to what had passed: "Two nights ago, my Eliza, my duty and my honor obliged me to take a step in which your happiness was too much risked. I commanded an attack upon one of the enemy's redoubts; we carried it in an instant, and with little loss. You will see the particulars in the Philadelphia papers. There will be, certainly, nothing more of this kind; all the rest will be by approach; and if there should be another occasion, it will not fall to my turn to execute it."

The American arms were not only successful in Virginia. Greene was exerting at the same time his masterly abilities at the south. "The enemy," Hamilton relates,

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were divested of their acquisitions in South Carolina and Georgia, with a rapidity, which, if not ascertained, would scarcely be credible. In the short space of two months, all their posts in the interior of the country were reduced. The perseverance, courage, enterprise, and resource displayed by the American general in the course of these events, commanded the admiration even of his enemies. In vain was he defeated in one mode of obtaining his object another was instantly substituted that answered the end. In vain was he repulsed from before a besieged fortress: he immediately found means of compelling its defenders to relinquish their stronghold. Where force failed, address and stratagem still won the prize. Having deprived the enemy of all their posts in the interior of the country, and having wasted their forces in a variety of ways, Greene now thought himself in a condition to aim a decisive blow at the mutilated remains of the British army, and at least to oblige them to take refuge within the lines of Charleston. With this view, he collected his forces into one body, and marched to give battle to the enemy, then stationed at the Springs of the Eutaw.

The

"A general action took place. Animated, obstinate and bloody. The front line of the American army, consisting of militia, after beginning a brisk attack, began to give way. At this critical and inauspicious juncture, Greene, with that collected intrepidity which never forsook him, gave orders to the second line, composed of continentals, to advance to the charge with trailed arms. This order, enforced by example, and executed with matchless composure and constancy, could not fail of success. British veterans shrunk from the American bayonet. They were routed and pursued a considerable distance. Numbers of them fell into the hands of their pursuers, and the remainder were threatened with a similar fate; when, arriving at a position, which, with peculiar advantages, invited to a fresh stand, they rallied and renewed the action. In vain did" Colonel "Washington, at the head of the pursuing detachment, redouble the efforts of his valor to dislodge them from their new station. He was himself wounded and made a prisoner, and his followers, in their turn, compelled to retire.

"The gallant Campbell, at the head of the Virginia line, fell in this memorable conflict. Learning that his countrymen were victorious, he yielded up his last breath in the noble exclamation: Then do I die contented.'

6

"Though the enemy by this exertion of bravery saved themselves from total ruin, they had, nevertheless, received too severe a blow to attempt any longer to maintain a footing in the open country. The day following they retreated towards Charleston, leaving behind them their wounded, and a quantity of arms. Here ended all serious operations in the South."

CHAPTER XXIX.

LATE in the autumn, Hamilton returned to Albany. Welcomed to the hospitable abode of General Schuyler, he resided there until the ensuing spring, mingling with the small society of a place, where reigned a simplicity of manners almost patriarchal. The intimacy formed with that distinguished man was now matured, and continued through their lives in relations of uninterrupted affection and confidence.

No definitive opinion could be formed as to the conclusion of a treaty with England. The measures of Congress, prompted by the zealous exhortations of Washington, indicated a determination to prosecute the war with vigor, which the proceedings of Parliament, at the beginning of the session, evinced no disposition to discontinue.

Hostilities at the south were virtually at an end. The advices received by Hamilton from La Fayette, who was in close conference with the American negotiators, and from De Noailles, of the temper of the continental powers, and the situation of the British army in the Northern States, gave little reason to expect an active campaign in this quarter.

The birth of a son imposed on him new obligations, and he began to prepare for the duties of private life. He selected the profession of the law, deemed the

most honorable in this country, and in which had been formed the larger number of its more conspicuous char

acters.

His friends, on the first intimation of his purpose, unwilling to lose his services to the public, warmly urged him to defer his purpose. The idea of his being appointed a commissioner to conclude a peace, was suggested to him, and the slow advances of the legal profession, amid an inactive and impoverished community, were depicted, to deter him from making what was represented as a sacrifice. But his sense of personal independence was high. He declined generous offers of aid from Schuyler, and to the dark professional prospects presented, he replied with a modest but confident expression of his reliance on the certainties of perseverance. "Perseverando," "Perseverando," a motto on the revolutionary Emissions, was frequent on his lips. With this determination he proceeded to Philadelphia, and, although his sole resources were in himself, addressed on the first of March the following letters to the commander-in-chief:

"I need not observe to your excellency, that respect for the opinion of Congress will not permit me to be indifferent to the impressions they may receive of my conduct. On this principle, though I do not think the subject of the enclosed letter of sufficient importance to request an official communication of it, yet I should be happy it might in some way be known to the members of that honorable body. Should they hereafter learn, that though retained on the list of their officers, I am not in the execution of the duties of my station, I wish them to be sensible, that it is not a diminished zeal which induces me voluntarily to withdraw my services, but that I only refrain from intruding them, when circumstances seem to have made them either not necessary, or not desired; and

that I shall not receive emoluments, without performing the conditions to which they were annexed. I also wish them to be apprised, upon what footing my future continuance in the army is placed, that they may judge how far it is expedient to permit it. I therefore take the liberty to request the favor of your excellency to impart the knowledge of my situation, in such manner as you think most convenient."

In this private letter another was enclosed:

"Your excellency will, I am persuaded, readily admit the force of this sentiment, that though it is the duty of a good citizen to devote his services to the public, when it has occasion for them, he cannot with propriety, or delicacy to himself, obtrude them, when it either has, or appears to have, none.

"The difficulties I experienced last campaign in obtaining a command, will not suffer me to make any farther application on that head.

"As I have many reasons to consider my being employed hereafter in a precarious light, the bare possibility of rendering an equivalent, will not justify to my scruples, the receiving any future emoluments from my commission. I therefore renounce, from this time, all claim to the compensations attached to my military station during the war, or after it. But I have motives which will not permit me to resolve on a total resignation. I sincerely hope a prosperous train of affairs may continue to make it no inconvenience to decline the services of persons, whose zeal in worse times was found not altogether useless; but as the most promising appearances are often reversed by unforeseen disasters, and as unfortunate events may again make the same zeal of some value, I am unwilling to put it out of my power to renew my exertions in the common cause, in the line in which I have hitherto acted.