AND THE FEDERALIST PARTY III 



consulted Hamilton more frequently than the other 

 members of his staff and intrusted the most weighty 

 affairs to his charge. It was remarkable that this 

 preference, accorded to so young a man, should have 

 excited no jealousy. But the " little lion," as the older 

 officers called him, was so frank and good-natured, so 

 buoyant and brave, and so free from arrogance, that he 

 won all the hearts. There was a mixture in him of 

 Scottish shrewdness with French vivacity that most 

 people found irresistible. Knox and Laurens, Lafay- 

 ette and Steuben, loved him with devoted affection. 



Along with the desire to please, which was one 

 secret of his attractiveness, there was a due amount 

 of sternness latent, as appeared when occasion called 

 for it. If necessary, the " little lion " could com- 

 mand in a tone that made weaker creatures tremble. 

 All his tact and all his imperiousness were required 

 on his mission to Saratoga after Burgoyne's sur- 

 render, to get back the troops which Washington 

 had sent to Gates and which the latter no longer 

 needed. Gates was more than ready to leave Wash- 

 ington in the lurch, as Charles Lee had done the year 

 before. In Congress there was so strong a party 

 opposed to Washington that to offend his unscrupu- 

 lous rival while all the glamour of victory surrounded 

 him would not be timely. The skill with which this 

 young man, not yet one-and-twenty, wrested the troops 

 from the reluctant Gates, peremptorily asserting Wash- 

 ington's claim, yet never allowing the affair to develop 

 into a quarrel, was simply marvellous. 



As a staff officer Hamilton was present at the bat- 

 tles of the Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth ; 

 he was Colonel Laurens's second in the duel between 



