Richardson’s celebrated heroine proclaimed, in hundreds of letters after a pattern, sentiments along the lines of “Never was poor Creature so unhappy, and so barbarously used, as poor Pamela! . . . To whom but you can I vent my Griefs, and keep my poor Heart from bursting! Wicked, wicked Man!—I have no Patience left me!—But yet, don’t be frighted—for—I hope—I hope, I am honest!?”
In the spirit of Pamela, Maria Reynolds’s letters were full of the same sentiments. “Alas my friend,” went one epistle,
want want what [I] can ask for but peace wich you alone can restore to my tortured bosom and do My dear Col hamilton on my kneese Let me Intreatee you to reade my Letter. . . . oh I am disstressed more than I can tell My heart Is ready to burst and my tears wich once could flow with Ease are now denied me Could I only weep I would thank heaven.
Mrs. Reynolds could have simply been a fan of novels. But in that case, why was her spelling so unusual? Did James Monroe note the curious fact that Maria could spell difficult words correctly but sometimes misspelled the easiest of words in ways that did not seem phonetic, and that she did even that erratically?
But perhaps what moved him most was the simple fact that Maria Reynolds steadfastly and tearfully denied having any affair with Alexander. Those were not the words of a woman wildly in love. And a woman wildly in love was what the letters suggested. James Monroe mulled and considered. Then he took out his notes and added another sentence. Maria Reynolds, in his view, “was innocent and . . . the defense was an imposition.”
The only question now was whether Alexander Hamilton had forged the letters of Maria Reynolds and fabricated the story of his infidelity in order to divert attention from a financial scandal. Monroe thought he also already knew the answer.
He took the notes and folded them carefully away. His thoughts were his own, for the moment. It was wisest to see how things transpired.
But the congressmen talked. The story of Hamilton’s raunchy affair and blackmail was just too interesting to keep entirely secret. All of Congress knew the rumors that Alexander had confessed to infidelity before Christmas. That included the men in Eliza’s family. On Tuesday, as the fallout spread, Alexander wrote to John Jay, the husband of Eliza’s cousin Sarah, “Tis the malicious intrigues to stab me in the dark, against which I am too often obliged to guard myself, that distract and harrass me to a point, which rendering my situation scarcely tolerable.” Eliza’s father and her brother-in-law Stephen Van Rensselaer inevitably heard the rumors, and so, possibly, did her mother and Peggy. Along with William Duer and John Church, they were all in the thick of the financial speculation markets and at risk from the financial scandal that threatened to consume Alexander. If Alexander went down, the finances of a number of men in Eliza’s extended family would be affected.
None of these men would have shared the information with Eliza directly, however. To do so would have been a breach of gentlemanly conduct. And if Peggy or her mother learned of it, they would never have spoken of the scandal. But the story quickly reached the fashionable ladies’ circles in New York and Philadelphia. It unleashed a torrent of gossip, in which Alexander was now charged with other sexual improprieties. It was Eliza, though, who bore the brunt of the snide, sideways comments.
Alexander was accused of “designs . . . on the chastity of Mrs. [Tobias] Lear,” the wife of President Washington’s personal secretary, and of a fit of passion for “a Daughter of Judge [Benjamin] Chew.” The rumor spread—still repeated years later by no less than John Adams—that Eliza’s cousin Sarah Livingston Jay told a story of how Alexander
contrived to get into Mrs. Jay’s bedchamber. On meeting her, he seized and caressed her, and entreated her compliance with his desires—That she indignantly broke away from him, and fled, with a complaint . . . to her husband—That Mr. Jay considered Hamilton as of importance in a political view, and suppressed his resentment, but exhorted his wife to beware of an exposure to him for the future.
Sarah Jay reportedly repeated the story in a letter to one of her sisters—and the choices there were either Eliza’s cousin Susan or her oldest friend and confidante, cousin Kitty. Eliza sat politely in Sarah’s front parlor on social calls, suffering in silence.
What did Eliza know about the truth and when did she know it? How much did she know in 1792 and how much did she learn later, when the story broke in the papers? There is no way to answer that question for certain, in large part because Eliza and her family destroyed the letters that held the answers.
What do survive of the record, however, are letters that point to the tone and tenor of Eliza and Alexander’s marriage. In the summer of 1791 and into 1792, Eliza was deeply and uncharacteristically anxious. She knew a storm was brewing. She knew there were charges that Alexander was abusing his position in the Treasury, and she knew that the men in her family were gamblers in the financial market. She was the household treasurer, and letters from her father and her brothers all point to Alexander trusting Eliza throughout their marriage not only with the secret of his anonymous political writings but with complex financial information. He praised above all her “unpretending good sense,” and good sense was sorely needed.
At some point, Eliza became aware of charges that the letters and the affair with Maria Reynolds were fabrications. At the very latest, she learned it in the press in 1799, when the story became public.
But all the unspoken signs in Alexander and Eliza’s letters and in the shape of their marriage point to Eliza learning of the storm breaking over them from Alexander and probably as early as December of 1792, on the afternoon he was at home forging the letters.
It is all too easy to imagine the scenario. Alexander was distressed. Eliza wanted to know what was happening. After James Reynolds slipped away early that December morning, having agreed to Alexander’s cover story and disappearing, did Alexander make his bitter confession? Since the first days of the courtship, he had worried: would Eliza love him as a poor man? He did not doubt Eliza, but it was a matter of pride for a man. He wanted success; he wanted an easy life for Eliza and the children. He had wanted to help, too, the husbands of Angelica and Peggy, Eliza’s father, her family. He had foolishly gambled. Eliza’s greatest fear was not the loss of face; it was debtors’ prison.
So Alexander had manufactured a solution.
Alexander said to Eliza in that early love letter, “It remains with you to show whether you are a Roman or an American wife,” and it was the Roman wife whom Alexander was praising. He had asked Eliza whether she was prepared for the self-sacrifice and loyalty that building a republic would require. He asked that loyalty of her now. But Alexander never believed that story would become public. He had, as yet, no idea what he was asking, and neither did Eliza. He was confident that the story would remain private talk among the congressmen. That was the code of conduct for gentlemen. There would be a bit of gossip for a season, but people already said he was a scoundrel. It was hard to see the damage. Would Eliza be able to endure it?
Eliza never hesitated. Here was a role for her of national importance. If a scandal engulfed Alexander and the Treasury, it would not only bring disgrace and private sorrow, it would jeopardize the Federalists and the Washington administration. And here was the moment for the Roman wife to prove herself. Here was the moment for the nut-brown maid to live the refrain that said, if “you were with enemies day and night, I would withstand . . . and you to save . . . for, in my mind, of all mankind I love but you alone.”
Yes, she would show him. Eliza’s trust in Alexander and in their marriage was unshakable. He asked. She promised. She would take the secret to the grave with her.
Eliza Hamilton was not a woman who broke her promises.
CHAPTER 13
Reprieve, 1793–95
Alexander’s ruse worked.
By the spring of 1793, the storm had passed. The congressmen had come and seen what Alexander said were Maria Reynolds’s love letters, and, while the legislators had their doubts, the ong
oing investigation shifted into a lower register. The gossip dwindled. Alexander’s reputation had been tainted by the whispers among the men of Congress and such of the political wives who heard it, but theirs was a small, closed circle. Eliza bore the hints and sympathy stoically. Alexander was tender and solicitous of how much the sacrifice wore on her, and their marriage was stronger and closer than ever.
Maria Reynolds, stung by her husband’s betrayal, hired, of all people, Aaron Burr as an attorney and filed for divorce from James Reynolds. Alexander’s political enemies quietly tracked those proceedings and tucked away damaging bits of information. As one watching the divorce appeal to the courts noted, “Clingman [reports] that Mrs. Reynolds has obtained a divorce from her husband, in consequence of his intrigue with Hamilton to her prejudice, and that Colonel Burr obtained it for her: he adds too, that she is thoroughly disposed to attest all she knows of the connection between Hamilton and Reynolds.” Aaron Burr’s role in keeping the scandal and danger alive would not endear him to Alexander.
Eliza didn’t go out as much anymore, disdaining high society more than ever. Martha Washington, observing this in her usual eagle-eyed way, invited Eliza out on her social rounds under her considerable protection. Martha certainly knew the gossip that was circulating and had no reason to doubt that Alexander was cheating on his wife. Martha felt protective of Eliza. “Mrs Washington sends her Love to Mrs Hamilton,” Martha wrote in one early morning note. “She intends visiting Mrs Peters this fore noon, if it is agreeable to Mrs H to go with her she will be happy to have company.” When Alexander fell ill, Martha Washington sent over some special bottles of Madeira as a get-well present, and wrote to Eliza, “I am truly glad my Dear Madam to hear Colo. Hamilton is better to day. You have my prayers and warmest wishes for his recovery. I hope you take care of yourself as you know it is necessary for your family,” signing off, “your Very affectionate Friend M. Washington.”
Eliza also relied, as always, on Angelica. In chatty letters, the sisters swapped news of family weddings, fashion, and politics. Their youngest brother, Rensselaer, married Elizabeth Ten Broeck, the daughter of her father’s oldest friend, and Angelica teasingly wrote of their new sister, “I pray she may be handsome, for the sake of my nephews and niece who are to be Schuylers.” Angelica was less lighthearted about the political news from Europe. The French Revolution, under way since 1789, was giving way to the violence of the radical “Jacobins” and to the executions known as “the Terror.” The violence threatened to draw the Americans into the conflict: ten thousand people marched in the streets of Philadelphia, insisting that President Washington “declare war in favor of the French Revolution.”
Eliza would never have trusted any secret to a letter. Letters passed between too many hands, over too many miles, to ever be considered private. But Angelica heard news of the attacks on Alexander in London all the same, and wrote to Eliza, “I hear the Jacobins have made a attack at home, but that [Alexander] defended himself. . . . Do pray tell me all these affairs.” John Church knew from Jeremiah Wadsworth and Gouverneur Morris the gossip and at least part of the backstory. It is not impossible, given the odd involvement of Jeremiah Wadsworth in the efforts to hush up James Reynolds, that John Church was one of the people Alexander was protecting. John may not have said as much to Angelica, but he certainly would have shared with her the rumors of a liaison. Eliza confessed weariness to her sister, but all she would say further was that she blamed Alexander’s political enemies for everything.
In public, Eliza stood fast. In private, she was out of patience with the entire political situation and with the risks to Alexander’s reputation and to their family. Behind the scenes, Eliza pressed Alexander. It was time to end this. It was too dangerous, too burdensome, Eliza insisted. Although the gossip was beginning to abate by springtime, the investigation in Congress simmered and widened to include complex financial investigations into Alexander’s dealings. The matter of James Reynolds, which until now had remained within Congress, threatened to reignite at any moment, and Eliza could see only one path to safety. Alexander needed to walk away. That was their bargain.
And Alexander did that springtime. In June, he offered George Washington his resignation from the Treasury, effective from the end of the term in Congress, so that it did not appear he was trying to sidestep the ongoing investigation. “Considerations, relative both to the public Interest and to my own delicacy, have brought me,” he wrote, “after mature reflection, to a resolution to resign the office. . . . I am desirous of giving an opportunity, while I shall be still in office, to the revival and more deliberate prosecution of the Inquiry into my conduct.” The president would be sorry to see Alexander go, but he and the first lady understood the pressures on the family.
As Angelica correctly intuited when the news reached London,
It has been whispered to me that my friend Alexander means to quit his employment of Secretary. The country will lose one of her best friends, and you, my Dear Eliza, will be the only person to whom this change can be either necessary or agreeable. I am inclined to believe that it is your influence induces him to withdraw from public life. That so good a wife, so tender a mother, should be so bad a patriot! is wonderful!
Eliza smiled when she read the letter. But she was not sorry.
The summer of 1793 was unbearably hot and humid even by Philadelphia standards, and low-lying areas outside the city turned muddy as the water tables fell in a long dry period. The mosquitoes were fierce, and bred in rainwater barrels and pools, and the stench of food rotting on the wharves in the holds of ships that could not be unloaded fast enough mingled with the effluvia from the open sewer along Dock Creek and the carcasses of animals in shallow gullies.
Refugees were pouring into the city, fleeing the revolution in France and the slave uprising in the French colony at Haiti. The émigrés had Eliza’s keen sympathy. Many of them were aristocrats and wealthy planters, and some of them were known to her family from as early as the 1760s. Soon, the city of Philadelphia would be filled with refugees of another sort as well: orphans.
On August 19, the death of a man in the city named Peter Aston set off panic. He had been struck down with a raging fever, and, when his eyes and skin went jaundiced, there could be no question that the city would have to brace for the dreaded yellow fever. In the next few days, there were four or five more dead or dying. Then the number climbed to a dozen. The church bells tolled each passing, until the racket became universal and so distressing that the practice was suspended. “I have not seen a fever of so much malignity, so general,” wrote Dr. Benjamin Rush to a fellow physician. Within a week, “universal terror” was prevalent. Thousands of residents fled the city, causing traffic jams, lame horses, and more panic. When streets fell empty, those who remained locked their doors and hoped to ride out the infection. Of those who stayed, four thousand—ten percent of the city’s total population—perished. Unlike with the influenza or the malarial fevers that crept up from the docks, those who were struck down most fatally were not the elderly or the children. Those whom the fever hit the hardest were in their twenties, thirties, or forties, like Alexander and Eliza.
Eliza and Alexander, to escape the summer heat in Philadelphia, rented a small summer home two and a half miles outside the city, and hoped to avoid the pestilence there with the children. At first, the strategy appeared successful. Alexander carried on commuting into his office in the city for cabinet business, where he was still combating charges of financial corruption and speculation that now appeared to be popping up in all directions. He hesitated to tell Eliza that the inquiry was gaining steam again. She would worry.
His reticence meant that when the blow struck, Eliza did not see it coming.
Others were worrying now for Alexander. The investigation into his suspected speculation and insider trading was pulling in all sorts of testimony. At the end of August, a former aide-de-camp of Catherine Duer’s father wrote to Alexander, warning him, “Your enemie
s are at work upon Mr. Francis, who has been a clerk in the Treasury department. They give out that he is to make affidavits, criminating you in the highest degree, as to some money matters &ca. . . . I concluded to give you this intimation.”
Quickly following on the heels of this note came more charges, that Alexander had acted improperly in another financial transaction for their old friend from Morristown, Caty Greene, who had been reduced to penury after the death of Nathanael Greene thanks largely to the greedy machinations and predatory sexual pursuit of John Church’s former business partner, the undeniably sleazy Jeremiah Wadsworth. Once again, William Duer was smack in the middle of the problem. “As it is an affair of delicacy,” Alexander confessed in a letter to Caty in early September, “I will thank you to request some gentleman of the law to give form and precision to your narrative. You perceive that it is not in one way only that I am the object of unprincipled persecution.” He was reduced to asking old friends for sworn testimony to forestall new charges of corruption, as the determination of Alexander’s enemies to have him pilloried for misconduct became increasingly scattershot and openly partisan.
Toward the end of the first week of September, all that ceased to matter for the moment. Alexander felt a flush sweep over him and then the telltale chills of fever. George Washington wrote on September 6, saying, “With extreme concern I receive the expression of your apprehensions, that you are in the first stages of the prevailing fever.”
Eliza Hamilton: The Extraordinary Life and Times of the Wife of Alexander Hamilton Page 18
