brated libel case of Crosswell, as his greatest forensic effort. The subject of grave and lofty import related to the liberty of the press, and to the right of a jury in a crim inal case to determine the law as well as the fact. He never in any other of his cases at the bar commanded higher rever ence for his principles or equal admiration of the power and pathos of his eloquence. I also heard him in our mutual youth, in January, 1785, when for the first time I at tended a term of the New York Supreme Court, and saw and heard then, in an inter esting case brought to a hearing, how he commanded great attention by his powers of argument and oratory. Hamilton was then at the age of twenty-seven. He rose with firmness and dignity, and during two hours was fluent, argumentative, ardent, and accompanied with great emphasis of manner and expression. His speech was marked for a searching analysis of the case, — he was resisting a motion for a new trial made as against evidence where Hamilton at nisi prius had obtained a verdict rather by the force of his character and the charm of his eloquence than by preponderance of proof." Of the nisi prius case, out of which arose the argument just referred to, which was eject ment for a large tract of land on the upper Hudson River, his son John C. Hamilton found a trial brief among his father's papers. On its margin, as doubtless written in a spirit of raillery while his opponent (the afterwards Chancellor Livingston) was sum ming up, appear in Hamilton's character istic copper-plate style of hand-writing, these sentences: "Recipe for obtaining good title in ejectment: two or three void patents, several old ex-parte surveys, one or two acts of usurpation acquiesced in for a time but afterwards proved such. Mix well with half a dozen scriptural allusions, some ghosts, fairies, elves, hobgoblins and a quan tum suff. of eloquence." Hamilton's manuscripts and even his sig nature, oddly shows that he omitted to cross
his "t's" and dot his " i's." Doubtless he contracted this habit when a boyish clerk. But whether the omission was from econ omy of time or caprice is unknown. When on one occasion Charles Sumner in the Senate claimed Alexander Hamilton as an anti-slavery man, he was sharply called down by a Southern senator, who begged his authority. The Massachusetts senator sent out to the Congressional Library for the second volume of Hamilton's biography by his son, and read from it how, at the close of the last century, Hamilton founded in New York a Manumission Society for slaves, and obtained the signature of La fayette to its roll as an honorary member. Also how he never would own a slave, but having hired one as a servant and finding that the master was about to sell the negro, Hamilton bought the slave and immediately manumitted him, but retained him in his service on wages. In the illustrated volume that was pub l1shed half a century ago entitled " Homes of American Statesmen," appears a sketch of the celebrated Hamilton country placeon the Hudson River Turnpike, running northward from the suburban village of Bloomingdale on New York Island. The site would be about where One Hundred and Thirty-third Street of New York City now runs. The avenue leading from the road to the house — a double one of the olden style, fronted with Doric pillars — was dotted with thirteen poplar trees — the prized tree of the land of his French ancestry on his mother's side — that Hamilton himself had set out, one for each state of the Union. Only a year ago, when the Metro politan march of realty for investment be gan to despoil the old Hamilton acres, those trees were purchased in their grand old age by a patriotic ex-congressman, and at much expense and care were uprooted and borne for re-erection elsewhere. Hamilton's library in this mansion over looked the Hudson River and the romantic
