The Conqueror

The Conqueror

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Title: The Conqueror
Author: Gertrude Franklin Atherton
Release Date: August 22, 2004 [EBook #13246]
Language: English
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THE CONQUEROR
BEING THE TRUE AND ROMANTIC STORY OF
ALEXANDER HAMILTON

BY
GERTRUDE FRANKLIN ATHERTON
"Je considère Napoleon, Fox, et Hamilton comme les trois plus grands
hommes de notre époque, et si je devais me prononcer entre les trois, je
donnerais sans hesiter la première place à Hamilton. Il avait deviné
l'Europe."
TALLEYRAND, Études sur la République
New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON:
MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1904
Set up, electrotyped, and published March, 1902. Reprinted May, July
twice, August, September, October, December, 1902; February, 1903;
February, 1904.
Special edition June, 1904.
Norwood Press J.S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood,
Mass., U.S.A.

TO THE DISTINGUISHED MEN WITHOUT WHOSE
SUGGESTION AND ENCOURAGEMENT THIS ATTEMPT TO
RECREATE THE GREATEST OF OUR STATESMEN WOULD
NOT HAVE BEEN MADE
THE RT. HON. JAMES BRYCE, M.P.
DR. ALLAN McLANE HAMILTON

CONTENTS

NEVIS
BOOK I RACHAEL LEVINE
BOOK II ALEXANDER HAMILTON. HIS YOUTH IN THE WEST
INDIES AND IN THE COLONIES OF NORTH AMERICA
BOOK III THE LITTLE LION
BOOK IV "ALEXANDER THE GREAT"
BOOK V THE LAST BATTLE OF THE GIANTS AND THE END

EXPLANATION
It was my original intention to write a biography of Alexander
Hamilton in a more flexible manner than is customary with that method
of reintroducing the dead to the living, but without impinging upon the
territory of fiction. But after a visit to the British and Danish West
Indies in search of the truth regarding his birth and ancestry, and after a
wider acquaintance with the generally romantic character of his life, to
say nothing of the personality of this most endearing and extraordinary
of all our public men, the instinct of the novelist proved too strong; I no
sooner had pen in hand than I found myself working in the familiar
medium, although preserving the historical sequence. But, after all,
what is a character novel but a dramatized biography? We strive to
make our creations as real to the world as they are to us. Why, then, not
throw the graces of fiction over the sharp hard facts that historians have
laboriously gathered? At all events, this infinitely various story of
Hamilton appealed too strongly to my imagination to be frowned aside,
so here, for better or worse, is the result. Nevertheless, and although the
method may cause the book to read like fiction, I am conscientious in
asserting that almost every important incident here related of his
American career is founded on documentary or published facts or upon
family tradition; the few that are not have their roots among the
probabilities, and suggested themselves. As for the West Indian part,
although I was obliged to work upon the bare skeleton I unearthed in

the old Common Records and Church Registers, still the fact remains
that I did find the skeleton, which I have emphasized as far as is
artistically possible. No date is given nor deed referred to that cannot be
found by other visitors to the Islands. Moreover, I made a careful study
of these Islands as they were in the time of Hamilton and his maternal
ancestors, that I might be enabled to exercise one of the leading
principles of the novelist, which is to create character not only out of
certain well-known facts of heredity, but out of understood conditions.
In this case I had, in addition, an extensive knowledge of Hamilton's
character to work backward from, as well as his estimate of the friends
of his youth and of his mother. Therefore I feel confident that I have
held my romancing propensity well within the horizon of the
probabilities; at all events, I have depicted nothing which in any way
interferes with the veracity of history. However, having unburdened my
imagination, I shall, in the course of a year or two, write the biography
I first had in mind. No writer, indeed, could assume a more delightful
task than to chronicle, in any form, Hamilton's stupendous services to
this country and his infinite variety.
G.F.A.

NEVIS
In the eighteenth century Nevis was known as The Mother of the
English Leeward Caribbees. A Captain-General ruled the group in the
name of the King, but if he died suddenly, his itinerant