And now here he is, thought Master, giving me, a vestryman of Trinity, lectures about New York’s bad moral character and her unworthiness to be the capital of America. This from a man who’s been happily living in the flesh-pots of Paris, if you please!

It was intolerable.

“You may like it or you may not,” Master continued heatedly, “but New York, sir, is the capital of America, and it’s going to stay that way.”

It was certainly starting to look like a capital. Life hadn’t been easy since America became a nation. Saddled with British and European trade restrictions, not to mention the war debt, many of the states were still struggling their way out of depression. But New York had been recovering more rapidly than most places. Entrepreneurial merchants found ways to trade. A constant stream of people flowed in.

True, there were still areas where the fires had left charred ruins. But the city was rebuilding. Theaters had opened. The tower and spire of a new Trinity Church rose splendidly over the skyline. And when Congress had decided that their city should be the capital of the new nation, New Yorkers had reacted instantly. City Hall on Wall Street—Federal Hall, they called it now—had been splendidly refurbished as a temporary home for the legislature, while down at the foot of Manhattan, the old fort had already been torn down and used as landfill, to make room for a magnificent new complex to house the Senate, the House of Representatives and the various government offices by the waterside. Where else would you get such action, except in New York?

James intervened now, trying to smooth things over.

“The fact is, Father, many people say the New Yorkers worship only money and love luxury too much.”

“Doesn’t seem to bother Washington,” his father retorted. The president’s magnificent cream-colored coach and six was the finest equipage in the city. George and Martha Washington had already moved into a splendid new mansion on Broadway where they entertained on a scale quite as lavish as any New York merchant prince. And anyway, where was the harm in that?

But if Master chose to curse Jefferson, that gentleman was quite capable of responding in kind. His finely chiseled face set hard, and he fixed the merchant with a steely gaze.

“What I find unseemly about New York, sir,” he said coldly, “is that despite the fact that we fought a war of independence, this city is chiefly populated by Tories.”

There he had a point. If the war had brought all sorts of Patriots and low fellows into prominence, it was quite remarkable how well the city’s old guard—and many of them were indeed Tories—had managed to survive. When you looked at the people who had bought up the houses and lands of the great landowners who’d fled or been dispossessed, the names spoke for themselves: Beekman, Gouverneur, Roosevelt, Livingston—rich merchant gentlemen like himself.

But did that make the city unfit to be America’s capital?