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of the slightest mistake or accident. Hamilton led the opposition. He, too, put all his heart and soul into the canvas, but although greatly the superior of Burr in depth of intellect and statesmanship, he lacked the latter's tact, executive ability, and mas- tery over men; he made several grave mistakes which were quickly taken advantage of by his antag- onist. As the day approached, the result was felt to be doubtful. The polls opened on the 29th of April, and closed May 2d. They were days of supreme ex- ertion for the contestants, and of intense excitement. Business was largely suspended. Newspapers and pamphlets were scattered about like autumn leaves. From large platforms the rival chieftains addressed the people ; sometimes both occupied the same ros- trum, one listening with the deepest interest and courtesy while his opponent spoke, and then reply- ing with all the wit, logic, and eloquence at his com- mand. At sunset, on May 2d, the polls closed, and before the politicians slept, they knew that the Re- publicans had carried the city by a majority of 490 votes-which meant that the Republicans would come into power at the next election. Hamilton was vastly chagrined, and the Federal leaders des- perate. Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr were shortly after nominated for President and Vice-Pres- ident by the Republicans, Burr receiving the second place for his services in carrying New York. But when the votes were opened, in February, 1801, it was found that there was a tie, the two candidates, Jefferson and Burr, having received exactly the same number of votes. This threw the election into the
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House, and. a fierce contest arose, the Federalists wishing to make Burr President instead of Jefferson, whom they greatly disliked. It is probable that they would have done this, had it not been for Ham- ilton, who used his powerful influence with the Fed- eral leaders in favor of Jefferson, whose right to the office could not be disputed. The contest ended, at last, in favor of Jefferson. As Vice-President, from 1801 to 1805, Colonel Burr performed his duties to the satisfaction of all, and is said to have been the best presiding officer the Senate ever saw. He still main- tained histown house and country-seat at Richmond Hill, in New York, and when not in Washington resided there, entertaining generously-two of his guests being the famous French diplomat, Talley- rand, and the author, Volney.
Hamilton, in the meantime, remained in New York, practising his profession, but none the less watching keenly the course of political events. It was an era of bitter partisan feeling and recrimination. Duels, the result of political quarrels, were frequent. A fierce newspaper war was one of the features. The organ of the Federalists was the Minerva-which later became the Commercial Advertiser of to-day- its editor being Noah Webster, the famous maker of dictionaries. The organ of the Clintonian wing of the Republican party was the American Citizen, edited by James Cheetham, an Englishman, whose fiery philippics were continually involving him in quarrels. Supporting Burr and his wing, and gener- ally regarded as the President's organ, was the Morning Chronicle, edited by Dr. Peter Irving. In
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that paper, about this time, the delightful author. Washington Irving, first made his bow to the public. His essays, signed "Jonathan Oldstyle," greatly pleased Colonel Burr, who was wont to cut them out and inclose them in letters to his daughter Theo- dosia. November 16, 1801, appeared the Evening Post, which was generally regarded as the mouthpiece of Hamilton. Its editor, William Coleman, was much the ablest and most reputable journalist of his day. The columns of all these papers bristled with scurrilous attacks on the opposition.
As the days passed, it became evident that Colonel Burr could hope for no further prefer- ment from his party. The tie contest had marked him out to the powerful Virginia faction as a man to be crushed. The Clinton and Livingston in- terests in New York also combined against him. His name was scarcely mentioned in the presi- dential contest of 1804. He was then nominated by his friends as an independent candidate for Governor of New York, but was signally defeated. If now he could have stifled his political aspira- tions, and returned to the bar, as Hamilton had done, a brilliant and honorable career might still have been his ; but unfortunately he could not endure defeat with patience.
At the close of the campaign of 1804, the manner in which General Hamilton was in the habit of speaking of Colonel Burr had been brought to the latter's attention in a manner that compelled him to take notice of it. During the contest, Cheetham, in his paper, had asked: "Is the Vice-President sunk
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so low as to submit to be insulted by General Ham- ton? A few weeks after, a newspaper containing a letter from a well-known physician-Dr. Charles D. Cooper-was put into Colonel Burr's hands. Two sentences in the letter were marked. One was :
" General Hamilton and Judge Kent have declared in substance that they looked upon Mr. Burr to be a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government." The other was: " I could detail to you a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr." Colonel Burr at once sent the paper by a friend to General Hamilton, with an indignant let- ter, in which he demanded "a prompt and unquali- fied acknowledgment or denial of the use of any expressions which would warrant the assertions of Mr. Cooper."
Several letters passed between the two men. Gen- eral Hamilton replied that if Colonel Burr would specify any one expression or statement he might have made he would deny or acknowledge it, but he could not undertake to give a general denial or ac- knowledgment as to what he had or had not said, in the heat of political debate, during a period covering many years. Colonel Burr replied that the expres- sions attributed to General Hamilton attached dis- honor to him, and reiterated his demand that Gen- eral Hamilton should deny ever having said any thing that would give color to the assertion of Dr. Cooper. This General Hamilton declined to do, and a chal- lenge was given and accepted. The duel, savage and murderous as we now justly regard it, was then the
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recognized mode among gentlemen of settling such disputes as this. Both chieftains had recognized it. Hamilton's eldest son had fallen in a duel a few years before. Burr had been a principal in one of the sav- age affairs. The partisans of both had fought for the honor of their chiefs, with the latter's approval, and there was therefore no other resource but for them to settle their quarrel in the recognized way.
They met on the fatal field of Weehawken, sacred to these encounters, very near where the present tun- nel of the West Shore Line debouches upon the water front. At the first fire Hamilton fell mortally wounded ; Burr escaped unhurt. The stricken state- man was rowed across the river and carried to the residence of Mr. Bayard at Greenwich ; his own beau- tiful country-seat, "The Grange," which he had built, in 1802, in the upper part of the island, being too far away for one to be conveyed in his dying con- dition. Servants were hastily sent for surgeons and nurses; Mrs. Hamilton was summoned, and later his children. The fatal meeting occurred at sunrise on July 11, 1804. At nine o'clock on that morning a bulletin appeared on the board of the Tontine Coffee- House ; "General Hamilton was shot by Colonel Burr this morning in a duel," it said ; " the General is thought to be mortally wounded." With every hour came a fresh bulletin, each adding fuel to the flame. In one the General was reported to be slowly sinking; in a second, the arrival of the sorrow-strick- en wife and children, the calmness and resignation of the dying man, the over-mastering grief of Mrs. Hamilton were graphically pictured; in a third,
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the last sad scene, when the seven children were led in to take their last farewell of a dying father. Next morning a bulletin related the patient's sufferings during the night. At two o'clock another announced his death. The news swept swiftly through the city. Expressions of grief, pity, sympathy, mingled with execrations on the slayer, were heard on every side. At night a meeting of the merchants was held at the Tontine Coffee-House, and it was resolved to close the stores on the day of the funeral, to wear crape for thirty days, and to order the flags on the ship- ping at half-mast. Next morning the lawyers met, and agreed to wear mourning for six weeks. The various military companies, the Tammany Society, the Cincinnati, the students of Columbia College, the St. Andrew's Society, the General Society of Mechanics, and the Corporation of the city all passed resolutions of sympathy, and pledged themselves to attend the funeral in a body.
Hamilton died on Thursday afternoon. On Sat- urday, in Trinity Church, the funeral was held. The city had never seen a more imposing pageant than the funeral cortege, as it moved slow-paced down Broadway amid the booming of minute-guns from the Battery and from British frigates and French men-of-war in the bay. Every organization in the city is said to have participated in the procession. At the church, on a platform, with the four sons of the dead statesman beside him,-the eldest sixteen. the youngest four,-Gouverneur Morris, the life-long friend of Hamilton, stood to deliver the funeral eulo- gium. Certain of his terse, forcible sentences the men of that generation never forgot.
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ALEXANDER HAMILTON.
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"You know that he never courted your favor by adu- lation or the sacrifice of his own judgment. You have seen him contending against you, and saving your dear- est interests, as it were, in spite of yourselves. I declare to you before God, in whose presence we are now espe- cially assembled, that in his most private and confiden- tial conversations the single objects of discussion were your freedom and happiness. The care of a rising fam- ily and the narrowness of his fortune made it a duty to return to his profession for their support. But, though he was compelled to abandon public life, never, no, never for a moment, did he abandon the public ser- vice. He never lost sight of your interests. . For himself he feared nothing, but he feared that bad men might, by false profession, acquire your confidence and abuse it to your ruin."
Thus tragically passed from the scene one of the . greatest of the great men of the Revolutionary era.
"The Patriot of Incorruptible Integrity, The Soldier of Approved Valor,
The Statesman of Consummate Wisdom." .
One reads it on his modest tombstone in Trinity Churchyard-a truer panegyric than most. As for his slayer, the popular verdict-whether just or un- just-went against him. He became " a man with- out a country," socially ostracised, abhorred by Federalist and Republicanalike. Good came of the statesman's death, however. It stilled, for a time, the rage of faction, for it was clearly seen that the duel was the outcome of the bitter political strife of the preceding fourteen years, and, as far at least as the States of the North were concerned, it abol- ished from polite society that savage and barbarous outgrowth of feudalism-the duello.
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XIX.
A TYPICAL NEW YORK MERCHANT.
ALMOST immediately on gaining her freedom New York began extending her commerce. Trade with England revived, her ships became familiar objects in French, German, and Russian seas; she tapped the rich commerce of the Mediterranean, and a little later strove with the merchants of Salem and Boston for the rich trade of China and the East. The greatest merchant of this era, and perhaps of any, was John Jacob Astor. His career has so much of inspiration in it for young readers, that we present its leading features in detail. He was born in the German village of Waldorf, near Heidelberg, on the Rhine, in 1763. In the winter of 1784, he arrived in Baltimore, with a small stock of goods which he had brought from London, but with no other "pledges to fortune," except thrift, energy, good habits, and an invincible determination to succeed. A fellow- countryman, a furrier by trade, chanced to be on the same ship, and directed the young merchant's atten- tion to the possibilities of the fur trade, the result being that he determined to become a fur merchant. He came on to New York, sold his goods, and in- vested the proceeds in furs, which were bought of
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the country traders and merchants as they came in. With these he returned to London, sold them at a profit, and then came back to New York with a view of settling permanently as a fur merchant. He at once set to work to inform himself thoroughly con- cerning his business. First, he apprenticed himself to a furrier, and learned the mechanical part of the trade. In a few years we find him with a store of his own .* But his aspiring mind did not long rest content with the retail tradesman's career. He be- gan to study the extent, capacity, and methods of the fur trade of North America, then nearly as valu- able as the gold and silver of the South had been to the Spanish.
Montreal, Canada, he found to be the great fur mart. The rich trade in furs of that vast region later known as the Northwest, stretching from the shores of the Great Lakes to the head-waters of the Mississippi and Missouri, had been first organized by the French traders of Canada ; and when the latter country became a British possession, the trade nat- urally fell into the hands of its conquerors.
At this moment, 1790, there were three rival com- panies in the field-the Hudson's Bay Company, char- tered in 1670, by Charles II., and granted exclusive right to the territory watered by Hudson's Bay and
* Vide this advertisement in the New York Daily Advertiser of January 2, 1789. " John Jacob Astor, at SI Queen Street, next door but one to the Friends' Meeting House, has for sale an assort- ment of piano fortes of the newest construction, made by the best makers in London, which he will sell at reasonable terms. He gives cash for all kinds of furs, and has for sale a lot of Canada beaver, and beaver coating, raccoon skins, etc."
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its tributaries ; the Northwest Company, founded in 1787, and which garrisoned by its trading-posts the whole region of the upper lakes ; and the Macki- naw Company, whose head-quarters were on Macki- nac Island, at the mouth of Lake Michigan, and whose posts garrisoned the latter lake, the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, and the great Mississippi and its tributaries.
The animals which produced the furs-chiefly the beaver, fox, mink, otter, and muskrat-were trapped by the Indians. The pelts were then cured and brought in to the " posts " or trading-stations, where they were exchanged for powder, ball, fire-arms, blankets, trinkets, and such other goods as the Indi- ans prized. Then, once a year, in the spring, great fleets of canoes and batteaux, filled with the goods for exchange, would set out from Montreal, ascend the Ottawa River, and thence by other rivers and portages reach Lake Huron, Lake Superior, and the most distant posts, collecting the furs which had been gathered by the post-traders, distributing the goods they had carried out, and at last, when the furs had all been collected, returning with them to Montreal. Our merchant began operations by buy- ing furs from these merchants of the Northwest Company, and shipping them direct to London- Canada, at that time, not being allowed to trade with any but the mother country.
In 1795, however, a treaty was made with Eng- land which allowed American merchants to trade with Canada ; and from this time on, Mr. Astor's furs were sent direct from Montreal to New York.
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Some he used for the home supply, some were ship- ped to Europe, but the bulk he began sending to China, where much better prices could be obtained. Thus began Mr. Astor's China trade, which proved immensely profitable. In a few years, having abun- dant capital, he began asking himself if it were not better to buy his furs of the Indians themselves, and thus save the immense profits made by the North- west Company. . The operations of the Mackinaw Company, he reasoned, were carried on almost en- tirely within the territory of the United States-a field which he thought belonged of right to citizens of the United States. He determined to occupy this field-a decision which was heartily approved by our government, which had long viewed with alarm the commercial influence possessed by British traders over the tribes within its borders. In IS09. the American Fur Company was chartered by the State of New York, with a capital of one million dollars, and the privilege of increasing it to two. This company was in reality, John Jacob Astor. He owned all of its stock, and directed its movements ; but in order to cope with the Mackinaw Company, he desired the weight and authority of a government charter. He at once entered the field with energy, and began a hearty rivalry with the latter corpora- tion ; but the strife and bitterness thus engendered were so great, that in ISI I he was led to purchase the Mackinaw Company and all its posts. Some of the partners of the Northwest Company were engaged with him in the enterprise, and it would no doubt have been very successful had not the war of 1812
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broken out and put a stop to his operations. After the war these operations were not resumed, because Congress soon passed a law forbidding British trap- pers to pursue their vocation within our territory. But before this had happened, Mr. Astor's thoughts were occupied with a grander scheme.
The great navigator, Captain Cook, in his last voyage had discovered that sea otter were numerous on the coast of Oregon. Now sea otter fur was a rarity greatly prized in China, so that, in a few years, there were a score of vessels, chiefly from Boston and Salem, on the northwest coast collect- ing these furs; and then, when a cargo was gath- ered, sailing with it to Canton, China. One of these vessels, the Columbia, Captain Gray, of Bos- ton, in 1792, discovered and entered the great river Columbia, which empties into the Pacific in latitude 46° 5' N. and whose head-waters are a thou- sand miles back in the heart of the continent. No organized company had gained a foothold on this coast except the Russian Fur Company, whose posts were far to the northward of the Columbia. Mr. Astor now conceived the grand plan of establishing a colony of trappers and traders at the mouth of the Columbia, with posts stretching back in the interior along the river and its branches, and also up and down the coast, the whole to be supplied by his vessels, which would receive in return the furs gathered by the trappers. This plar. was also confided to government, and President Jefferson, glad to have a chain of American posts established in that untrodden country to form the nuclei of
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future cities and towns, promised it all the assistance and protection in his power. Mr. Astor at once began preparations. £ He secured three partners from the Northwest Company, and with Mr. Wilson Hunt, of New Jersey, formed the Pacific Fur Com- pany. He engaged voyageurs and traders from the western wilderness. He fitted out a fine ship-the Tonquin-and placing her in command of one whom he deemed a competent commander, despatched her around the Horn to the mouth of the Columbia. . She bore three of the partners and every thing neces- sary for the Indian trade and for the infant colony. At the same time a land party was organized under Mr. Hunt, to proceed overland to the head-waters of the Columbia, and thence down that stream to meet the Tonquin at its mouth. The Tonquin sailed Sep- tember 8, 1810, and reached the Columbia March 22, 1811. Here on Point George, the promontory overlooking the estuary into which the Columbia falls, the partners built the trading post, which in honor of their principal they called Astoria. The Tonquin then made sail and proceeded north on a trading voyage, as ordered by Mr. Astor. Much better would it have been if Captain Thorn, her commander, had obeyed orders in other respects as implicitly. He had been especially cautioned against allowing the coast Indians, who were a fierce and warlike race, to come on board in force. But he disobeyed these orders, and while lying in the har- bor of Neweetec, Vancouver's Island, the ship was taken by a large body of the natives, who came on board in friendly guise, but with arms concealed
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under their mantles. The captain and all of his crew, except Mr. Lewis, the supercargo, and four seaman, were savagely murdered. These five bar- ricaded themselves in the cabin, and with discharge of fire-arms soon cleared the ship. Then, as soon as it became dark, fearing that the savages would return, the four seamen took the ship's boat and set out on their return to Astoria, but Mr. Lewis, who was seriously wounded, refused to go and remained on the ship. He had formed a plan for avenging the butchery of his comrades. Next morning, by friendly signs, he enticed the Indians on board, and when the deck was covered with them, touched a match to the powder magazine and blew ship, A Indians, canoes, and himself into fragments.
hundred savages were killed, it is said, in this holo- caust. But the four men who had embarked in the ship's boat met a worse fate. They were taken by the Indians, and put to death in revenge, with every refinement of torture that savage ingenuity could suggest. The loss of the Tonquin was the first of a series of mishaps, which, in the end, ruined this well-laid plan.
Mr. Hunt, who left Montreal in August, 1810, with a large party, to.come by the overland route, reached his destination, after suffering incredible hardships, ragged, emaciated, with the loss of nearly all of his men and stores. Meantime Mr. Astor, unaware of the loss of the Tonquin, had despatched, in 1811, a second ship, the Beaver, which found the little colony at Astoria in good health and spirits, and the trading posts, which had been established,
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well equipped and prosperous. No doubt the enter- prise would have proved successful and Oregon have been settled much earlier than she was, had not war (1812-1815) broken out between England and the United States, and put a stop to all industrial enter- prises. This war was a commercial war; that is, it was waged to protect American commerce from the exactions and encroachments of England, and was fought chiefly on the sea. During the contest New York was blockaded by a British fleet; her com- merce was destroyed, and the people lived in con- stant dread of an attack.
Mr. Astor in those days had little time to think of. and no chance to aid, his struggling colony on the Pacific. But Astoria was soon beyond the reach of assistance, having been surrendered on the 12th of December, 1813, to the British sloop-of-war Raccoon. It had. however, previously been sold to an agent of the Northwest Company, together with its stock of furs and stores, at about half their value ; so that the entire loss did not come upon the partners." Mr. Astor's subsequent enterprises were not of such na- tional importance, although they extended to the remotest seas. Twenty years before his death he retired from commercial ventures, and devoted him- self to the care of his real-estate interests, which had grown to vast proportions. He developed scholarly tastes during these years, one of his contemporaries tells us, and at his modest mansion, that stood on the block now occupied by the Astor House, delighted
* For a fuller account of this enterprise the reader is referred to Washington Irving's " Astoria."
JOHN JACOB ASTOR
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to gather the scholars and literary men of the day. Washington Irving always made his home there when in the city ; so did Dr. Joseph C. Cogswell, the editor of the New York Review; Fitz-Green Hal- leck, who was in his employ, often dined with him; and in his will he showed his regard for letters by setting apart the sum of $350,000 as an endowment of the Astor Library. Mr. Astor died in 1848, leav- ing a fortune valued at forty millions-the fifth largest estate at that time in the world.
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CHAPTER XX.
COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT.
BUT despite the presence of great merchants, the growth of the city during the first period of freedom (1783-1815) was not so great as might have been ex- pected. In 1674, when she came permanently under the English flag, she had a population of 3,000; in 1783, when she became a free city, she had 23,000 inhabitants, an average yearly increase under Eng- lish rule of 183. By 1810 this had grown to 95,- 000, a yearly increase of 2,666. To-day her popula- tion, with that of her environs,-Brooklyn and Jersey City,-is estimated at 2,600,000, an average yearly increase since 1810 of 32,532. Her comparatively slow growth during the first period was due to a va- riety of causes : the disordered condition of Europe, the restrictions of England on her commerce, the war of 1812, and absence of a great producing tribu- tary country. Soon after the war of 1812-15, how- ever, three beneficent genii came to her aid, roused her to renewed activity, and have since combined to make her one of the queen cities of the world. They were the steamboat, the canal, and the railway. The steamboat came first,-the historic Clermont,-the first ever seen in New York waters,-having paddled
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