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<\/a><\/p>\nAlexander Hamilton was either 15 or 17 when he wrote the following letter to his father, describing a ferocious hurricane that hit the West Indies in 1772. Hamilton was cagey about his age, and lied about it so much that there will always be a question mark about his actual years on the planet. He liked to seem younger than he was, which “upped” the “OMG, are you a prodigy??” factor, which would already have been in operation with him, regardless of whether he was 15 or 17. Guy was a prodigy from any angle. Even with the more strenuous definitions of “literacy” in existence during the 18th century (for the elite class, that is, of which Alexander Hamilton was most definitely not<\/i> a member), the letter below is an extraordinary document. Written to his father (a rather useless fellow), it got the attention of a preacher who had taken the young Hamilton under his wing and the preacher managed to get it published. This got Hamilton a bunch of attention which eventually led to Hamilton’s leaving the West Indies to travel up to the “colonies” to go to college. He had hoped to go to Princeton. At his first meeting with the Princeton officials, the arrogant (I would say confident) young teenager said that he wanted to be allowed to go at his own pace with his studies (which, for Hamilton, meant going faster<\/i> than everyone else. He did not want to be held back, retarded in his progress by the conventional schedule of universities. If he could complete his studies in two years, or less, he wanted the freedom to do that.) Princeton said, “No.” So Hamilton found himself at the more flexible King’s College on the island of Manhattan (“flexible” meaning “they let Hamilton do what HE wanted to do”), a monarchist and loyalist institution (clearly, the name itself tells us that), which ended up being a fortuitous choice for the young immigrant. It put him in the center of revolution. This was, after all, the same teenager who had written a lonely yearning letter to a good pal when he was back in the West Indies, and after going on and on about his plans and frustrations, ended with, “I wish there was a war.”<\/a> Well, he got one.<\/p>\n Hamilton showed many talents, early. He had to. He was, to quote John Adams’ unkind comment, “the bastard brat of a Scotch peddler.” He was a gifted writer, a gifted accountant, a gifted leader. There were many clues that Hamilton was bound for greater things than running the books in a shipping company on a slave-trade island. <\/p>\n His “Account of a Hurricane”, written at age 15, 16, 17 (what’s the dif?) was a harbinger of things to come.<\/p>\n Account of a Hurricane<\/big> Saint Croix, September 6, 1772<\/p>\n Honoured Sir,<\/p>\n I take up my pen just to give you an imperfect account of the most dreadful Hurricanes that memory or any records whatever can trace, which happened here on the 31st ultimo at night.<\/p>\n It began about dusk, at North, and raged very violently till ten o’clock. Then ensued a sudden and unexpected interval, which lasted about an hour. Meanwhile the wind was shifting round to the South West point, from whence it returned with redoubled fury and continued so till near three o’clock m the morning. Good God! what horror and destruction\u2014it’s impossible for me to describe\u2014or you to form any idea of it. It seemed as if a total dissolution of nature was taking place. The roaring of the sea and wind\u2014fiery meteors flying about in the air\u2014the prodigious glare of almost perpetual lightning\u2014the crash of the falling houses\u2014and the ear-piercing shrieks of the distressed, were sufficient to strike astonishment into Angels. A great part of the buildings throughout the Island are levelled to the ground\u2014almost all the rest very much shattered\u2014several persons killed and numbers utterly ruined\u2014whole families running about the streets unknowing where to find a place of shelter\u2014the sick exposed to the keenness of water and air\u2014without a bed to lie upon\u2014or a dry covering to their bodies\u2014our harbour is entirely bare. In a word, misery in all its most hideous shapes spread over the whole face of the country.\u2014 A strong smell of gunpowder added somewhat to the terrors of the night; and it was observed that the rain was surprisingly salt. Indeed, the water is so brackish and full of sulphur that there is hardly any drinking it.<\/p>\n My reflections and feelings on this frightful and melancholy occasion are set forth in following self-discourse.<\/p>\n Where now, Oh! vile worm, is all thy boasted fortitude and resolution? what is become of thy arrogance and self-sufficiency?\u2014why dost thou tremble and stand aghast? how humble\u2014how helpless\u2014how contemptible you now appear. And for why? the jarring of the elements\u2014the discord of clouds? Oh, impotent presumptuous fool! how darest thou offend that omnipotence, whose nod alone were sufficient to quell the destruction that hovers over thee, or crush thee into atoms? See thy wretched helpless state and learn to know thyself. Learn to know thy best support. Despise thyself and adore thy God. How sweet\u2014how unutterably sweet were now the voice of an approving conscience;\u2014then couldst thou say\u2014hence ye idle alarms\u2014why do I shrink? What have I to fear? A pleasing calm suspense! a short repose from calamity to end in eternal bliss?\u2014let the earth rend, let the planets forsake their course\u2014let the sun be extinguished, and the heavens burst asunder\u2014yet what have I to dread? my staff can never be broken\u2014in omnipotence I trusted.<\/p>\n He who gave the winds to blow and the lightnings to rage\u2014even him I have always loved and served\u2014his precepts have I observed\u2014his commandments have I obeyed\u2014and his perfections have I adored.\u2014He will snatch me from ruin\u2014he will exalt me to the fellowship of Angels and Seraphs, and to the fulness of never ending joys.<\/p>\n But alas! how different, how deplorable\u2014how gloomy the prospect\u2014death comes rushing on in triumph veiled in a mantle of ten-fold darkness. His unrelenting scythe, pointed and ready for the stroke.\u2014On his right hand sits destruction, hurling the winds and belching forth flames;\u2014calamity on his left threatening famine, disease, distress of all kinds.\u2014And Oh! thou wretch, look still a little further; see the gulf of eternal mystery open\u2014there mayest thou shortly plunge \u2014 the just reward of thy vileness.\u2014Alas! whither canst thou fly? where hide thyself? thou canst not call upon thy God;\u2014thy life has been a continual warfare with him.<\/p>\n Hark! ruin and confusion on every side.\u2014Tis thy turn next: but one short moment\u2014even now\u2014Oh Lord help\u2014Jesus be merciful!<\/p>\n Thus did I reflect, and thus at every gust of the wind did I conclude,\u2014till it pleased the Almighty to allay it.\u2014Nor did my emotions proceed either from the suggestion of too much natural fear, or a conscience overburdened with crimes of an uncommon cast.\u2014I thank God this was not the case. The scenes of horror exhibited around us, naturally awakened such ideas in every thinking breast, and aggravated the deformity of every failing of our lives. It were a lamentable insensibility indeed, not to have had such feelings,\u2014and I think inconsistent with human nature.<\/p>\n Our distressed helpless condition taught us humility and a contempt of ourselves.\u2014The horrors of the night\u2014the prospect of an immediate cruel death\u2014or, as one may say, of being crushed by the Almighty in his anger\u2014filled us with terror. And everything that had tended to weaken our interest with Him, upbraided us, in the strongest colours, with our baseness and folly.\u2014That which, in a calm unruffled temper, we call a natural cause, seemed then like the correction of the Deity.\u2014Our imagination represented him as an incensed master, executing vengeance on the crimes of his servants.\u2014The father and benefactor were forgot, and in that view, a consciousness of our guilt filled us with despair.<\/p>\n But see, the Lord relents\u2014he hears our prayers\u2014the Lightning ceases\u2014the winds are appeased\u2014the warring elements are reconciled, and all things promise peace.\u2014The darkness is dispelled\u2014and drooping nature revives at the approaching dawn. Look back, Oh, my soul\u2014look back and tremble.\u2014Rejoice at thy deliverance, and humble thyself in the presence of thy deliverer.<\/p>\n Yet hold, Oh, vain mortal!\u2014check thy ill-timed joy. Art thou so selfish as to exult because thy lot is happy in a season of universal woe?\u2014Hast thou no feelings for the miseries of thy fellow-creatures, and art thou incapable of the soft pangs of sympathetic sorrow?\u2014Look around thee and shudder at the view.\u2014See desolation and ruin wherever thou turnest thine eye. See thy fellow-creatures pale and lifeless; their bodies mangled\u2014their souls snatched into eternity\u2014unexpecting\u2014alas! perhaps unprepared!\u2014Hark the bitter groans of distress\u2014see sickness and infirmities exposed to the inclemencies of wind and water\u2014see tender infancy pinched with hunger and hanging to the mother’s knee for food!\u2014see the unhappy mother’s anxiety\u2014her poverty denies relief\u2014her breast heaves with pangs of maternal pity\u2014her heart is bursting\u2014the tears gush down her cheeks\u2014Oh sights of woe! Oh distress unspeakable!\u2014my heart bleeds\u2014but I have no power to solace!\u2014Oh ye, who revel in affluence, see the afflictions of humanity, and bestow your superfluity to ease them.\u2014Say not, we have suffered also, and with-hold your compassion. What are your sufferings compared to these? Ye have still more than enough left.\u2014Act wisely.\u2014Succour the miserable and lay up a treasure in Heaven.<\/p>\n I am afraid, sir, you will think this description more the effort of imagination, than a true picture of realities. But I can affirm with the greatest truth, that there is not a single circumstance touched upon which I have not absolutely been an eye-witness to.<\/p>\n Our General has several very salutary and human regulations, and both in his public and private measures has shown himself the Man<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The wind is picking up. It woke me up. So far nothing too unusual, some garbage cans careening down the sidewalk in the darkness, but the storm got me thinking about Alexander Hamilton (of course it did), and the first … Continue reading
\nTo the Royal Danish American Gazette<\/i><\/big><\/p>\n