Goddess Fortune seems to delight in smiling on a man
who risks his all, including life, perhaps, on a desperate
chance of, say one to one hundred. If her Ladyship
frowns and he loses, his friends call him a fool;
if he wins, they say he is a lucky devil and are pleased
to share his prosperity if he happens to be of a giving
disposition. Lucky? No! He has simply
minted his courage.
The most remarkable illustration of these truths that
has ever come to my knowledge is my friend George
Hamilton, the second son in this generation of the
illustrious House of Hamilton, Count Anthony being
its present head. The younger son was penniless
save for the crumbs that fell from his elder brother’s
table, and Count Anthony was one who kept an eye on
the crumbs.
George, who was of an independent nature, accepted
Anthony’s grudging help reluctantly. Therefore
when Charles II was restored to the English throne
in 1660, the younger Hamilton, who had been with the
king in exile, was glad to assume the duties of Second
Gentleman of the Bedchamber in Whitehall Palace.
With the pension attached to this office, winnings
at cards and other uncertain revenues from disreputable
sources, George was enabled to maintain himself at
court where debts were not necessarily paid, where
honesty and virtue were held in contempt, and where
vice of all sorts was not only the daily stock in trade
but the daily stock of jest and pleasure, boasting
and pride; for what is the use of being wicked if
one hides one’s light under a bushel?
Hamilton was a favorite with those who knew him well
and was respected by those who knew him slightly,
not because of his virtues, for they were few, but
because he was strikingly handsome in person, moderately
quick of wit, generous to an enemy, kind to every
one, brave to the point of recklessness, and decent
even in vice, if that be possible. He was no
better than his friends save in these easy qualities,
but while he was as bad in all other respects as his
surroundings, the evil in him was due more to environment
than to natural tendencies, and the good—well,
that was his undoing, as this history will show.
A man who attempts to ’bout ship morally in
too great haste is liable to miss stays and be swamped,
for nothing so grates on us as the sudden reformation
of our friends, while we remain unregenerate.
But to write Hamilton’s history I must begin
at the beginning, which in this case happens to be
my beginning, and shall conclude with his “hundred
to one” venture, which closed his career and
mine, at least in England.
* * * *
*
The Clydes, of whom I am the present head, have always
had great respect for the inevitable and have never
permitted the idealization of a hopeless cause to
lead them into trouble solely for trouble’s sake.
So it was that when my father of blessed memory saw
that King Charles I and his favorites were determined
to wreck the state, themselves, and their friends,
he fell ill of the gout at an opportune moment, which
made it necessary for him to hasten to Germany to
take the cure at the baths.
