by John Ferling
The northern merchants had feared that Madison’s plan would drive them out of business. Though he had not played a public role in the contest, Hamilton found the initiative distasteful for a different reason. The lion’s share of federal revenues would come from the impost on British imports. Its yield would be important to the operation of the new government, but pivotal to the success of Hamilton’s funding system. Should discrimination provoke British retaliation, and that was a distinct possibility, revenue would dry up. Hamilton desperately wished to avoid discrimination against British trade. In fact, he longed for a commercial treaty with London, knowing that such a pact not only would enhance American trade, but rekindle fondness for all things British.
Nineteen days after Hamilton became the treasury secretary, in September 1789, George Beckwith, a British official en route from London to Quebec, paused in New York. His Manhattan breather was planned. Beckwith was under orders to communicate to Washington’s administration that London would retaliate should the United States discriminate against British trade. In the absence of both a British minister to the United States and a secretary of state—Jefferson was just leaving Paris on the first leg of his journey home—Beckwith delivered his message to Senator Schuyler, who arranged a meeting with Hamilton.
Washington would have been better served had someone else spoken with Beckwith. Hamilton not only was desperate to stabilize and enlarge the American economy, but he also believed that close ties with the former mother country would further the political and social agenda he had pursued for years. In addition, the president was less interested than Hamilton in immediately expanding commercial ties with London, and far more eager to have Great Britain relinquish its western posts within the United States. Washington also fervently wanted London to provide compensation for the slaves its army had taken from the country at the end of the Revolutionary War—yet another mandate of the Treaty of Paris that the British were ignoring. Hamilton’s one experience with diplomacy had been his mission to General Gates in 1777. He had not shined. In dealing with Beckwith, Hamilton’s Anglophilia was palpable. After falsely assuring Beckwith that the sentiments he expressed were those of President Washington, Hamilton gushed that he had “always preferred a Connexion” with Great Britain, political as well as economic. “We think in English, and have a similarity of prejudices, and of predilections.” What is more, Hamilton remarked that Britain’s intransigent position on the slavery question was “perfectly satisfactory” and told Beckwith that the United States would acquiesce “to limitations of size of vessels” if it was permitted to trade in the British West Indies. Not surprisingly, Beckwith concluded that the United States was desperate for Britain’s friendship.27
Unaware of the liberties Hamilton had taken, Washington dispatched Gouverneur Morris to London as a special envoy. His discussions got nowhere, and Hamilton was partly to blame for that. During a portion of the time that Morris was in England, Hamilton was busily engaged in further talks with Beckwith, who returned to Manhattan in the summer of 1790. By then, Jefferson was on the scene and was aware of Hamilton’s talks with Beckwith, though he did not object. His quarrel with Hamilton had not yet begun; besides, it would have been unconventional for the nation’s principal diplomat to engage in talks with such a low-level official as Beckwith. However, had Jefferson been privy to the conversations, he would doubtless have been appalled to hear Hamilton once again reassure Beckwith that “a connexion” with Great Britain was “infinitely Important” to the United States.28 Furthermore, when the talks proceeded to the possibility that a British minister would be sent to the United States, Hamilton inappropriately divulged that Jefferson, while “a gentleman of honor,” was given to “predilections” respecting Great Britain and France—in other words, the secretary of state was allegedly an Anglophobe and a Francophile. Should difficulties arise with Jefferson, Hamilton brazenly added, he “should wish to know them” so that he could do his best to “be sure they are clearly understood, and candidly examined.”29 Having as much as questioned Washington’s judgment concerning who headed the State Department, Hamilton did not reveal to the president everything that he had told Beckwith.
Britain’s first minister to the United States, George Hammond, a chubby twenty-eight-year-old eager-beaver, arrived in Philadelphia in October 1791 and rapidly entered into discussions with Jefferson. He ran up against a more wary American diplomat than Beckwith had encountered. Having read Morris’s dispatches from London, Jefferson had found that they confirmed both what Adams had reported during the previous decade and what he had learned during his visit to England five years earlier. Britain’s government, Jefferson had said at the time, was “averse to all arrangements with us” and committed to maintaining Anglo-American relations “on their … terms.” Indeed, anti-American sentiment was so strong that opposition politicians “dare not open their lips in favor of a connection with us.” Not only did the British have no intention of evacuating their frontier posts, but also the price that London demanded for a general commercial accord was a formal alliance, a step that would scuttle America’s ties with France, the one country that had come to its defense and the only nation capable of posing a threat to Great Britain.30
Jefferson had no interest in an Anglo-American alliance. Like Washington, he thought a commercial accord was secondary to the resolution of the frontier posts issue and securing restitution for the slaves. Nor was Jefferson in any hurry to negotiate a trade agreement. With significant changes occurring in revolutionary France, he was more hopeful than ever that Paris might be willing to agree to lift trade restrictions adhered to by the ancien régime. He was happy to allow time for the French to come around. In addition, Jefferson agreed with Madison that commercial discrimination was essential for forcing London to agree to a decent trade pact, but he knew that such legislation was inconceivable unless the composition of Congress changed in the elections in 1792. Moreover, while willing to enhance trade with the former mother country, Jefferson longed to expand trade with France. He understood that the more Britain monopolized American commerce, the greater its influence would be culturally, politically, and economically within the United States. In that respect, Jefferson’s foreign policy outlook, like that of Hamilton’s, was ideological and sprang from his dreams for the shape of the new American nation. Yet, while Jefferson has been limned by many historians as a diplomat hopelessly in the thrall of Anglophobia, the foreign policy that he practiced in his dealings with Hammond was closer than Hamilton’s to the thinking of the president they served. Like Washington, Jefferson strove for true American independence, vigilant lest the United States should ever find itself alone and friendless in the face of the world’s greatest naval power, and equally watchful against slipping back toward a semi-colonial status with its former mother country.
If not inhospitable toward Hammond, Jefferson was only barely cordial, and with the practiced hand of a veteran diplomat he proceeded at a leisurely pace, deliberately slowing matters by insisting that all communication be in writing rather than in face-to-face discussions. Furthermore, Jefferson customarily dragged his feet in responding to Hammond’s replies.31 Hammond was irritated. Aware of what Hamilton had told Beckwith, Hammond had crossed the Atlantic expecting to find that the United States craved the normalization of relations with London, so much so that it was willing to pay a high price to achieve a general agreement. He blamed Jefferson for the lack of progress, remarking that “J. is in the Virginia interest and that of the French, and it is his fault that we are at a distance.” (Hammond’s secretary reported Jefferson’s “rancorous malevolence” to London.) After two months in Philadelphia, Hammond turned to Hamilton, whom he thought “more a man of the world than J.” noting, “I like his manners better.”32 The treasury secretary was all too willing to enter into private talks with the British minister, a step that went beyond imprudence. Hamilton’s behavior was treacherous, for he had to know that he risked subverting the diplomacy of his nation’s
chief diplomat.
Hamilton soon enough secretly apologized to Hammond for Jefferson’s “intemperate violence,” falsely depicted the secretary of state as staking out positions that were not in accord with those of Washington, communicated confidential information regarding the status of United States negotiations with Spain, and divulged that despite the State Department’s renewed talks with France concerning a new commercial agreement, “the scale … preponderated in favor of the commercial encouragements afforded by Great Britain.” With “much force and emphasis,” Hamilton conceded that the United States so thirsted after trade in the West Indies that it was willing to accept the “restrictions and regulations as Great Britain might require.” As he had done with Beckwith, Hamilton deceptively volunteered that there were deep divisions within the administration on the matter of restitution for slaves who had been taken.33 Hamilton’s conduct was scandalous and indefensible, and had the president known of it, Washington might have had no choice but to cashier his treasury secretary. In the end, however, Hamilton’s betrayals made little difference. Britain and the United States were far apart on most issues, and London was not willing to open the West Indies to American trade. Barring an American capitulation, which was not going to happen under President Washington, no accord could have been reached with or without Hamilton’s perfidy.
* * *
Early in 1792 Washington began to speak privately of retiring at the end of his first term, and in May he asked Madison to draft his farewell speech. Washington had a habit of disavowing his intention of seeking public office until a wide array of important figures beseeched him to serve, but in this instance his desire to return home was genuine. He turned sixty early that year and would be sixty-five when a second term ended, if he lived that long. He had survived serious illnesses in 1789 and 1790, maladies which he believed had left him “sensibly more infirm.” Feeling “himself growing old,” troubled by hearing and memory loss, and having long since wearied of the “fatigues and disagreeableness” of the presidency, Washington desperately wished to enjoy his last good years at Mount Vernon.34
The president’s retirement was the last thing that either Hamilton or Jefferson wanted. Both thought him the adhesive that held together the Union, and Hamilton had unfilled plans that required Washington’s aegis. Keenly aware of how Washington thought, Hamilton advised him that the consensus of public opinion was that his retirement would be the “greatest evil, that could befall the country.” The “affairs of the national government are not yet firmly established,” he warned, adding that in Washington’s absence the champions of state sovereignty would tear down all that had been achieved since 1789. Knowing that Washington’s immeasurable pride would find intolerable anything but a unanimous vote in the electoral college, Hamilton advised that a handful of “fanatical individuals” might not vote for him, but that the final tally would reveal a “general confidence and attachment towards you.” But as always in such instances with Washington, Hamilton’s trump card played on the president’s vanity. Hamilton counseled that it would be “critically hazardous” to Washington’s lasting reputation if he did not accept a second term.35
When Washington in February 1792 first informed Jefferson of his intention of retiring, the secretary of state did not attempt to dissuade him. In fact, Jefferson responded that he too wished to leave his post and return home. Washington, who could spread treacle as handily as Hamilton, immediately beseeched Jefferson to stay on, telling him that he was “much more important” to his administration than any other officer. Some ten weeks later, fearful of unrest, and possibly even secessionist movements, Jefferson had come to “tremble” at the thought of Washington’s retirement. He urged him to accept a second term, saying: “North and South will hang together, if they have you to hang on.”36
Months passed before Jefferson again raised the matter. All along, however, he reiterated his intention of resigning as soon as he could “wind up the business of my office,” telling Washington that he looked forward to retiring “with the longing of a wave-worn mariner, who has at length the land in view.”37 In the autumn, with the electoral college due to meet in about sixty days and Washington still not having agreed to a second term, Jefferson called on him at Mount Vernon and beseeched him to stay on. His argument remained unchanged: Washington was “the only man in the U.S. who possessed the confidence of the whole.” After one more term, the people’s habit of “submitting to the government and … thinking it a thing to be maintained” would be ingrained. Washington listened to Jefferson’s lengthy soliloquy, after which he conceded that he “would make the sacrifice” should his “aid [be] thought necessary to save the cause.”38 In December the presidential electors unanimously reelected Washington.
Throughout 1792, Washington had appealed to Hamilton and Jefferson to abandon their partisan sniping, and it is not inconceivable that the president’s threatened retirement was at least partially designed to silence his warring cabinet rivals. If so, his strategy was an abysmal failure. Hamilton and Madison were writing polemical pieces for newspapers, and Freneau’s National Gazette had gathered a head of partisan steam as the elections of 1792 approached. Freneau portrayed Hamilton’s program as beneficial only to wealthy Northerners, equated the secretary’s style with that of British prime ministers who served their king, called Hamilton’s followers “Noblesse and Courtiers,” preached on the “Injustice of the Excise Law,” warned that Hamiltonianism threatened American independence by making the new nation a client state of Great Britain, and savaged Adams for his purported affinity for monarchy. Washington remained off-limits until after his reelection, but thereafter his supposedly royal habits came under fire. Freneau blasted the “monarchical prettiness” of his administration, focusing on its “levees, drawing rooms, stately nods instead of shaking hands, titles of office, seclusion from the people.”39
Washington was mortified by the attacks. When Jefferson had called on him in October, the president and his guest walked about Mount Vernon’s sparkling gardens and lush and verdent lawn in the chill of early morning. When they reentered the mansion, Washington escorted Jefferson to a parlor and opened the conversation by declaring that the partisan warfare had gone too far. Jefferson listened, but did not back down. Instead, he launched into another tirade about Hamilton’s monarchical bent. This was too much for Washington. He snapped that there were not “ten men in the U. S. whose opinions were worth attention who entertained such a thought” of “transforming this government into a monarchy.” Jefferson responded that there were “many more than he imagined,” but before he could expand his argument, they were called to breakfast. Sensing Washington’s anger, Jefferson “avoided going further into the subject.” It was the last time he attempted to enlighten the president about Hamilton in a face-to-face meeting, in large measure because Jefferson at last understood how inextricably bound Washington was to the treasury secretary.40
But Jefferson did not desist in his efforts to force Hamilton out of the government, and a few weeks after visiting Mount Vernon, a veritable treasure trove of intelligence reached the secretary of state. The story—at least the story that Hamilton eventually told—began during the summer of 1791. Betsey, with her four children in tow, had fled oppressively hot Philadelphia for her parents’ home in more summer-friendly Albany. Hamilton remained at work in the city, however, and one day, while home alone, a visitor called on him. It was an attractive, twenty-three-year-old woman named Maria Reynolds. She poured out a tale of woe about the mistreatment she had experienced at the hands of her husband, James Reynolds, who in the end had abandoned her for another woman, leaving her destitute. She asked Hamilton for financial assistance. Captivated, and likely reminded of his mother’s similar plight following her abandonment, Hamilton agreed to help. He promised to bring money to Maria’s residence that night. Taking along bills issued by his Bank of the United States, Hamilton arrived at her apartment as darkness descended on the city. It was very late when he left,
and more than a financial transaction had occurred.
He returned on other nights, though with Betsey away, Hamilton’s home became their favorite trysting place. Their affair continued for some time, even after Maria broke the news that her miscreant husband had returned and the couple had reconciled. She also divulged for the first time that James Reynolds had profited handsomely by speculating in government securities. The magic elixir that led to his success, she added, had been inside information peddled by the assistant secretary of treasury, William Duer. The supposedly worldly Hamilton could not see the trap he was heading into, or perhaps his carnal desires overwhelmed his good sense. Persuading himself that Maria had a “real fondness” for him, Hamilton, the master of intrigue, had fallen into the snares of a consummate grifter.
Throughout the summer, Hamilton wrote his “beloved Betsey,” telling her, “I cannot be happy without you.” Stoically, he awaited his wife, he wrote, “with all the patience I can … for your return.” He told Betsey that he was in “good health & only want you with me,” but he advised her “not to precipitate your return,” as the “native air” in Albany was superior to the unwholesome heat of the city. He could hardly wait to behold “that sweet bloom in your looks,” he wrote a few weeks later, but added that his “extreme anxiety” for her health prompted him to beseech his wife to stay on in Albany at bit longer.41
In September, after a two-month absence, Betsey and the children returned home. Hamilton continued his extramarital affair, simply meeting Maria at her apartment when her husband was elsewhere. In December, Maria confided that her husband had learned of their affair. Two days later, James Reynolds confronted Hamilton and demanded “satisfaction.” He wanted one thousand dollars. If he did not receive it, Betsey and the world would learn of Hamilton’s affair with Maria. Hamilton paid the hush money. Yet, incredibly, he continued his relationship with Maria, and for five additional months he made more and more blackmail payments. All the while, Betsey was pregnant with their fifth child. Reynolds made his final stab at extortion in August 1792, but by then Hamilton had at last quit seeing Maria and refused to make further payments. The blackmail ended, at least for a time.
