ay the
friends of assumption had the other resolutions also recommitted, and
the furious battle raged again. Finally, on June 2d, a bill was passed
by the House, which left the question of assumption to be settled by a
future test of strength.

The anti-assumptionists were triumphant, for they believed the idea
would gain in unpopularity. But they reckoned without Hamilton.

XX

Jefferson had arrived on March 21st, and entered at once upon his duties
as Secretary of State. He disapproved of the assumption measure, but was
so absorbed in the perplexing details of his new office, in
correspondence, and in frequent conferences with the President on the
subject of foreign affairs, that he gave the matter little consecutive
thought. Moreover, he was dined every day for weeks, all the
distinguished New Yorkers, from Hamilton down, vying with each other in
attentions to a man whose state record was so enlightened, and whose
foreign so brilliant, despite one or two humiliating failures. He rented
a small cottage in Maiden Lane, and looked with deep disapproval upon
the aristocratic dissipations of New York, the frigid stateliness of
Washington's "Court." The French Revolution and the snub of the British
king had developed his natural democratism into a controlling passion,
and he would have preferred to find in even the large cities of the new
country the homely bourgeois life of his highest ideals.

No one accused him of inconsistency in externals. With his shaggy sandy
hair, his great red face, covered with freckles, his long loose figure,
clad in red French breeches a size too small, a threadbare brown coat,
soiled linen and hose, and enormous hands and feet, he must have
astounded the courtly city of New York, and it is certain that he set
Washington's teeth on edge. It is no wonder that when this vision rises
upon the democratic horizon of to-day, he is hailed as a greater man
than Washington or Hamilton.

Shortly after the final recommitment of the resolution in favour of
assumption, the Federalist leader met this engaging figure almost in
front of Washington's door, and a plan which had dawned in his mind a
day or two before matured on the instant. He had no dislike for
Jefferson at the time, and respected his intellect and diplomatic
talents, without reference to differences of opinion. Jefferson grinned
as Hamilton approached, and offered his great paw amiably. He did not
like his brother secretary's clothes, a