The very day that Hamilton was writing of the distress of the New York merchants, Madison was writing to Jefferson of the plans of the Democrats. While a merchants’ petition had been circulated in Philadelphia, he promised that ‘an adverse petition will be signed by three or four times’ as many people. In New York and Boston similar petitions would be put out. In Baltimore little could be expected, for there, while originally against the treaty, they had been won over ‘by the hope of indemnification for past losses.’[1136] Five days later, he reported progress. The Philadelphia petition against the treaty greatly outnumbered that for it, and petitions were being circulated in Delaware and New Jersey. The insurance companies in Philadelphia and New York were seeking to intimidate the people by stopping business. The banks had been active peddlers of petitions in the cities where there was ‘scarce a trader or merchant but what depends on discounts.’ A hateful picture, thought Madison. ‘Bank Directors soliciting subscriptions are like highwaymen with a pistol demanding the purse.’[1137]
Boston found the Federalists triumphant in a town meeting dominated by the eloquence of Otis, who played upon the horrors of war, and thus gave Ames and the other party leaders their cue. It was on this occasion that the orator, who had studied French under Gallatin at Harvard, and been treated kindly, referred to the latter sneeringly as a nobody who had come to America without a second shirt on his back. Later, to the disgust of his Federalist co-workers, he had the decency to apologize to Gallatin.[1138] Everywhere the latter was being deluged with billingsgate. There was not contempt here—there was hate. Noah Webster, in the ‘Minerva,’ was sneering at his foreign birth, while taking his cue from Hamilton, born in the West Indies; attacking his position on the excise with falsehoods and innuendoes; charging him with being an agent of France. Adams, of the ‘Independent Chronicle,’ replied with a parody, substituting Hamilton for Gallatin and England for France and making as good sense.[1139] Wolcott was writing his father that it was ‘neither unreasonable nor uncandid to believe that Mr. Gallatin is directed by foreign politics and influence.’[1140] Nothing could have pained the sensitive Wolcott more than the feeling that he was being uncandid.
Meanwhile, the fight in the House went on—Gallatin in the forefront. The Federalists were thoroughly frightened over the prospect, resorting to every device to gain votes. Dreadful pictures of war if the treaty failed, appeals to ‘stand by Washington,’ and intimidation—these were favorite devices. ‘I am told,’ wrote Wolcott, with evident pleasure, ‘that if Findlay and Gallatin don’t ultimately vote for their [treaties’] execution, their lives will be scarcely spared.’[1141] But frightened and afraid of a vote, they decided ‘to risk the consequences of a delay, and prolong the debates in expectation of an impulse from some of the districts on their representatives.’[1142] However, a vote could not be indefinitely delayed. Public business was at a standstill. Everything possible had been done. The bankers had been sent out with petitions to their creditors. The insurance companies had stopped business. The merchants had passed resolutions. Petitions had been circulated. Washington’s glory had been pictured as in jeopardy. And the horrors of war had been described. The time had come to close the debate. The greatest orator in the country was their spokesman, and he had been held back for the last appeal. The time had come for Fisher Ames to make the closing plea.
VII
Fisher Ames was not only the premier orator of his party; he was one of its most brilliant and captivating personalities. He had a genius for friendship and was good company. Nature had blessed him with her richest intellectual gifts. His precocity equaled that of Hamilton or Gallatin—he was a prodigy. At six he was studying Latin, at twelve he had entered Harvard, and there he was conspicuous because of his scintillation. His powers of application were equal to his natural ability, but he found time for relaxation when his animation, wit, and charm, combined with modesty, endeared him to his fellows and won the affection of his instructors. Even at Harvard he was ardently cultivating the art of oratory, and the style then formed, while strengthened by age and experience, never greatly changed. Cicero was his model through life. During his preparation for the Bar, his appetite for good literature was not neglected, and he delved deeply into ancient history and mythology, natural and civil history, and he pored over the novelists and lived with the poets—Shakespeare, Milton, Virgil. These were fruitful years and the Federalists were to get the harvest. At the Bar he instantly took rank as a pleader, but he found time to write articles on the political affairs of the time. In the convention called to ratify the Constitution, he disclosed the political prepossessions that were to govern his career. While not hostile to a republican experiment, he was skeptical of republics, fearing the domination of popular factions. These factions he considered the rabble. Democracy, he despised. He was an aristocrat by instinct and this guided his political conduct.
He would have distinguished himself in literature had he devoted himself to it. He wrote, as he spoke, out of a full mind, and his first draft of an article required no polishing or revision. This made him an amazingly brilliant extemporaneous orator. Although the slow processes of logical argumentation were not beyond him, he depended more on illustration. His mind fairly teemed with images. The poets had endowed him with their gift. There was something Shakespearean in the fertility of his fancy, and he delighted his hearers or readers with his rapidly changing pictures. These came spontaneously, and, leaving an indelible impression on his audience, they were lost to him with their utterance. He scattered gems as though they were grains of the sea, and he the owner of the sands of the shore. Remarkably enough, this did not lead him to rhetorical flamboyance or over-elaboration. He was a master of the short sentence, and he possessed rare powers of condensation.
In social relations he was lovable, but he carefully selected his intimates, having no stomach for the commonplace person. His companions were of the élite. Among them he was simplicity itself, and generosity and kindness, but no man had a more brutal wit or sarcasm for a foe. Above middle height and well proportioned, he held himself erect. There was little in his features to distinguish him, for they were not strongly marked. His forehead was neither noticeably high nor broad; his blue eyes were mild and without a suggestion of the fire of domination; his mouth was well formed, but not strong; but his voice was melody itself. One who often heard him found that ‘the silvery tones of his voice fell upon the ear like strains of sweetest music’ and that ‘you could not choose but hear.’[1143] There was more than a touch of aristocratic cynicism in his nature, and his favorite weapon in attack was sarcasm, but he was ordinarily considerate of the feelings of a foe in combat. No other member of the House could approach him in the eloquence of persuasion.[1144]
VIII
Happily married to a beautiful woman, Ames had built himself an elegant home at Dedham where he lived and was to die, but in the fall of 1796 he had little expectation of lingering long to enjoy it. Nothing had enraged him more than the popular agitation against the Jay Treaty, and in the midst of the fight he suffered a physical collapse. In September, he was unable to ride thirty miles without resting for a day.[1145] He had consulted various ‘oracles’ and found that he was bilious, nervous, cursed with a disease of the liver, and he had been ‘forbidden and enjoined to take almost everything’—meat—cider—a trotting horse—and to refrain from excess of every kind.[1146] In October, with the congressional battle approaching, he had a relapse—‘extreme weakness, want of appetite, want of rest.’ Faint hope then of reaching Philadelphia at the first of the session, ‘if ever.’ Still, the cool weather might restore him. Philadelphia, perhaps, by December.[1147] But December found him at Dedham, with King writing him of the desperate prospects in the House and urging his presence,[1148] and in January Ames was writing Jeremiah Smith of his resolve to go on to Philadelphia. ‘Should this snow last, I am half resolved to jingle my bells as far as Springfield.’ At any rate, on the morrow he would go to ‘my loyal town of Boston in my covered sleigh by way of experimenting of my strength.’[1149]
February found him on the way. At New Haven where he lodged, the snow grew thin, and ‘there was great wear and tear of horse flesh.’ At Stamford it was gone and he took a coachee. At Mamaroneck, twenty-five miles from New York, he slept, and awoke to find the snow ‘pelting the windows.’ Back with the coach, and a wait for the sleigh. Even so, he wrote, ‘to-morrow I expect to hear the bells ring and the light horse blow their trumpets’ on reaching New York. ‘If Governor Jay won’t do that for me, let him get his treaty defended by Calumus, and such under-strappers.’ Two days in New York—three more—and Philadelphia. ‘Do not let me go down to the pit of the Indian Queen,’ he had written a colleague. ‘It is Hades and Tartarus, and Periphlegethon, Cocytus, and Styx where it would be a pity to bring all the piety and learning that he must have who knows the aforesaid infernal names. Please leave word at the said Queen, or if need be at any other Queens where I may unpack my weary household gods.’[1150] The day before this letter was written, Bache’s paper said that the ‘ratification is not to arrive until Mr. Ames has recovered,’ because ‘the subaltern officers of the corps not being supposed sufficiently skilled in tactics to be entrusted with the principal command.’[1151] Six days later, he announced Ames’s arrival in New York.[1152] Thus, like a warrior borne to battle on a stretcher, Ames entered the capital.