ainst those who remained in the city the returning Whigs
now proceeded with great severity. The violent party was dominant in the
legislature, and George Clinton, the governor, put himself conspicuously
at its head. A bill was passed disfranchising all such persons as had
voluntarily stayed in neighbourhoods occupied by the British troops;
their offence was called misprision of treason. But the council vetoed
this bill as too wholesale in its operation, for it would have left some
districts without voters enough to hold an election. An "iron-clad oath"
was adopted instead, and no one was allowed to vote unless he could
swear that he had never in anywise abetted the enemy. It was voted that
no Tory who had left the state should be permitted to return; and a bill
was passed known as the Trespass Act, whereby all persons who had quit
their homes by reason of the enemy's presence might recover damages in
an action of trespass against such persons as had since taken possession
of the premises. Defendants in such cases were expressly barred from
pleading a military order in justification of their possession. As there
was scarcely a building on the island of New York that had not thus
changed hands during the British occupation, it was easy to foresee what
confusion must ensue. Everybody whose house had once been, for ever so
few days, in the hands of a Tory now rushed into court with his action
of trespass. Damages were rated at most exorbitant figures, and it
became clear that the misdeeds of the enemy were about to be made the
excuse for a carnival of spoliation, when all at once the test case of
Rutgers _v._ Waddington brought upon the scene a sturdy defender of
order, an advocate who was soon to become one of the foremost personages
in American history.

[Sidenote: Alexander Hamilton.]

Of all the young men of that day, save perhaps William Pitt, the most
precocious was Alexander Hamilton. He had already given promise of a
great career before the breaking out of the war. He was born on the
island of Nevis, in the West Indies, in 1757. His father belonged to
that famous Scottish clan from which have come one of the most learned
metaphysicians and one of the most original mathematicians of modern
times. His mother was a French lady, of Huguenot descent, and
biographers have been fond of tracing in his character the various
qualities of his parents. To the shrewdness and persistence, the
administrative ability, and the tast