Alexander Hamilton could absolutely fucking get it.
He was reportedly really good-looking. One glance at that sharp, slender nose and you're like, Yeah, riding his face would’ve been a good time. Pair that with some blue-gray eyes staring deep into your soul and those high cheekbones? Yesssssss. But it’s his persona that really makes him a hottie.
He had a strong, assertive, and confident (if not overly so) presence and wasn’t afraid to say what was on his mind. But he had a soft side, too. He wrote beautifully—especially in letters—and had a tragic childhood. A real rags to revolution story. Passionate. Dramatic. Poetic. Brooding. Incredibly brilliant.
He chose Elizabeth Schuyler as his bride. Every account I’ve read uses words like “soft,” “refined,” and “modest.” I’m getting the sense that she was what this generation would call in her clean girl era. Like, she probably would’ve loved the Rhode skincare line. She was sweet, incredibly selfless, loyal, and dignified. Charles Adams wrote that she was “sweet in voice,” which is how we know for sure she wasn’t from Long Island, New York.
Anyway, for this story we arrive at a time when Hamilton is the second most powerful man in the United States. He’s the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury. Eliza is upstate with the kiddos to see her dad, and Hamilton stays behind in Philadelphia to handle some work shit.
That’s when a 23-year-old blonde baddie named Maria Reynolds shows up at the Hamilton home insisting she needs his help. Her woeful claim? Her husband, James Reynolds, is abusive and has left her and their child to run off with his mistress. She has no money (pouts her lip, probably) and no means to support herself (pulls down her corset a little, probably). Whatever will she do?
Hamilton takes—oh, I don’t know—maybe three hours to consider the situation. That evening, he shows up at her place and gives her roughly $900 in today’s cash.
A lesson for us all. I’m going to march into Chuck Schumer’s office in a corset and tell him I’m down on my luck.
Anyway, Hamilton gives Maria Reynolds the cash. And then they fucked. And they kept doing it.
Usually, it happened when Eliza took those trips with the kids to see her father in upstate New York. And then Hamilton gets blindsided.
Maria Reynolds’ husband is veryyyyy much in the picture. The husband, James Reynolds, tells Hamilton he’ll expose the affair unless he ponies up some cash. Hamilton hands over what would amount to $25,000 in today’s money. The hush money was paid in two installments during the winter of 1792.
Cuckold James gives Hamilton and Maria the green light to keep enjoying each other’s bodies.
WHICH THEY DO!!!
CAN YOU BELIEVE???
James Reynolds continues to ask Hamilton for more money, which he refers to as “loans,” throughout the spring. By summer, Hamilton has had enough and he and Maria go no-contact.
There was probably some relief on Hamilton’s end. Maybe a sense of “getting away with it all.”
He probably hoped that would last.
It wouldn’t.
That autumn, James Reynolds and his business partner get arrested for a scam. The pair had posed as executors for dead Revolutionary War veterans to try and collect their back pay. I was honestly surprised by the arrest. I thought anyone could get away with whatever they wanted back then.
Anyway—James’s business partner, Jacob Clingman, gets out on bail and visits his former boss, now a congressman from Pennsylvania. And for reasons I still can’t fully understand, he tells the congressman that Reynolds and Hamilton were involved in illegal speculation. I believe it was likely to curry favor with someone in such a position of power considering his legal trouble.
Essentially, it went like this. Hamilton, in his position, is in charge of:
federal funds
the new national bank
public credit and market bonds
Here comes Clingman saying that Hamilton was embezzling public funds and giving insider information to Reynolds to assist in his veterans’ back payment schemes. It seems implausible. Why would the US Secretary of Treasury be making payments to this random criminal low life?
Well, that is, until you consider that Reynolds has actual receipts and letters from Hamilton…but for the hush money. Without that context…not a good look.
Pressed by political colleagues, Hamilton is fucking outraged that anyone would accuse him of corruption. So, he comes clean. He shows the receipts that the payments he made were from his own personal account, and they were hush money to cover his affair. In essence, he welcomes an investigation.
Allegedly, all parties agree to keep quiet about the affair.
But here’s where it gets truly wild.
Maria and James Reynolds get a divorce. Maria’s attorney is…
AARON BURR.
Yes, that Aaron Burr.
The man who would later shoot Hamilton dead.
Hamilton’s former law partner.
And on the same day as the divorce…
She marries…
JACOB CLINGMAN?!?!!??
Her ex-husband’s partner—the guy who sold Hamilton out!
I mean. You cannot make this shit up.
Hamilton likely had a big penis. But he definitely had a big mouth.
Under a pseudonym, he published an essay alluding to Thomas Jefferson sleeping with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. Why he wouldn’t just shut the fuck up, given his own skeletons in the closet, we’ll never know.
A scandal-happy journalist fires back and basically says, “Oh, Hamilton wants to talk? Okay, well guess what—he’s been doing shady financial shit with James Reynolds.”
Now the charges are public.
Hamilton knows this could destroy everything—his legacy, his party, the people’s trust in the office of the Treasury.
So in August of 1797, Alexander Hamilton publishes the Reynolds Pamphlet.
And while it does successfully clear him of financial corruption, it only does so by exposing his affair in lurid detail.
His wife was utterly humiliated.
And any hope he had of becoming President of the United States?
Obliterated.
