AND THE FEDERALIST PARTY 103 



gress, were well represented in the city of New York. 

 At their head were the merchants, Isaac Sears and 

 Alexander Macdougall, and the eloquent lawyer, John 

 Morin Scott. The Tories used to sneer at these men 

 as "the Presbyterian junto." They wished to recon- 

 sider the action of the committee, and to make a 

 popular demonstration which would go as far as pos- 

 sible toward committing New York to espouse the 

 cause of Massachusetts. Accordingly, on the 6th of 

 July, a great meeting of citizens was held in the fields 

 north of the city, with the canny Scotchman, Macdou- 

 gall, as chairman. Many eminent speakers addressed 

 the meeting, but among the hearers was a lad of 

 seventeen years, small and slight in stature, who lis- 

 tened with intense eagerness as he felt that, besides all 

 that was said, there were other weighty arguments 

 which seemed to occur to nobody. At length, unable 

 to keep silence any longer, he rose to his feet, and 

 somewhat timidly at first, but gathering courage every 

 moment, he addressed the astonished company. His 

 arguments compelled assent, while his dignified elo- 

 quence won admiration, and when he had finished 

 there was a buzz of inquiry as to who this extraordi- 

 nary boy could be. There were some who had seen 

 him walking back and forth under the shade of some 

 large trees in Dey Street, absorbed in meditation and 

 now and then muttering to himself; a few knew him 

 as " the young West Indian " ; on further inquiry, it 

 appeared that he was a student at King's College, and 

 his name was Alexander Hamilton. 



Instances of marvellous precocity are more often 

 found in mathematics, or linguistics, or music, than in 

 political science ; for in the latter case something 



