The talk in the drawing-room of Mrs. Croix that night was of little else but the Secretary's Report. Mrs. Croix, so said gossip, had concluded that this was the proper time for the demise of her recalcitrant officer, and had retired to weeds and a semi-seclusion while Mrs. Washington pondered upon the propriety of receiving her. Her court cared little for the facts, and vowed that she never had looked so fair or so proud; Hamilton, that she shone with the splendour of a crystal star on the black velvet skies of the Tropics. She wore, this evening, a few yards of black gauze which left bare a crescent of her shining neck and the lower arms. Her bright hair was arranged in a mass of ringlets, after a fashion obtaining in Europe, and surmounted by a small turban of gauze fastened with a diamond sun. Many of the men who visited her habitually called her Lady Betty, for she was one of those women who invite a certain playful familiarity while repelling intimacy. Hamilton called her, as the fancy moved him, Egeria, Boadicea, or Lady Godiva.
Clinton came in fuming. "It is not possible," he cried, "that the Congress can be so mad as to be hoodwinked by this deep political scheme for concentrating the liberties of the United States under the executive heel. 'To cement more closely the union of the States and to add to their security against foreign attack!' Forsooth! This assumption plan is nothing more nor less than another of his dastardly schemes to squeeze out of the poor States what little liberty he left them under the Constitution. He could not obtain at Philadelphia all he wished for, but now that Washington has given him both reins, he laughs in our faces. I regret that I ever offered him my hand."
"Then our party in Congress will fight him on political grounds?" asked
Mrs. Croix.
"You may put it that way if you choose. It certainly will not be blinded by his speciousness and aid him in his subtle monarchism. 'Contribute in an eminent degree to an orderly, stable, and satisfactory arrangement of the Nation's finances!' 'Several reasons which render it probable that the situation of the State creditors will be worse than that of the creditors of the Union, if there be not a national assumption of the State debts!' And then his plan of debit and credit, with 'little doubt that balances would appear in favour of all the States against the United States!' My blood has boiled since I read that paper. I have feared apoplexy. He is clever, that West Indian,—do they grow many such?—but he did not select a country composed entirely of fools to machinate in."
"My dearest Governor," whispered Mrs. Croix, "calm yourself, pray. Only you can cope with Mr. Hamilton. You must be the colossal spirit without the walls of Congress to whom all will look for guidance. If you become ill, the cause is lost."
Clinton composed himself promptly, and asked Elbridge Gerry, of
Massachusetts, which, section of the Report he expected to attack first.
There were no Federalists present.
Gerry shrugged his shoulders and shot a narrow glance of contempt at the Governor. "Give me time, your Excellency, pray. Mr. Hamilton's paper has the thought of a decade in it. It merits at least a week of thought on our part. I never could agree with him in all things, but in some I am at one with him; and I acknowledge myself deeply in his debt, insomuch as he has taught me, among thousands of others, to 'think continentally,' I certainly agree with him that to pay to present holders the full value of their certificates, without discrimination, is a matter of constitutional law, a violation of which would be a menace to the new government. I shall support him on that point at the risk of being accused of speculation."
Stone, of Maryland, was striding up and down, but a degree less agitated than the Governor of New York.
"The man is cleverer than all the rest of us put together!" he exclaimed. "Let us not forget that for an instant. A greater thought than this of assumption has never been devised by man. If it be carried into execution,—which God forbid,—it will prove a wall of adamant to the Federal government, impregnable to any attempt on its fabric or operations."
"Oh, is it so bad as that?" asked Gerry. "Every fort falls if the siege be sufficiently prolonged. I apprehend no such disaster, and I confess I see much promise in at least two of Mr. Hamilton's schemes. After all, the redemption of the country is what we must look to first."