew the lad read his account, they could hardly believe that one so young could have written it and several wealthy planters decided to give such a bright boy a chance “to exalt his station” by sending him to school in America.

Soon the little Scotch lad who could speak French and write splendid stories in English was on his way to Boston in a British packet boat.

It is stated that on that voyage he first heard of George Washington.

When Alexander Hamilton reached Boston, he found the people up in arms because the British government had sent soldiers to keep order in that rebellious city; but the boy had been brought up to think that the king and the great men of England were always right.

The little Britisher from the West Indies was first sent to a grammar school not far from New York to prepare for college.

He was so keen and studied so hard that he was fitted to enter King’s College in New York City at the age of sixteen.

After the war against the king the name of the college was changed from King’s to Columbia.

After a year in college, the British-bred youth went to Boston again.

This was about the time when the “Sons of Liberty” dressed up as Indians and threw the taxed tea overboard into Boston harbor.

This act was intended to show the king and the English statesmen that the Americans would not pay taxes when they had nothing to say in the government as to what taxes they should pay.

No doubt Alexander, while studying for college, had learned something of the history and the spirit of the people in America, so that he did not feel so sure that all the king did was right.

After he returned to New York, there was a great mass meeting in “the Fields” to talk about the unjust acts of the king of England.

In the city were many Tories, loyal to the king.

Young Hamilton went down from college to hear the discussion, and it was not long before he was answering a rich Tory in a sharp, vigorous way.

The people shouted to him to go up on the platform, and the brilliant West Indian youth of seventeen made a strong speech that became the talk of New York City.

A little while after this the students called on the president of King’s College.

He was a Tory, and very bitter against the people who were fighting for their rights as British subjects.

He scolded the students roundly, calling them traitors, rascals, and other hard names.

This made the young men so angry that it might have gone hard with the old gentleman if young Hamilton had not jumped up on the porch and spoken earnestly in his defense.

The president, seeing who was speaking, and thinking that the youth was talking against the Tories again, put his angry red face out of an upper window and shouted: “It’s a lie!

Don’t believe a word that rogue says.

He’s crazy!

” As Hamilton was really taking their foolish president’s part, this made the students shout and laugh.

The young orator, taking advantage of this, kept on talking till the old Tory made his escape by a back way to a British man-of-war in the river near by.

After this Hamilton wrote pamphlets and newspaper articles about the rights of the people.

Events began to happen thick and fast.

Washington was elected commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and drove the British soldiers out of Boston.

Then the Americans decided to separate from England; so the Declaration of Independence was written and signed.

Young Hamilton was soon in the midst of the fight--in command of an artillery company.

When Washington and his ragged Continentals were retreating from New York, he saw a youth in charge of a battery keeping the red-coats from crossing a wide river, so that the American commander-in-chief and his little army could keep on their way to Philadelphia.

“Who is that young man?

” asked Washington.

“That, your Excellency, is Alexander Hamilton.

” The great general was so pleased with the skill and courage of the young officer that he soon invited him to become his _aide_ and secretary, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.

The commander-in-chief liked to have bright young men around him.

Colonel Hamilton was now twenty.

Colonel Aaron Burr was a year older.

“Light-Horse Harry” Lee was about the same age; and General Lafayette, who was added to General Washington’s staff that summer, was only nineteen.

Colonel Hamilton was such a discreet and faithful secretary that it was said, “The pen of the army is held by Hamilton.

” In some ways Hamilton’s pen was mightier than his sword.

At Brandywine, where Lafayette was wounded, Hamilton’s horse was shot under him; but he kept at the head of his regiment, on foot.

At Valley Forge young Hamilton had occasion to remember the language his mother used in talking with him when he was a baby on the island of Nevis, for he often spoke French with young Marquis de Lafayette.

The West Indian colonel was welcome wherever [Illustration: THE FIRST MEETING BETWEEN WASHINGTON AND HAMILTON.

_From an old print_] he went.

He was thoughtful and kind to the sick, writing beautiful letters home for disabled and dying soldiers.

One day when the young staff officer was hurrying to meet his chief, Lafayette detained him.

Finally breaking away from the friendly young Frenchman, Hamilton found Washington waiting for him.

The commander-in-chief said, “Colonel Hamilton, you have kept me waiting these ten minutes!

I must tell you, sir, that you treat me with disrespect.

” The young _aide_ flushed scarlet and replied: “I am not conscious of it, sir; but since you have thought it necessary to tell me so, we part.

” “Very well, sir, if it be your choice,” said Washington.

With face still aflame, Hamilton turned and left the commander-in-chief.

Within an hour the general was sorry he had been so severe with “my boy” as he called his _aide_, and sent for him, asking that their too hasty words might be forgotten.

But even then Hamilton could not quite forgive his chief for reproving him.

So Alexander Hamilton was placed in command of a detachment in the south, where “Light-Horse Harry” and Lafayette were officers also.

At Yorktown, the last battle in the War for Independence, Colonel Hamilton was the first man of the American army to mount the wall before the town, where he was quickly followed by his devoted men.

Within a very few minutes the American flag was floating over Yorktown.

After the war, Hamilton returned to New York City to practise law.

He had married the daughter of General Schuyler, one of the richest men in that state.

Attorney Hamilton soon became successful and prosperous.

When the time came to frame the Constitution which was to bind the thirteen states into one Union and make them true to their name, the _United_ States, Alexander Hamilton was one of the leaders in that great undertaking.

After that, his former chief was elected the first President.

One of the first acts of President Washington was to send for Alexander Hamilton to be the first Secretary of the Treasury.

The young Secretary had to create success for the new nation, like making “bricks without straw.

” There was no national treasury.

Continental money was without value, so that when anything was considered worthless it was said to be--“not worth a continental.

” Rival states had been jealous of one another, and as there was no head, nothing was owned in common by the whole country--but debts.

Money had been borrowed of other nations, and of patriotic people in America, to carry on the War for Independence.

Many good people thought it would be impossible for the new government, just starting, to pay its debts, besides building up a new government and meeting the running expenses.

But Alexander Hamilton, still a young man, saw that a country in debt could never be independent, and that if the government of the United States did not pay all it owed, it could not go on, any more than a bankrupt business which could not pay its bills.

The only way to secure credit was to pay every dollar it owed.

Hamilton devised ways and means to do all this with such success that, in the street parades which the people arranged in different cities to celebrate the new Constitution, wherever a float represented the _Constitution_, the only man’s name on the ship of state was “Hamilton.

” The plans of the young Secretary of the Treasury worked like magic, and the new government was soon on a solid foundation.

Daniel Webster, the greatest orator who ever lived in America, in speaking of Hamilton’s work, compared it to two miracles told of in the Bible; one, that of Moses when he drew water from a rock for the thirsty Israelites in the wilderness; the other, the raising of a dead man to life by Elijah.

These are Webster’s words: “Hamilton smote the rock of the national resources and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth.

He touched the dead corpse of public credit, and it sprang upon its feet.

” Alexander Hamilton continued to act as the first President’s private secretary.

It is generally believed that it was he who wrote out Washington’s immortal “Farewell Address.

” When he gave up the office of Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton returned to the practise of law.

He had gladly given up a large income and served his country for about one-third the amount of money he had been receiving from his law business.

In New York Hamilton’s chief rival was Aaron Burr, whom Washington had disliked and allowed to retire from his military staff.

But Colonel Burr was a brilliant lawyer and a popular politician.

When Thomas Jefferson was elected President of the United States by the House of Representatives, Aaron Burr might have been chosen President if three men had voted the other way.

Burr was bitterly disappointed, and blamed Hamilton for his defeat.

Nursing revenge in his heart Burr practised shooting.

As Hamilton continued to oppose Burr’s schemes, Burr easily found an excuse to challenge him to fight a duel.

Dueling was still a common means of deciding questions of honor.

Hamilton’s eldest son had been killed in that way.

As a man was called a coward if he did not fight, Hamilton accepted Burr’s challenge, though he felt sure it would mean death to himself.

The place chosen for the shooting was the spot where Hamilton’s son had lately been killed.

When the signal was given, Alexander Hamilton pointed his pistol upward and fired into a tree to avoid hitting Burr, whose aim was as true as when shooting at a target.

Hamilton fell, face downward, and died next day, declaring that he forgave the enemy who had planned and practised to kill him.

This duel did more than anything else to show the wickedness of the duel as a way of settling disputes.

Aaron Burr later was accused of being a traitor to the country which Hamilton had given his great and noble life to place upon a firm foundation.

What is true of dueling is also true of war--the unworthy party may succeed by wicked means.

But America remembers Aaron Burr as a curse, and Alexander Hamilton as a blessing to his country.