s,--all the more
remarkable because he was so young. In fact he never was a boy; he was a
man before he was seventeen. His ability was surpassed only by his
precocity. No man saw the evils of the day so clearly as he, or
suggested such wise remedies as he did when he was in the family of
Washington.

We are apt to suppose that it was all plain sailing after the colonies
had declared their independence, and their armies were marshalled under
the greatest man--certainly the wisest and best--in the history of
America and of the eighteenth century. But the difficulties were
appalling even to the stoutest heart. In less than two years after the
battle of Bunker Hill popular enthusiasm had almost fled, although the
leaders never lost hope of ultimate success. The characters of the
leading generals were maligned, even that of the general-in-chief; trade
and all industries were paralyzed; the credit of the States was at the
lowest ebb; there were universal discontents; there were unforeseen
difficulties which had never been anticipated; Congress was nearly
powerless, a sort of advisory board rather than a legislature; the
States were jealous of Congress and of each other; there was a general
demoralization; there was really no central power strong enough to
enforce the most excellent measures; the people were poor; demagogues
sowed suspicion and distrust; labor was difficult to procure; the
agricultural population was decimated; there was no commerce; people
lived on salted meats, dried fish, baked beans, and brown bread; all
foreign commodities were fabulously dear; there was universal hardship
and distress; and all these evils were endured amid foreign contempt and
political disintegration,--a sort of moral chaos difficult to conceive.
It was amid these evils that our Revolutionary fathers toiled and
suffered. It was against these that Hamilton brought his great genius
to bear.

At the age of twenty-three, after having been four years in the family
of Washington as his adviser rather than subordinate, Hamilton,
doubtless ambitious, and perhaps elated by a sense of his own
importance, testily took offence at a hasty rebuke on the part of the
General and resigned his situation. Loath was Washington to part with
such a man from his household. But Hamilton was determined, and tardily
he obtained a battalion, with the brevet rank of general, and
distinguished himself in those engagements which preceded the capture of
Lord Cornw