Chapter Thirty-Six
NEW YORK CITY
New York
“What is the proper way to address John Quincy?” I asked my husband from the writing table in Nabby’s parlor. “I have been
addressing my letters to JQA Minister Resident, but has he the title of Excellency?”
John looked up from an ornate armchair where he was sipping our son-in-law’s best wine, for we’d come to visit our children
in New York and were now staying as guests in Colonel Smith’s lavish new lodgings. “Best keep it: John Quincy Adams, Esq.,
Resident Minister of the United States. Otherwise, if that letter falls into the wrong hands, the Jacobins will say we’re
conveying noble titles on our son.”
In this benighted age, it was sound advice, so I nodded, continuing to scribble. Then John said, “Tell the boys that never
was a father more satisfied, or gratified, than I’ve been since they went abroad.”
I smiled and wrote it at the bottom of the page. Then John said, “Tell Johnny that I have no language to express the pleasure
he’s given to the president with his clear, comprehensive, and masterly accounts of the politics in Europe.”
That, too, I wrote into the margin, fanning the letter dry to fold into its envelope.
“Tell him—”
“John, I’m sure Nabby can provide more paper on which you can write your own letter.”
“Bah, I’ve lost the habit of writing from weak eyes and trembling hand. I’m an old man.”
“You’re not an old man,” I said.
“Older than you, my pretty child bride . . .”
I raised an accusing brow. “So you did learn to flatter like a courtier in Europe.”
“Yet, never will I have so silver a tongue as our Charles. It’s unseemly the way he makes girls giggle.”
Lowering my voice so the family downstairs would not overhear, I asked, “Did you see what I saw between the crystal glasses
and candlesticks at Colonel Smith’s table tonight?”
“Nabby cringing at yet another course of pheasant being brought to the table?” John asked.
“No, Charles. He started to sample some of that pricey Madeira until Colonel Smith’s sister gave him a look, and our son withdrew his
hand from the decanter, meek as a child.”
“Which sister?” John asked. “The one betrothed to a Frenchman, the pupil of Wollstonecraft, or the wallflower?”
“Sally.” When he stared at me blankly, I allowed, “The wallflower.”
John scratched absently at his chin. “You think Charles is sweet on Sally Smith?”
“All I know is that Nabby said her sister-in-law has been a great comfort to Charles.”
“I hope he hasn’t given her a hold on him.”
The next day John continued on to Philadelphia to discharge his duties as vice president for the sixth consecutive year. The
debate that raged there would be the same as everywhere else in the country, where effigies of poor John Jay were being burned
up and down the coastline in sufficient quantity to guide ships into harbors.
The British were once again destroying our commerce. And because we could ill afford another war with anyone, diplomacy was
our only hope. So John Jay had been sent to negotiate and returned with a treaty Americans found too humiliating to accept.
John presided over the Senate as they made up their minds about whether to swallow these humiliations, while I spent time
with my new little granddaughter, the flame-haired Caroline, just born in the new year.
The birth hadn’t gone so easily for Nabby this time, and her sickness was made worse when the wretched apothecary gave to her the wrong medicine. Still, she looked on the bright side. “I cannot complain. My head is still attached.”
We went not a week without hearing about the beheading of a friend or acquaintance in France. “Adrienne Lafayette’s mother,
sister, and grandmother have been beheaded,” said my daughter, mournfully. “And poor Adrienne is sure to meet the same fate.”
If I were Catholic I’d have made a sign of the cross to ward off this fate. Instead, I put a hand to my forehead, having dreaded
this news. It pained me to think of our friend, not much older than my own daughter, in such peril. And with nothing we could
do for her!
To distract us from this glum talk, Nabby’s husband suggested an afternoon jaunt in the countryside.
“I’m still recovering my strength,” Nabby said by way of excusing herself. “But you should go, Mother. Colonel Smith is eager
to show you his new property. It would mean so much to us.”
Given the heat of the sun, I didn’t relish leaving the shade of the house, but to make her happy, off I went with my son-in-law,
the foul scents of the city giving way to the earthier scents of nature as his gilded carriage carried us away. We made our
way on bumpy roads lined with wildflowers, and I heard the axes of workers clearing the land long before we stepped out into
the tall grasses. Helping me down, Colonel Smith swept an arm over the view of his meadow, which stretched in green splendor
to the silt-rich river where gulls soared above frothy swells.
Without feigning the slightest enthusiasm, I said, “It’s beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.”
“I paid only five thousand pounds for it,” Colonel Smith said, unfurling sketches upon a felled tree for me to examine. “I’ll
build the new house here. The portico will have this very view of the water. Like Washington always described the view of
the Potomac from his manse. Your Nabby shall be mistress of her very own Mount Vernon.”
Though still modest by the standards of castles in Europe, his plans were impressive for the Americas. But I saw that a great many tools, furnishings, and other supplies would need to be imported. “You don’t fear that much of what you need to build this house will end up seized?”
Britain was again sinking or capturing our trading ships on the high seas, keeping the cargo for booty, kidnapping our soldiers,
and forcing them to fight in the Royal Navy.
But Colonel Smith assured me, “Once the Jay Treaty with Britain is ratified, all will be well.”
I wasn’t so certain. “The treaty is very unpopular. Nabby said a brawl broke out about it yesterday in the Tontine Coffee
House.”
Smith chuckled ruefully. “It did. I was there.”
“Then, how can you be sure of the treaty’s ratification? You seem to know more than the vice president has told me.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. My son-in-law ran in connected circles these days. Upon the death of the Baron von Steuben,
Colonel Smith had been elected president over his fellow veterans in the Society of the Cincinnati. And now he said, “I’ve
been chosen to chair a public meeting about it tomorrow. Hamilton told me the treaty will be ratified, and if he says something like that, we may rely upon it.”
I couldn’t argue that. Like Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton had resigned his cabinet post. But he still had tremendous
influence—enough to still be thought a political puppet master.
“Besides,” Colonel Smith assured me, “I have two sleek privateer ships of my own now to slip past the British with the supplies
I need, and trade goods aplenty. Money shall not be an object.”
Like all prominent young men in the city, my son Charles meant to attend the public meeting about the Jay Treaty and agreed
to let me accompany him. But on the walk there, my son decided to confess, “I’ve formed an attachment to Sally Smith and I
want her for my wife.”
Charles was twenty-five now, by all accounts a rising lawyer with a good head for business. His easy charm with men and women
alike was another skill he put to good use. He made friends quickly and without prejudice, dining one night with Hamilton
and the Federalists, the next night sharing brandy with Senator Aaron Burr and the Democratic-Republicans.
My bonny Charles might not be resident minister to the Netherlands, but he had a grand future ahead of him if he could only establish himself a few years more before marriage.
Forestalling this objection, my middle son said, “Mother, please don’t tell me I must wait years to have the object of my
heart.”
“Not years,” I said, as if I truly had any say in the matter. Even John wouldn’t forbid it. “But at least a little longer. At least
until the world is more certain.”
That was an answer my boy could not abide. “I’m going to marry Sally as soon as possible, because the world has never been
certain a day since I was born.”
To that, I had no argument. Especially not given the scene that unfolded that afternoon. A huge crowd turned out, packed so
tightly it made us all prey for pickpockets. Banding together, angry dockworkers in sweat-stained shirts shouted Vive la Révolution and sunburned farmers in homespun railed about British abuses.
“Damn John Jay!”
“Damn anybody who won’t damn John Jay!”
An innkeeper in a leather apron groused about the noise disturbing his customers, but he was paid no heed by this group, or
the other—the cluster of Wall Street’s monied men, in powdered wigs, brightly colored embroidered waistcoats, and clean white
hose.
They shouted back things like: “Do you want war with our best trading partner, you fools?”
While Charles shielded me from the sun with his umbrella, I exchanged a little wave with Mrs. Hamilton, who had come out in
her best straw bonnet, accompanied by her own boy. And, of course, Hamilton himself was not far off, climbing onto a stoop
to harangue the crowd.
I looked up to see Colonel Smith take his place as chairman of this meeting on the balcony behind the wrought iron balustrade,
acknowledging Mr. Livingston, who wished to speak.
That’s when Hamilton shouted, “By what right does anyone speak before me?”
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
He was no longer secretary of the treasury. Yet, he seemed to expect people to treat him with the deference due government officials. Must he give the Jacobins amongst us an excuse to think our party was an enemy of equality?
From the balcony, my fair-minded son-in-law took a quick vote of concerned parties, and a large majority wanted Mr. Livingston
to speak first. But the unfortunate man couldn’t get out a sentence without being hooted down by Hamilton and his cronies.
“Order,” my son-in-law called as chairman, bringing down a gavel upon the table. But this, too, was drowned out by the shouts of
our own faction until, in exasperation, Smith barked like the military commander he’d been. “Mr. Hamilton, you are out of order!”
I suppose I’ll never know when precisely it was that Hamilton turned against us, but the look of vainglorious fury he shot
up at my son-in-law made my blood run cold—why I saw the very devil in his eyes.
Then, like a madman possessed, Hamilton continued to taunt the crowd with admittedly superior arguments and cutting wit. But
the people hadn’t come to be told what to think about the Jay Treaty. And they responded much like they had all those years
ago when pressured to buy the East India Company’s tea.
Forming into little mobs, the citizenry burned copies of the treaty and flung the flaming pages into New York Harbor. And
when Hamilton tried to shame them for it, they pelted him with bricks.
As the pelting stones rained from the sky, Charles tugged at my elbow. “Mother, as entertaining as this has been, we ought
to retreat.”
“But Colonel Smith—”
“Nabby’s husband can handle himself in scenes of violence,” Charles said, his grip tightening.
As he dragged me off, I searched the crowd in vain for sight of Eliza Hamilton, hoping to help get her to safety. Though,
if anything happened to her, she’d have her husband to blame.
By God, I couldn’t count all the times I had accused John of vanity, but Hamilton had not even a speck of diplomacy in his blood.