Hamilton family

“ He might marry a woman older than himself and swallow the grimace of it, but by no conceivable system of argument could he persuade himself to marry into a family like that of the Rodneys—the girl herself, for all her beauty and rare womanliness, a quarter Indian, her father the synonyme for obloquy, her brother a cattle thief. Hamilton preferred that other men should make the heroic marriages of a new country. He was prepared to applaud their hardihood of temperament, but in his own case such a thing was inconceivable. ”

“ Through that marriage Debden Hall and Holyfield Hall (in Waltham) came into the Hamilton family. Mr. Alexander Hamilton, we may note in passing, was an uncle of the famous ‘Single Speech’ Hamilton. By his second wife he left a son, William, who succeeded him at Debden Hall, where one of his daughters, who married Mr. Nicholas Pearse, afterwards lived. To her memory there is a window in the chancel of the parish church, and it is in illustration of her works of charity that the subject of it is Christ surrounded by little children. ”

“ There is nothing in all life so selfish as death; and the colossal ego which genius breeds or is bred out of, isolated Hamilton even more completely than imminent death isolates most men. The while he gave every moment he could spare to planning the future comfort and welfare of his family, he felt as if he had already bade them farewell, and wondered when and how he should meet them again. ”

“ Robert Hamilton thought it was a battlepiece, but involuntarily he lifted his hat. As the wonderful music finished with the distant roar of the storm's last revolutions, Hamilton turned to his cousin with the cynicism gone from his face and his eyes sparkling with pride and happiness.
"What do I care for Burr?" he exclaimed. "Or for Jefferson? Has any man ever had a home, a family, like mine? Let them do their worst. Beyond that door they cannot go."
"Burr can put a bullet into you, sir," said Robert Hamilton, soberly.
"And he is just the man to do it. Jefferson is too great a coward. ”

“ His tall, well-developed figure was the perfection of manly symmetry, and his musical laugh was ever ringing out freely and unconsciously. His temperament was just the reverse of Arthur's. Bold, courageous, self-relying, he hoped all things, and feared nothing that man could do; by nature too, he was quick and passionate, yet full of affection and all generous impulses. Such was Henry Hamilton, now eighteen years of age--the pride of his family--the favorite of all who knew him. ”

“ Hamilton so argued that their very youth was their safeguard, that they were all in all to each other, and as such she wished them to feel they were bound by even a closer and a fonder tie than that of brother and sister under other circumstances, so won over her husband that he yielded; and from the long extracts that Ellen would read of Edward's letters to the family in general, and of her own to her aunt, he was quite satisfied as to the wisdom of his wife's judgment. ”

“ Mrs. Washington mended the lace, retied the bow of his queue, kissed him and told him to forget the cares of war and correspondence, and enjoy himself. Hamilton retired, much comforted.
It was an imposing family which, a half-hour later, awaited the guests in the drawing-room. Washington was in black velvet and silk stockings, his best white wig spreading in two symmetrical wings. It was a cold grave figure always, and threw an air of solemnity over every scene it loomed upon, which only Hamilton's lively wit could dispel. ”

“ In the peace and pleasant distractions of his home his mercurial spirits leaped high above his anxieties and enmities, and he was as gay and happy, as interested in the manifold small interests of his family, as were he a private man of fortune, without an ambition, an enemy, or a care. When most absorbed or irritated he never victimized his household by moods or tempers, not only because they were at his mercy, but because his nature spontaneously gave as it received ”

“ Hamilton's family mingled, and withdrawing from him in a great measure the friendship of Montrose Grahame, who, the soul of honour himself, shrunk from any connection with one whose reputation the faintest breath had stained. Yet still there were many who regarded these rumours as the mere whisperings of envy, and with them he was as much a favourite as ever. ”

“ Have you no mercy on us? Headquarters will be a tomb, with Washington reposing on top. Think of the long and solemn breakfasts, the funereal dinners, the brief but awful suppers. Washington will never open his mouth again, and I never had the courage to speak first. If ever you deign to visit us, you will find that we have lost the power of speech. I repeat that you have no heart in your body."
Hamilton laughed. "If you did not know that I love you, you would not sit there and revile me. No family has ever been happier than ours. ”

“ We may judge how great a lady Betsy Schuyler had become when we read that at the Inaugural Ball the President distinguished Mrs. Hamilton, and one other woman, by dancing with them. She and her husband were included constantly in Washington's dinner and theatre parties.
The Hamiltons were not rich. "I have seen," writes Talleyrand, "one of the marvels of the world. I have seen the man who made the fortune of a Nation laboring all night to support his family." Hamilton, however, was not merely the most brilliant statesman of his day, and his wife was not only a charming society woman. ”

“ Nor does one imagine that such a son, when he grew of an age to understand, would think the less of his mother because he knew that he was no accident in her life, but a choice; because he learned that his birth was something more than a necessary and inevitable incident in her compulsory trade. One does not imagine that he would reverence her the less because he saw in her not only the breeding factor in the family, but a being in all respects as human as himself, who had suffered for him and suffered of her own free will ”

“ Croix. She pouted charmingly. "Indeed, sir, I never am quite sure of you. You are all ardour to-day, and indifference to-morrow. For work I am always put aside, and against your family demands I do not exist."
"My dear Boadicea," said Hamilton, drily, "I am a mere creature of routine. I met you after my habits of work and domesticity were well established. You are the fairest thing on earth, and there are times when you consume it, but circumstances isolate you. ”

“ Hamilton hoped, when she resided part of the year in London, as she felt she would very soon be called upon to do, to be enabled to rouse Grahame's attention toward his youngest child, and prevail on him to relax in his sternness toward her; and by taking notice of her continually herself, instill such feelings in her as would attract her toward her father, and so increase the happiness of both. Every visit of the Grahame family to Moorlands, she resolved to study Lilla well, and try all she could to make one in reality so estimable, as her husband's friend, happy, in one child at least. ”

“ Hamilton, several years since, had bought a large tract of wooded land on Harlem Heights and built him a house on the ridge. It commanded a view of the city, the Hudson, and the Sound. The house was spacious and strong, built to withstand the winds of the Atlantic, and to shelter commodiously not only his family, but his many guests. The garden and the woods were the one hobby of his life, and with his own hands he had planted thirteen gum trees to commemorate the thirteen original States of the Union. Fortunately his deepest sorrow was not associated with this estate ”

“ VII The letter from General Schuyler, giving his consent to the engagement, has not been preserved; but some time after he had occasion to write Hamilton a business letter, in which the following passage occurs:—
You cannot, my dear sir, be more happy at the connexion you have made with my family than I am. Until the child of a parent has made a judicious choice, his heart is in continual anxiety; but this anxiety was removed on the moment I discovered it was on you she had placed her affections. I am pleased with every instance of delicacy in those who are so dear to me ”

“ HAMILTON, ELIZABETH (1758–1816) , miscellaneous writer, was born at Belfast on 21 July 1758. She was of the Scottish Hamiltons of Woodhall, but straitened family circumstances had sent her father, Charles Hamilton, into a mercantile house in London. He married Katherine Mackay of Dublin, and at his death in 1759 there were three children, Katherine, Charles, and Elizabeth. Her father's sister, the wife of Mr. Marshall, a Stirlingshire farmer, took Elizabeth home, and when Mrs. Hamilton died the child, aged nine, was left to the kindly and somewhat primitive care of these worthy relatives. ”

“ The Scotch and French blood blended, is a good mixture in a country made up of all the European nations. But Hamilton, if not an American by birth, was American in his education and sympathies and surroundings, and ultimately married into a distinguished American family of Dutch descent. At the age of twelve he was placed in the counting-house of a wealthy American merchant, where his marked ability made him friends, and he was sent to the United States to be educated. ”

“ Hamilton was a favorite of women everywhere and was mixed up in various scandalous intrigues. He was an easy mark for a designing woman. In one instance, the affair was seized upon by his political foes, and made capital of to his sore disadvantage. Hamilton met the issue by writing a pamphlet, laying bare the entire shameless affair, to the horror of his family and friends. Copies of this pamphlet may be seen in the rooms of the American Historical Society at New York. Burr had been Attorney-General of New York State and also United States Senator. Each man had served on Washington's staff ”

“ Charming manners were a family trait, and the Heavenly Twins had always been popular in the city on their own account; their spontaneity and extreme affability having usually been held to balance their monkey tricks. Hamilton House, however, was ten miles distant from Morningquest, and they had hitherto been thought of as Hamilton-Wells; but after that year at the Castle, they became identified with the old stock, the alien Hamilton-Wells being dropped out of sight altogether.
The duke himself had always been popular. ”

“ William Nelson, although he and his family had been partaking of Lady Hamilton’s hospitality for months. Indeed, during six years, she was a second mother to his children, to whom he recommended Lady Hamilton as an example and enjoined obedience to her as an instructress. ‘The Earl (says Dr. Pettigrew—for the reverend gentleman was created an earl) fearful that Lady Hamilton should be provided for in the sum Parliament was expected to grant to uphold the hero’s name and family, kept the codicil in his pocket until the day 120,000l. ”

“ He was the second son of James Hamilton of Bangour, advocate, whose grandfather, James, second son of John Hamilton of Little Earnock, Lanarkshire, founded the Bangour family. On the death of his elder brother, without heir, in 1750, Hamilton succeeded to the estate. His naturally delicate constitution, as well as his tastes, had all along prevented him from going much into fashionable society, and from his early years he had given himself to poetry, receiving ready commendation from his friends. ”

“ His mother was Beatrix, daughter of James Douglas of Morton, and though he was a younger son in a large family, he ultimately succeeded to the estate of Wishaw, as his elder brothers died during their father's lifetime. The family to which he belonged claimed descent from John Hamilton of Broomhill, natural but legitimated brother of James, first earl of Arran, and he was nearly related to Baron Belhaven and Stenton, to which dignity his own descendant afterwards attained. William Hamilton seems to have enjoyed a high reputation among his contemporaries as an antiquary and genealogist. ”

“ When that business was settled, he, in the spring of 1651, took Lady Hamilton and all his family to France, and resided with Lord and Lady Ormond, near Caen, in Normandy, in great poverty and distress, till the Marchioness of Ormond, a lady whose mind was as exalted as her birth, went over to England, and, after much solicitation obtained two thousand pounds a year from her own and, her husband’s different estates in Ireland. ”

“ Having been thus wined and dined, toasted and roasted, Hamilton retired with his family to the Schuyler mansion in Albany for relaxation and rest. Perhaps he could not afford the coveted trip to Europe—it did not materialize. In April, Justice Iredell wrote his wife that Hamilton had ‘already received more than a year’s salary in retainer fees’ and that a ‘number of mechanics here [New York] have declared that they will build him a house at their own expense’—a promise unredeemed. ”

“ It is hardly needful to state that the mother of fatherless children is not, as a rule, paid more highly than her unmarried sister. Nor is the theory that the "unattached" woman has only herself to support, and does not contribute to the needs of others, borne out by facts. I believe that in all ranks of society there is a pronounced disposition on the part of the family to regard the income, earned or unearned, of its female members as something in the nature of common property—the income, earned or unearned, of its male members as much more of an individual possession. ”