and by what
methods progress was to be made, was not one to be trifled with.

No doubt Ruggles Hubbard had a sincere attachment for Clinton. In
supporting his presidential aspirations Hubbard visited Vermont, where
he exercised his companionable gifts in an effort to obtain for
Clinton the vote of that State. But Hubbard had neither firmness nor
strength of intellect. Irregular in his habits, lax in his morals, a
spendthrift and an insolvent, he could not resist the incessant
attacks upon Clinton, nor the offer of the shrievalty of New York,
with its large income and fat fees. When, therefore, Elmendorff
finally evidenced a disposition to yield, Hubbard made the vote for
Clinton's removal unanimous.

There have been seventy-nine mayors of New York since Thomas Willett,
in 1665, first took charge of its affairs under the iron rule of Peter
Stuyvesant, but only one in the long list, averaging a tenure of three
years each, served longer than DeWitt Clinton. Richard Varick, the
military secretary of Schuyler and Washington, and the distinguished
associate of Samuel Jones in revising the laws of the State, held the
mayoralty from 1789 to 1801, continuing through the controlling life
of the Federalist party and the closing years of a century full of
heroic incident in the history of the city. But DeWitt Clinton,
holding office from 1803 to 1815--save the two years given Marinus
Willett and Jacob Radcliff--saw the city's higher life keep pace with
its growth and aided in the forces that widened its achievement and
made it a financial centre. It must have cost this master-spirit of
his age a deep sigh to give up a position in which his work had been
so wise and helpful. His situation, indeed, seemed painfully gloomy;
his office was gone, his salary was spent, and his estate was
bankrupt. It is doubtful if a party leader ever came to a more
distressing period in his career; yet he preserved his dignity and
laughed at the storm that howled so fiercely about him. "Genuine
greatness," he said, in a memorial address delivered about this time,
"never appears in a more resplendent light, or in a more sublime
attitude, than in that buoyancy of character which rises superior to
danger and difficulty."

In the meantime, Governor Tompkins was riding on the crest of the
political waves. On February 14, 1816, a legislative caucus
unanimously instructed the members of Congress from New York to
support him for President; a week later it