thirteen guns to the president of the Congress and
its members, who stood on the fort in the Battery.

After all, perhaps it was the proudest and the happiest day of his
career, for the depths in his nature still slumbered, the triumph was
without alloy; and he knew that there were other heights to scale, and
that he should scale them. It was the magnificent and spontaneous
tribute of an intelligent people to an enlightened patriotism, to years
of severe and unselfish thought; and hardly an enemy grudged him his
deserts. The wild feeling of exultant triumph which surged behind his
smiling face receded before the rising swell of the profoundest
gratitude he had ever known.

The day finished with a great banquet at Mr. Bayard's country-seat, near
Grand Street, where tables were spread for six thousand persons, in a
pavilion surmounted by an image of Fame, and decorated with the colours
of the nations that had formed treaties with the United States. Later,
there was a grand display of fireworks.

XI

On the following day Hamilton went to Albany to march at the head of a
Federal procession with General Schuyler, then returned to
"Hamiltonopolis" and such legal work as he was permitted to accomplish;
for not only were leaders consulting him on every possible question from
the coming elections to the proper seat for the new government, and his
duties as a member of Congress pressing, but Edward Stevens, now
established as a doctor in Philadelphia, paid him a visit of a week, and
they talked the night through of St. Croix and old times. One of the
pleasantest results of these years of supremacy was the unqualified
delight of his Island friends. Hugh Knox was so proud of him, and of
himself and the debt which Hamilton acknowledged, that he wrote
explosive reams describing the breathless interest of St. Croix in his
career, and of the distinguished gatherings at the Governor's when he
arrived with one of their lost citizen's infrequent epistles. Mrs.
Mitchell, poor soul, wrote pathetically that she would no longer regret
his loss could she love him less. Hamilton wrote to her as often as he
could find the time, and Betsey selected a present for her several times
a year. Gratitude is the privilege of a great soul, and Hamilton had a
full measure of it. Even his father and brother wrote occasionally,
respectfully, if with no great warmth; and if their congratulations were
usually accompanied by the experimental sigh of pover