ead for some years
longer against the stream of adverse circumstances, and might, perhaps,
eventually have overcome them; but the plain path of duty was the one he
had followed through life, and he did not desert it now. He immediately
wound up his affairs, and, having settled with his creditors to the
uttermost farthing, he found himself almost destitute, with the
exception of his personal property, and the West India estate; which,
however, had for some years barely paid its own expenses. It was now
that Hamilton had reason to rejoice that his beloved son had, by his
wise foresight, been rendered independent of circumstances, and had been
bred up in habits which would enable him soon to acquire a comfortable
establishment for himself. He immediately sold his house and furniture,
and retired to a humble lodging in the city, where, with patient and
laudable energy, he exerted himself to recover the ground he had lost.
Sudden and unexpected as his reverses had been, he never murmured at the
hardship of his lot, convinced that all the dispensations of Providence
are wisely and mercifully ordered, and happy in the consciousness that
he had nothing to reproach himself with, as far as concerned his dealing
with his fellow-men. About this time, his son John was sent out to
Jamaica, on some mercantile speculation, by the house with which he was
connected, and obtained permission to remain some time on the island, to
inquire into the management of his father's plantation; and, if
necessary and possible, to effect its sale. He was about twenty-four
years of age; tall, and handsome in his appearance, and a youth of
excellent dispositions and steady principles. By his persevering and
conscientious attention to his duties, he had gained the confidence and
esteem of his employers, and had acquired the character of an active and
clever man of business. He had long been a secret admirer of Ellen
Winterton, the orphan child of an officer in the army, and who was
living under the guardianship of the head of his firm. Accustomed,
however, always to keep his feelings under control, and to regulate his
desires by the rules of honour and of prudence, young Hamilton did not
think himself justified in making his proposals in form, until fortune
should have enabled him to do so as an independent man. The change in
his father's circumstances, while it called for fresh exertions on his
part, seemed to separate him still more widely from the object