1. The portion of H’s notes beginning with “Objections to the present confederation” and ending with “No Sanction” have no counterpart in the versions of the speech made by Madison, Yates, Lansing, and King.

2. At this point H wrote and crossed out the following heading: “I. Maxim Particular Interests General Int. Esprit de Corps.”

3. At this point H wrote and crossed out “3. Fiscal Jurisdiction.”

4. At this point H wrote and crossed out the word “powers.”

5. The example from Demosthenes was probably the same used later in essay 18 of The Federalist. In describing the weakness of the confederacies of antiquity, Athens was used as an example: “Athens, as we learn from Demosthenes, was the arbiter of Greece 73 years. The Lacedemonians next governed it 29 years; at a subsequent period, after the battle of Leuctra, the Thebans had their turn of domination.”

6. Examples of “Phocian” and “Philip” were developed more fully in essay 18 of The Federalist. In that essay the following example was given of the lessons to be learned from a study of ancient confederacies:

“As a weak government, when not at war, is ever agitated by internal dissentions; so these never fail to bring on fresh calamities from abroad. The Phocians having ploughed up some consecrated ground belonging to the temple of Apollo, the Amphyctionic Council, according to the superstition of the age, imposed a fine on the sacrilegious offenders. The Phocians, being abetted by Athens and Sparta, refused to submit to the decree. The Thebans, with others of the cities, undertook to maintain the authority of the Amphyctions, and to avenge the violated God. The latter being the weaker party, invited the assistance of Philip of Macedon, who had secretly fostered the contest. Philip gladly seized the opportunity of executing the designs he had long planned against the liberties of Greece.”

7. H’s remarks on “Two diets” probably can be reconstructed by remarks on the Swiss Cantons in essay 19 of The Federalist: “The Protestant and Catholic Cantons have since had their separate diets; where all the most important concerns are adjusted, and which have left the general diet little other business than to take care of the common bailages.” His remarks on “opposite alliances Berne Lucerne” probably were similar to the following passage from the same number of The Federalist: “That separation had another consequence which merits attention. It produced opposite alliances with foreign powers; of Berne at the head of the Protestant association, with the United Provinces; and of Luzerne, as the head of the Catholic association, with France.”

8. The examples given by H were explained in essay 6 of The Federalist, written a year later:

“Have there not been as many wars founded upon commercial motives, since that has become the prevailing system of nations, as were before occasioned by the cupidity of territory or dominion?

“Sparta, Athens, Rome, and Carthage, were all Republics; two of them, Athens and Carthage of the commercial kind. Yet were they as often engaged in wars, offensive and defensive, as the neighbouring Monarchies of the same times. Sparta was little better than a well regulated camp; and Rome was never sated of carnage and conquest.

“Carthage, though a commercial Republic, was the aggressor in the very war that ended in her destruction.”

9. The references to “Lewis the 14th” and to “AUSTRIA BOURBON,” were explained by H when he treated the same subject in essay 6 of The Federalist:

“The Provinces of Holland … took a leading and conspicuous part in the wars of Europe. They had furious contests with England for the dominion of the sea; and were among the most persevering and most implacable of the opponents of Lewis XIV.…

“The cries of the nation [of England] and the importunities of their representatives have, upon various occasions, dragged their monarchs into war, or continued them in it contrary to their inclinations, and, sometimes, contrary to the real interests of the State. In that memorable struggle for superiority, between the rival houses of Austria and Bourbon which so long kept Europe in a flame, it is well known that the antipathies of the English against the French … protracted the war beyond the limits marked out by sound policy, and for a considerable time in opposition to the views of the Court.”

10. H is referring to an incident which took place between Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough, and Queen Anne of England over a pair of gloves. There are at least two versions of this incident. In one the Duchess refused to surrender a pair of gloves when asked for them by the Queen. In the other, the Duchess, upon being asked by Abigail Hill Masham, a woman of the Bedchamber, for a pair of the Queen’s gloves, which the Duchess had inadvertently put on, said: “Ah! have I on anything that has touched the odious hands of that disagreeable woman?” (Mrs. Arthur Colville, Duchess Sarah [New York, 1904], 214–15). This remark was supposed to have been overheard by Queen Anne and to have been one of the many incidents that led to the rupture between the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and the Queen. Voltaire states that Queen Anne’s desire to complete the break led to the Peace of Utrecht and the end of Marlborough’s power in England (Jean François Marie Arouet de Voltaire, The Age of Louts XIV, 237–41).

11. H’s use of Poland as an example in his argument can be conjectured by the similar use made of it in essay 19 of The Federalist. In that essay H discussed the perils of a weak government and described Poland “as a government over local sovereigns.… Equally unfit for self-government, and self defence.” That nation had, it was stated, “long been at the mercy of its powerful neighbours; who have lately had the mercy to disburden it of one third of its people and territories.”

12. At this point H wrote and then crossed out: “Hats Caps.”

13. H’s MS notes end with the word “Fleet.” The remaining notes, published below, are taken from Hamilton, Life description begins John C. Hamilton, The Life of Alexander Hamilton (New York, 1840). description ends , II, 486–89.