#william north

[amphibious-thing]

ummm...

[temp-kiehls]

As inspector general, Alexander Hamilton, who had worked closely with North during the Revolutionary War, subsequently requested him to serve as his chief of staff. (x)

[devorafetos]

Follow my historical research alt!! I post letters with my own analysis, short biographies, and narrate some unknown historical events I like, or per request! most of my research revolves around these subjects:

-John Laurens

-Alexander Hamilton

-Baron von Steuben

-Pierre du Ponceau

-Benjamin Walker

-William North

-John André

-Marquis de Lafayette

Annnd yes basically thats it!! without further over-explaining, here it is: @john-laurens-hamilton

[baron-von-steuben]

I know people have already talked about Von Steuben's letters and this might just be a personal thing but I don't think you all understand just how sickening, how gut-wrenching, how tear bringing, how absolutely depressing they are because oh my god oh my god how I wish I could have helped that god damn old decaying man because no one else did and nobody was there and his gaggle of 20yro boyfriends practically abandoned him and his last year was without his dog so he was left with nothing ABSOLUTELY nothing worth anything in his life, and he was desperate for company and desperate for all his friends to reach out to him, yet when Hamilton finally did, he denied?? All his post-war letters basically either say "oh North how can you even love me I'm horrible...do you even love me?" OR "hey old buddy I'm financially struggling can I pls get some money to feed my family of 14 who visit sometimes" like???? OMFG this man. I am crying. I will fight for this man. And I would say "why didn't anyone just reach out and help him" but like Hamilton tried but I'm still absolutely depressed for him I love him so much I wish he was doing okay because I can't mentally bare him being sad even though he died like 200 years ago and I swear I was actually gonna ramble about important stuff but I'm rereading this post and it actually looks really stupid and I don't know what point I was trying to make in the first place okay bye

[thestagthatlovedthewolf]

I finished Harlots, and I want more!!! I haven't watched a show this fast in a long time, I was just very immersed - and I've now added a few books to my list!!! - the setting and the life of these people were so interesting, and I really liked the different classes!!!

I really LOVED a few characters here, Violet and Betsey were great and I liked them working outside of a house, but with the support of Nancy still, I really Amelia Scanwell, and I think they did an incredible job with her mother in s2!!! And then still character, but also shipping house, Will and Margaret got me immediately - I LOVE strong marriages/relationships at the center of a show, and I love blended families and the love Will has for Charlotte and Lucy was beautiful to see (also little Jacob is a star character in this show, I love him so much, he's such a good kid!!!!) - and then Nancy and Margaret, this love and trust and history with each other, how they are also partners, and this understanding of each other... and in this triangle you also have a really good Will and Nancy dynamic, this care and friendship that is beautiful to see!!!

Still with characters, I really like how season 2 and 3 brought you a different side of the justice, and you have these people who want to fulfil the law, but also learning that the law is not everything. Now I don't particularly like that s3 left so many characters behind, and having no idea where they went - you had lost Betsey before but you do learn what happens, not here - so it feels like a completely new show, which I wasn't ready for...

Continuing with season 3 thoughts, it was a bit of a let down after the first two... it wasn't the same, it still did interesting things... but the biggest thing is I feel that the ending wasn't satisfying (it's not a bad ending, but it does not leave you satisfied) - and this starts with Margaret Wells leaving!!! I don't mind the introduction of Jonas - I like him - but the leaving with nothing to come after, feels empty, I'm here waiting (and even more than at the end of s2 - that felt like a more satisfying goodbye)... and then it also feels the pairing up of Will and Nancy (with their own respectively women) feels like a bad choice, the pairings work and make sense, but I feel they implied too hard to make the audience forget Margaret was sent away in an unsatisfying matter!!!

I'll now come back to better things, season 1 and 2 were really good with more of a focused in the two factions, but also with always the side reality of the courtesan with the Wells sisters!!! The show also does a really good job mixing up the dynamics and pairings with the characters and keeping important relationships but bringing new ones as well - Will and Harriet was one I really liked, bc there's this understanding between them of being black but also raising biracial kids in that world, and then Nancy with all the girls!!!

Still on characters, Emily Lacey has such a good arc, she was never a favorite, but she was someone you wanted to see and follow, always planning and preparing!!! I also like, that just like with the justice becoming better, they also give us some culls that we don't mind seeing - my favorite is Fanny's favorite, and the line of coming to her because she reminds him of how his wife was hit well!!!

Really this is a good show, with good characters and setting, that got me crying for at least two episodes - I was especially a mess during 2x07!!! And I've now read all the Will and Margaret fic on ao3, but I'm following to check the Margaret and Nancy ones!!! Definitely recommending this show!!!

[the-ember-island-players]

William North is the daddest dad. I love this man so much.

[yr-obedt-cicero]

Yesterday my dear Bill it was a year, when you did cut your name & mine, in a big tree at Steube it was a year that the Constitution was Signed at Philadelphia, it was elleven years When Burgoin capitulated at Saratoga, & it was—fifty Eight years—I celebrated the Day in dining with our friend Walker, where we wished health & happiness to Our friend in the woods.

Source — Baron von Steuben to William North, [September 18, 1788]

Super heterosexual of them to have their initials carved in a tree.

[46ten]

AH’s political prospects in 1798; Or, how a white man continually falls upwards

It’s a bit difficult to gauge the real-time reaction and consequences of AH’s late August 1797 publication of the Reynolds Pamphlet. We have newspaper articles, sure, and scattered letters here and there. 

But this is even more interesting: Kaminski and Levinson (Levinson is a lawyer and publisher at statutesandstories.com; Kaminski is Founder and Director of the Center for the Study of the American Constitution at UWisc) published a blog post last year confirming that AH’s “secret” (all the discussions were supposed to be secret) plan, delivered on June 18, 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, was leaked and published in early 1798.

Kaminski and Levinson continue: 

James Madison’s Convention notes were not published until 1840, after his death as the last surviving member of the Philadelphia Convention. Accordingly, historians have generally assumed that the full text of the Hamilton Plan only became public in 1840 after Madison’s death. As set forth below, recently rediscovered sources prove that the verbatim text of the Hamilton Plan was leaked to the press in January of 1798, during the vitriolic newspaper war of the 1790s.

[From Benjamin Franklin Bache’s Aurora on January 13, 1798]: The following document, which so complete unmasks the political character of the man who has been most instrumental in entailing on the United States those pernicious systems under which they now groan, comes to us thro’ a certain tho’ indirect channel, from a member of the Grand Convention.

...It has recently been discovered that after the Aurora published Hamilton’s Plan several Democratic-Republican newspapers quickly followed suit. In early 1798 the following newspapers republished the Hamilton Plan as a means of “unmasking” and attacking Hamilton’s “political character” as a monarchist:

Greenleaf’s New York Journal, January 17, 1798

The Alexandria Advertiser, January 23, 1798

The Independent Chronicle, January 25, 1798

The Bee, January 31, 1798

The Albany Register, February 2, 1798

The Poughkeepsie Journal, March 13, 1798

Whether Madison personally authorized the leak will require additional scholarship, which will be discussed in the pending book, My Most Ardent Wish: New discoveries and insights into the framing of the Constitution.

In the months to follow Statutesandstories.com and the Center for the Study of the American Constitution invite scholars to join in a deep dive into the Madison, Jefferson and Monroe papers looking for clues as to the reason(s) for releasing the confidential Hamilton Plan. While generations of historians and biographers have written about the growing schism between Madison and Hamilton, as far as can be determined no biographer has cited the leak of the Hamilton Plan in the Aurora on January 13, 1798. Why then? And to what end?

Look at these guys promising me a good time! A lot of interesting work has been published on the blog about the Constitutional Convention, how AH may have been in Philadelphia for more days than usually noted, done more politicking towards the other NY delegates than previously known, and how he may have been more active in the writing of the Constitution than usually attributed (hi Gouverneur Morris), in what they term the Hamilton Authorship Thesis. They also have provided some more information about missing/ previously unknown Hamilton legal cases (I’ll link one here), among other topics. 

So even with the Reynolds Pamphlet and the publication of AH’s “monarchist” views, John Jay (then NY Gov) was willing to name Hamilton U.S. Senator from NY in April 1798 - without even asking him if it was okay!

The present delicate State of our public affairs, and the evident Expediency of filling this Vacancy without Delay, induce me without requesting your Permission and waiting for your answer, to determine to send you a Commission to fill that place, by the next Post. I can say nothing that will not occur to You. [19April1798, Jay to AH]

And then took a breath and sent off another note: 

On further Reflection I doubt the propriety of appointing you without your previous permission, and therefore shall postpone it untill I receive your answer. If after well considering the Subject you should decline an appointmt. be so good as to consult with some of our most judicious Friends and advise me as to the Persons most proper to appoint and at the same time likely to accept. [19April1798, Jay to AH]

The situation was that Philip Schuyler had been elected Senator again in 1797, but then had to resign (3Jan1798) due to poor health. John Sloss Hobart had been NY Supreme Court justice for over 20 years and was appointed to Schuyler’s seat on 11Jan1798. But then he was nominated for the federal NY District Court by Pres. Adams. Did Jay think AH wanted to warm his father-in-law’s seat that badly? AH responded to Jay (24Apr1798):

I have received your two favours of the 19th instant. I feel as I ought the mark of confidence they announce. But I am obliged by my situation to decline the appointment. This situation you are too well acquainted with to render it necessary for me to enter into explanation. There may arrive a crisis when I may conceive myself bound once more to sacrifice the interest of my family to public call. But I must defer the change as long as possible.

I do not at present think of a person to recommend as adapted to the emergency. I shall reflect & consult and write you by the next post. This, the first day, is not decisive of our election here; but there is as yet nothing to discourage. With respect & attachment...

He’s already lawyering and anonymously publishing and meddling all over Adams’s administration and reading every newspaper mention of himself to respond to that too (and tending to his family, I guess)- when did Jay think AH would also have time to be a senator? The lucky fellow appointed Senator until the next legislative session instead was - William North. (James Watson was elected to the position in August 1798.) 

And of course, in July George Washington would appoint Hamilton Inspector General with the rank of first Major General, jumping both Pinckney and Knox in rank. Yeah, Hamilton’s reputation and prospects were really suffering. And the biggest problem remained unaddressed - that Hamilton needed to make more money. 

I believe it’s first attributed to Jefferson, but some of the Federalists also took to calling Hamilton “Colossus.” If he lived now, he could have made shirts with his picture and the logo “Too Big to Fail.”