people of the colony. He
studied early, and at the close of the year presented himself to Doctor
Witherspoon, at Princeton, with a request to be permitted to overleap
some of the usual collegiate terms according to his qualifications. As
this was contrary to the usage of the place, he entered King's College,
now Columbia, in New York, with the special privileges he desired. In
addition to the usual studies, he attended the anatomical course of
Clossey. Colonel Troup, at this time his room-fellow, testifies to his
earnest religious feeling, a very noticeable thing in a youth of his
powers. He wrote verses freely--among them doggerel burlesques of the
productions of the ministerial writers of the day.

The Revolution was now fairly getting under way, and in the opening
tumultuous scenes in New York, strong hands were wanted at the wheel.
Hamilton, at the age of seventeen, in 1774, did not hesitate in making
his decision. He entered the field against the dashing young president
of the college, Myles Cooper, of convivial memory, in a reply in Holt's
_Gazette_ to some Tory manifesto of that divine. About this time, after
the adjournment of Congress, at the close of the year, he also published
a pamphlet in vindication of the measures of Congress, against the
attacks of Seabury and Wilkins. The contest, however, was one which was
not to be decided by the pen alone. The old prerogative lawyers and
divines were not to be shaken out of their seats by the constitutional
arguments of such young counsellors as Hamilton and Jay. The hard hands
of the committee of mechanics were much more demonstrative. Myles
Cooper, Seabury, and their brethren very naturally suspected the logic,
and laughed at the novel measures of the day by which the popular party
in their restrictive, non-importation measures proposed to dispense with
the wisdom of Lords and Commons, and starve themselves into
independence. It is well sometimes to look at that side of the question,
too.

But all the pooh-poohing in the world over the best wine in the colony,
was not to stop the affair which had commenced. Volunteers were
drilling, men of sound heads and stout hearts were getting ready for
action. There were certain cannon to be removed from the Battery;
Hamilton was engaged in the duty with his comrades, "Hearts of oak" they
called themselves; a boat approached from the man-of-war Asia, in the
harbor; the citizens fired; the fire was returned from the ship, and