e 1st of December, immediately on his return
from the western country, the dangers of domestic insurrection or
foreign war having subsided, he gave notice that he should on the last
day of January give in his resignation.

Seldom has any minister excited the opposite passions of love and hate
in a higher degree than Colonel Hamilton. His talents were too
pre-eminent not to receive from all the tribute of profound respect;
and his integrity and honour as a man, not less than his official
rectitude, though slandered at a distance, were admitted to be
superior to reproach, by those enemies who knew him.

But with respect to his political principles and designs, the most
contradictory opinions were entertained. While one party sincerely
believed his object to be the preservation of the constitution of the
United States in its original purity; the other, with perhaps equal
sincerity, imputed to him the insidious intention of subverting it.
While his friends were persuaded, that as a statesman, he viewed all
foreign nations with an equal eye; his enemies could perceive in his
conduct, only hostility to France and attachment to her rival.

It was his fortune to hold a conspicuous station in times which were
peculiarly tempestuous, and under circumstances peculiarly
unfavourable to the fair action of the judgment. In the midst of
prejudices against the national debt, which had taken deep root, and
had long been nourished, he was called to the head of a department,
whose duty it was to contend with those prejudices, and to offer a
system which, in doing justice to the creditor of the public, might
retrieve the reputation of his country. While the passions were
inflamed by a stern contest between the advocates of a national, and
of state governments, duties were assigned to him, in the execution of
which there were frequent occasions to manifest his devotion to the
former. When a raging fever, caught from that which was desolating
France, and exhibiting some of its symptoms, had seized the public
mind, and reached its understanding, it was unfavourable to his quiet,
and perhaps to his fame, that he remain uninfected by the disease. He
judged the French revolution without prejudice; and had the courage to
predict that it could not terminate in a free and popular government.

Such opinions, at such a time, could not fail to draw a load of
obloquy upon a man whose frankness gave them publicity, and whose
boldness and decision of