money could be obtained in one way only,--by a foreign loan.
He then elaborately disposed of the proposed insane methods of applying
this projected loan which were agitating the Congress. But he was an
architect and builder as well as an iconoclast, and having shown the
futility of every financial idea ever conceived by Congress, he
proceeded to the remedy. His scheme, then as ever, was a National Bank,
to be called The Bank of the United States; the capital to be a foreign
loan of two millions sterling.

This letter, even in its details, in the knowledge of human nature it
betrays, and in its scheme to combine public and private capital that
the wealthy men of the country should, in their own interests, be
compelled to support the government, reads like an easy example in
arithmetic to-day; but a hundred and twenty years ago it was so bold and
advanced that Morris dared to adopt several of its suggestions in part
only, and founded the bank of Pennsylvania on the greater plan, by way
of experiment. No one but Hamilton could carry out his own theories.

Hamilton, who often had odd little attacks of modesty, signed the
letter, James Montague; address, Morristown. He read it to Washington
before posting.

The Chief, whose men were aching, sighed heavily.

"They will pick a few crumbs out of it," he said. "But they will not
make a law of it in toto; the millennium is not yet come. But if it
gives them one idea we should be thankful, it being a long and weary
time since they have experienced that phenomenon. If it does not, I
doubt if these men fight another battle. I wonder if posterity will ever
realize the indifference of their three million ancestors to the war
which gave them their independence--if we accomplish that end. I ask for
soldiers and am treated much as if I had asked for my neighbour's wife.
I ask for money to keep them from starving and freezing and am made to
feel like an importunate beggar."

"I had a letter from Hugh Knox not so long since," said Hamilton, in his
lightest tone; for Washington was on the verge of one of his attacks of
infuriated depression, which were picturesque but wearing. "He
undertakes to play the prophet, and he is an uncommon clever man, sir:
he says that you were created for the express purpose of delivering
America, to do it single-handed, if necessary, and that my proud destiny
is to be your biographer. The first I indorse, so does every thinking
man in the country. But for