Laurens's private history beyond
the statements that his too sensitive mind held him responsible for the
accidental death of a younger brother, and that he had married a woman
in England, whom he had left at the altar, to join, with all possible
haste, the fighting forces in America, and whom he never saw again. If
this meets the eye of his family and they care to trust me with the
necessary papers, I shall be glad to write a life of Laurens.

PAGE 196. This verse was found in a little bag on Mrs. Hamilton's neck
when she died at the age of ninety-seven.

PAGE 208. "At the age of three and twenty he had already formed
well-defined, profound, and comprehensive views on the situation and
wants of these states. He had clearly discerned the practicability of
forming a confederated government and adapting it to their peculiar
condition, resources, and exigencies. He had wrought out for himself a
political system, far in advance of the conceptions of his
contemporaries, and one which in the case of those who most opposed him
in life, became, when he was laid in a premature grave, the basis on
which this government was consolidated; on which to the present day it
has been administered; and on which, alone, it can safely rest in that
future which seems to stretch out its unending glories before
us."--GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS.

PAGE 209. This letter from Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, from which
this extract is taken, was first published in Martha Lamb's "History of
New York," A.S. Barnes & Co., New York.

PAGE 226. Burr was aide-de-camp to Washington for six weeks, beginning
the last week in May, 1776. He hated the work and left abruptly,
incurring Washington's contempt and dislike. The charge of his friends
that Hamilton poisoned the Chief's mind against him is wholly unfounded.
Washington made up his own mind about men, and there is no evidence that
the two young men met except in the most casual manner before this
spring of 1782. Of course it is possible that a diligent reading of
obscure correspondence might bring to light an earlier acquaintance, but
the matter is not worth the waste of time. Matthew Davis, the only
responsible biographer of Burr, gives two years as the time consumed by
Burr for his legal studies. Parton was wholly indifferent to facts and
has no serious position as a biographer; but possessing a picturesque
and entertaining style, he has been widely read, and his estimate of
Burr accepted by the ignora