14
Paperwork
The Hamilton Town House
New York, New York
January 1784
It wasn’t until Eliza had to run a household on her own that she realized how much she took for granted at the Pastures. As it was, Rowena was serving as cook, charwoman, and lady’s maid until they were in a position to hire a full staff. Meanwhile, young Simon tried to fill in for the rest. The delay was partly based on a shortage of available servants in the recently liberated city, partly on a shortage of funds. Alex’s law practice in Albany had been busy but not exactly lucrative, with many of his clients paying him in kind—smoked hams, canned fruit, and even the occasional live poultry—rather than in cash. Most of what they had to hand had been spent in securing a fine house in the “right” part of town, which both agreed was necessary if they were going to make a good impression in their new city. Everything else was happening on credit, which the Schuyler name, and Alex’s wartime fame, helped secure.
“By the by, how is Rowena working out?” Alex asked on their second Monday in the city as they made their way to the hallway together after breakfast. He was headed out to the office, paper-stuffed satchel in hand.
His voice was careful. While they were both sympathetic to the loyalists’ circumstances, it was quite another thing to have one in such close proximity as a servant in their home. Eliza had been wary of hiring the woman, a widow in her early forties whose husband had perished in the war—fighting for the British. Unlike many other loyalists, however—including her former employers—Rowena had not abandoned New York after the British surrender. She openly admitted that she preferred being part of the world’s mightiest empire, but England itself was a country she had never visited and had no desire to live in.
Rowena had been born in New York, she said, and intended to die here—to be buried next to her husband in Trinity Cemetery. But her loyalist past had not endeared her to the newly minted Americans who were either returning to New York or taking advantage of (relatively) inexpensive real estate to move here, which was the only way Alex and Eliza had been able to afford her. It had taken all the courage of their convictions, however, to take on someone who had, until a few weeks ago, been an enemy of the state, for all intents and purposes. Still, Eliza said finally, if a privileged couple like the Hamiltons could not practice what they preached, how on earth could they expect less fortunate Americans to do the same?
“I must say,” Eliza said, helping Alex with his coat, “she is quite pleasant. Aside from brief trips away from home, this is the first time I have ever been waited on by anyone other than the family servants, many of whom have been with us since before my birth. But Rowena has such an easy manner about her that it has been quite comfortable. I know she is a cook by training, but she is such a gifted lady’s maid that I am tempted to offer her that position when we are able to hire more servants.”
“I don’t know,” Alex said as he opened the front door and buttoned his jacket against the bright, cold December day. “The brisket she served yesterday was amazingly succulent, and those dumplings she made for breakfast? I could eat them thrice a day.”
“Mmmm,” Eliza said in agreement. “I asked her where she managed to find nutmeg and allspice in a city that hasn’t seen regular cargo ships in more than half a decade. She told me she had a network of spies that would have won General Carlton the war if he’d had access to them. I thought that was a bit cheeky of her, but if it will keep her pantry well stocked, I am more than willing to overlook a little impertinence.”
“Hear, hear,” Alex said with an arched eyebrow. “As long as she’s not sending spy messages, keep the dumplings coming.” Then he kissed his pretty wife on the nose and headed off to the office.
ALEX HAD NO clients that first day at work—he had not expected any—but there were dozens of letters that he’d been neglecting for the past fortnight, including several from the Continental Congress and the state legislature in Albany, and though the replies were largely automatic, they were still time-consuming to answer, especially in the absence of a secretary or amanuensis. Although he had always known his value to General Washington as an assistant, he had attributed his worth to his mind—his fluency in French, his skill with bills of lading picked up on the docks of St. Croix, his ability to master currency exchanges and interest rates and, well, math.
Now he was realizing that the mere act of writing General Washington’s letters was what actually ate up the bulk of his time. But there was simply no way he could employ an assistant now. You could pay a mercer or carpenter on credit, you could compensate a servant with housing and food, but an employee required money in order to pay his own bills, and money—cold, hard cash—as opposed to the nearly bottomless credit that came with Eliza’s patrician lineage and Alex’s vaunted service to General Washington. Cash was the one thing the Hamiltons did not have.
In point of fact, no one in the newly created country had much money. Or, rather, they had too much money, but nearly all of it was worthless. Despite the United States and England being officially distinct entities, the British shilling remained in active circulation, as England’s economy was far more stable than America’s. The Continental Congress had issued its own dollars—“Continentals”—but these were nearly valueless, owing to Congress’s inability to collect taxes or duties, and were far less common than the currency issued by all thirteen of the new states, some in dollars, others in shillings. But despite the similarity in names, a Georgia shilling was worth three times a Delaware shilling, and a New Hampshire dollar could buy ten issued by the Congress. It was a vexing situation, but exactly the kind of problem that Alex’s mathematical mind liked to work on. If only there were time!
And while he did not want to admit it to himself, he was keen on securing the sort of lifestyle for his wife that she had been accustomed to all her life. He had warned her against her future as a poor man’s wife, but he did not want that future to be true. Alex remembered the look on her face when he had chosen the best glasses and china for their domicile. She will never want for anything, he promised himself. Even if I have to work myself to the bone.
His hours were consumed by letter writing, and whatever time left over was given to the review of countless new laws. For the past seven years, the thirteen states had been too busy fighting the British to worry much about the humdrum details of government. Now that the peace had been secured, however, they were making up for lost time. In the absence of a strong central government, each state was adopting its own legal systems just as it did its own currency, or perhaps adapting is the more apt word, since most of them were borrowed in large chunks from various Old World law codes. This was the new system’s only saving grace, since legislatures across the country were literally passing hundreds of laws in a single motion, and it would have been impossible to keep up with them otherwise.
Alex had studied the old codes both at King’s College before the war and during his apprenticeship in Albany the last two years, but there were hundreds of minor changes to apprise himself of, as well as the many wholly original laws that had been added to them. It was dull work, but it had to be done if he was to make an appearance in court, let alone make a living to pay all those invoices that had made their way from his satchel to his new desk (also bought on credit). Being a regimented lover of order, he might even have enjoyed sifting through the minutiae of the changes, if all the while he was poring over the pages he had not been aware that he had someone beautiful waiting for him at home. Somehow, “paperwork” had been left out of their wedding vows, but Alex was realizing just how much a part it really was . . .
Most of the new laws were fairly routine and, if scattershot, unobjectionable. However, there were a sizable number that concerned the new country’s relationship with the substantial portion of its population—by some accounts as much as a quarter of the country—that had remained faithful to King George during the war. Perhaps the only place the loyalists weren’t represented was in the victorious American legislatures, who had purged them from their ranks, and now wanted to punish their defeated co-citizens for their misplaced allegiances. A few were executed as traitors and a few more were imprisoned for collusion, but most were simply fined or else had their property seized, and still more were denied the right to work in their chosen professions.
Alex wasn’t surprised by the vindictiveness—war was a vicious thing, and it had brought out the worst in the British, as their prison boats testified—but he was still dismayed by it. The United States and its territories was a vast country, larger than any of the nations of the Old World, save Russia, but its population was relatively tiny. Nearly all of its people clustered along the eastern seaboard, leaving large swaths of territory virtually uninhabited and thus undefended. There was no way such a nation could survive if three-quarters of its population was in conflict with the other quarter. They would have to find common cause and recognize that, for better or worse, they were all Americans now. As Benjamin Franklin had said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence: “We must, indeed, all hang together, or we will most assuredly all hang separately.”
And so, one day’s work stretched into two, three, then the whole week. Meanwhile the office remained devoid of clients. Though Alex had written letters to several dozen friends, acquaintances, friends of friends, and a few total strangers announcing his presence in New York, his door remained silent and his mailbox empty save correspondence related to the formation of the new government.
And because he didn’t yet have a secretary, he was forced to deliver most of his notes himself. Having left the horse Laurens had given him at the Pastures (the cost of stabling it in the city was nearly equal to the rent on his house!), he had to rely on the city’s hansom cabs or simply hoof it.
The weather, though quite cold, was not unbearable, and it wouldn’t have been unpleasant work if it hadn’t been so time-consuming, and if the bills had not continued to pile up, and if any of it had borne pay dirt.
Alex was adamant that they would not resort to Eliza’s suggestion that they write her father for a loan or two. But after two weeks, Alex began to fear that he was going to have to start haunting the courts like that breed of dishonorable attorney who preys on hapless individuals who have inadvertently run afoul of the law, or fallen victim to unscrupulous merchants or landowners, only to forfeit still more of their possessions as payment to attorneys defending them from charges that never should have brought in the first place.
Sometime during the third week, however, just after the noon hour (Alex knew because he had only a moment ago pulled his watch from his pocket, wondering if it was too early to pop down to the tavern on the corner of Stone and Broad streets), there came the sound of a knock at the door of his outer office.
Lacking an assistant, Alex rose from behind his desk to answer it himself. If he was surprised that someone had knocked at his door, he was still more shocked to find that the person on the far side of the portal was a woman, not much older than his Eliza. Both the woman’s coat and bonnet, Alex noted, were of fine wool, but well-worn, and told a story of a prosperous person fallen on hard times. When Alex saw the black satin mourning ribbon affixed to the sleeve of the woman’s coat, he instantly understood. The young woman was a widow, her husband no doubt a casualty of the recent war.
“Good afternoon,” he said, extending his hand. “May I help you?”
“Good afternoon,” the woman said in a formal, though not unfriendly, tone. Her handshake was similarly peremptory. “I was told these are the law offices of Mr. Alexander Hamilton?”
Alex felt a proud smile flicker across his face. It was the first time he had heard the words said out loud. “Indeed, they are, Mrs.—”
“Childress,” the woman said. “If he is not too busy, I wonder if I might meet with him.”
Alex laughed. “He’s not too busy at all. Please, do come in,” he continued, stepping aside and gesturing her into the office. “May I take your coat?”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Childress said, removing her coat. Alex hung it up on a peg, then led the woman into his office, where he was mortified to realize that there was no second chair. How had this not occurred to him in more than two weeks of occupancy? He scurried behind the desk and pulled his own chair out and offered it to Mrs. Childress.
If his new client—he hoped she was a client, and not a woman looking for work—noticed the irregularity, it didn’t show on her composed, though somewhat tense, face. She sat down and stared straight ahead, while Alex, after weighing his options, decided to half lean, half sit on the corner of his desk, so that he would not be standing right next to her, forcing her to crane her neck up at him.
After several seconds of silence, Mrs. Childress said, “Could I have a glass of water?” She didn’t look at him when she spoke.
“Ah, of course,” Alex said, somewhat nervously. At least there was an ewer in the room, which he had topped off from the street well when he arrived that morning. Only one cup, though. He discreetly wiped it clean, filled it, and handed it to her. She took it in one of her black-gloved hands, but didn’t drink from it, instead placing it on the corner of his desk.
After several more seconds of silence, Alex cleared his throat. “If I may ask, what brings you here today?”
“Oh, if you don’t mind,” Mrs. Childress said in somewhat confused voice—as if she were embarrassed almost—“I would prefer to speak to Mr. Hamilton directly.”
Alex felt his cheeks color, and the woman’s did in turn.
“Unless there is another Mr. Hamilton who occupies these offices when I am out, then I am he.”
“Oh!” she said, immediately realizing her error. “When you opened the door, I thought you were the servant!”
Alex smiled sardonically. “Please think of me as your servant, Mrs. Childress. One who has yet to procure a secretary to open his doors and fill his glass.”
“It’s not that,” Childress said. “It’s just, well—you are so young!”
Alex felt his cheeks go redder. “Revolution has a way of foreshortening life,” he said, but even as the words left his mouth, his eyes alit on the dark attire shrouding her frame and he realized his comment must have sounded glib to her.
But she seemed to take it sympathetically. Her eyes followed his, and one of her gloved hands reached up to touch the ribbon.
“I do know that,” she said in a distant voice. “I have worn this ribbon so long now that I almost forget it’s there. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of my beloved Jonathan.”
Alex’s mouth opened to murmur a condolence even before she finished speaking, but at the name “Jonathan—” His voice caught in his throat. Ah, Laurens! he thought. He wished he could say that he thought of him every day, but the truth is he had pushed his dearest friend from his mind almost as soon as he heard of his death, lest he be overcome with grief. Whoever said war is glorious is a lying fool.
“I am so sorry for your loss,” Alex said when he had recovered himself. “Is the legal matter that brought you here perhaps related to your husband’s passing?”
“Legal?” Childress said in a bemused voice. “Well, I suppose it is a legal question, though to me it seems an act of straightforward perfidy.” She summoned a deep breath. “My husband that was, Mr. Jonathan Childress, arrived in this country from Liverpool as a teenager. He was indentured to Mr. Philip Ruston, who operated a prosperous alehouse on Water Street, and after completing his seven-years term of service had formed such a bond with his master that he stayed on as brew master and, eventually, partner. When, in 1769, Mr. Ruston prepared to depart this world without any natural-born heirs, he named my husband the beneficiary of his estate, and so he became owner of the enterprise. My husband was known to be a gifted brewer, so much so that in addition to brewing all the lagers, ales, and stouts for his own establishment, which he continued to call Ruston’s in honor of his benefactor, he also supplied the needs of eight other inns in the city. He was on his way to becoming a rich man indeed when independence was declared, and—”
Childress paused, less for breath than to calm herself. Alex indicated the cup on his desk, and she took a small sip.
“My husband loved this city and this country. He considered them his home. He married me, who was born right here in Westport, Connecticut, and bore our son and daughter with the expectation that, like a more modest version of the Livingstons of New York State and the Carters of Virginia, the Childress name would become synonymous with the American upper classes. Yet to Jonathan, America was always an extension of England, which had made him and, he felt, made also this country. When his king called on him to defend the union of the mother country with its far-flung colonies, he did so willingly, and when he was taken home on the field of battle, I do not believe he regretted his choice. Though I have no doubt he thought sadly of the family from which he was being taken.
“I confess that my loyalty to one side or the other was never as pronounced as was my husband’s. I wanted peace far more than I wanted to be a British subject, or an American one. While all this was happening, I oversaw the business my husband built with, if I may say so myself, a fair degree of skill. Despite the imposition of the British occupation and the grudging assistance of male employees who did not at first enjoy being subordinate to an employer of the female persuasion, I expanded the number of establishments to which we sold, raising it from eight to twelve over the past seven years.
“Of course, our clientele were much diminished as many patriots had fled the city, but so thirsty were they and their British occupiers that I was compelled to purchase a building on Baxter Street and transform it into a brewery. I outfitted it with the newest vats and stills so that I could meet demand and maintain the quality of our product, a task at which I was so successful that Ruston’s Ale became well-known as one of the very finest in the city, and indeed in the colony.”
“You mean state, don’t you,” Alex prodded gently.
Mrs. Childress smiled ruefully, and though tinged by sadness, the smile still lit up her face. “I suppose I do.”
He cleared his throat.
“It would seem that you survived the war with less privation than did many,” he said, yet even as he spoke his eyes were taking in once again the frayed edges of the once-fine mourning gown, echoed in the worry lines that framed her mouth and eyes. From her story she was a wealthy, even unctuous, woman, but her dress and face were at odds with her words.
Mrs. Childress stared at Alex blankly. “Money cannot buy a husband or father,” she said finally.
Alex struggled to keep his face impassive. “It cannot,” he concurred. “So, tell me: Is the issue something to do with your late husband’s estate?”
A short laugh erupted from Mrs. Childress’s mouth. “Issue? Yes, that’s what it is, all right.” She sighed as if she could not believe what she was about to say. “Though it has almost nothing to do with my husband’s affairs, and everything to do with mine. It would seem that the Baxter Street building I purchased had been owned by a patriot of the name Le Beau, who was away at war when General Howe drove General Washington from Manhattan Island in 1777, though I only learned his name much later. Fearing retribution, the remaining Le Beaus fled the city. They had been gone for some three years when I purchased the property, and, as I said, I knew none of this. The transaction was handled by a British colonel by the name of Lewiston, and the sale and deeds were reviewed and approved by a military tribunal. I had no reason to believe that this was in any way unusual, let alone illegal.
“Nevertheless, when the British left the city and the Americans entered, my building was seized from me by the Continental army, who promptly ransacked it, draining and destroying every last cask on the premises, and removing every piece of distillery equipment to who knows where. The building itself was returned to the heirs of Mr. Le Beau, who, like my husband, met his end in the war. I say ‘returned,’ though that is not quite accurate, for Mr. Le Beau’s family had relocated to a small village in Pennsylvania called Harrisburg and have shown no desire to return to New York.
“I sank all of my family’s fortunes in the purchase and outfitting of the property, Mr. Hamilton, and now find myself deprived not only of my investment but of the means to make my living. Even the original inn on Water Street that my husband received from his employer threatens to be taken from me, as it was collateral on the loan with which I purchased the Baxter Street property. Unless some redress is done to me, my children and I are ruined. My creditors shall turn us out of our house, and likely throw me into debtors’ prison to boot. In short,” she said, turning to Alex with the first trace of emotion in her voice, “I am penniless, unless you can save me.”
As she’d spoken, Alex’s mind had turned over all the new laws he’d reviewed in the past weeks. As he understood them, the sale of Le Beaus’ building to Mrs. Childress fell into a gray area. If it had been directly seized from them by the British, any subsequent sale would have been invalidated. But since the Le Beaus appeared to have voluntarily abandoned their property, the British, as the government of good standing, had simply disposed of the building as they saw fit. No doubt George Clinton’s courts would take a skeptical view of such an interpretation, however, and Alex knew there was very little chance he would be able to recover the property for Mrs. Childress.
But if the court ruled the sale invalid, then by their own logic, Mrs. Childress’s loan would also be rendered null and void, which would at least clear her of her debts. And if he could recover the costs of the stolen ale and distillery equipment, he might be able to put a little cash into her pocket, which might enable her to keep her business solvent—and out of prison. But getting the Continental army to pay a loyalist what amounted to war reparations was a tall order indeed, and one that seemed likely to lose Alex more friends than it would gain him. It was not exactly the ideal first case for a young lawyer.
He peered down at Mrs. Childress, who was looking up at him with anxious eyes. He opened his mouth to respond, but she spoke over him.
“I know that you fought on the opposite side of the war from my husband,” she said. “I know that you served with General Washington himself, and that you distinguished yourself at the Battle at Monmouth, where my Jonathan fell, and at Yorktown as well. But I’ve also heard that you have argued eloquently and passionately for reconciliation, and even gone so far as to challenge some of the laws that penalize those of us who supported the losing side. I am not wise in the ways of the world, but I know that only a man like you—a known patriot and hero—has any hope of convincing an American jury that a wrong has been done to me. But honesty compels me to tell you that I cannot pay unless you are victorious in your suit.” Another small smile cracked her sad face, offering a glimpse of the vibrant woman she must have been before war ripped her life asunder. “I can, however, give you all the beer you can drink.”
Alex wondered if he were making a mistake even as he replied. “As it happens,” he said with a grin, “I have quite a taste for beer.”