Both the Messrs. Wentbridge concurred in censuring the execution of the war, but carried their strictures also to its plans and origin. Hamilton as a military man had lofty ideas of the submission due to government in every department, political as well as military; and various disquisitions took place from a diversity of opinion, sufficient to enliven and animate conversation without causing asperity of dispute. Our hero was often present at these dissertations; and being permitted to deliver his opinion, and instructed to support it with acuteness and force, though with modesty and candour, he greatly promoted the extension of his knowledge, as well as the invigoration of his powers, by these exercises. He was himself strongly inclined to the whig side, a reader of the news-*papers, and a profound admirer of Charles Fox. He often expressed the
