The Whiskey Rebel

Ethan Saunders

Wearing tolerably clean clothes, washed in my basin and then dried by the fire, I slipped quietly down the stairs early the next morning. The sun had just come up, and if I could avoid the serving woman, I had no doubt I could escape the house without enduring awkward conversation with its inmates. The memory of my encounter with Mrs. Lavien still felt as raw and vulnerable as a new wound. It was not simply the shame of having been exposed, of having treated so shabbily my hosts’ kindness, it was the notion that these antics were somehow alien to me now. Something had changed. My new proximity to Cynthia Pearson’s life made my behavior unseemly even to myself, and Mrs. Lavien’s cruel words still rang in my ears.

My plan was a simple one: I would obtain a few coins from a careless gentleman on the street, take my breakfast in a tavern, and meet Leonidas as planned. When at drink, I can be clumsy, but that morning I moved as quietly as a cat on the hunt. No floorboards creaked under my weight, no stairs groaned at my descent. Even so, when I reached the ground floor, Mr. Lavien leaned forward in his chair in the sitting room. He saw my position-hands out for better balance, feet at sharp angles to test the stairs for weaknesses that would betray me-and met it with one of his thin, vaguely predatory smiles. I had accepted his hospitality, allowed him to feed me, serve me drink, introduce me to his family. I sent him out into the cold night to hunt down my slave. In return I had attempted to seduce his wife, and now he sat grinning at me, looking like a serpent before it lashes out at a cornered and frozen mouse.

“Shall we go take some breakfast?” he asked.

In a nearby tavern, crowded with laboring men in early morning silence, I sat next to Lavien at a poor table-too close to the door, too far from the fire. He ate buttered bread and pickled eggs. I made an attempt at some bread as well, but concentrated more upon the beer.

I took a deep drink. “I suppose you want to speak about the incident last night.”

“What, the one with my wife? What have you to say?”

I let out a sigh. “Look, I apologize for attempting to take liberties.”

He shrugged. “It is no more than I expected. Your reputation in such matters precedes you, and there was never any danger of your doing anything but becoming embarrassed, which I see has occurred.”

“You don’t care that I might have seduced your wife?”

“Oh, I would have cared about that. It is not what happened. You thought you might seduce my wife, and that is another matter, for in reality you could have achieved nothing.”

“You know that, do you?”

“I know my wife,” he said. “And I think I begin to know you well enough too. The sting of your disgrace years ago still hangs over you, so you look for new disgraces. But we can put a stop to that. When I prove to the world that your reputation was so unjustly injured, you will have a chance to begin your life anew.”

“I told you I do not want you looking into my past.”

“You did not say not to, only that you prefer the past to be left alone.”

“Then now I shall tell you not to.”

He studied me. Then at last he spoke. “Ah, I see.”

What could he see? What could he know? Perhaps he had heard fragments of the story, or perhaps Hamilton had told him all he knew, though Hamilton ’s version of events would be slanted and ill-informed. The short of it was that, in the weeks before Yorktown, Fleet and I had been stationed with Hamilton’s company and had just returned from making a series of runs between the main army and Philadelphia, visiting our Royalist contacts along the way. We had been sitting outside our tents, playing at cards, when an officer I had never before met, a major from Philadelphia, rode into our camp and demanded from Hamilton permission to search our tents. I had been outraged upon general principle, but Fleet had outright refused.

Fleet was a tall man, slender, more serious in bearing than he was in character, with a full head of cottony white hair. He was a man born to be a spy. One moment he could be either serious, or a doting father to his Cynthia, or as good a drinking companion as any man might wish. He could also be studious and sober and precise.

That afternoon, as we stood outside our tents, the air still and lifeless, I would have expected Fleet to tell me to endure the outrage with good cheer; that there was little that could be done, so it must be suffered without resentment. But not that day. He swore that this man, this Major Brookings, would lose his hand before he would touch any item in Fleet’s tent. At last, Colonel Hamilton was called upon and, in his stiff, magisterial manner, ruled that as Major Brookings acted upon good intelligence, he must be allowed to search, but that he, Hamilton, would oversee the matter to make certain all was done properly. Indeed, he even demanded that we be allowed to remain present, though he asked us not to speak.

Fleet’s tent was searched first, and when suspicious documents were discovered tucked into the lining of his travel pack, I could hardly believe what I saw. It had to be planted falsely, I thought, for, beyond any unthinkable doubts about his loyalty, Fleet would have known far better than to hide something in so obvious a place. Yet the look in his eye, that of distant terror, left me unable to speak.

The knife was to twist once more, however, for, when my own pack was searched, documents of a similar nature were found in a similar position. Appearances may have been sufficiently against Fleet to make me doubt him, my best friend, and yet now they were also against me, and I had no doubt of my own innocence. It was hard to focus my rage on this Major Brookings, for he hardly looked pleased at his discovery. Indeed, his face was cast in an expression of distant sadness. Neither Fleet nor I knew him, and that made it unlikely he came upon some errand of personal vengeance.

Fleet and I were placed under guard while Hamilton reviewed the materials, and in a few hours’ time he came to see us. The documents, he said, letters between an unnamed American and a British agent, suggested we had been selling low-level, inconsequential secrets. To an outsider it would appear that we had been in the business of making money while not precisely compromising the American positions, though certainly coming close to doing so.

Given, he said, that the army was in motion, it could ill afford the distraction of the discovery of treason among two well-placed officers. It was his decision, therefore, that we resign. We both resisted vehemently, but in the end it became clear that we had no better option, and we surrendered to our fate.

Hamilton would not permit me to examine the documents myself, so I could not see the hand in which they were written. It hardly mattered. Fleet and I both knew how to disguise our penmanship. I could not imagine that Fleet would do something so base as to sell the British secrets, even useless ones. He hardly needed the money, and even if he had done such a thing, why would he have hidden some letters among my things? And yet, how else could they have gotten there? Was it possible that the letters were from an earlier time in the war? Perhaps they were from months or even years before. I did not place items in the lining of my travel bag, but neither did I make a habit of checking to see if anyone else had inserted something.

I was troubled because Fleet hardly spoke to me on the subject. I proposed all the most obvious questions. I asked how he thought the letters came into our possession, if we were being made to look like traitors by some other person. He would not answer. He never struck me as guilty, only as too thoughtful to speak. He would fall into such moods at times-as he pieced together a puzzle or connected disparate facts or decoded a message-when he would allow no conversation, sometimes for days at a time. He needed time to think.

Then he left camp without speaking to me. While I awaited his return, Hamilton came to see me and put a hand on my shoulder. “There’s something I think you should know,” he said. “The war has been hard for Fleet, hard on his finances. I believe he is quite ruined.”

I removed his hand from me. “What of it? We’ve all suffered.”

He shook his head. “You and I came into this fight with little of real value, but Fleet was a rich man in Philadelphia. Now he is near penniless.”

“He would not allow his daughter to slip into penury,” I said.

“Before the war he settled separate property on her, in anticipation on this. But his business is gone. I am only saying that he might have thought it not wholly wrong to make some money selling worthless secrets to the British. He might have thought it his due.”

I came close to striking him. Nothing could have convinced me of such a thing, and I turned away without another word. I suspected Fleet had gone to Philadelphia to be with his daughter, and I rode out the next morning intending to follow him. Instead, I decided that it would be best to have some time away from him first, so I went to visit my sister in Connecticut for two weeks.

When at last I arrived in Philadelphia, I received the shocking news that Fleet was dead. Cynthia was in mourning, the house shut against almost all visitors. Her father, she told me, had returned from the war a different, nearly unrecognizable man. He had spoken to her infrequently, and then only a word or two at a time. He had turned aggressively, uncharacteristically, to drink, and had become very belligerent when drunk, only slightly less so when sober. After a week of such behavior, he was killed in a barroom brawl by an assailant never found. And there was more, she said. People whispered. They said he had been cast out of the army in disgrace.

I told her all I knew, disguising as best I could the degree to which appearances implicated her father-implicated both of us, really. I vowed I would find for her the man who had killed her father, but it proved impossible. I could go nowhere without fingers pointed at me in suspicion and hatred. No one would speak to me or answer my questions. Not only was it said that Fleet and I were traitors but that the accusation came from an unimpeachable source, Hamilton himself.

It was for that reason I left Cynthia behind. I could not ask her to be with someone labeled so blackly as I was. Fleet was dead, and people soon forgot that he had ever been involved in the scandal. I could go nowhere, however, without the rumors following me. These accusations had killed Fleet, and they destroyed my life. They were never forgotten, but time, at least, had softened the bitterness felt toward me. And now Lavien wished to unearth it all.

I kept my gaze hard and cold. “You cannot know what it is like to be labeled a traitor, and so you cannot understand why I want it left alone.”

“I think I understand,” said Lavien. “You have proclaimed your innocence, and I believe you. That means there can be only one reason you do not wish the past unearthed.”

“And why is that?” I asked, though I wished I hadn’t.

“Because you believe your friend, Captain Fleet, was indeed a traitor. He, your best friend, father of the lady who is now Cynthia Pearson, whom you intended to marry-it was he who sold secrets to the British. That is what you know-or what you believe. It is a great and noble secret that allows you to revel in your own suffering, for each time someone marks you as a traitor, you know that you bear this burden for love-not once but twice.”

It is not an easy thing to be laid bare in this way by a man who is little better than a stranger, a stranger to whom you are indebted and whom you have wronged. He had seen things as they really were, and had done it at once.

“You must let it alone,” I told him. “When Fleet died, the world chose to forget his part in these crimes. His name was allowed to be spoken without taint.”

“You allow your name to remained blackened for her sake?” he asked.

I nodded. “For her, and for Fleet. I do not say he was guilty, but if he was, it was trivial. Empty secrets were sold-lies and worthless information only. Whatever the truth, Fleet was a good man, a hero who did a thousand courageous things for his country. I’ll not have it said about him now that he was a traitor.”

“It is said about you.”

“I am here to defend myself. He is not.” I stood up. “I have asked you to leave this alone. I will say no more of it.”

“Sit down, Captain. I am sorry if you feel imposed upon, and I shall heed your words.”

I sat. I wanted to press him into more vigorously worded promises but at this point I observed Leonidas enter the tavern. I waved him over, and he called for bread, butter, and small beer. I finished my ale and called for another.

After a moment, Lavien excused himself, saying he had things to do, and wished me good luck with Hamilton. He and Leonidas shook hands, and I watched the little man leave. Once he was gone, I informed Leonidas of all that had happened since I last saw him-being cast out by Mrs. Deisher, the note from Cynthia, and the encounter with the Irishman.

Leonidas listened, nodded, but said little. Finally, he commented upon the most practical of matters. “What shall you do about lodgings?”

“I have not yet made a determination on that.”

“Do not think you will come live with me. I’ll not have it.”

“It would only be for a few days.”

“No.”

“It is really unkind,” I said. “I would not have thought you so unkind.”

“I must have a place that is mine.”

“And I must have a place,” I said.

“That is your business and none of mine. However, if you would be so good as to free me from bondage, as you promised to do, I would happily lend you the money to get your things out of surety and to rent a new set of rooms.”

“Why, that is the most villainous blackmail I have ever heard,” said I.

“Ethan, do you mean to hold me forever? You are not a man to keep a slave, and I am not a man to be one. I know not what you mean by it. You agreed to free me when I turned twenty-one, which was six months ago.”

“I agreed to free you when you were twenty-one. I didn’t mention anything about the specific moment of that year. I wish you would attempt to be a little patient, Leonidas. All this casting about for favors does not become you.”

I could not free him. That was what he did not know and could not understand, though the reason would have surprised him. I could not free him because he was already a free man. I’d simply neglected to inform him.

I t was really no more than a curious series of events. Once Dorland began stalking me, I grew concerned for Leonidas’s future. I owed him his freedom and thought it best to secure it at once. Accordingly, I’d gone to a lawyer and paid ten dollars to have the appropriate papers drawn up, freeing him not simply upon my death but immediately and irrevocably. As I sat across from him, Leonidas had been a free man for nearly a week.

If Dorland had killed me, he would have found out then. He was to be freed in my will, but I arranged with the lawyer to contact Leonidas and make sure he knew I had freed him before I died. I did not die, and I surely would have mentioned all of this to him, but then I’d heard from Cynthia, and suddenly there were more complicated issues requiring my attention.

Were I to tell Leonidas that he was free, he would likely continue to help me, but perhaps he would not. There was so much about his life I did not know. I should have liked to have taken the chance, and if it were merely my life, my happiness, in the balance, I would have done so. I would not take that chance when Cynthia Pearson told me she was in danger. Leonidas would have to believe himself a slave for a few more days-or weeks.

Do not think this decision was an easy one. I could imagine the joy of leaping up there in that tavern and informing him that I had already freed him and required no more of his pestering to do what was right. But as much as I yearned to be open with him on this matter, I dared not. I therefore sacrificed not only the immediate relation of the news of his liberty but my own chances for obtaining a place to live.

W e walked to the offices of the Treasury upon Third Street at the corner of Walnut. Leonidas was clearly still harboring resentment over our conversation, but my thoughts were already elsewhere. All around us hurried clusters of men who appeared too big for their suits. Walnut Street was the center of finance in Philadelphia, and of late it had been a place where clever and ruthless men could easily fatten themselves a little further.

Hamilton had launched his bank the previous summer, using an ingenious system of scrip-certificates that stood not for bank shares but for the opportunity to purchase those shares. Scrip holders could later, on a series of four predetermined quarterly dates, buy actual bank shares, using cash for half the payments and already-circulating government issues for the other half. These issues-six percent government loans-had been performing poorly in the markets, attracting little interest, so Hamilton’s method promoted trade in the six percents, since scrip holders needed to acquire them in order to exchange their scrip for full ownership of the bank shares. In addition to strengthening a market for already existing government issues, Hamilton’s scheme created a frenzy for the new Bank of the United States shares; the act of delaying gratification fueled the mania, and in a matter of weeks speculators were earning two or three times on their investment. Then, just as manically as the price soared, it crashed to earth, producing a panic. Hamilton had saved his bank only by sending his agents to the major trading cities- New York, Boston, Baltimore, and Charleston, as well as here in Philadelphia -to buy up scrip and settle the market. Many unwary investors lost everything they had, but clever men made themselves richer.

No harm done, one might say, but there were those who thought otherwise. Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State and Hamilton ’s great enemy, argued that this mania proved the bank was a destructive force. Jefferson and his republican followers believed that the true center of American power must be agriculture. A national bank would empower merchants and traders and turn the nation into a copy of Britain -that is, a sink of corruption. I’d been inclined to side with the Jeffersonians on this point, though in truth I’d not given things too much thought. I merely chose to be opposed to anything that Hamilton desired.

The center of this new American trickery and greed was the Treasury Department, now located in a complex of conjoined private homes, roughly converted for the purpose of housing the largest of the federal government’s departments. We stepped through the front door and were met not by an austere and magisterial lobby but by a frenzy of excitement, hardly less riotous than the jostling of traders outside. Men scribbled away furiously at desks or rushed to bring one meaningless stack of papers to a place where an equally meaningless stack would be taken instead. Everywhere were clerks, busily writing and tallying and, many believed, plotting the downfall of liberty. I gave a clerk near the door my name. He looked at me most unkindly, but soon enough we were directed to Hamilton ’s office.

Not until that moment had I considered what was about to happen. Hamilton had cast me out of the army and made free with my name, letting the world hear the lies that I was a traitor. His actions had led directly to the death of my great friend. Now, ten years later, I was about to present myself to him, red-eyed and haggard, in a wrinkled and stained suit, and beg that he make me privy to what he seemed to regard as state secrets. I felt anger and humiliation, and I wished to run away, but instead I marched forward, as a man marches forward to the noose that is to hang him.

I took deep breaths and attempted to anticipate the scene that lay before me. Since returning to Philadelphia I’d seen Hamilton a few times upon the street, but I had kept my distance, wanting no discourse with him. I’d not had an opportunity to see him close since the end of the war, and I was now pleased to observe that he was not looking his best. He was a year or two older than I was but looked as though the span were closer to ten years. He had grown plump in office, jowly in the face, saggy under the eyes. His nose was as long as ever, but it seemed to be growing, as the noses of old faces do, and he had begun to lose his hair, which must have displeased his vain and libertine nature. Clearly the duties and difficulties of being one of the most hated men in the nation had begun to affect him. They had affected his clothes too, for his suit looked faded and shiny in spots. Perhaps the Treasury Secretary ought to present himself to better advantage, but then even I knew the rumors of his enriching himself off government funds were false. The less popular truth was that Hamilton had so dedicated his time to promoting his policies that he had allowed his own finances to suffer.

If, however, he looked less than his best, he was certainly formal. He rose when we entered his spare-looking office-short upon decorative flourishes, but long upon filing cabinets, imposing-looking financial volumes, and writing desks filled with ledgers and charts. As for his own desk, it was as neat as though no one used it. Hamilton, I recalled, from his days as Washington ’s chief of staff, loathed a cluttered workplace.

Once upon his feet, and thus revealing his short stature, he approached us. He took my hand and shook it warmly, and such was my surprise that I could not but allow this to happen. “Captain Saunders, it has been many years.” He appeared-and I found this shocking-pleased to see me. It is usual that a man hates no one so much as a person he has wronged. But here was Hamilton, smiling, his eyes crinkling with pleasure, his cheeks rosy. Perhaps my presence recalled to him fond memories of life as a young officer in a momentous war. Perhaps he merely rejoiced to see me looking so poorly.

I let go of his hand, for I did not love his touch. “It has, in fact, been many years.”

“Many years,” he repeated, not knowing what else to say. He looked at Leonidas and then brightened, no doubt with the hope of easing the tension. “Please introduce me to your colleague.” He said it with no inflection, but I knew his motive was only mischief. He did not approve of the mistreatment of Negroes and opposed all slavery.

“This is my man, Leonidas.”

Hamilton now shook his hand and applied his charm, justly legendary.

“I trust you will sit,” he said, with a gesture to a cluster of chairs before his desk. “I am astonishingly busy. You cannot imagine the demands upon my time, but I can take a few minutes for an old comrade. I should like to say I hope you are well, but I presume, if you will excuse me for observing what is obvious, that you are in some distress. If you have come for assistance, we shall see how we can help you.”

I credited his presumption, making polite observations on my appearance and suggesting that he was available to assist me. Did he forget that it was he who had ruined my life, expelled me from the army, and made certain the world heard the tales of my supposed treachery? Was it of so little import to him that it slipped his mind? Had he done harm to so many over the years that he no longer even recalled the particular instances of his perfidy? Or did he merely enjoy playing the munificent despot?

Leonidas and I sat in two chairs before his desk. Hamilton returned to his own seat. He took a detour to a sideboard and I thought he meant to offer us drink, but then he glanced at me and changed his mind. Instead, he sat and placed upon his face a look of important expectation.

I waited a moment, the better to make him slightly uncomfortable, to feel slightly less in control. “I have had a difficult few days,” I said at last, “as my appearance will testify, and I believe it has some small relation to an inquiry you are running out of your department. You look into the affairs of Mr. Jacob Pearson?”

He hesitated a moment and then nodded. “It is not commonly known, nor would I have it so, but as you seem already familiar with some general facts, I will admit it but ask for your silence.”

Ironic, I thought, coming from him. “You need not concern yourself with that. But, as it happens, my path has crossed with your kinsman Mr. Lavien.”

“He is not my kinsman,” said Hamilton, with some force. It was hard enough for him to have the world know he was born a West Indian bastard, but if the world were to think him a Jew he would die from shame. “He is, however, a remarkable man.”

“I should like to assist him in his case. In short, I should like the government to employ me to use the skills I honed during the war to serve you in this and other matters.”

Hamilton kept his face remarkably devoid of expression. “I see.”

“Captain Saunders is already materially involved,” said Leonidas. “He has suffered physical attack and the loss of his home. He is personally caught up in the matter, and he is also possessed of certain skills, relatively rare as I understand it.”

“And you are certainly a strong advocate, Leonidas,” said Hamilton, who apparently delighted in having someone to speak to who was not me. “But it cannot be.”

“Why can it not be?” I asked.

“I am not ignorant of the past,” said Hamilton. “You had a connection to Mrs. Pearson once, did you not?”

“She is Fleet’s daughter,” I said. You recollect Fleet, whom you hounded to death. I did not say it, though. I am not so foolish as that.

“I am well aware of that, which alone would make it a difficult matter. But it was commonly said that you and she were once engaged to marry.”

“It was never so formal as that, though who can say how things might have gone had you not cashiered us out of the army and then ruined my reputation? Of course, had you not done so, Fleet might yet be alive.”

“Captain,” he said gently, “you do your case poor service with these accusations.”

“Is there anything I could say that would do my case good service?”

“No, my mind is quite made up on this matter.”

“Then I feel quite at my liberty to call you the rascal you are,” I said.

Leonidas put a hand upon my arm. He turned to Hamilton. “Captain Saunders does not intend to be so harsh, but his need is great.”

“Oh, I think he intends it. I have become a convenient object of hatred and blame for him over the years-don’t think I haven’t heard that you say so, doing no small injury to my own reputation, I might add-but I must clarify a point or two. You know well, Captain, that dismissing you from the army was the only way to save your life. You were under my command when the charges were leveled against you and Captain Fleet. Had I not agreed to a discharge, you would have been court-martialed and likely executed.”

“I ought not to have let you talk me into destroying my own reputation.”

“The evidence against you was strong,” he said. “It might have been a British sham. They may have had enough of your tricks and decided to let us deal with you by allowing us to find false evidence. But remember the mood of the army in those days, the exhaustion and setbacks we’d suffered. Men were still raw from Arnold ’s betrayal, and at that crucial hour another pair of officers in league with the British would not have been treated well.”

It was perhaps unfair to blame him for Fleet’s death-by all accounts Fleet had initiated a fight and come out the loser-but I blamed him anyhow. And, of course, there was more. “What of my reputation? You promised me then that no one would hear of it, yet by the time I returned to Philadelphia it was common knowledge.”

“I know,” said Hamilton softly, “but I was not the one who made it so. I swore to keep it a secret, but in an army nothing can be a secret for long. I spent the better part of a week trying to find out who had spoken out of turn-I need not tell you how serious a thing that is before a major battle-but I could learn nothing. If you like, Captain, I can parade before you a dozen officers who will recall, ten years later, the fear I put into them over this matter.”

“Then you are not the one who ruined Captain Saunders’s reputation?” Leonidas asked.

“Of course not,” he said. “Why would I? You have wasted your time hating the wrong man. My God, Saunders, why did you not simply ask me? You were always a man who could sniff out a lie. You would have known if I had tried to deceive you.”

I could sniff out a lie, he was right in that. It was why I sat in astonishment, for I believed him now. His voice was so free, so easy, so empty of guile, I could not help but believe him. For the past ten years I’d cursed the name of Hamilton, considered him a villain and an enemy, and now it seems he was not. I felt sick and foolish and drunk. And, much as I had the night before with Mrs. Lavien, I felt ashamed.

I remained silent, trying to think of everything and blot out all memory and to do both these things at once. While I considered this revelation, too astonished and angry to speak, Leonidas made polite conversation. I looked over at Hamilton, hardly knowing what to make of the long patrician face before me. For ten years I had hated this man as the author of my ruin, and when the country, at least the Jeffersonian part of it, began to hate him as well, to make him the central agent of corruption in our government, I could not help but feel that, at last, the universe had aligned itself with my perceptions of it. Now, it seemed, I hardly knew anything of the man.

When I turned my attention to his conversation with my slave, it seemed they were talking of my troubles with my landlady.

“And this happened the same night Mrs. Pearson contacted him?” Hamilton was saying. “That does sound suspicious. Captain, I cannot pay your way in the world, but I can send a representative to speak to your landlady and ask her, on behalf of the government, to give you three months to set your affairs in order. Will that be sufficient?”

“It is kind,” I admitted grudgingly, though I attempted not to sound sullen. One never likes to see a man he is used to hating prove himself magnanimous. “I am grateful, but I must ask you again to put me to work, to make use of my skills.”

“Your skills are formidable, and I could use a man like you,” he said, “but I cannot have you inquiring into something involving these people to whom you are so nearly connected. Not only will I not engage your services, I must ask you to have nothing to do with the matter. Stay out of Lavien’s way.”

“You cannot expect me to ignore Mrs. Pearson’s distress,” I said.

“You will stay away from her,” he answered, his voice becoming harsh.

“I understand there is a gathering in a few days at the Bingham house,” I said airily. “I’m sure the lady will be in attendance, for she and Mrs. Bingham are good friends. Perhaps I shall tend to her there.”

“Damn it, Saunders, you will stay away from Mrs. Pearson in this inquiry. This is not a game. There are spies everywhere, and there is more at risk here than you can imagine.”

“Spies? What, the British? The Spanish? Who?”

He let out a long breath. “The Jeffersonians.”

I barked out a laugh. “You are afraid of a member of your own administration?”

“Laugh if you like, but Jefferson’s ambition knows no bounds, and he would do anything-destroy me, the American economy, even Washington’s reputation-if it meant advancing his own ends. Have you never looked at his vile newspaper, the National Gazette, written by that scoundrel Philip Freneau? It is full of the most hateful lies. Have you so forgotten the past that you think no ill of maligning Washington?”

“Of course I have no patience for insults against Washington,” I said. “I revere him as a patriot ought. But that is beside the point. As near as I can tell, you wish me not to help Fleet’s daughter because you fear Jefferson. Perhaps I should speak with him.”

“Stay away from him,” said Hamilton. His voice was now nearly a hiss. “Stay away from Jefferson, from Mrs. Pearson, and from this inquiry. I will not allow your curiosity to risk everything I’ve attempted to accomplish.”

Everything he had attempted to accomplish? There was clearly much more happening here than he would admit, and I knew I could not convince him to tell me. Instead, I tried to show myself reasonable. “Then put me to use on another matter,” I said. If he did so, he would pay me, which would be of great benefit, and then I could inquire into whatever I liked.

He shook his head. My willingness to change the subject appeared to ease him considerably; the redness in his face lessened and his posture became less rigid. “Captain, I wish I could do so, but look at you. It is not ten in the morning, and you are already besotted with drink. You are terribly disordered. Give me a few hours to clear up the business with your landlady, and then go home, rest, and consider your future. In a few months, come see me. If you are in better order, we can talk about a position at that time.”

“I am hardly the only man in Philadelphia to take a drink in the morning,” I said.

He leaned forward. “I am not a fool, Captain. I know the difference between a drinker and a drunkard.”

I thought to rise and announce my indignation, but I did not feel it. I could be besotted with drink and still best Lavien or anyone else he thought to employ over me. I had no doubt that events would soon prove it.