There were other duties from which Hamilton fled to the house on the
hill for solace. Valley Forge harboured a heterogeneous collection of
foreigners, whose enthusiasm had impelled them to offer swords and
influence to the American cause: Steuben, Du Portail, De Noailles,
Custine, Fleury, Du Plessis, the three brothers Armand, Ternant,
Pulaski, and Kosciusko. They had a thousand wants, a thousand
grievances, and as Washington would not be bothered by them, their daily
recourse was Hamilton, whom they adored. To him they could lament in
voluble French; he knew the exact consolation to administer to each, and
when it was advisable he laid their afflictions before Washington or the
Congress. They bored him not a little, but he sympathized with them in
their Cimmerian exile, and it was necessary to keep them in the country
for the sake of the moral effect. But he congratulated himself on his
capacity for work.
"I used to wish that a hurricane would come and blow Cruger's store to
Hell," he said one day to Laurens, "but I cannot be sufficiently
thankful for that experience now.
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