At once he took my hand, and kissed it.
“My own girl,” he said contritely. “You are right, of course, in your infinite wisdom. The general does deserve better, as do you. Because you have asked, I shall make every effort to control the warmth of my temper.”
I smiled, and silently prayed that he would at least try.
But if he did, his resolution did not last. Less than a week later, he couldn’t wait to tell me how at the latest cabinet meeting he’d completely confounded Mr. Jefferson by speaking for nearly an hour without stopping, which must have been a trial to everyone else in the meeting, too. It seemed as if now the entire government was aware of the acrimony between the two men. The other wives of congressmen freely offered their commiseration to me, and hostesses became leery of inviting both us and Mr. Jefferson to the same suppers, fearing an out-and-out battle royal in their dining rooms.
The only joyful event that came of that summer was the arrival of our fourth son in August. The birth was an easy one for me, and likewise the baby himself proved of an easy, mild disposition, disproving all my fears to the contrary. We named him John Church Hamilton, after Angelica’s husband, and she and Mr. Church returned the favor by calling their own new son, born soon after ours, Alexander Hamilton Church.
By the end of the year, the results of the second presidential election were confirmed, and once again General Washington was elected president, with Mr. Adams from Massachusetts again his vice president. Although this was good news in general for Alexander, the Federalists had lost seats in Congress, and the Democratic-Republicans who’d replaced them were eager for a fight, and alas, eager to see my husband deposed.
Rumors that Alexander had inappropriately used foreign loans to pay national debt became so common that the House asked Alexander to present a full accounting, with detailed reports of all the Treasury Department’s accounts. Of course, the rumors were unfounded, and fed by Mr. Jefferson, but still Alexander was forced to answer them. He did, in vast detail, and proved his innocence.
Still determined to see my husband discredited and his career destroyed, Mr. Jefferson encouraged his minions in Congress to file resolutions censuring his behavior, and requesting that the president remove him from the cabinet. These, too, were soundly voted down by Congress, and my Alexander’s reputation was vindicated and restored to its usual shining brilliance.
But the vitriol soon spilled over once again into the newspapers, where it became appallingly public. While Mr. Jefferson often had others write on his behalf—including his fellow Virginians, James Monroe and James Madison—Alexander was his own best defender, and took an almost unseemly pleasure in doing so. His work appeared so often on the pages of the Federalist-inclined Gazette of the United States that he might as well have been an editor himself, countering every word the Democratic-Republicans printed in Mr. Jefferson’s newspaper of choice, the National Gazette.
On the printed page, Alexander was in his very element, dashing off letter after letter over various names borrowed from the ancients. Whenever he worked late in his study, I came to know from how fast his pen was scratching across the paper when he was writing an ordinary letter, and when he was composing yet another screed against the Democratic-Republicans.
I thought wistfully back to the days of The Federalist, when he’d used his argumentative powers toward a productive purpose, days that now seemed so long ago. At least his only weapons were a quill and ink, and he and Mr. Jefferson had never launched into the dangerous, posturing talk of duels of honor.
The news from France of the deposition of their king added another fresh layer to the quarrel. While most Americans applauded the French for pursuing their own liberty and freedom from royalty much as we had done, Mr. Jefferson was avid in his admiration, believing that America should throw all its support behind the new French government. And as usual, Alexander preached caution, especially once war was declared between Great Britain and France, and fortunately, President Washington agreed with him. The American states were finally finding their own footing, and the last thing anyone wished was for us to be drawn into a ruinous war between France and Britain—anyone, that is, except Mr. Jefferson.
Yet as contentious as the politics in our government had become, all of it paled beside the calamity that struck Philadelphia in the late summer of 1793.
Instead of having me travel to The Pastures with the children for the warmer months, Alexander had taken a summer residence for us a short drive from the city. Called Fair Hill, it became our pleasant retreat, and I was especially happy that Alexander could relax here with me and the children, and have some respite from his near-constant labors as well as from Mr. Jefferson.
We were especially grateful for Fair Hill as the summer’s heat worsened. After a spring filled with rain, the summer proved dry and wickedly hot, and even the children were content to lie idle in the shade during the worst heat of the day. The weather was so taxing that Alexander brought back stories from the city of dozens of poor people dying from the heat, especially those who lived in the crowded lodgings near the docks or toiled in the hot sun for their livings.
But soon the news he brought to us grew much more serious. The people had died not from the heat, but from yellow fever, and soon it wasn’t only poor people who were taken ill. Alexander described scenes that were all too familiar to him from his childhood: of carts that passed each morning to collect the bodies of the dead, of warning placards tacked to the door of every house where someone had sickened, of a desolate city of deserted streets and empty shops.
He’d heard that people were dying at the rate of twenty a day, and I begged him not to return to town, but to stay with us where he’d be safe. When clerks in his office began to fall ill at their desks, he finally relented, and remained with us at Fair Hill. I thanked God for His Mercy, relieved that my little family was safe together.
But on the second night I was awakened to the sound of Alexander retching in the chamber pot. I found him sprawled on the floor, too weak to climb back into bed, and with the chamber pot half-filled with noxious vomit beside him.
“Here, my dear,” I said, crouching down beside him. “Let me help you back to bed.”
He shook his head. “Have the children taken at once away from here, and next door,” he ordered, his voice a rough rasp. Even by the moonlight I could see his face was sheened with sweat and his nightshirt clung damply to his body. “Don’t touch them or kiss them yourself. Then send for Dr. Stevens.”
“Not Dr. Rush?” I asked anxiously. Dr. Benjamin Rush was the most respected physician in the city, and the one fearlessly treating the most patients with the fever.