Alexander Hamilton

Excerpt from Alexander Hamilton

About this time, the boy was also showing signs of literary skill by writing sundry poems and compositions, and one of his efforts in this line describing a tropical hurricane was published in a' London paper. This opened the eyes of the mystical kinsmen to the fact that they had a genius among them, and the elder Hamilton was importuned for money to send the boy to Boston that he might receive a proper education and come back and own the store and be a magistrate and a great man. No doubt the lad pressed the issue, too, for his ambition had already begun to ferment, as we find him writing to a friend, I '11 risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station.