#letter analysis

Anyway, this essay isn’t about Laurens’s wife! (Though that will come at some point.) It is about Hamilton’s wife, and more specifically how Hamilton told Laurens about his engagement and marriage, and why he did so.

Hamilton first met Elizabeth Schuyler in the winter of 1777, but only became close to her when she arrived at the military camp in 1780. In April of that year, they became engaged. 

If Hamilton and Laurens were only close friends, I would imagine that Hamilton would be glad and proud to tell Laurens about his fiancé… after all, she was part of one of the most influential families in America, the Schuylers. But instead of writing him immediately, he waited until June to drop the news.

In a letter dated June 30, 1780, Hamilton writes: 

“Have you not heard that I am on the point of becoming a benedict? I confess my sins. I am guilty. Next fall completes my doom. I give up my liberty to Miss Schuyler. She is a good hearted girl who I am sure will never play the termagant; though not a genius she has good sense enough to be agreeable, and though not a beauty, she has fine black eyes—is rather handsome and has every other requisite of the exterior to make a lover happy. And believe me, I am lover in earnest, though I do not speak of the perfections of my Mistress in the enthusiasm of Chivalry.

Is it true that you are confined to Pensylvania? Cannot you pay us a visit? If you can, hasten to give us a pleasure which we shall relish with the sensibility of the sincerest friendship.”

A couple of things about this: Firstly, note the tone in the first bit of this. In the April 1779 letter when Hamilton jokes about a wife, he uses a tone much like this. Joking and implying marriage is a chore. “I confess my sins. I am guilty. Next fall completes my doom.” I read this as a sort of assurance to Laurens. Hamilton doesn’t want to sound super serious, he wants to joke around like he did about women before getting engaged to one. He also uses negative terms to describe his marriage. “Doom” “sins” “guilty.” This could be joking around, but it also could be trying to make Laurens believe that he was only marrying for status. “Confess” is also an interesting choice of words here. Confessing has the connotation of telling something you are afraid of sharing with someone. Hamilton is confessing to Laurens that he’s engaged. Again, this could be part of the not-so-serious tone, but... I mean, we know how good Hamilton was at those double meanings. And particularly at hiding his main meaning through humor, which is also evidenced in the April 1779 letter.

Secondly, look at Hamilton’s description of his wife in this letter. “She is a good hearted girl who I am sure will never play the termagant; though not a genius she has good sense enough to be agreeable, and though not a beauty, she has fine black eyes—is rather handsome and has every other requisite of the exterior to make a lover happy.” And though he then adds “And believe me, I am lover in earnest, though I do not speak of the perfections of my Mistress in the enthusiasm of Chivalry.” He still at first describes his wife in a, shall we say, lukewarm tone. Compare this with Hamilton’s description of his ideal wife in the April 1779 letter, and it falls flat. If Hamilton was describing Laurens in that letter, as is speculated in this post by @john-laurens, he could be basically telling Laurens, “I love you more.” 

Finally, Hamilton asks if Laurens can come and visit them. Possibly just to “give us a pleasure which we shall relish with the sensibility of the sincerest friendship.” But also perhaps because something as complicated as explaining to Laurens Hamilton’s wife was something easier and safer to do in person. 

The next time Hamilton mentions Eliza is a later letter, writing on Sep. 16, 1780:

“In spite of Schuylers black eyes, I have still a part for the public and another for you; so your impatience to have me married is misplaced; a strange cure by the way, as if after matrimony I was to be less devoted than I am now.”

Well, alright, first of all, the fact that Hamilton expresses something like this so clearly is telling. What is he doing here? Assuring Laurens that the love he feels for Eliza won’t affect the love that he and Laurens have. 

“A strange cure” also is an interesting line, because friendship was not seen as something to be ‘cured’ of in that time, but being in a sexual relationship with someone of the same gender was.

Now, time for speculation and reading way too much into the quote “A part for the public and another for you...” This could certainly be more of Hamilton assuring Laurens his love won’t wane... but is it possible that Hamilton was implying here that Eliza was part of his public life? Perhaps again trying to convince Laurens that he had married solely for status? (Which fairly definitively isn’t true. He loved Eliza.)

So again, this is Hamilton assuring Laurens that their relationship doesn’t have to change over Eliza. 

This tone is in quite a contrast to where Hamilton was joking about his “doom” in the last letter. There is a missing letter from Laurens right before this one, so probably something in that letter caused Hamilton’s change in tone when talking about his wife. He went from essentially “Haha I’m getting a wife feel sorry for me” (and the sexism in these letters is whole other issue) to “no no no please don’t worry I love you and that won’t change because of Eliza.”

Then Hamilton says, 

“I wish you were at liberty to transgress the bounds of Pensylvania. I would invite you after the fall to Albany to be witness to the final consummation. My Mistress is a good girl, and already loves you because I have told her you are a clever fellow and my friend; but mind, she loves you a l’americaine not a la françoise.”

To keep this brief... consummation is to (according to dictionary.com) “complete (the union of a marriage)” by having sex. 

This again seems to be, yes, joking, but also assurance that the two relationships were not mutually exclusive. In other words, Hamilton is making sure Laurens knows that he still desires that sort of connection with him.

I’ll do a longer post on this at some point, but basically Hamilton seemed to see his relationships with Laurens and Eliza as fairly separate. Laurens was his lover in the war, his “forbidden” love. They connected on a more professional level, shared more interests and were close not just in a romantic and sexual way, but in a way that allowed them to understand each other’s experiences based on their own. (In some ways. Obviously Hamilton’s upbringing was much different from Laurens’s.) That is, I believe, part of what makes their relationship so special.

Eliza Hamilton was his marital relationship. Because of the sexism and lack of opportunities for women at the time, Eliza was (during Hamilton’s lifetime at least) a more domestic person. But she was just as important as Laurens in that she was probably someone whom Hamilton could just confide in, receive comfort and advice from. The companion who was always there, unlike Laurens. And though they wouldn’t likely converse for hours on war (I mean, I don't think they did,) Hamilton probably needed that break from his insane professional/soldier life. 

What I’m saying, is that the relationships occupied different spheres. But what would have happened once the war was over, and the spheres began to collide? Laurens may have been right to worry about that, and Hamilton may have known he would. So he wrote several passages that seem to be pretty specifically trying to alleviate possible jealousy from Laurens, things the likes of which he did not write to other friends.