fore, and the author of its brief
prosperity forgotten with his works. I shall have lived in vain, and
leave my sons to be educated, my family to be supported, by my
father-in-law."

He was in no mood to see the reverse side of the picture; and indeed his
cares were so many and overwhelming at this time that it is little
wonder he believed he had lost for ever the gay buoyancy of his spirits.
In addition to the predominating trials, financial matters were
demanding all the leisure he should have given to rest, heavy failures
in England having seriously affected the money concerns of the United
States; and the rebellions in the West against the Excise Law were
sounding a new alarm. Moreover, his constant efforts to obtain Duer's
release were unavailing; he could get no word of Lafayette; and the last
packet had brought a rumour of the murder of Gouverneur Morris by the
mob. Altogether, he may be excused for forgetting that he was still the
most dazzling figure in America, in the full tide of actual success, and
an object of terrified hatred to a powerful ring who could reach their
zenith over his political corpse, and by no other means whatever.

He picked up his hat, and went forth reluctantly to a Cabinet meeting.
It was early, and he saw Washington for a few moments alone in the
library. The President was in a no more cheerful or amiable frame of
mind than himself. His responsibilities in this terrible crisis wore on
his spirits and temper; and the daily fear that his Secretaries would
come to blows,--for Jefferson was in the worst humour of the
quintette,--to say nothing of the assaults of the press, made him openly
regret the hour he was persuaded into the Executive Chair. But his
entire absence of party spirit, despite his secret sympathy with every
measure of Hamilton's, his attitude of stern neutrality, never emerged
more triumphantly from any trial of his public career; nor did he ever
exhibit the magnanimity of his character more strikingly than in his
undisturbed affection for Hamilton, while daily twitted with being the
tool of his "scheming and ambitious Secretary."

Hamilton saw a copy of Freneau's _Gazette_ in the waste-basket, but by
common consent they ignored the subjects which would be unavoidable in a
few moments, and spoke of the stifling heat, of the unhealthy state of
Philadelphia, the menace of the San Domingo refugees pouring into the
city, of the piles of putrid coffee and hides on the wharves