he had made thirty thousand pounds by the purchase of army
certificates. It was also alleged that Hamilton ordered his name
withdrawn as a Presidential candidate, in consequence of a threat that
otherwise these same papers would be published.

It is a curious instance of the fatuity of contemporaries, that
Hamilton's enemies reckoned upon a sullen silence, in the face of
damning assault, from the greatest fighter of his time. Indubitably,
they argued that he would think it best to pass the matter over; no man
could be expected to give to the public the full explanation. But they
reckoned with an insufficient knowledge of this host, as they had done
many a time before. Hamilton had no desire to hold office again, but he
was still the great leader of a great party, as determined as ever that
at no cost should there be a stain on his public honour. He consulted
with his closest friends, among them his wife. As the sin was now five
years old--and the woman a derelict--Mrs. Hamilton found it easier to
forgive than an unconfessed liaison with the most remarkable woman of
her time. Although she anticipated the mortification of the exposure
quite as keenly as her husband, she cherished his good name no less
tenderly, and without hesitation counselled him to give the facts to the
public. This he did in a pamphlet which expounded the workings of the
"Jacobin Scandal Club," told the unpleasant story without reserve, and
went relentlessly into the details of the part played in it by Monroe,
Muhlenberg, and Venable. He forced affidavits from those bewildered
gentlemen, the entire correspondence was published, and the pamphlet
itself was a masterpiece of biting sarcasm and convincing statement. It
made a tremendous sensation, but even his enemies admired his courage.
The question of his financial probity was settled for all time, although
the missile, failing in one direction, quivered in the horrified brains
of many puritanical voters. Mrs. Reynolds, now living with Clingman,
made no denial, and it is doubtful if even she would have echoed the one
animadversion of the discomfited enemy,--that Hamilton had given the
name of a mistress to the public. It is a weak and dangerous
sentimentalism which would protect a woman of commerce against the good
name of any man. The financial settlement makes her a party in a
contract, nothing more, and acquits the payer of all further
responsibility. She has no good name to protect; she has asked fo