I am, Dear Edward, Yours

ALEX. HAMILTON.

P.S. I this moment received yours by William Smith, and pleased to
see you give such close application to study.

He hoped that in time Mr. Cruger would find it necessary to send him to
New York; but his employer found him too useful on St. Croix, and
recognized his abilities, not to the extent of advancing his
intellectual interests, but of taxing and developing his capacity for
business and its heavy responsibilities. In the following year he placed
him in temporary charge of his branch house, in Frederikstadt, and
Alexander never wished for war so desperately as when he stood under the
arcade on Bay Street and stared out at the shallow green roadstead and
the inimitable ocean beyond. Frederikstadt was a hamlet compared to
Christianstadt, and unredeemed--the arcades excepting--by any of the
capital's architectural or natural beauty. Alexander believed it to be
the hottest, dullest, and most depressing spot on either hemisphere. The
merchants and other residents were astonished that Nicolas Cruger should
send a lad of thirteen to represent him in matters which involved large
sums of money, but they recognized young Hamilton's ability even while
they stared with some rudeness at the small figure in white linen, and
the keen but very boyish face. When they passed him under the arcades,
and asked him what ship he expected to heave in sight, he was tempted to
say a man-of-war, but had no mind to reveal himself to the indifferent.
He read from sundown until midnight or later, by the light of two long
candles protected from draughts and insects by curving glass chimneys.
Mosquitoes tormented him and cockroaches as long as his hand ran over
the table; occasionally a land-crab rattled across the room, or a
centipede appeared on the open page. But he was accustomed to these
embellishments of tropic life, and although he anathematized them and
the heat, he went on with his studies. It was about this time that he
began to indulge in literary composition; and although less gifted boys
than Alexander Hamilton struggle through this phase of mental
development as their body runs the gamut of juvenile complaints, still
it may be that had not his enormous energies been demanded in their
entirety by a country in the terrible straits of rebirth, or had he
dwelt on earth twenty years longer, he would have realized the ambitions
of his mother and Hugh Knox, and become one o