CHAPTER   XIY.

MEMBER   OF   THB   ASSEMBLY  AGAIN.

BtlKR RETIRES FROM THE SENATE — ThE FEDERALISTS IN POWBR — PrE-EMINENT POSI¬
TION OP Hamilton — Burr in the Assembly — His Preparatory Maneuvers-—
Hamilton Opposes Burr's appointment to a Generalship — The Army—Thb
Manhattan Bank Affair—Burr's First Duel, and its Cause.

In Greenleafs New York Journal and Patriotic Register
for February 2d, 1797, amid whole pages ablaze with the vic¬
tories of Bonaparte's Italian campaign, and bristling with the
short, sharp bulletins and proclamations of that portentous
conqueror, may still be seen a little paragraph which records,
in the fewest words possible, an event of some interest to us,
which had taken place in Albany nine days before. The para¬
graph reads thus: " On the 24th ult., Philip Schuyler was
unanimously (excepting one vote in the Assembly and one in
the Senate) elected to the office of Senator of the United
States by the two Houses of the legislature of this State, for
six years, from the 4th of March next, on which day the seat
of Aaron Burr, one of our present Senators in Congress, be¬
comes vacant."

The services of the old soldier, then, were recognized at
last. The Federalists were in the ascendant, and the Repub¬
licans, as I conjecture, chose to gratify a war-worn veteran
with their votes, rather than throw them away upon a candi
date of their own party. Schuyler was touched with the
unanimity of the vote. He was a member of the State Sen
ate at the time, and he took occasion to express his feelings in
a short speech, full of honest, manly feeling.

The Federalists, as just observed, were in the ascendant in
the State of New York. John Jay was governor. He had
recovered much of the popularity lost by negotiating that