Hamiltonian America.Chapter 9.Sons of Liberty.page 8

"There' no gainsaying the fact the Hamilton was worried about the state of liberty and order and the celebrated case of Rivington's media house was a critical test of his revolutionary temperament.In the unknown dispatches to Hugh Knox,at Royal Danish American Gazette on Rivington's report he wrote how New York Gazetteer was picketted by revolutionary monsters and how the mobsters burst into his house and surrounded the premise on the 23rd of November.About 75 of Connecticut Light horse were deployed for the hatchet operation......"with firelocks and fixed bayonets who burst into his house between twelve and one ' o clock at noon, and totally destroyed all his types ,and put an entire stop to his business,and reduced him at upwards of fifty years of age to the sad necessity of beginning the world again.The astonished citizens beheld the whole scene without affording the persecuted proscribed printer the least resistance.The printing of New York Gazetteer will be discountinued until America shall be blessed with the restoration of good government."

It was memoric though the author was anonymous and many evidences suggested the overt writer was Hamilton and it was he who was filing such a dispatch to St.Croix.Though Rivington's model was a rebuttal of balanced reporting and unbecoming behaviour that could kill the quest for freedoms,he was worried for his safety and the vulnerability of print media in the hands of revolutionary mobsters.In a letter to John Jay he though rebuked the mob's action but nevertheless lamented this "dangerous and pernicious"behavior of Rivington's.

It shows the revolutionary hero was worried about the state of liberty and order and lamented in times of commotion the behavior of the mob could lead to a fatal extremes at "a protrusion of uncommon pitch".The same state of the passions which fits the multitude,who have not a sufficient stock of reason and knowledge to guide for opposition to tyranny and oppression very naturally leads them to a contempt and disregard of all authority."

He says if the due medium cannot be found from among the more intelligent it could be a mirage to find it among the unthinking populace.Truly as a lover of revolution truly detests the break down of law and order that may results into "anarchy."He noted greater freedom could lead to greater disorder transforming into total chaos from a dangerous dialectic position to a complete loss of Freedom.Hence his major preoccupation was to balance the equal state of liberty and order in a civilised state ."

"So he was put out of business right?"

"Yes but temporarily.This happened after the mob raid and was only ressurected as a 'Printer To His Majesty 'during temporary wartime occupation of New York by the British army ."

"Did he learn any lesson?"

"Of course he learnt in a hard way."

"But he still reviled the Patriots in' The Royal Gazette "

"That was a partisan approach in view of his overt operation supplying British naval intelligence to Washington,a sort of clandestine operation "sealed inside covers of books he sold to patriotic spies."He obtained a reward too for his loyalty."

"Escaped death by a whisker".

"Exactly.