, remarkable as it was, flowed between narrower lines, and
was unwatered by that humanity which was Hamilton's in such volume. Both
men had that faculty of seeing things exactly as they are, which the
shallow call cynicism; and those lost conversations appeal to the
imagination of the searcher after truth.

Jay's treaty was the most formidable question with which Hamilton was
called upon to deal before the retirement of Washington to private life,
and it gave him little less trouble than if he had remained in the
Cabinet.

It had been his idea to send a special envoy to England to remonstrate
with the British Government for her abominable oppressions and
accumulating outrages, decide if possible upon a treaty with her which
would soothe the excitement in the United States,--as wild in the spring
of 1794 as the Jacobin fever,--and avert war. It was the desire of
Washington and the eminent Federalists that this mission be undertaken
by Hamilton, for he had an especial faculty for getting what he wanted:
however obstinate he might be, his diplomacy was of the first order when
he chose to use it. But he believed that, having suggested the mission,
he could not with propriety accept it, and that his services could be
given more effectively in the Cabinet. Moreover, the violent opposition
which the proposal immediately raised among the Republicans, notably
Randolph and Monroe,--the latter so far transcending etiquette as to
write to Washington, denouncing his Secretary of the Treasury,--made it
probable that his enemies would defeat his confirmation in the Senate.
He suggested the name of Chief Justice Jay; and after the usual bitter
preliminaries, that exalted but not very forcible personage sailed for
England in the latter part of April, 1794. Negotiations were very slow,
for Britain still felt for us a deep and sullen resentment, nourished by
our Jacobin enthusiasms. In January, however, news came that the treaty
was concluded; and Hamilton, supposing that the matter was settled,
resigned from the Cabinet. It has been asserted that when he read this
famous instrument, he characterized it as "an old woman's treaty," and
it is very probable that he did. Nevertheless, when, after a stormy
passage through the Senate, it was launched upon the country, and,
systematically manipulated by the practised arts of Jacobinism, carried
the United States almost to the verge of civil war, Hamilton accepted
the treaty as the best obtainab