He opposed American entanglement with the succession of unstable French Revolutionary governments and advocated in support of the Jay Treaty under which the U.S. resumed friendly trade relations with the British Empire.

[20] James Hamilton later abandoned Rachel Lavien and their two sons, ostensively to "spar[e] [her] a charge of bigamy...after finding out that her first husband intend[ed] to divorce her under Danish law on grounds of adultery and desertion.

Biographer Ron Chernow found the letter astounding because "for all its bombastic excesses, it does seem wondrous [that a] self-educated clerk could write with such verve and gusto" and that a teenage boy produced an apocalyptic "fire-and-brimstone sermon" viewing the hurricane as a "divine rebuke to human vanity and pomposity.

[30][31] Later that year, in preparation for college, Hamilton began to fill gaps in his education at the Elizabethtown Academy, a preparatory school run by Francis Barber in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

[45] Under fire from HMS Asia, and coordinating with Hercules Mulligan and the Sons of Liberty, he led his newly renamed unit the "Hearts of Oak" on a successful raid for British cannons in the Battery.

[52] Washington believed that "Aides de camp are persons in whom entire confidence must be placed and it requires men of abilities to execute the duties with propriety and dispatch.

His letters to the Marquis de Lafayette[61] and to John Laurens, employing the sentimental literary conventions of the late 18th century and alluding to Greek history and mythology,[62] have been read by Jonathan Ned Katz as revelatory of a homosocial or even homosexual relationship.

[63] Biographer Gregory D. Massey amongst others, by contrast, dismisses all such speculation as unsubstantiated, describing their friendship as purely platonic camaraderie instead and placing their correspondence in the context of the flowery diction of the time.

During the war, and for some time after, Congress obtained what funds it could from subsidies from the King of France, European loans, and aid requested from the several states, which were often unable or unwilling to contribute.

[74] An amendment to the Articles had been proposed by Thomas Burke, in February 1781, to give Congress the power to collect a five percent impost, or duty on all imports, but this required ratification by all states; securing its passage as law proved impossible after it was rejected by Rhode Island in November 1782.

In the same month, Congress passed a new measure for a 25-year impost—which Hamilton voted against[85]—that again required the consent of all the states; it also approved a commutation of the officers' pensions to five years of full pay.

[91] As a member of the legislature of New York, Hamilton argued forcefully and at length in favor of a bill to recognize the sovereignty of the State of Vermont, against numerous objections to its constitutionality and policy.

But by making the executive subject to impeachment, the term 'monarchy' cannot apply ..."[101] In his notes of the convention, Madison interpreted Hamilton's proposal as claiming power for the "rich and well born".

[115][96]: 244–245 In the report, Hamilton felt that the securities should be paid at full value to their legitimate owners, including those who took the financial risk of buying government bonds that most experts thought would never be redeemed.

The process of attempting to track down the original bondholders along with the government showing discrimination among the classes of holders if the war veterans were to be compensated also weighed in as factors for Hamilton.

[46]: 202–203  In response to the objection of the clause, Hamilton stated that "Necessary often means no more than needful, requisite, incidental, useful, or conductive to", and the bank was a "convenient species of medium in which [taxes] are to be paid.

[132] In response, Hamilton proposed to Congress to enact a naval police force called revenue cutters in order to patrol the waters and assist the custom collectors with confiscating contraband.

On July 4, 1792, the society directors met Philip Schuyler at Abraham Godwin's hotel on the Passaic River, where they led a tour prospecting the area for the national manufactory.

According to Hamilton's account Maria approached him at his house in Philadelphia, claiming that her husband James Reynolds was abusive and had abandoned her, and she wished to return to her relatives in New York but lacked the means.

[96]: 366–369  Hamilton recorded her address and subsequently delivered $30 personally to her boarding house, where she led him into her bedroom and "Some conversation ensued from which it was quickly apparent that other than pecuniary consolation would be acceptable".

Clingman was released on bail and relayed information to Democratic-Republican congressman James Monroe that Reynolds had evidence incriminating Hamilton in illicit activity as Treasury Secretary.

[188] To fund this army, Hamilton wrote regularly to Oliver Wolcott Jr., his successor at the treasury, Representative William Loughton Smith, and U.S. senator Theodore Sedgwick.

Jay, who had resigned from the Supreme Court to be governor of New York, wrote on the back of a letter, "Proposing a measure for party purposes which it would not become me to adopt," and declined to reply.

Accounts also agree that Burr became roused when Hamilton, again uncharacteristically, sang a favorite song, which recent scholarship indicates that it was "How Stands the Glass Around", an anthem sung by military troops about fighting and dying in war.

[212] After the seconds had measured the paces Hamilton, according to both William P. Van Ness and Burr, raised his pistol "as if to try the light" and had to wear his glasses to prevent his vision from being obscured.

[221] After final visits from his family, friends, and considerable suffering for at least 31 hours, Hamilton died at two o'clock the following afternoon, July 12, 1804,[219][222] at Bayard's home just below the present Gansevoort Street.

[229]: 10 According to Gordon Wood, Hamilton dropped his youthful religiosity during the Revolution and became "a conventional liberal with theistic inclinations who was an irregular churchgoer at best"; however, he returned to religion in his last years.

Like Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson, Hamilton had probably fallen under the sway of deism, which sought to substitute reason for revelation and dropped the notion of an active God who intervened in human affairs.

"[234] He believed that Jewish achievement was a result of divine providence: The state and progress of the Jews, from their earliest history to the present time, has been so entirely out of the ordinary course of human affairs, is it not then a fair conclusion, that the cause also is an extraordinary one—in other words, that it is the effect of some great providential plan?

"[259] Unlike contemporaries such as Jefferson, who considered the removal of freed slaves to a western territory, West Indies, or Africa to be essential to any plan for emancipation, Hamilton pressed for abolition without such provisions.