ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 



253 



The Tea 

 Party 



school at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, aud iu less than a Racing 

 year was declared ready for college. Princeton would college 

 not allow him to adA'ance as rapidly as he was able, re- 

 gardless of the established fom- years, so he applied for 

 this privilege at King's College in New York, and was ac- 

 cepted. He went through college at an amazing pace, 

 taking such extra studies as he desired. 



Meanwhile the storm of the Eevolution was approach- 

 ing. As a British subject the young man's sympathies 

 were at first with England. But in 1774, when he was 

 seventeen, he visited Boston, where the "tea part5^' and 

 its consequences were the absorbing topic. This led him 

 to study with the thoroughness that marked him the 

 whole subject of the relations of the colonies to the 

 mother country and the questions at issue. As a result 

 he returned to New York an American. A mass meeting 

 of patriots was held in July of that same year, aud 

 Hamilton heard the speeches. Suddenly, uninvited and 

 unannounced, he took the platform and began to speak. 

 At first surprise kept the people silent, as this youthful Maiden 

 and slender student went on. Soon they forgot his age, 

 and listened to one who knew his subject and was en- 

 lightening as well as enchaining them. That incident, 

 which reminds us of Wendell Phillips' first anti-slavery 

 speech, introduced Alexander Hamilton to the American 

 public. From that day Hamilton used his voice and pen 

 with telling effect. A recent writer says : 



Speech 



During the winter of 1774-5, a coterie of Tory writers, mostly ,^ 

 clergymen and educators, issued a series of essaj's presenting the Essayists 

 British side so strongly as to threaten great harm to the popular cause, 

 unless ably answered. These essays were soon met by anonj'mous 

 replies so exhaustive and convincing as to excite the admiration of the 

 Tories themselves. On every hand eager search was made to discover 

 this new "Junius." The reputation of John Jay and of Governor 

 Livingston was augmented in no small degree by the supposition that 

 they were the authors of the patriotic answers. Great was the sur- 

 prise at the discovery, after some weeks, that the real author was the 



