GATH Mrs.Reynolds and Hamilton

Excerpt from Chapter One - "The Priestleys" pp.11-13

"I feel confirmed," said Mrs. Priestley, "in every prejudice I ever formed against sincere men taking up public life. For every talent they offer, a host of hate starts up; yet there seems to be a multitude of men who can think of nothing else - and what is disinterested about it all? Think of Burke spurning the friendly hand of Fox because they could not think alike about the French! Here we are, made homeless for the same subject, and met on this side of the Atlantic, not as victims, but as parts of a foreign and nearly universal contention."

"I like America very well,:" said Lizzie Priestley," from what I have seen of it. Men must be patriotic, and, therefore, politicians. I like to see young senators, like Colonel Burr, and financial philosophers like his competitor, Hamilton, start up like bees in Samson's dead lion. Not even women can run away from the dangers of nature and institutions - such as marriage, for example. Who knows how a husband will turn out? Who knows what temptations will come to one's self? The joy of children is nearly related to the perils of death. Yet we marry, and so men become politicians. Father Priestley has merely incurred some of the distresses of defeat, and is set ashore safe and sound, with rest and competence before him; but here is President Washington, the noblest man in the world, who might ere this have been executed for high treason; politics brought him from provincial rust to the light of ---"

"Oxygen'" finished Colonel Burr.

"Phlogiston, I'll thank you to say, Senator," cried Thomas Cooper, coming in. "We'll have no new fangled nitrogens nor oxygens neither. The point of my coming is that here are names of both Hamilton and Jefferson, and they make an awkward arrival."

"I cannot be supposed to know," said Doctor Priestley, "all the involutions of American personal life; and so let them come, as to a sanctuary, together."

"Will you stay, Colonel Burr?" asked Mrs. Reynolds, archly.

"How could I leave these charms?" replied the Senator Burr. "Hamilton is a little sore because I got his pa-in-law's seat in the Senate; but, in spite of my raillery of his youth, he is full of imagination."

As Mr. Cooper brought the two distinguished me in, separately, he looked like some hereditary and privileged lacquey of an old British household, with bodily signs of having been descended from a king's jester.

As Hamilton entered and observed the other two, he betrayed no feeling at all; but greeting Doctor Priestley, whose person he readily identified, he welcomed Mrs. Priestley also to the new republic, and waited to be [presented to the other ladies.

When Mrs. Reynolds was introduced, last, she called him "Hamilton;" and Aaron Burr saw that they were former acquaintances.

Colonel Hamilton addressed Mr. Jefferson cordially as "Governor" and bowed to Colonel Burr with no less promptness; while to Joseph Priestley, Jr., and wife, he paid the marked attention due to people who had chosen America for the long to come.

Appendix to the Novel - by the Author George Alfred Townsend

The scale upon which this romance was first executed allowed the author to follow his personages to their respective fates. Publisher and public, however, now acclaim against long novels -such as are all the English classics - and the author with sorrow releases his personages, who had been two years his nearest friends, and tells the sequel of their story to the reader (here) in a few paragraphs.

Alexander Hamilton became the ranking general of the Unites States Army by Washington's demand, who also rejected Burr. The latter, oppressed by debt and licentiousness, stopped his career at the Vice Presidency, and, instead of being revenged upon Jefferson, who cruelly pursued him, he challenged and killed Hamilton.

The story represents Mrs. Reynolds as a portion of Burr's "Nemesis", and she, his mistress aids to bring on the duel, believing that Hamilton will kill Burr: her husband, Clingman, rows Burr to the dueling ground. Hamilton and the Priestleys, to redeem Mrs. Reynolds, have made over to her Hal Priestley's farrm. In her horror at Hamilton's fate, she has Clingman row her to the duelling place, and losing her mind there, drowns herself and drags Clingman down.

Theodosia Burr marries as her father directs, becomes involved in his ruin, and perishes with her child by an unknown fate at sea.

Nelly Custis marries Larry Lewis, and lives a long, happy Christian life.

Jefferson lives to be President, survives to become poor, like Monroe, sacrifices the liberty of all his slaves, and sees Hamilton's star reascend in the younger Adams' administration. To be spiteful, Jefferson leaves his so-called "Anas" to be printed after his death, one of the results of which is the present composition.

Doctor Priestley died a few months before Hamilton, in the same year; 1804, and his son and daughter-in-law returned to England, where Lizzie Priestley passed away young.

Through the agency of Jefferson upon Priestley's younger shadow, Thomas Cooper, the doctor wrote a pamphlet against John Adams, which may have assisted to turn Pennsylvania against the Federalists and determine the party revolution. The Alien and Sedition Bills were passed, it is thought, with reference to Priestley and Cooper, as well as Callender and other foreigners; and in return, Jefferson by the aid of Henry Toulmin, who had become Secretary of State for Kentucky, forced through legislature of that State the "Resolutions of '98" which he drafted while Vice President. These contained the term and the injunction to "nullify" a Federal law.

Tobias Lear, as the custodian of Washington's papers and correspondence, was given office by the Jeffersonians. He cut his throat for mysterious reasons.

Mr. Thomas Cooper, the stormy petrel of that day, was rewarded with a judgeship, like Toulmin, but was removed by the legislature of Pennsylvania for browbeating and tyranny. He drifted to South Carolina, and brought that State into the Nullification War of 1830, after which the legislature turned him down at a great old age. While in prison for a libel on John Adams, his good wife died.

To obtain two presidential terms and antagonize Hamilton, John Adams perverted and destroyed the Federal party. He was probably the last of Jefferson's dupes and gossips of record; but he appointed John Marshall Chief Justice, who long continued to interpret the laws in the spirit of Jay, Hamilton, and Washington.

Doctor Priestley, Hal, and Mrs. Priestley are buried at Northumberland, Pennsylvania. The great grandson of the Priestleys, Richardson, became a noble architect, and made the courthouse of Pittsburgh and the capitol at Albany.

The Reynolds affair became the uncontemplated staple of this romance while the author was devising some way to portray Doctor Priestley in America - the banished Duke of Oxygen.