Complete Works. Hamilton Alexander
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the auditor to mulct the complainant nine shillings for a certificate showing the validity of the claim. One Peter R. Fell employed Hamilton as his counsel to prepare a memorial to the Assembly of the State of New York, in which he urged his grievances. In this he stated that he was one of those from whose windows leads were taken by order of the Convention at the commencement of the late war; that soon after the last sitting of the legislature it was learned that one Daniel Dunscomb was ordered to render an account to the auditor of the leads so taken; that Fell requested Dunscomb to give a certificate to this effect, but the latter exacted nine shillings therefor from the messenger, although he, Dunscomb, had been allowed twenty pounds by the auditor as full compensation for his services. He naturally complained that "as leads were taken from one thousand houses in the city, the exaction of nine shillings is a species of petty extortion, highly censurable, and unbecoming the publick confidence."
The members of the rich Livingston family, whose holdings of land were enormous, were much in the courts, and when Robert, the first proprietor of the lordship or manor, died, his sons Robert, Philip, and Gilbert indulged in acrimonious litigation which was carried on for a few years. An action brought by Philip against his neighbor Robert, the Chancellor, was one of the most important, and John Morin Scott was the attorney of record, and Hamilton was retained as counsel. This was on April 24, 1783, and concerned the establishment of a grist-mill on the stream known as Roeloff Jansen Kill, which emptied into the Hudson River. Another case was that of Livingston vs. Hoffman, for trespass, in which Hamilton appeared for the defence. These cases in the early days were usually ill-founded, and as a rule advantage was taken of the fact that the party of one side or the other had taken sides with the enemy and forfeited his rights.
The feeling against the Tories who had taken possession of the houses of the patriots who were obliged to flee during the occupation of New York by the British, was so intense as to lead to the passage of the celebrated trespass law, which was framed in the interests of the patriots, but was in direct conflict with the provisions of the treaty made with Great Britain, which expressly provided for the rights of Tories after the declaration of peace. Although a wave of intolerance swept over the State, and the persecution of those who had not taken active sides with the rebellious colonists was general, Hamilton, in 1783, appeared in behalf of a Tory tenant named Waddington, who had been sued by a Mrs. Elizabeth Rutgers, thereby making himself exceedingly unpopular. Considerable sympathy was felt for the plaintiff in this case, who was supposed to be a poor and helpless widow, but an inspection of the papers would go to show that she could drive a sharp bargain, and the sympathy extended to her was certainly misplaced.
In 1778 the premises, which consisted of a brewery and malt-house in Maiden Lane, were rented to Benjamin Waddington & Co., who found them in very bad order, "and stripped of everything of any value except an old Copper, two old Pumps and a leaden Cistern full of holes. Before the new tenant could begin to brew; £700 were spent in repairs. From the 1st of May, 1780, to the 1st of May, 1783, the Waddingtons had paid a rent of £150 per annum for the same to John Smyth, Esq., a Tory, in consequence of an order from General Robertson, the British commander.
On the 20th of June, 1783, after the return of the American forces they received an order from General Birch, the commandant of the city, to pay the rent from the 1st of May preceding to the son of Mrs. Rutgers. After this the troubles of the Waddingtons began. They were quite ready to pay her, but her representative demanded back rent, and would not adjust matters in any other way, or take into account the improvements made by the tenants. The demands of Mrs. Rutgers finally became so exorbitant that Waddington & Co. refused to pay at all, and to add to their difficulties the brew-house was, about this time, burned to the ground, entailing upon them a loss of £4,ooo. At the time of the fire they were not in possession of the premises, having surrendered the key to the owner. It was then that the Widow Rutgers found many friends and sympathizers who urged her to avail herself of the new law, and she brought a suit, engaging John Laurance as her lawyer, and an action was brought in the mayor's court.
I am in possession of Hamilton's original argument in this proceeding, which comprises nineteen pages of closely written foolscap, and in which we find everywhere evidenced much labor and thought. Although this brief has been elsewhere quoted, reference may be made to his contention that this was a national and not a local issue, and that the recent law then passed by the State of New York could have no force against the law of the nation, which was common law; in other words, the State of New York had no common law of nations. In fact, it was the strongest plea for Federalism that came from him in the whole course of his career, for he insisted that the law of each State must adopt the laws of Congress, and that though in relation to its own citizens local laws might govern, yet in relation to foreigners those of the United States must prevail. "It must be conceded that the legislature of one State cannot repeal the law of the United States—all must be construed to stand together."
It was only after a vigorous fight, in the face of general opposition and disorderly expressions of public sympathy, that Hamilton convinced the judges by his incontrovertible demonstration of the law itself, that he was in the right, when they rendered a judgment in his favor.
Not only after this was he besieged by many clients with similar cases, but he appeared in behalf of patriot house-holders who had been imposed upon by tenants who had improperly taken advantage of the trespass law.
One of these cases was that of Alexander McDougall vs. Catharine Leonard, the husband of the latter being a notorious Tory who had taken up arms with the British and had gone to Newburg, where he stayed until the end of the war. McDougall, it will be remembered, was, with Isaac Sears, John Morin Scott, and others, one of the original "Sons of Liberty," who precipitated the Revolution in New York City by the destruction of British property and resistance to the tax law. McDougall afterward became a brigadier-general in the American forces.
Mrs. Leonard appears to have been remiss in the payment of her rent for the premises 75 Beekman Street, even after the conclusion of the Revolution, and in a letter to her McDougall says: "I do not wish to have any dispute with a woman, or I should not have had the Forbearance to you which I have exercised, nor taken the trouble of writing this.—I now expect to have the Ballance from you by Thursday, two o'Clocke, or I shall be under the disagreeable Necessity of Sending for it by Another."
In the early part of Hamilton's career his associates at the bar were his intimate friends, and these included Brockholst Livingston, the son of the Governor of New Jersey and an early schoolmate at the academy at Elizabeth town, Richard Harrison, Robert Troup, Colonel Varick, Burr, and Laurance. An inspection of the many musty law papers that have come into the writer's possession suggests the great variety of the forms of action in which he was engaged, as in those days there was no specialization, and Hamilton appeared as often in the mayor's court as in the higher ones of the State, and did both civil and criminal work. He even tried a rape case, as well as others for assault and murder, but his fondness was, evidently, for civil proceedings.
His clients were not always reasonable or patient, although the unreasonable ones were in the minority. One of the latter appears to have been Stephen Delancey, the son of James, who, in the language of the day, was a Tory and so "attainted" that his property was seized by the Americans. Stephen owned a large tract of land in Westchester County, and had many tenants who gave him a great deal of trouble, among them the "Delivans," and "Baileys," for whom he engaged Hamilton to issue writs. Impatient at the latter's alleged neglect of his affairs and supposed inaction he wrote from Scarsdale, New York, September 12, 1785: "I could wait no longer in New York at an expense to see you as you was gone to Court on Thursday morning and when to see you I knew not, if I had stayed I have to lay out about 30 on this Journey and I find money so scarce to be had, that I must insist on ye moneys being Refunded to me. I beg you to Inform me what method I am to pursue with my wicked tenants in Distraining for Rent of them. "
Another gentleman, who had repeatedly urged Hamilton to collect a certain indebtedness for him, remarked that "Mr. W -has certainly received money, but what sum, is in the womb of Time to Discover."
Others were more considerate and appreciative of Hamilton's busy life,