aft for him. Mr.
Hamilton did so, and the address was written principally at such
times as his office was seldom frequented by his clients and
visitors, and during the absence of his students to avoid
interruption; at which times he was in the habit of calling me to
sit with him, that he might read to me as he wrote, in order, as he
said, to discover how it sounded upon the ear, and making the
remark, "My dear Eliza, you must be to me what old Moliere's nurse
was to him."

The whole or nearly all the "address" was read to me by him, as he
wrote it, and the greater part if not all was written in my
presence. The original was forwarded to General Washington, who
approved of it with the exception of one paragraph; of, I think,
from four to five lines, which, if I mistake not, was on the
subject of the public schools; which was stricken out. It was
afterward returned to Mr. Hamilton who made the desired alteration,
and was afterward delivered to General Washington, and published in
that form, and has since been known as "General Washington's
Farewell Address." Shortly after the publication of the address, my
husband and myself were walking in Broadway when an old soldier
accosted him with the request of him to purchase General
Washington's farewell address, which he did, and turning to me
said, "That man does not know he has asked me to purchase my own
work."

The whole circumstances are at this moment so perfectly in my mind
that I can call to mind his bringing General Washington's letter to
me, who returned the address, and remarked on the only alteration
which he (General Washington) had requested to be made.

New York, Aug. 7th, 1840.

ELIZABETH HAMILTON. JAMES A. WASHINGTON. JA.R. MACDONALD.

In 1797 Hamilton was forced by treachery and the malignancy of
Jacobinism into the most painful and mortifying act of his public
career. He had been hailed by certain enthusiastic Federalists as the
legitimate successor of Washington. It was a noble ambition, and there
is no doubt that Hamilton would have cherished it, had he been less of a
philosopher, less in the habit of regarding a desire for the impossible
as a waste of time. Not only were older men in the direct line of
promotion, but he knew that as the author of the Excise Law he was hated
by one section of the Commonwealth,