Hamilton's Itinerarium E-Book

Alexander Hamilton

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 342

Beschreibung

Among the numerous journals and narratives of travel during the Colonial period, few are so lively and so full of good-humored comment on people and customs as the Itinerarium of Dr. Hamilton. The subject of this volume is a journey which Dr. Hamilton undertook in 1744, leaving Annapolis May 30, and travelling overland northward through New Castle, Wilmington, and Chester to Philadelphia. Mr. Hasell, of Barbados, whom he had expected to travel with him from Annapolis, he found at Philadelphia, where he stayed a week. June 13, he resumed his journey and spent three days on the road to New York, crossing the Delaware near Bristol, and passing through Trenton and Princeton to Perth Amboy; and thence, via three ferries, to Staten Island, across the Narrows, and across the East River to New York, that being apparently the surest and most convenient route. After six days in New York, he started, June 21, in a sloop for Albany, together with Rev. John Miln, formerly a clergyman in Albany. The journey up occupied nearly five days; he stayed about a week in and around Albany and spent three days on the return sloop journey. After five days' stay in New York, July 5 to 10, he started eastward with two Boston merchants, journeying through Long Island to the neighborhood of Montauk Point, thence across the Sound to New London, and thence through Stonington, Newport, Bristol, and Dedham to Boston, the whole journey occupying eight days. At Boston he stayed ten days, and then, July 28, started northward, stopping at Marblehead, Salem, Ipswich, and Newbury, to Portsmouth and New Castle, and back by the same route, a week's journey in all. After about two weeks in Boston, he started southward August 18, going through Providence and Bristol to Newport, where he stayed a week. He resumed his travels August 24, passing New London, Saybrook, New Haven, and Norwalk to New York, a week's journey. The second visit in New York occupied two weeks; he left September 13, and after five days' stay in Philadelphia, reached home again September 27, having travelled, as he records it, 1624 miles.

Leseprobe

Hamilton's Itinerarium

Being A Narrative Of A Journey From Annapolis, Maryland Through Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts And New Hampshire From May To September 1744

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

Hamilton's Itinerarium, Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton, Alexander, died 1756.

Hart, Albert Bushnell, died 1943.

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

86450 Altenmünster, Loschberg 9

Deutschland

Printed by Bookwire, Voltastraße 1, 60486 Frankfurt/M.

ISBN: 9783849663001

www.jazzybee-verlag.de

[email protected]

CONTENTS:

FOREWORD   1

INTRODUCTION   2

ITINERARIUM

FOREWORD

Amico suo honorando, divinitissimo domino Onorio Razolini, manuscriptum hocce Itinerarium, observantiae et amoris sui qualecumque symbolum, dat consecratque

Alexander Hamilton.

[Translation:]

To his honourable and most Christian friend, Signor Onorio Razolini, this manuscript Itinerary is dedicated and consecrated as a slight token of his love and respect by

Alexander Hamilton.

The reader of the Itinerary of Doctor Alexander Hamilton will be interested in knowing something of the history of the manuscript. It was purchased by the present owner from Messrs. B. F. Stevens & Brown, of No. 4 Trafalgar Square, London. They purchased it from Frank T. Sabin, of No. 118 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, who states:-

"The manuscript remained in the possession of the family of the Italian gentleman to whom it was dedicated, and to whom it was originally given, until within a few years. It then passed into the hands of an Italian bookseller, who sent it to a correspondent in London, from whom I purchased it.

"Doubtless, owing to the rather obscure lettering on the back, it remained almost unnoticed for the last hundred years, or, on the other hand, it may have been preserved with reverent care by a generation or two of descendants, who finally, tempted by a good offer, parted with it. It will not do for me to indulge in too much fanciful conjecture. So far as facts are concerned, they are as stated above."

The present owner of the manuscript prints it for private distribution, believing that an unpublished manuscript of this period will be of interest to the parties to whom he sends it.

W. K. B.

Four hundred and eighty-seven copies of this work have been printed for private distribution only. The forms have been broken up and the type distributed.

INTRODUCTION

BY ALBERT BUSHNELL HART PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Among the numerous journals and narratives of travel during the Colonial period, few are so lively and so full of good-humored comment on people and customs as the Itinerarium of Dr. Hamilton, which now for the first time has become known. The history both of the manuscript and of the writer is obscure. The original is a well-written and a remarkably well-spelled manuscript, covering both sides of sheets 6½ × 8½ inches, and making two hundred and seventy-eight pages. It is bound in vellum in a style unknown in America at that time, and therefore probably the work of an Italian bookbinder. At the end is a statement that the manuscript was "Presented by Alexander Hamilton, Doctor of Medicine, to Onorio Razolini. Annapolis, Nov. 29, 1744." This was two months after Hamilton returned to Annapolis, and it is probable that his Italian friend was a visitor there, and that he wrote a continuous manuscript from notes taken during his journey. It could hardly have been intended for publication at the time when written, for it is too free in comment on well-known individuals. No reference is discoverable to the manuscript, either in the literature of the time or in later bibliographies; and it appears never to have been consulted as a contribution to American history until acquired by Mr. Bixby.

In preparing the manuscript for the press, the editor has had the efficient aid of two graduate students of Harvard University, Mr. Thomas N. Hoover has made a diligent search into the references to persons; and nearly all the important names have been placed in their proper setting, though some of the abbreviated names and obscure individuals resisted all effort to make them yield their identity. Mr. John Kennedy Lacock has followed the route of Hamilton throughout his journey, and has been been able to verify every place that he passed or visited, except some of the taverns which have long since ceased to exist; and the map accompanying this volume is the result of his researches. The editorial footnotes have purposely been made succinct, the object being to state the full names of persons and places, with no detail except so far as necessary for identification. Hamilton's accuracy as a writer is shown by the fact that in only two or three cases, which are duly pointed out in the foot-notes, has he been detected in any serious mistake.

The subject of this volume is a journey which Dr. Hamilton undertook in 1744, leaving Annapolis May 30, and travelling overland northward through New Castle, Wilmington, and Chester to Philadelphia. Mr. Hasell, of Barbados, whom he had expected to travel with him from Annapolis, he found at Philadelphia, where he stayed a week. June 13, he resumed his journey and spent three days on the road to New York, crossing the Delaware near Bristol, and passing through Trenton and Princeton to Perth Amboy; and thence, via three ferries, to Staten Island, across the Narrows, and across the East River to New York, that being apparently the surest and most convenient route. After six days in New York, he started, June 21, in a sloop for Albany, together with Rev. John Miln, formerly a clergyman in Albany. The journey up occupied nearly five days; he stayed about a week in and around Albany and spent three days on the return sloop journey. After five days' stay in New York, July 5 to 10, he started eastward with two Boston merchants, journeying through Long Island to the neighborhood of Montauk Point, thence across the Sound to New London, and thence through Stonington, Newport, Bristol, and Dedham to Boston, the whole journey occupying eight days. At Boston he stayed ten days, and then, July 28, started northward, stopping at Marblehead, Salem, Ipswich, and Newbury, to Portsmouth and New Castle, and back by the same route, a week's journey in all. After about two weeks in Boston, he started southward August 18, going through Providence and Bristol to Newport, where he stayed a week. He resumed his travels August 24, passing New London, Saybrook, New Haven, and Norwalk to New York, a week's journey. The second visit in New York occupied two weeks; he left September 13, and after five days' stay in Philadelphia, reached home again September 27, having travelled, as he records it, 1624 miles.

As to the author, throughout the Itinerarium he modestly refrains from discussion of his own family or condition and mentions his first name only in the dedication to his friend Razolini; but it is almost certain, in view of the fact that the manuscript in one place alludes to Mr. Dulany of Annapolis, that he was the Doctor Alexander Hamilton who, on May 29, 1747, was married to Margaret Dulany, daughter of Hon. Daniel Dulany; and that this lady was the widowed Mrs. Hamilton who in 1757 married William Murdock. Dr. Alexander Hamilton had a brother of whom he speaks as practising medicine in Maryland in 1727, and apparently still in Annapolis in 1744. Hamilton seems to have been fond of discursive writings, for he was the Historian of a society called the Tuesday Club in Annapolis and has left several folio volumes in manuscript of a serio-comic history of that organization, which from the few specimens printed seem somewhat inferior to the Itinerarium in literary skill.

The Itinerarium by chance allusions makes it certain that Hamilton was born in Scotland, and "learnt pharmacy" of David Knox, an Edinburgh surgeon. Some time in his life he travelled in England and visited London. He practised medicine in Annapolis, but suffered a severe illness in 1743, so that he calls himself in one place a "valetudinarian"; and he made the journey in 1744 chiefly to recover his health. Of Annapolis he seems not to have been very fond; although he wrote home while on his travels, he records that for three months he received no news; and he alludes to the place as "a desolate expensive town," and "that wretched city." He was well acquainted in Maryland, where he had many friends and was in the habit of meeting visitors from other Colonies, some of whom were hospitable to him on his travels. He had means to travel like a gentleman, with two horses, one of which carried his negro slave man, Dromo; and to live comfortably wherever he went. Dr. Moffatt, of Newport, he calls "an old acquaintance and school fellow of mine." He took in the Physical News, of Edinburgh, a medical journal.

Hamilton could speak Latin and a little French, the latter language he could also write with some facility; and he was interested in current and classical literature. He alludes to Rabelais; notes conversation about Cervantes; reads "a book lately writ by Fielding, entitled The Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and thought my time well spent." He reads Montaigne's Essays, and Rollin's Belles Lettres. He likes Shakespeare's Timon of Athens; he reads Mucius Scævola, "a most luscious piece, but only because I knew it to be a piece of excellent good Latin."

Although this is substantially all the positive information that can be gleaned from the Itinerarium, Hamilton's character is clearly and agreeably revealed from beginning to end. First of all, he is a lover of Nature, interested in the face of the country, noticing rocks, bowlders, unusual trees, and the beauties of the seashore. He is only mildly interested in government, noticing in Pennsylvania politics, "the interest of the Palatines [that is, the Pennsylvania Dutch] in this Province, who of late have turned so numerous that they can sway the votes which way they please;" and he thinks the government of Pennsylvania "a kind of anarchy (or no government), there being perpetual jars between the two parts of the legislature." He is told that the Jersey House of Assembly "was chiefly composed of mechanics and ignorant wretches, obstinate to the last degree;" but in general, he is content to leave politics aside, and will not even discuss the political and social conditions of his own province.

Hamilton is always interested in science, or what was then taken for science. He talks with a "virtuoso in botany;" he looks in vain for the ginseng plant; he criticises a Treatise on Microscopes and shows some knowledge of mathematics; he talks philosophy and disputes on the theory of the tides with the gentlemen at Todd's Tavern in New York. Like other scientific men he has a low opinion of the science which he hears in a Boston sermon; but he greatly appreciates a "sun microscope." On all such subjects his point of view is that of an intelligent, well-read, and thoughtful man.

Throughout the journey Hamilton found himself at home among the doctors, and the Itinerarium throws an interesting light upon the conditions of the art of healing nearly two centuries ago. Besides his previous acquaintances in the profession, he started out with letters of introduction to several distinguished physicians and was by them recommended to others. Among them was the eminent Dr. Phineas Bond, of Philadelphia, who showed him "some pretty good anatomical preparations"; Dr. Colquhoun, of New York; Dr. Moffatt, of Newport; Dr. William Douglass and Dr. Clark of Boston; Dr. Goddard, of New London. Much conversation is recorded on the controversy between the "empirical" and the "clinical" schools, including hot discussions of the authority of Boerhaave and his works. He notes several doctors who combined with the medical profession that of the ministry.

The allusions to the theory of medicine are, however, few. People catch ague from being out late nights, and the appropriate remedy is "the force of a vomit." On the whole, Hamilton finds his profession in a low state. "The doctors in Albany are mostly Dutch, all Empirics, having no knowledge or learning but what they have acquired by their experience-a great many of them take the care of a family for the value of a Dutch dollar a year, which makes the practice of physics a mean thing, and unworthy of the application of a gentleman. The doctors here are all barbers." Many of the doctors whom he meets, especially in New York, are drunken roisterers; and many others are palpable quacks, such as the "greasy thumbed fellow" whom he saw pull out a housemaid's tooth "with a great clumsy pair of blacksmith's forceps." Hamilton follows a safe middle course and anticipates modern surgery by saying: "for my part I knew of no way of curing cancer but by extirpation or cutting it out."

Although a doctor among doctors, Hamilton was more interested in men and manners than in medicine; and a special merit of the Itinerarium is the light shed upon the social life of the time by an intelligent observer admitted to the best society of the places that he visited, and at the same time taking note of the life of the plain people among whom he passed. On several different occasions he meets a "Teague"-that is, a wild Irishman; for the Teague of the eighteenth century is the Pat of the nineteenth. He is greatly interested in the Dutch of Albany, whom he found a "civil and hospitable people in their way, but at best rustic and unpolished-their whole thoughts being turned upon profit and gain, which necessarily makes them live retired and frugal." He notes that the clean houses of the Dutch co-exist with dirty persons, a remark the converse of which he applies to the French, one of whom is a fellow lodger in Boston. Of negroes he sees little and says little except to notice some experiences of his Dromo; but it is significant that in a conversation about "a certain free negro in Jamaica, who was a man of estate, good sense, and education," somebody "gravely asked if that negro's parents were not whites, for he was sure that nothing good could come of the whole generation of blacks."

The Indians especially attracted his attention and he met all sorts from the naked wretches fishing for oysters on Long Island Sound, to "King George," the owner of 20,000 or 30,000 acres of land near Stonington. "His queen goes in a high modish dress in her silks, hoops, stays, and dresses like an Englishwoman He educates his children to the belles lettres and is himself a very complaisant, mannerly man." He visits the Indian town near Albany and dines at Colonel Schuyler's. He sees a party of "French Mohooks on horseback, dressed á la mode française, with laced hats, full-trimmed coats, and ruffled shirts." His most interesting sketch of the Indians is that of a council which he witnessed at Boston, in which Hendrick, a Mohawk chief, tells the eastern Indians, "if you are disobedient and rebel you shall die, every man, woman, and child of you, and that by our hands. We will cut you off from the earth, as an ox licketh up the grass."

Social life immensely interested Hamilton wherever he went, and he had his share of dinners, teas, and clubs. An unmarried man, travelling alone, living in lodgings, and taking most of his meals at taverns and coffee-houses, he was in a position to see the seamy side of both high life and low life. The tone of the Itinerarium is that of a somewhat severe critic of his countrymen. Hamilton has a low opinion of Maryland and seems to find conditions not much better elsewhere. When some Pennsylvanians whom he met upon the road enlarged upon the "immorality, drunkenness, rudeness, and immoderate swearing, so much practised in Maryland, and added that no such vices were to be found in Pennsylvania," Hamilton says, "I heard this and contradicted it not, because I knew that the first part of the proposition was pretty true;" and when a lady in Philadelphia inveighed against the Maryland clergy, he made but a lame defence.

Perhaps there is a certain spirit of retaliation in his criticism of the Pennsylvanians: "They have in general a bad notion of the neighboring Province, Maryland, esteeming the people a set of cunning sharpers; but my notion of the affair is, that the Pennsylvanians are not a whit inferior to them in the science of chicane, only their method of tricking is different. A Pennsylvanian will tell a lie with a sanctified, solemn face; a Marylander perhaps will convey his fib in a volley of oaths, but the effect and point in view are the same, though the manner of operating be different." New York fares no better: "The people of New York at the first appearance of a stranger, are seemingly civil and courteous, but this civility and complaisance soon relaxes if he be not either highly recommended or a good toper." Boston receives a like drubbing. "The people are generally more captivated with speculative than with practical religion. It is not by half such a flagrant sin to cheat and cozen one's neighbor, as it is to ride about for pleasure on the sabbath day, or to neglect going to church and singing of psalms. The middling sort of people here are to a degree disingenuous and dissembling, which appears even in their common conversation in which their indirect and dubious answers to the plainest and fairest questions show their suspicions of one another. The better sort are polite, mannerly, and hospitable to strangers." These generalities are not the whole story; and it is rather whimsical that the Yankee reserve and unwillingness to commit oneself should pass for dissimulation.

Nevertheless, the Itinerarium contains abundant evidence of the crudity of much of the Colonial life. Here he sees a country family near the Delaware whose "mess was in a dirty, deep, wooden dish, which they evacuated with their hands, cramming down skins, scales, and all. They used neither knife, fork, spoon, plate, or napkin, because I suppose, they had none to use." There he observes a drunken club breaking off and riding "helter-skelter, as if the devil had possessed them, every man sitting his horse in a seesaw manner like a bunch of rags tied upon the saddle." In New York he animadverts on the habit of drinking bumpers of such potency that three of them sent Hamilton home at ten o'clock "pretty well flushed."

A vice which Hamilton sets forth in numerous exactly recorded instances was that of cursing. Dromo most impolitely adjures a Dutch girl who knows no English. A Dutch gentleman indulges himself in a special "Dunder, Sacramentum, and Jesu Christus." A seventy-five year old sailor freely "damns his old shoes." Even the ladies occasionally rip out a pretty oath. Of coarser forms of vice Hamilton heard much and saw little, though he visited one morning in Boston a chocolate house, where the company was anything but select. A man is likely to be confidential in such a diary, and Hamilton stands the test of his own records. The Itinerarium has some of the direct and plain-spoken language familiar at the time. In some parts there is a frankness of phrase better suited to a private journal than to a printed book. Although the work throughout is clean and wholesome in spirit, a few words have been omitted as being too outspoken, and undesirable for publication.

At a time when there were no house clubs, the natural resort of men in search of relaxation and company was the tavern or the coffee-house. As a traveller Hamilton had a large experience in the 1600 miles of his journey, and he found every sort of accommodation. In general, he had a better bed, a better room, and a better meal than those reported by travellers a century later on the western frontier or in the south. Occasionally he reports unwelcome roommates who talked loudly or were otherwise annoying; but he makes few complaints of the inns. The families of the innkeepers attracted his attention, for he pricked up his ears at sight of a pretty girl. He was surprised at the "comical names" of damsels in New England-"Thankful, Patience, Comfort, Hope, etc." In the cities he lived by preference at a lodging house, stabling his horses at some tavern. The coffee-houses were something more than eating-houses and less than a club, resembling the modern hotel restaurants in which a knot of friends habitually take lunch together. At one of the taverns in Philadelphia he reports that he "spent the night agreeably and went home sober at eleven."

In several cities Hamilton was made free of social clubs meeting from week to week. In the Governour's Club at Philadelphia, where he was introduced by Dr. Phineas Bond, he met many interesting strangers who were also visiting Philadelphia. "Several toasts were drank, among which were some celebrated ones of the female sex." The Governor of the Province was a member. The Hungarian Club of New York seems to have practised less gravity and he complains that its principal purpose was to drink bumpers. The Physical Club in Boston, of which the celebrated Dr. Douglass was president, seems to have been a medical society. At the Philosophical Club at Newport, Hamilton was disappointed to find that the chief talk was of privateering and the building of vessels. He remarks several times on the music he heard, which appeared to give him great pleasure; and he enjoyed attendance at the Music Club at Philadelphia, "where I heard a tolerable concerto performed by a harpsichord and three violins."

Although Hamilton had an eye for the maid servants, he was no gallant with ladies. In Albany a friend "introduced me into about twenty or thirty houses, where I went through the farce of kissing most of the women, a manner of salutation which is expected from strangers coming there. This might almost pass for a penance, for the generality of the women here, both old and young, are remarkably ugly." In Philadelphia and New York, though he dined out and knew some good families, he has very little to say of the ladies, and that, for the most part, critical. In Boston he found a countrywoman, Mrs. Blackater, whose daughters he condescended to think good-looking.

Ladies' dress Hamilton hardly noted, though he was struck at Albany by the traditional Dutch costume: "their old women wear a comical head-dress, large pendants, short petticoats;" and he records the boast of a fellow-traveller that "he had good linen in his bags, a pair of silver buckles, silver clasps, and gold sleeve buttons, two Holland shirts, and some neat night-caps, and that his little woman at home drank tea twice a day." At Huntington, Long Island, "there came in a band of politicians in short jackets and trousers," a very early instance of the wearing of long trousers by others than seamen. He was much shocked by two fellows "with long black beards, having their own hair, and not so much as half a night cap between them." It appears that the "night cap" of worsted was a common article of wear, and that linen night caps were "much wore in all the churches and meetings of America that I have been in, unless it be those of Boston, where they are more decent and polite in their dress;" and Hamilton seemed pleased by the predicament of two Philadelphians who came to dinner in Boston in linen night-caps.

As to religion, Hamilton, a Presbyterian in Scotland and apparently a Church of England man in Maryland, was eclectic. He goes to the Congregational services in New England, supposing them to be Presbyterian. He visits the Synagogue in New York and the Catholic Church in Philadelphia. He consorts with Quakers and is struck by their "silent grace" at meals; but though moderate in doctrine and worship, he has a very low opinion of the new sects. The Moravians in New York and New Jersey he supposes to be a "wild fanatic sect." Whitefield he dislikes intensely, accusing him of putting an end to assemblies in Philadelphia, and of being the man "who, only for the sake of private lucre and gain, sowed the first seeds of distraction in these unhappy, ignorant parts." He is amazed by the common taste in New England for "nice metaphysical distinctions 'T is strange to see how this humour prevails, even among the lower class of the people here. They will talk so pointedly about justification, sanctification, adoption, regeneration, repentance, free grace, reprobation, original sin, and a thousand other such pretty chimerical knickknacks, as if they had done nothing but studied divinity all their lifetime." The vials of Hamilton's wrath are especially poured out on the "New Lights," among whom he appears to place all the sects except the half dozen old denominations. One of these gentlemen replies smartly to Hamilton's criticism of Whitefield, and "he told me flatly that I was damned without redemption."

Science, society, and religion did not exhaust Hamilton's interests. From day to day he was on the lookout for quaint and striking phrases and for curious incidents. The familiar New England proverb, "The devil to pay and no pitch hot," he picks up in New York. To an inquisitive fellow who asks him where he came from, he replies that he is from "Calliphurnia," presumably a reference to the old romance from which the name California was taken. He was one of the first to notice that the low tide in Boston Harbor "left a very stinking puddle." He notes the use of the word "guns," meaning pistols, a phrase supposed to be of much later frontier origin. He makes note of the existence of a "state room" in the Castle in Boston Harbor. At Newport he goes "to a windmill near the town to look out for vessels," perhaps the so-called Norse Tower. Contrary to the accepted science of his time, he has glimpses of the Darwinian theory of development: "The progress of Nature is surprising in many such instances. She seems by one connected gradation to pass from one species of creatures to another, without any visible gap, interval, or discontinuum in her works." He falls in with a "comical, old, whimsical fellow," who "talks much of cutting the American isthmus in two, so to make a short passage to the south seas; and if the powers of Europe cannot agree about it, he says he knows how to make a machine with little expense, by the help of which ships may be dragged over that narrow neck of land with all the ease imaginable, it being but a trifle above 100 miles." He notices the New England twang of a horse jockey, who would not sell "the jade for 100 peaunds." He predicts for Philadelphia "that in a few years hence, it will be a great and flourishing place, and the chief city in North America," a prediction which half a century later came true.

After all, these are the accidental parts of Hamilton's Itinerarium. His accounts of the incidents of the journey, the roads, bridges or rather fords, and ferries, the sea voyage from New York to Albany, the brief visits to Harvard and Yale Colleges, these must be read to be appreciated. The most important and freshest part of the work is the racy account of life in the large American cities, especially Philadelphia, New York, Albany, Boston, Salem, Portsmouth, Newport, New London, and New Haven. His conclusions are especially valuable because there are few contemporary descriptions of the Colonies between 1730 and 1745. If Hamilton had not the ability to make a night of it, which distinguishes his contemporary Captain Francis Goelet, nor the sprightliness which makes Madam Knight's account of her journey from Boston to New York in 1704 a Colonial classic, he has a wide range of experience, large powers of observation, great opportunities of seeing the world. Quick of apprehension, lively in style, sane in his proportions and abounding in information, Hamilton in his Itinerarium has made posterity his debtor; and must henceforth be reckoned with as one of the best sources of authority on the social life of his period.

Cambridge, Massachusetts,

September 4, 1906.

DR. ALEXANDER HAMILTON

The following letter of the celebrated Dr. Upton Scott, of Annapolis, Md., is pasted in the front part of the original minutes of the proceedings of the Tuesday Club, now in the possession of the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Md. It was written to a member of the Baltimore Library Company, which long since ceased to exist. The name of the person to whom it was addressed, is not divulged. At the time of writing this letter Dr. Scott was eighty-seven years old:

Annapolis, Md. , 28 August 1809.

My Dear Sir: In consequence of the desire which you expressed to have The History of the Tuesday Club displayed in your Library, I send you three volumes of that work, as a loan at your command, for the benefit of your Library until the first day of May next. As the third volume is still in sheets, I beg you will get it bound in any manner you may think most suitable, when the expense shall be reimbursed on my being informed of the amount.

The merit of this work is submitted to its readers, but I cannot be silent on that of its author, Dr. Alexander Hamilton, an eminent and learned physician, in the enjoyment of whose friendship I was truly happy until his death. He was a man of strict honor and integrity, of a friendly benevolent disposition and a most cheerful facetious companion amongst his friends, whom he never failed to delight with the effusions of his wit, humor and drollery, in which acquirements he had no equal. He founded the Tuesday Club, 0030 xxvi of which he might be considered the life and soul, as it expired with him, having never assembled after his death. Although his jokes are occasionally somewhat indelicate, and he frequently chants the pleasure of the bowl, no man exceeded him in temperance and purity of morals. You will find him truly depicted by himself in the character of Loquacious Scribble, Esq'r. To this gentleman I brought a letter from his cousin Dr. R. Hamilton, Professor of Anatomy and Botany in the University of Glasgow, whose lectures I had several years attended, to which letter on my arrival in America in 1753, I was indebted for a very kind friendly reception, and our intimacy gradually increased without the least interruption during his life. I was early invited as a visitor to the Tuesday Club, and soon afterwards elected a Long Standing member thereof, and am now, I believe, the only survivor of that Institution, at whose merry meetings I often in my younger days, found much amusement. Many years after Dr. Hamilton's death, I received this work as a present from his widow, who was a lady highly worthy of my esteem and regard. I cannot therefore obtain my own consent to part with in my lifetime,––the property, of what I consider as a sacred relick, or memorial of deceased friends.

With very sincere regard, I am your friend and most obedient servant,

U. SCOTT.

" Dr. Alexander Hamilton was born in Scotland in 1712. He came to America and settled in Annapolis, Province of Maryland. He was a cousin of Dr. R. Hamilton, Professor of Anatomy and Botany in the University of Glasgow.

He organized in 1745, with Jonas Green, Esq., the editor of the Maryland Gazette , the Tuesday Club, of Annapolis, Md., of which he was the Secretary and Orator, as well as the 'life and soul,' during its ten years of existence.

He was the preceptor of Dr. Thomas Bond, of Calvert County, Md., who projected, incorporated and organized the Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia, which was opened in 1752.

On May 9, 1747, he married Miss Margaret Dulany, daughter of the Hon. Daniel Dulany, of Annapolis, Md., 'a well accomplished and agreeable young lady with a handsome fortune.'

Dr. Hamilton was a member of the Vestry of St. Ann's Protestant Episcopal Church, Annapolis, in the years 1749-51."

On Tuesday last (May II) in the morning, died at his house, in this city, Alexander Hamilton, M.D. aged 44 years. The death of this valuable and worthy gentleman is universally and justly lamented. His medical abilities, various knowledge, strictness of integrity, simplicity of manners, and extensive benevolence, having deservedly gained him the respect and esteem of all ranks of men. No man, in his sphere, has left fewer enemies or more friends. ––  Maryland Gazette, Annapolis, Thursday May 13, 1756.

"Dr. Hamilton's Will was dated October 17, 1754 and probated on July 17, 1756. Margaret Hamilton, his widow, was made testatrix, and all the estate of the husband was left to her, except that should there be born a posthumous child, then the wife was to receive one-third of the estate and the child two-thirds. The witnesses to the Will were John Gordon and H. Cummings. These were the only items of the Will, which has been described as 'a model of brevity and directness.'"

ITINERARIUM

DIE MERCURII TRIGESSIMO MENSIS MAII INCHOATUM ANNO MDCCXLIV

Annapolis, Wednesday, May 30th. -I set out from Annapolis in Maryland, upon Wednesday the 30th of May at eleven o'clock in the morning; contrary winds and bad weather prevented my intended passage over Chesapeake Bay; so taking the Patapsco road, I proposed going by the way of Bohemia to Newtown upon Chester, a very circumflex course, but as the journey was intended only for health and recreation, I was indifferent whether I took the nearest or the farthest route, having likewise a desire to see that part of the country. I was in seeming bad order at my first setting out, being suspicious that one of my horses was lame; but he performed well, and beyond my expectation. I travelled but twenty-six miles this day; there was a cloudy sky, and an appearance of rain. Some miles from town I met Mr. H––t [i]going to Annapolis. He returned with me to his own house, where I was well entertained and had one night's lodging and a country dinner.

Mr. H––l [ii] , a gentleman of Barbados, with whom I expected to have the pleasure of travelling a good part of my intended journey, had left Annapolis a week or ten days before me, and had appointed to meet me att Philadelphia. He went to Bohemia by water, and then took chaise over land to Newcastle and Wilmington, being forbid for certain physical reasons to travel on horseback. This was a polite and facetious gentleman, and I was sorry that his tedious stay in some places put it out my power to tarry for him; so I was deprived of his conversation the far greatest part of the journey.

Mr. H––t and I, after dinner, drank some punch, and conversed like a couple of virtuosos. His wife had no share in the conversation; he is blessed indeed with a silent woman; but her muteness is owing to a defect in her hearing, that without bawling out to her she cannot understand what is spoken, and therefore not knowing how to make pertinent replies, she chooses to hold her tongue. It is well I have thus accounted for it, else such a character in the sex would appear quite out of nature. At night I went to Annapolis and retired to bed at ten o'clock.

Thursday, May 31st. - I got up betimes this morning, pour prendre le frais, as the French term it, and found it heavy and cloudy, portending rain. At nine o'clock I took my leave of Mr. H––t, his wife and sister, and took horse.

A little before I reached Patapsco ferry, I was overtaken by a certain captain of a tobacco ship, whose name I know not, nor did I inquire concerning it, lest he should think me impertinent.

Patapsco Ferry

We crossed the ferry together at ten o'clock. He talked inveterately against the clergy, and particularly the Maryland clerks of the holy cloth; but I soon found that he was a prejudiced person, for it seems he had been lately cheated by one of our parsons.

Baltimore Town-Gunpowder Ferry-Joppa

This man accompanied me to Baltimore Town,[iii] and after I parted with him I had a solitary journey till I came within three miles of Gunpowder Ferry, where I met one Matthew Baker, a horse-jockey.

Crossing the ferry I came to Joppa, a village pleasantly situated, and lying close upon the river; there I called at one Brown's, who keeps a good tavern in a large brick house. The landlord was ill with intermitting fevers, and understanding from someone there who knew me, that I professed physics, he asked my advice, which I gave him.

Here I encountered Mr. D––n, the minister of the parish, who (after we had despatched a bowl of sangaree ) carried me to his house. There passed between him, his wife, and me some odd rambling conversation, which turned chiefly upon politicks. I heard him read with great patience some letters from his correspondents in England, written in a gazette style, which seemed to be an abridgement of the political history of the times and a dissection of the machinations of the French, in their late designs upon Great Britain. This reverend gentleman and his wife seemed to express their indignation, with some zeal, against certain of our St-sm-n [iv] and C––rs [v] at Annapolis, who it seems had opposed the interest of the clergy by attempting to reduce the number of the Taxables. This brought the proverb in my mind, The shirt is nearest the skin. Touch a man in his private interest, and you immediately procure his ill will.

Leaving Joppa I fell in company with one Captain Waters and with Mr. D––gs, a virtuoso in botany. He affected some knowledge in Natural Philosophy, but his learning that way was but superficial.

Description of the Gensing

He showed me a print or figure of the Gensing, [vi] which he told me was to be found in the rich bottoms near Susquehanna. The plant is of one stem or stalk, and jointed. From each joint issues four small branches, at the extremity of each of these is a cinquefoil, or five leaves, somewhat oblong, notched and veined. Upon the top of the stem it bears a bunch of red berries, but I could not learn if it had any apparent flower, the colour of that flower, or at what season of the year it blossomed or bore fruit. I intended, however, to look for it upon the branches of Susquehanna, not that I imagined it of any singular virtue, for I think it has really no more than what may be in the common liquorice root, mixed with an aromatic, or spicy drug, but I had a curiosity to see a thing which has been so famous.

After parting with this company, I put up at one Tradaway's, about ten miles from Joppa. The road here is pretty hilly, stony, and full of a small gravel. I observed some stone, which I thought looked like limestone.

Just as I dismounted at Tradaway's, I found a drunken Club dismissing. Most of them had got upon their horses, and were seated in an oblique situation, deviating much from a perpendicular to the horizontal plane, a posture quite necessary for keeping the center of gravity within its proper base, for the support of the superstructure; hence we deduce the true physical reason why our heads overloaded with liquor become too ponderous for our heels. Their discourse was as oblique as their position: the only thing intelligible in it was oaths and Goddamnes; the rest was an inarticulate sound like Rabelais' frozen words a-thawing, interlaced with hickupings and belchings. I was uneasy till they were gone, and my landlord, seeing me stare, made that trite apology, –– That indeed he did not care to have such disorderly fellows come about his house; he was always noted far and near for keeping a quiet house and entertaining only gentlemen or such like; but these were country people, his neighbours, and it was not prudent to disoblige them upon slight occasions. "Alas, sir!" added he, "we that entertain travellers must strive to oblige everybody, for it is our daily bread." While he spoke thus our Bacchanalians finding no more rum in play, rid off helter-skelter, as if the devil had possessed them, every man sitting his horse in a seesaw manner like a bunch of rags tied upon the saddle. I found nothing particular or worth notice in my landlord's character or conversation, only as to his bodily make. He was a fat pursy man and had large bubbies like a woman. I supped upon fried chickens and bacon, and after supper the conversation turned upon politics, news, and the dreaded French war; but it was so very lumpish and heavy that it disposed me mightily to sleep. This learned company consisted of the landlord, his overseer and miller, and another greasy-thumbed fellow, who, as I understood, professed physics, and particularly surgery in the drawing of teeth.

He practised upon the housemaid, a dirty piece of lumber, who made such screaming and squawling as made me imagine there was murder going forwards in the house. However, the artist got the tooth out at last, with a great clumsy pair of blacksmith's forceps; and indeed it seemed to require such an instrument, for when he showed it to us it resembled a horse-nail more than a tooth.

The miller I found professed music, and would have tuned his crowd [vii] to us, but unfortunately the two middle strings betwixt the bass and treble were broke. This man told us that he could play by the book.

After having had my fill of this elegant company, I went to bed at ten o'clock.

Friday, June 1st. -The sun rose in a clear horizon, and the air in these highlands was for two hours in the morning very cool and refreshing. I breakfasted upon some dirty chocolate, but the best that the house could afford, and took horse about half an hour after six in the morning. For the first thirteen miles the road seemed gravelly and hilly, and the land but indifferent.

When I came near Susquehanna Ferry I looked narrowly in the bottoms for the gensing, but could not discover it. The lower ferry of Susquehanna, which I crossed, is above a mile broad. It is kept by a little old man, whom I found at vittles with his wife and family upon a homely dish of fish, without any kind of sauce. They desired me to eat, but I told them I had no stomach. They had no cloth upon the table, and their mess was in a dirty, deep, wooden dish, which they evacuated with their hands, cramming down skins, scales, and all. They used neither knife, fork, spoon, plate, or napkin, because, I suppose, they had none to use. I looked upon this as a picture of that primitive simplicity practised by our forefathers, long before the mechanic arts had supplied them with instruments for the luxury and elegance of life. I drank some of their cider, which was very good, and crossed the ferry in company with a certain Scots-Irishman, by name Thomas Quiet. The land about Susquehanna is pretty high and woody, and the channel of the river rocky.

Mr. Quiet rid a little scrub bay mare, which he said was sick and ailing, and could not carry him, and therefore he lighted every half mile and ran a couple of miles at a footman's pace, to "spell the poor beast" (as he termed it). He informed me he lived at Monocosy and had been out three weeks in quest of his creatures (horses), four of which had strayed from his plantation. I condoled his loss, and asked him what his mare's distemper was, resolving to prescribe for her, but all that I could get out of him was that the poor silly beast had choaked herself in eating her oats; so I told him that if she was choaked she was past my art to recover. This fellow I observed had a particular down-hanging look, which made me suspect he was one of our New-light bigots.

I guessed right, for he introduced a discourse concerning Whitefield, [viii]