Complete Works. Hamilton AlexanderЧитать онлайн книгу.
to as "little Phil." He studied law in New York, and for a time was assistant United States district attorney, under his brother James, and achieved considerable distinction by the able manner in which he tried and convicted the celebrated pirate Gibbs, who was hanged on Bedloe's Island.
The grandfather wrote to his daughter shortly before the birth of this last baby.
Philip Schuyler to Elizabeth Hamilton
Albany, August 23, 1803.
My dearly beloved and Amiable Child: How your endearing attentions rivet you continually to my heart. May the loss of one be compensated by another Philip. May his virtues emulate those which graced his brother, and may he be a comfort to parents so tender and who have endeared themselves to theirs.
A long absence has prevented my attention to my private affairs. I hope soon to arrange these, and propose a visit to you, but I believe it can not be until after the Supreme Court in this City. ... I hope you keep Your Children as much as possible in the country, as the city at this season is generally injurious to the health of Children, especially as they can with so much facility indulge with fruit and frequently with that which is unripe.—Embrace them all for us. They all share with You and My Dear Hamilton in our Love. Adieu My Dear Child. May those blessings which are the portion of the virtuous attend You all is the prayer of Your
Affectionate parent
Ph. Schuyler.
Mrs. Hamilton.
There was a great difference between the ages of the daughters. Angelica, a very beautiful girl, was born shortly after her father's residence in New York City after the peace.
She was evidently a charming character and very much like the aunt after whom she was named, being clever and talented. She seems to have had good musical training, and this lady frequently speaks of her in her letters from London. "Adieu, my dear Eliza," wrote Angelica Church in 1796, "I shall bring with me a Governess who understands music pretty well, she will be able to instruct Angelica and Eliza."
Upon receipt of the news of her brother's death in the Eacker duel, she suffered so great a shock that her mind became permanently impaired, and although taken care of by her devoted mother for a long time there was no amelioration in her condition, and she was finally placed under the care of Dr. MacDonald of Flushing, and remained in his charge until her death at the age of seventy-three. During her latter life she constantly referred to the dear brother so nearly her own age as if alive. Her music, that her father used to oversee and encourage, stayed by her all these years. To the end she played the same old-fashioned songs and minuets upon the venerable piano that had been bought for her, many years before, in London, by Angelica Church, during her girlhood, and was sent to New York through a friend of her father. She survived her mother by two and a half years. The younger daughter, with whom die mother lived in her old age, and at whose house she died, in Washington, seems to have been a woman of a great deal of strength of mind.
Although all of Hamilton's sons marked out for themselves legal or military careers, it cannot be said that any one» in a conspicuous way, resembled his father.
William did not marry, but sought a frontier life, and occasionally returned to see his mother and brothers. He first went to that part of the Northwest which is now Wisconsin, and in 1837, when in her eightieth year, Mrs. Hamilton made the long journey to see him. She wrote, on her way to my father, as follows:
Mrs. Alexander Hamilton to Philip Hamilton
March 19 1837.
My dear Son: I wrote to your Brothers of my continued health. I am now on the Ohio quite well, at Pitsburgh I was visited by Mr. Ross the friend of your Father. He laments the state of our country, and fears his efforts will not be of the duration that good minds wish.
The Director of the Bank, he informed me, saw your Brother's letter and immediately determined not to issue specie. As soon as the Bank opened they were required to make a payment in specie to a considerable amount by persons that had been travelling night and day.' Pittsburgh is a considerable town on the junction of three rivers, no beauty but good Buildings, gloomy from the use of coal. I shall write you from Cincinnati where I shall be today. Adieu! write to me and let me know how Angelica is.
Your Affectionate Mother,
E. Hamilton.
Later she wrote:
Mrs, Alexander Hamilton to Philip Hamilton
Mississippi May 23, 1837.
My dear Son: I have passed the Ohio, the river is very spacious, but very difficult of navigation, the shores beautiful and the vessel approaching the shore at the distance of one dozen feet; no wharf, the water is so mixed with clay that it is not drinkable without wine. This evening we shall be at St. Louis on the Mississippi. Our passage will be tedious as we go against the stream. Let me hear from you, particularly respecting Angelica and all the family.
Your affectionate mother
Elizabeth Hamilton.
And again:
Mrs. Alexander Hamilton to Philip Hamilton
I thank you My Dear Son for yours of the fifteenth. I hope you may have leisure and the opportunity to have the Speach of your beloved Father copied. Solicit it most anxiously, and if that won't do request it as a favour for me. Hire a person to copy it and let me be at the expense. How desirous must you be to see all given to the publisher that your father has done for our country.
I wish you to make inquiry where the location is to be made and when this is the last of your father's services of the grant of land. I am quite recovered. I wish you may see some of General Washington's family and that you go to Mount Vernon. Adieu, x our Brothers are all well.
Every Blessing attend you prays Your Affectionate Mother
Elizabeth Hamilton.
New York, February 21, 1839.
' A certificate for a section of land was awarded Hamilton by the United States for military service, but he never took advantage of this allotment.
Very few of the children presented any of the father's dominant attractions. William Stephen, however, must have been a winning character. He certainly possessed a great deal of his father's personal beauty, and much of his charm of manner, but it is said that he was unconventional and something of a wanderer.
The youngest son, Philip, also manifested much of his father's sweetness and happy disposition, and was always notably considerate of the feelings of others, and was punctilious to a fault in his obligations. In his old age he devoted much of his time to helping others in many quiet ways, and no one came to him in vain for advice or such material help as he could afford. Born at a time when his mother was in great poverty, he was denied those advantages accorded to his elder brothers, and had, in every sense, to make his own way. He had no college education, but studied law with one of his brothers; had a hard, up-hill professional life, and died comparatively poor. Much of his time was given up to unselfish acts, and the number of his poor clients, especially those who followed the sea, was very great
James A. Hamilton described the family life in New York when he and his brothers and sisters were children. "I distinctly recollect," he says, "the scene at breakfast in the front room of the house in Broadway. My dear mother seated, as was her wont, at the head of the table with a napkin in her lap, cutting slices of bread and spreading them with butter, while the younger boys, who, standing at her side, read in turn a chapter in the Bible or a portion of Goldsmith's Rome.' When the lessons were finished the father and the elder children were called to breakfast, after which the boys were packed off to school."
During the time that Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury and when he lived in Philadelphia, his family worries were increased by reason of the menace of yellow fever, which seems to have been prevalent. As the result of the absence of