g, and whose fears were excited by the
leaders of the opposition, were made mere tools of on the occasion.

A meeting for a similar purpose was held in front of the city-hall, in
Wall street, New York, on the eighteenth of July, pursuant to a call of
an anonymous handbill. There the opposition gathered in great numbers,
and there also was a large number of the friends of the treaty, who
succeeded at first in electing a chairman. They were then about to
adjourn to some more convenient place, when Brockholst Livingston, Mr.
Jay's brother-in-law, and a leader of the opposition, urged the meeting
to proceed instantly, as the president might ratify the treaty at any
moment. Indeed, the whole Livingston family, with the eminent chancellor
at their head, were now in the ranks of the opposition, and exerted a
powerful influence. "With more than thoughtless effrontery," says Doctor
Francis, "they fanned the embers of discontent."

Hamilton, Rufus King, and other speakers, occupied the balcony of the
city-hall. The former, with sweet and persuasive tones, had uttered
conciliatory words, and spoken in favor of adjournment, when the
meeting became a good deal disturbed by conflicting sentiments and
stormy passions. Just then an excited party of the opposition, who had
held a meeting at the Bowling Green, with William L. Smith, a son-in-law
of Vice-President Adams, as chairman, and who had burned a copy of the
treaty in front of the government house, marched up Broadway, with the
American and French flags unfurled, and joined the meeting. The
turbulence of the assembly was greatly increased by this addition; and
while Hamilton and King "were addressing the people in accents of
friendship, peace, and reconciliation, they were treated in return with
a shower of stones, levelled at their persons, by the exasperated mob
gathered in front of the city-hall."[80]

"These are hard arguments," said Hamilton, who was hit a glancing blow
upon the forehead by one of the stones. A question was finally taken on
a motion to leave the decision on the treaty to the president and
senate, when both sides claimed a majority. Then some person, utterly
ignoring the presence of a chairman, moved the appointment of a
committee of fifteen, to report to another meeting (to be held two days
afterward) objections to the treaty. He read a list of names of
gentlemen that should form that committee, and, at the close of
clamorous shouts, he declared them duly a