has been one of the great evils of the system, that the accession of every new President has been accompanied by innumerable changes in the inferior posts, and by the disturbance of official relations from one end of the country to the other.

Wearied and desponding, Hamilton saw the supreme power passing into the hands of his enemies, and the pile he had reared with so much toil shaken to its foundations. The unchecked flood of democracy was breaking in upon all sides, and he felt that henceforth nothing would be able to resist its course. "Mine is an odd destiny," he wrote to Gouverneur Morris. "Perhaps, no man in the United States has sacrificed or done more for the present Constitution than myself; and, contrary to all my anticipations of its fate, as you know from the very beginning, I am still labouring to prop the frail and worthless fabric. Yet I have the murmurs of its friends, no less than the curses of its foes, for my reward. What can I do better than withdraw from the scene! Every day proves to me more and more, that this American world was not made for me."

CHAPTER XVII.

THE DUEL.

N the neighbourhood of New York, but still in

IN

the midst of rural scenery, and not far from the ancient village of Manhattan, Hamilton had purchased a small estate. The ground was undulating, and adorned with fine old trees, a pleasant lawn spread in front of the house, and the balcony of the drawing-room commanded a magnificent prospect. Harlem River, and Long Island Sound, and many a scene endeared by its own beauty, or made interesting by old recollections, were visible from this lovely spot. Hamilton called it The Grange, after the name of his grandfather's house in Scotland, in the bonny shire of Ayr; and thither he often retired from the labours of his profession, to enjoy the society of his family, and the refreshment of a country life.

He had laid aside the truncheon of command, and

was once more a busy man at the bar, and, although he could never keep quite clear of politics, they no longer occupied all his thoughts. He could occupy himself with his garden-" a very usual refuge," he says, "for a disappointed politician"- send to Carolina for melon-seeds and paroquets for his daughter, play at soldiers with his boys, and spend summer evenings with his friends on the green slopes of his domain. A great sorrow came to darken this cheerful picture. His eldest son, a promising youth of twenty, was killed in a duel arising from a dispute at the theatre. It was a bitter grief to the father and all the family; but it only foreshadowed the worse calamity that was to follow.

While Jefferson, during the first years of his administration, was filling every place with his partisans, reducing the army and navy to satisfy the tax-payers, and doing all in his power to increase the influence of the democracy, Colonel Burr was by no means content with his share of the spoils of victory. He was indeed Vice-President; but he found that he had scarcely any direct weight with the government, that his immediate friends were not appointed to office, and that the leaders of the

Republican party were inclined to keep him in the background. It was a dangerous game to play with such a man, and he once more cast about him to obtain a lever for his ambition. He not only endeavoured to strengthen his own faction, but he carried on a kind of political flirtation with the Federalists, and some of them cherished a hope of a return to power, by the help of what Hamilton called "Burr's flying squadrons." It was after an interview with Jefferson, in which he vainly tried to extort from the President some definite pledge, that Burr resolved to act quite independently, and to start as a candidate for the Governorship of New York. Could he succeed in this election, the highest post in the Union might yet be within his grasp. But to succeed he must have the support of the Federalists, and that support was yet in some measure dependent on Hamilton. The latter declared against him, and, although he polled 28,000 votes, he was defeated by a majority of 7,000. It was the last drop in the cup. Burr looked on Hamilton as the evil genius of his life, and it is only too probable that, from that moment, he determined to destroy him.

The election took place in the spring of 1804.

Monstrous stories are told, that Burr devoted three months to pistol-practice before calling out his intended victim, and that he set up a mark in his own grounds to shoot at. It is not necessary to believe these tales. They rest on no good evidence, and have all the character of vague popular rumours. Burr was a brave man—a man of iron resolution— with steady nerves, and no doubt a fair mastery of his weapon. It is very unlikely, that he would have thus waited to train himself for combat. It is far more conceivable, that the delay was caused by the want of a decent pretext for a quarrel.

That pretext was at length found in the columns of a newspaper. A letter from a Dr. Cooper to a friend, with reference to the late election, had appeared in one of the journals. It contained this passage: "General Hamilton and Judge Kent have declared in substance, that they looked upon Mr. Burr to be a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of Government. I could detail to you a still more despicable opinion, which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr.” And this wretched gossip, such as was going about with regard to all the public men of the day, was made the ground to fasten an offence on Hamilton,