Finally, in early September, President Washington signed the bill that created the country’s first Treasury Department, and a week after that Alexander was confirmed as its first secretary. It was a momentous job, the most important and difficult of all the cabinet positions, and the one with the most responsibility. Yet as young as my husband was for the post—he was only thirty-four—there was clearly no other gentleman in the entire country more perfectly suited for it. Angelica had wished us to give a celebration in his honor, but he’d no time for it, and the day after his appointment he was already at work at his desk in his new offices. I could not have been more proud of him, or of having such a husband.
But like every summer before and since, this one finally came to an end, too. The leaves fell from the trees and the winds that whipped up Wall Street from the harbor were cold with the approaching winter. It was then that Angelica came to me with a new-arrived letter from her husband in one hand, and her handkerchief in another.
“John wishes me to return at once,” she said, tears streaming freely down her cheeks. “He says I have been away too long, and that our children are unwell from missing me. Oh, my poor babies!”
I’d known this day would come, that she couldn’t remain with us forever, but still the impending separation devastated both Angelica and me, and Alexander as well. She arranged her passage for five days later, days that passed far too swiftly. The morning she left I was too distraught to accompany her to the dock, and our farewells at the house were awash with tears.
It fell to my husband and our oldest son to see her to the London packet. Alexander confessed that he and Philip had wept, too, as they’d stood on the Battery and watched Angelica sail from our lives, and why shouldn’t they? Only God in His grace knew when we would all be reunited, or even if we were destined to meet again in this life.
While my family felt Angelica’s departure sorely, to me it became a kind of grief that I could not overcome. It didn’t help that Alexander’s new responsibilities claimed nearly every second of his time. He often left the house without taking breakfast and did not return until late into the night, after the children were asleep. When he did arrive at home, his mind was so exhausted by numbers and decisions that he would undress and retire directly to bed, and at once fall into a deep sleep beside me. He’d nothing left for our usual conversations, nor for the affections of husband and wife.
This was to be expected, of course, given the magnitude and the importance of what he was doing for the country. I would have been the most selfish of wives to have complained.
Yet the depth of my own sorrow frightened me. I felt lost and adrift in a way I couldn’t explain, not even to Alexander, or perhaps especially not to him. When I’d first fallen in love with him, I’d been in awe of his many dreams, and I’d been every bit as sure as he himself that he’d been born to achieve great things. But now that he was doing exactly that, I felt as if I’d somehow been left behind. Ever since Angelica had left, I’d felt unable to keep step with the frantic pace my husband had set for us, and worse, I began to doubt myself, and wonder if I truly possessed the strength and spirit to be his wife. Was it any wonder that I was unhappy? I’d always considered myself to be a cheerful soul, able to find joy in the most ordinary things, but this misery gripped me in its talons and would not let me go.
My parents took notice, and with growing concern Papa spoke directly to Alexander. When he gently suggested that I might wish to return to The Pastures with my mother for a few weeks, I burst into tears. I didn’t want to leave him. But he insisted and finally I went, taking the younger boys and my daughter with me.
As much as I’d loved the excitement of New York City during the first year of the new government, once I was away from it I realized how the smoke and racketing of city life, the hectic pace and frantic gaiety, had all worn at me. Instead of drawing strength from Angelica, this year I’d struggled to keep pace with her, and overlooked how she’d always enjoyed society far more than I. That, too, had taken its toll upon me.
In Albany, I bundled myself in a heavy cloak and walked alone by the hour, sometimes praying aloud like some ancient pilgrim as I trudged across the snowy fields. I let the cold, clear air heal me, and I found my solace and my strength in the familiar hills and rivers of my girlhood. Most of all, I remembered who I was, and only then did the darkness and the doubts begin to slip away from my soul. I thought of how much Alexander loved me, and I him. I laughed with my children, and I played songs on my old fortepiano so they could dance around me.
I was restored. It was time to return to the city, and most of all, to my beloved Alexander.
CHAPTER 17
New York City, New York
March 1790
Even if I were to fill every one of these pages with nothing but my husband’s accomplishments as secretary of treasury, I would still fall far short of listing them all. So many were launched in that first year of the new government, too.
As soon as his position was confirmed, Alexander hired a staff of nearly forty men, and instilled in them a scrupulous devotion to their combined task. He set up the department’s systems of bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing. He created a customs service to bring immediate income to the government’s coffers, and when it became apparent that many of the collectors of these taxes were not entirely honest in regard to reporting smugglers—long a tolerated practice—he suggested a system of guard boats to patrol the country’s coastline. He advised the president on everything from finances to protocol. Because there was as yet no secretary of state, he unofficially met with a British diplomat to begin establishing an economic rapport between his country and ours.
But most of all in those first months, Alexander labored on Congress’s first request, his Report on Public Credit. In brief, its purpose was to outline exactly how bad the country’s situation was as to debt, and what steps were best taken to relieve it, and make America trusted, even by the great countries of Europe.
By the time I returned from Albany, Alexander was already deep into writing this, and unlike his other work at the Treasury Department, it was being written at home, alone in his library.
Now I understood why he’d written to me so plaintively of how much he’d missed me when I’d been away. He wasn’t accustomed to being a solitary writer. From the beginning of our marriage, I had been his sounding board, the definitive test of his writing. Pacing back and forth, he could formulate his ideas aloud to me before he wrote them down. Unlike most men, he did much of his composition beforehand, in his head or whilst speaking, and by the time his words were committed to ink and paper, his ideas were fully formed and reasoned.