Having heard him many nights discuss one such case based upon the Trespass Act, I’d come to the courthouse to watch him from the gallery. Every manner of onlooker packed the chamber—ruffians in homespun next to the city’s finest minds and best families. Alexander was representing another Tory, and the patriotic fervor in the courtroom against his client worried me more than a little.
Finally, my husband rose before the panel of five aldermen, and a hush settled over the restless courtroom—a hush Alexander strung out until the tension was nearly unbearable. And then he unleashed a soaring campaign of words and compelling arguments about why the United States’ Peace Treaty reached with Great Britain rendered invalid any attempt to persecute or prosecute the Tories under the Trespass Act. Indeed, the audience leaned forward, as if under the sway of his oratory as Alexander strode about the chamber, articulating his points one by one, as if building a wall brick by brick. And as it rose, the mood in the crowd changed. Anger turned to questions, and suspicion turned to consideration.
In the end, Alexander created a whole new policy of judicial review for the country when he argued, “The legislature of one state cannot repeal the law of the United States.”
Alexander’s client list expanded after that trial.
And no matter how many neighbors cast dark looks my way on the street, or withheld bread, or smashed up my fruit, or wrote evil poems, I couldn’t have been prouder of him.
*
“MISTRESS,” JENNY SAID from the doorway of the children’s room where I was attempting to bathe a squirming Philip. “There’s a gentleman caller.”
“I’m afraid Mr. Hamilton is at court,” I said.
She bobbed her head. “I told the man as much, but he says he’ll wait.”
My son squealed and splashed in the copper tub of water and I wiped my brow with a forearm, sighing with weary exasperation and the hope that he wouldn’t awaken his four-month-old sister in her cradle. “Can’t the gentleman leave a calling card?”
“He said to tell you he can’t afford calling cards, Mistress. But he also said to tell you this exactly: that he’s brought you a gift of coffee—real coffee—to make up for the swill he once served you in an army tent.”
All at once my glum weariness passed, and with a laugh, I cheerfully surrendered my little boy—bath, towel, and all—to Jenny. I didn’t even take the time to straighten my hair before bounding down the stairs. “Why, James Monroe! Is that you in my parlor?”
The six-foot strapping southerner made a strange sight in civilian clothes. Still, how glad I was to see him when he smiled widely over that familiar dimpled chin. “Well, I declare, it’s Betsy Schuyler—or Mrs. Hamilton, now, I’ve heard.”
“It’s true,” I said, gleefully. “Nevertheless, I would abandon all pretense of married propriety and give your neck a fond embrace if only I could reach. Dear God, what is in that southern soil that makes Virginians grow so tall?”
“The seeds of liberty,” Monroe said with a quickness he’d lacked as a younger man.
“And what brings you to New York?” I asked.
He stooped to give my hand a very gentlemanly kiss. “Virginia has sentenced me to serve here in Congress.”
“You poor wretch,” I said with a laugh, glad that Congress was now meeting in New York City. I led him into the kitchen where we set straightaway to brewing coffee to ward off the winter’s chill. I shouldn’t have invited a gentleman into the house with such familiarity, but in Monroe’s case, I could scarcely think my husband would mind.
“The coffee was roasted already by the grocer,” the Virginian said, shaking the bag and offering to pound the beans to a powder if I could provide him with a mortar and pestle. I didn’t tell him how appalled my mother would be—for she insisted that a good housekeeper always roasted her own coffee beans—but instead showed him the little coffee grinder Angelica had sent me from France.
Monroe and I fell into easy conversation as he gallantly turned the silvered handle upon the mill, and at some point, in our reminiscing, he mentioned having written me a letter before he left Valley Forge. “The letter must have miscarried,” I said, embarrassed that he thought I’d neglected to reply. But letters miscarried all the time during war, as he had good cause to know. “I never received it. Why didn’t you write again?”
Monroe chuckled. “Fearing I’d made a fool of myself, I couldn’t work up the nerve.”