CHAPTER V 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON, STATESMAN AND 

 FINANCIER 



I 



A Huguenot /^~^ lD¥i by side with John Jay among the great figures 

 of the Revolutionary period stands Alexander 





Hamilton, who had in his veins Huguenot blood, 

 on his mother's side. No more brilliant genius has our 

 country known. Many have ranked him next to Wash- 

 ington. Commonly he is placed in the eminent group 

 that includes Franklin, Jay and Adams. He was second 

 to none in the character and importance of his services to 

 his country. To his commanding abilities as a financier 

 the new Republic owed its financial salvation, and for his 

 achievements in this difficult line he received as high 

 praise as language could bestow. It was Daniel Webster 

 who said of him : " He touched the dead corpse of pub- 

 lic credit, and it sprang upon its feet." And this was no 

 hyperbole. 



His career was romantic and remarkable. He was born 

 Birthplace January 11, 1757, on the island of Nevis, in the West In- 

 dies, where his father, an English officer of Scotch blood, 

 met and took for wife the descendant of a French refugee, 

 one of the considerable number that found an asylum in 

 the West Indies. The boy was destined to know little of 

 home life. In 1772, when he was fifteen, a hurricane 

 swept over the island. A newspaper account of the 

 disaster was so graphic in description that its unknown 

 author was sought for, and found to be the lad Hamilton. 

 So impressed was the governor of Nevis with the boy's 

 talents that he was sent to the American colonies, where 

 he could find wider field. He was placed in a grammar 



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