that both men could be misled, the question becomes not what each author thought, but purely what other evidence than their opinions goes to prove.
Before dismissing this question of memory, one fact of value cannot be omitted. Madison set out for Virginia three days after the last essay in dispute was published, was quickly engaged in the heat of party strife tending to obscure his memory on the question of authorship, and making it improbable that he could give the volumes of The Federalist, when they presently appeared, any careful examination for some time. Strange though it may appear, Madison apparently possessed no copy of the first edition, having presumptively given away all those sent him by Hamilton. On the contrary, while Madison was engaged in occupations likely to make him forget or confuse the part he had borne in the undertaking, Hamilton was revising the newspaper articles and seeing them through the press for the book edition. There is not an essay in the collected edition of 1788 in which he did not make from ten to twenty verbal corrections, implying careful study of the text, and as this revision was done within two months of their appearance in the newspapers, and before Hamilton had confused matters by "retailing" Publius in the New York convention, it is obvious that he refreshed his memory in a way most certain to fix the authorship clearly in his mind.
These facts being considered, it becomes of importance to find what is the earliest date at which each of the disputants asserted his claim of authorship. So far as is known Madison's was first noted in a copy of the edition of The Federalist printed in 1799, or eleven years after the appearance of the essays. Hamilton's earliest statement was made to Chancellor Kent, and as he is spoken of in the memoranda as "General Hamilton" it must have been made while he held that rank, or in the years 1798 or 1799. Thus both assertions practically rest on equal ground, so far as time is concerned.
But one piece of evidence deserves mention, because it
