be disregarded, and the impersonal reply to it in No. 54 was published exactly one week later, on February 14. It seems almost conclusive under these circumstances that it was written by Hamilton. Another opinion in this number furthers this probability. The writer praises the "federal number," on the ground that it introduces through the slave a partial representation of property. This was a favorite idea of Hamilton's, for which he had spoken in the federal convention, and for which he praised this clause in one of his speeches in the New York convention. To this idea of property representation Madison was absolutely opposed.
In No. 52 the writer is in doubt as to the term of office of the colonial assembly of Virginia before the Revolution; a fact so notorious in that state that it could not have been unknown to Madison.
In No. 63 the writer praises the British House of Lords; something Madison would not have done. Hamilton, on the contrary, had been most open in his admiration of the British government, and so admired this particular branch of it that he had but just modeled the Senate in his proposed constitution as closely upon it as he could. This essay, too, devoted a paragraph to the Senate of Maryland, which Hamilton had already noticed with some attention in his "great" speech in the federal convention.
In Nos. 54 and 57 the mention of local circumstances, of New York state, of New York city, and of Albany county, points to the knowledge of Hamilton rather than to that of Madison.
Finally and most conclusive, in the republication in 1788 of the letters in book form, Hamilton inserted in the newspaper text of No. 56 a paragraph relating to military affairs, and as he was scrupulous, in correcting the numbers not written by himself, to limit his change to merely verbal improvements, this addition amounts to an assertion of authorship within two months of its writing. Strangely enough, in the edition of 1818 in which "the
