The Conqueror Part 7

"I'd do anything else under heaven that was reasonable to get to New York but ask any man for money. Peter Lytton knows that I want learning more than all the other boys on this island; and if I'm little, I've broken in most of his colts and have never hesitated to fight. He finds his pathos in his purse. Why can't I make two thousand pieces of eight?"

"You'd be so long at it, poor child, that it would be too late to enter college; for there's a long apprenticeship to serve before you get a salary. But you must go. I've thought, thought about it, and I'll think more." He almost wished he had not married; but as he had no other cause to regret his venture, even his interest in young Hamilton did not urge him to deprive his little family of the luxuries so necessary in the West Indies. Economy on his salary would mean a small house instead of large rooms where one could forget the heat; curtailment of the voluminous linen wardrobes so soon demolished on the stones of the river; surrender of coach and horses. He trusted to a moment of sudden insight on the part of Peter Lytton, a.s.sisted by his own eloquent argument; and his belief in Alexander's destiny never wavered. Once he approached Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, for he knew she had money of her own; but, as he had expected, she went into immediate hysterics at the suggestion to part with her idol, and he hastily retreated.

Alexander turned over every scheme of making money his fertile brain conceived, and went so far as to ask his aunt to send him to New York, where he could work in one of the West Indian houses, and attend college by some special arrangement. He, too, retreated before Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l's agitation, but during the summer another cause drove him to work, and without immediate reference to the wider education.

Mr. Mitch.e.l.l was laid up with the gout and spent the summer on his plantation. His slaves fled at the sound of his voice, his wife wept incessantly at this the heaviest of her life's trials, and it was not long before Alexander was made to feel his dependence so keenly by the irascible planter that he leaped on his horse one day and galloped five miles under the hot sun to Lytton's Fancy.

"I want to work," he announced, with his usual breathless impetuosity when excited, bursting in upon Mr. Lytton, who was mopping his face after his siesta. "Put me at anything. I don't care what, except in Uncle Mitch.e.l.l's store. I won't work for him."

Mr. Lytton laughed with some satisfaction. "So you two have come to loggerheads? Tom Mitch.e.l.l, well, is insufferable. With gout in him he must bristle with every d.a.m.nable trait in the human category. Come back and live with me," he added, in a sudden burst of sympathy, for the boy looked hot and tired and dejected; and his diminutive size appealed always to Peter Lytton, who was six feet two. "You're a fine little chap, but I doubt you're strong enough for hard work, and you love your books. Come here and read all day if you like. When you're grown I'll make you manager of all my estates. Gad! I'd be glad of an honest one!

The last time I went to England, that devil, Tom Collins, drank every bottle of my best port, smashed my furniture, broke the wind of every horse I had, and kept open house for every scamp and loafer on the Island, or that came to port. How old are you--twelve? I'll turn everything over to you in three years. You've more sense now than any boy I ever saw. Three years hence, if you continue to improve, you'll be a man, and I'll be only too glad to put the whole thing in your hands."

Alexander struggled with an impulse to ask his uncle to send him to college, but not only did pride strike at the words, but he reflected with some cynicism that the affection he inspired invariably expressed itself in blatant selfishness, and that he might better appeal to the enemies he had made to send him from the Island. He shook his head.

"I'll remain idle no longer," he said. "I'm tired of eating bread that's given me. I'd rather eat yours than his, but I've made up my mind to work. What can you find for me now?"

"You are too obstinate to argue with in August. Cruger wants a reliable clerk. I heard him say so yesterday. He'll take you if I say the word, and give you a little something in the way of salary."

"I like Mr. Cruger," said Alexander, eagerly, "and so did my mother."

"He's a kind chap, but he'll work you to death, for he's always in a funk that Tom Mitch.e.l.l'll get ahead of him. But you cannot do better. I have no house in town, but you can ride the distance between here and Christianstadt night and morning, if my estimable brother-in-law--whom may the gout convince of his sins--is too much for you."

But Alexander had no desire to return to the house where he had pa.s.sed those last terrible weeks with his mother, and Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l begged him on her knees to forgive the invalid, and sent him to the house in Christianstadt, where he would be alone until December; by that time, please G.o.d, Tom Mitch.e.l.l would be on his way to Jamaica. But Alexander had little further trouble with that personage. Mr. Mitch.e.l.l had his susceptibilities; he was charmed with a boy of twelve who was too proud to accept the charity of wealthy relatives and determined to make his living. Alexander entered Mr. Cruger's store in October. Mr. Mitch.e.l.l did not leave the Island again until the following spring, and moved to town in November. He and Alexander discussed the prospects of rum, mola.s.ses, and sugar, the price of mahogany, of oats, cheese, bread, and flour, the various Island and American markets, until Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l left the table. Her husband proudly told his acquaintance that his nephew, Alexander Hamilton, was destined to become the cleverest merchant in the Caribbees.

VII

But Alexander had small liking for his employment. He had as much affinity with the sordid routine of a general store and counting-house as Tom Mitch.e.l.l had with the angels. But pride and ambition carried him through most of the distasteful experiences of his life. He would come short in nothing, and at that tender age, when his relatives were prepared to forgive his failures with good-humoured tact, he was willing to sacrifice even his books to clerical success. He soon discovered that he had that order of mind which concentrates without effort upon what ever demands its powers,--masters the detail of it with incredible swiftness. At first he was a general clerk, and attended to the loading and unloading of Mr. Cruger's sloops; after a time he was made bookkeeper; it was not long before he was in charge of the counting-house. He got back to his books in time--for business in the Islands finishes at four o'clock--and when he had learned all the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and mathematics Hugh Knox could teach him, he spent his leisure hours with Pope, Plutarch, Shakespeare, Milton, Plato, and the few other English poets and works of Greek philosophers which Knox possessed, as well as several abridged histories of England and Europe.

These interested him more than aught else, purely literary as his proclivities were supposed to be, and he read and reread them, and longed for some huge work in twenty volumes which should reveal Europe to his searching vision. But this was when he was fourteen, and had almost forgotten what the life of a mere boy was like. Shortly after he entered Mr. Cruger's store he wrote his famous letter to young Stevens.

It will bear republication here, and its stilted tone, so different from the concise simplicity of his business letters, was no doubt designed to produce an effect on the mind of his more fortunate friend. He became a master of style, and before he was twenty; but there is small indication of the achievement in this letter, lovable as it is:--

ST. CROIX, November 11, 1769.

DEAR EDWARD, This serves to acknowledge the receipt of yours per Capt. Lowndes, which was delivered me yesterday The truth of Capt.

Lightbowen and Lowndes' information is now verified by the presence of your father and sister, for whose safe arrival I pray, and that they may convey that satisfaction to your soul, that must naturally flow from the sight of absent friends in health; and shall for news this way, refer you to them.

As to what you say, respecting your soon having the happiness of seeing us all, I wish for an accomplishment of your hopes, provided they are concomitant with your welfare, otherwise not; though doubt whether I shall be present or not, for to confess my weakness, Ned, my ambition is prevalent, so that I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk, or the like, to which my fortune condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station. I am confident, Ned, that my youth excludes me from any hopes of immediate preferment, nor do I desire it; but I mean to prepare the way for futurity. I'm no philosopher, you see, and may be justly said to build castles in the air; my folly makes me ashamed, and beg you'll conceal it; yet, Neddy, we have seen such schemes successful, when the projector is constant. I shall conclude by saying I wish there was a war.

I am, Dear Edward, Yours

ALEX. HAMILTON.

P.S. I this moment received yours by William Smith, and pleased to see you give such close application to study.

He hoped that in time Mr. Cruger would find it necessary to send him to New York; but his employer found him too useful on St. Croix, and recognized his abilities, not to the extent of advancing his intellectual interests, but of taxing and developing his capacity for business and its heavy responsibilities. In the following year he placed him in temporary charge of his branch house, in Frederikstadt, and Alexander never wished for war so desperately as when he stood under the arcade on Bay Street and stared out at the shallow green roadstead and the inimitable ocean beyond. Frederikstadt was a hamlet compared to Christianstadt, and unredeemed--the arcades excepting--by any of the capital's architectural or natural beauty. Alexander believed it to be the hottest, dullest, and most depressing spot on either hemisphere. The merchants and other residents were astonished that Nicolas Cruger should send a lad of thirteen to represent him in matters which involved large sums of money, but they recognized young Hamilton's ability even while they stared with some rudeness at the small figure in white linen, and the keen but very boyish face. When they pa.s.sed him under the arcades, and asked him what ship he expected to heave in sight, he was tempted to say a man-of-war, but had no mind to reveal himself to the indifferent.

He read from sundown until midnight or later, by the light of two long candles protected from draughts and insects by curving gla.s.s chimneys.

Mosquitoes tormented him and c.o.c.kroaches as long as his hand ran over the table; occasionally a land-crab rattled across the room, or a centipede appeared on the open page. But he was accustomed to these embellishments of tropic life, and although he anathematized them and the heat, he went on with his studies. It was about this time that he began to indulge in literary composition; and although less gifted boys than Alexander Hamilton struggle through this phase of mental development as their body runs the gamut of juvenile complaints, still it may be that had not his enormous energies been demanded in their entirety by a country in the terrible straits of rebirth, or had he dwelt on earth twenty years longer, he would have realized the ambitions of his mother and Hugh Knox, and become one of the greatest literary forces the world has had. But although this exercise of his restless faculties gave him pleasure, it was far from satisfying him, even then.

He wanted the knowledge that was locked up in vast libraries far beyond that blinding stretch of sea, and he wanted action, and a sight of and a part in the great world. Meanwhile, he read every book he could find on the Island, made no mistakes in Mr. Cruger's counting-house, and stood dreaming under the arcade for hours at a time, muttering his thoughts, his mobile features expressing the ceaseless action of his brain.

Sometime during the previous year Peter Levine had returned to St. Croix for his health, and he remained with relatives for some time. He and Alexander met occasionally and were friendly. As he was a decent little chap our hero forgave him his paternity, although he never could quite a.s.similate the fact that he was his mother's child.

Alexander returned, after six months of Frederikstadt, to the East End of the Island. A few months later, Mr. Cruger, whose health had failed, went to New York for an extended sojourn, leaving the entire responsibility of the business in young Hamilton's hands. Men of all ages were forced to obey and be guided by a boy in the last weeks of his fourteenth year, and there were many manifestations of jealous ill-will.

Some loved, others hated him, but few submitted gracefully to a leadership which lowered their self-esteem. For the first time Alexander learned that even a mercantile life can be interesting. He exercised all the resources of his inborn tact with those who had loved and those who did not hate him, and won them to a grateful acceptance of a mastership which was far more considerate and sympathetic than anything they had known. As for his enemies, he let them see the implacable quality of his temper, mortified them by an incessant exposure of their failings, struck aside their clumsy attempts to humiliate him with the keen blade of a wit that sent them skulking. Finally they submitted, but they cursed him, and willingly would have wrung his neck and flung him into the bay. As for Hamilton, there was no compromise in him, even then, where his enemies were concerned. He enjoyed their futile wrath, and would not have lifted his finger to flash it into liking.

Only once the tropical pa.s.sions of his inheritance conquered his desire to dominate through the forces of his will alone. One of the oldest employees, a man named Cutter, had shown jealousy of young Hamilton from the first, and a few days after Mr. Cruger's departure began to manifest signs of open rebellion. He did his work ill, or not at all, absented himself from the store for two days, and returned to his post without excuse, squaring his shoulders about the place and sneering his contempt of youthful c.o.c.ks of the walk. Alexander struggled to maintain a self-control which he felt to be strictly compatible with the dignity of his position, although his gorge rose so high that it threatened to choke him. The climax came when he gave Cutter a peremptory order, and the man took out a cigar, lit it, and laughed in his face. For the next few moments Alexander had a confused impression that he was in h.e.l.l, struggling his way through the roar and confusion of his nether quarters. When he was himself again he was in the arms of his chief a.s.sistant, and Mr. Cutter bled profusely on the floor. He was informed later that he had "gone straight over the counter with a face like a hurricane" and a.s.saulted his refractory hireling with such incredible rapidity of scientific fist that the man, who was twice his size, had succ.u.mbed from astonishment and an almost supernatural terror.

Alexander, who was ashamed of himself, apologized at once, but gave the man his choice of treating him with proper respect or leaving the store.

Cutter answered respectfully that he would remain; and he gave no further trouble.

"You'll get your head blown off one of these days," said Hugh Knox to Alexander, on a Sunday, as they sat in the library over two long gla.s.ses of "Miss Blyden," a fashionable drink made of sugar, rum, and the juice of the p.r.i.c.kly pear, which had been buried in the divine's garden for the requisite number of months. "These Creoles are hot, even when they're only Danes. It's not pleasant for those clerks, for it isn't as if you had the look of the man you are. You look even younger than your age, and for a man of thirty to say 'Yes, sir' to a brat like you chokes him, and no wonder. I believe if there was a war this minute, you'd rouse the Island and lead it to battle without a misgiving or an apology. Well, don't let your triumphs lead to love of this business. I happen to know that Cruger means to make a partner of you in a few years, for he thinks the like of you never dropped into a merchant's counting-house; but never forget that your exalted destiny is to be a great man of letters, a historian, belike. You're taking to history, I notice, and you're getting a fine vocabulary of your own."

"I'd like to know what I'll write the history of if I'm to rot in this G.o.d-forsaken place. Caribs? Puling rows between French and English? I'd as well be up on Grange with my mother if it wasn't for you and your books. I want the education of a collegian. I want to study and read everything there is to be studied and read. I've made out a list of books to send for, when I've money enough, as long as you are. It's pinned on the wall of my room."

"And I suppose you've never a qualm but that head of yours will hold it all. You've a grand opinion of yourself, Alec."

"That's a cutting thing for you to say to me, sir," cried Alexander, springing to his feet. "I thought you loved me. If you think I'm a fool, I'll not waste more of your time."

"A West Indian temper beats the conceit out of the Irish. You'll control yours when you're older, for there's nothing you won't do when you put your mind to it, and you'll see the need for not making a fool of yourself too often. But as for its present liking for exercise--it's a long way the liveliest thing on St. Croix. However, you've forgiven me; I know that by the twinkle in your eye, so I'll tell you that your brain will hold all you care to put into it, and that you'll have made another list as long as King Street before you're five years older. Meanwhile, I've some books on theology and ethics you haven't had a dash at yet, and you can't read my other old books too often. Each time you'll find something new. Sitting up till midnight won't hurt you, but don't forget to say your prayers."

Knox, long since, had laid siege to Alexander's susceptible and ardent mind with the lively batteries of his religious enthusiasms. His favourite pupil was edifyingly regular in attendance at church, and said his prayers with much fervour. The burden of his pet.i.tions was deliverance from St. Croix.

When this deliverance was effected by a thunderbolt from heaven, his saving sense of humour and the agitated springs of his sympathy forbade a purely personal application. But twenty years later he might have reflected upon the opportune cause of his departure from St. Croix as one of the ironies of the world's history; for an Island was devastated, men were ruined, scores were killed, that one man might reach his proper sphere of usefulness.

VIII

Early in August, 1772, Mr. Cruger sent him on a business tour to several of the neighbouring Islands, including the great _entrepot_ of the West Indies,--St. Thomas. Despite the season, the prospect of no wind for days at a time, or winds in which no craft could live, Alexander trembled with delight at the idea of visiting the bustling brilliant versatile town of Charlotte Amalie, in whose harbour there were sometimes one hundred and eighty ships, where one might meet in a day men of every clime, and whose beauty was as famous as her wealth and importance. How often Alexander had stared at the blue line of the hills above her! Forty miles away, within the range of his vision, was a bit of the great world, the very pivot of maritime trade, and one cause and another had prevented him from so much as putting his foot on a sloop whose sails were spread.

As soon as the details of his tour were settled he rode out to the plantations to take leave of his relatives. Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, who barred the hurricane windows every time, the wind rose between July and November, and sat with the barometer in her hand when the palms began to bend, wept a torrent and implored him to abstain from the madness of going to sea at that time of the year. Her distress was so acute and real that Alexander, who loved her, forgot his exultation and would have renounced the trip, had he not given his word to Mr. Cruger.

"I'll be careful, and I'll ride out the day after I return," he said, arranging his aunt on the sofa with her smelling-bottle, an office he had performed many times. "You know the first wind of the hurricane is a delight to the sailor, and we never shall be far from land. I'm in command, and I'll promise you to make for sh.o.r.e at the first sign of danger. Then I shall be as safe as here."

His aunt sighed for fully a minute. "If I only could believe that you would be careful about anything. But you are quite a big boy now, almost sixteen, and ought to be old enough to take care of yourself."

"If I could persuade you that I am not quite a failure at keeping the breath in my body we both should be happier. However, I vow not to set sail from any island if a hurricane is forming, and to make for port every time the wind freshens."

"Listen for that terrible roar in the southeast, and take my barometer--Heaven knows what barometers are made for; there are not three on the Island. I shall drive in to church every Sunday and besiege Heaven with my supplications."

"Well, spare me a breeze or I shall pray for a hurricane."

He did not see Mrs. Lytton or James, but Mr. Lytton had scant apprehension of hurricanes, and was only concerned lest his nephew roll about in the trough of the sea under an August sun for weeks at a time.

"That's when a man doesn't repent of his sins; he knows there is nothing worse to come," he said. "I'd rather have a hurricane," and Alexander nodded. Mr. Lytton counted out a small bag of pieces of eight and told the boy to buy his aunt a silk gown in Charlotte Amalie. "I've noticed that if it's all one colour you're not so sure to have it accepted with a sigh of resignation," he said. "But be careful of plaids and stripes."

And Alexander, with deeper misgivings than Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l had inspired, accepted the commission and rode away.

He set sail on the following day, and made his tour of the lesser islands under a fair breeze. Late in the month he entered the harbour of St. Thomas, and was delighted to find at least fifty ships in port, despite the season. It was an unusually busy year, and he had dared to hope for crowded waters and streets; exquisite as Charlotte Amalie might be to look upon, he wanted something more than a lovely casket.

The town is set on three conical foot-hills, which bulge at equal distances against an almost perpendicular mountain, the tip, it is said, of a range whose foundations are four miles below. The three sections of the town sweep from base to pointed apex with a symmetry so perfect, their houses are so light and airy of architecture, so brilliant and varied of colour, that they suggest having been called into being by the stroke of a magician's wand to gratify the whim of an Eastern potentate.

Surely, they are a vast seraglio, a triple collection of pleasure houses where captive maidens are content and nautch girls dance with feet like larks. Business, commerce, one cannot a.s.sociate with this enchanting vista; nor c.o.c.kroaches as long as one's foot, scorpions, tarantulas, and rats.