t
irritation, wrote as follows:

"Two days ago, the General and I passed each other on the stairs. He told
me he wanted to speak to me. I answered that I would wait upon him
immediately. I went below, and delivered Mr. Tilghman a letter to be sent
to the commissary, containing an order of a pressing and interesting
nature. Returning to the General, I was stopped on the way by the Marquis
de Lafayette, and we conversed together about a minute on a matter of
business. He can testify how impatient I was to get back, and that I left
him in a manner which, but for our intimacy would have been more than
abrupt. Instead of finding the General, as is usual, in his room, I met
him at the head of the stairs, where, accosting me in an angry tone,
'Colonel Hamilton,' said he 'you have kept me waiting at the head of the
stairs these ten minutes. I must tell you, sir, you treat me with
disrespect.' I replied without petulancy, but with decision: 'I am not
conscious of it, sir; but since you have thought it necessary to tell me
so, we part.' 'Very well, sir,' said he, 'if it be your choice,' or
something to this effect, and we separated. I sincerely believe my
absence, which gave so much umbrage, did not last two minutes. In less
than an hour after, Tilghman came to me in the General's name, assuring me
of his great confidence in my abilities, integrity, usefulness, etc, and
of his desire, in a candid conversation, to heal a difference which could
not have happened but in a moment of passion. I requested Mr Tilghman to
tell him--1st. That I had taken my resolution in a manner not to be
revoked ... Thus we stand ... Perhaps you may think I was precipitate in
rejecting the overture made by the General to an accomodation. I assure
you, my dear sir, it was not the effect of resentment; it was the
deliberate result of maxims I had long formed for the government of my own
conduct.... I believe you know the place I held in the General's
confidence and counsels, which will make more extraordinary to you to
learn that for three years past I have felt no friendship for him and have
professed none. The truth is, our dispositions are the opposites of each
other, and the pride of my temper would not suffer me to profess what I
did not feel. Indeed, when advances of this kind have been made to me on
his part, they were received in a manner that showed at least that I had
no desire to court them, and that I desired to stand rather upon a footing
of