As to the decisive part which he played in the formation of the union of the States after the war, the word of his companions in the Federal Constituent Convention is conclusive. "Were it not for one great character in America," said Grayson of Virginia, referring to Washington, "so many men would not be for this government; we do not fear while he lives, but who besides him can concentrate the confidence and affection of all Americans?" No one else ever could have concentrated them. Monroe reported to Jefferson, "Be assured Washington's influence carried this government." And Bancroft has put this judgment on record: "The country was an instrument with thirteen strings, and the only master who could bring out all their harmonious thought was Washington. Had the idea prevailed that he would not accept the Presidency, it would have proved fatal." Washington was the pivot upon which all things turned. Lacking such a pivot, the machinery of the American republic would have tumbled into ruin. Happy the choice of the Virginian mother who could not spare her boy on that summer day, and sent aboard the man-of-war in Potomac's stream for his dunnage! CHAPTER XII IF ALEXANDER HAMILTON HAD NOT WRITTEN ABOUT THE HURRICANE "He thought out the Constitution of the United States and the details of the government of the Union; and out of the chaos that existed after the Revolution raised a fabric every part of which is instinct with his thought." So said one of his contemporaries, Ambrose Spencer, of Alexander Hamilton; and another said: "He did the thinking of his time." The thinking that Hamilton did for the young American republic was of the most tremendous and vital importance to it. His services as a financier were not merely of a negative or saving character--they were positively constructive and permanently enduring; he "created a public credit and brought the resources of the country into active efficiency." It was Hamilton who founded the American system of business and finance. Yet it is altogether likely that but for an accidental circumstance or two Alexander Hamilton would never have come to the continental colonies. He was born on the Island of Nevis, in the West Indies, and upon that island, and upon St. Christopher and St. Croix, neighboring islands, his life up to the age of fifteen was spent. His father, James Hamilton, had proved "feckless and unfortunate," as a British biographer of Hamilton expresses it, and early ceased to provide for the boy, or, apparently, to take any interest in his education or welfare. His mother died early, and left him to the charge of her relatives, and as she bequeathed to them several other children, they had little thought about Alexander except to make him of some use and lighten their own burden. He was sent to school scarcely at all, and at the age of twelve was put into the shop or store of Nicholas Cruger, a general dealer at St. Croix, to earn his living as a clerk.