urned the same day.

While thus engaged in debates which called into exercise his varied
information and displayed not only the extent of his learning but his
remarkable powers of reasoning and statement, Mr. Gallatin never lost
sight of reform in the administration of the finances of the government.
To the success of his efforts to hold the Treasury Department to a
strict conformity with his theory of administration, Mr. Wolcott, the
secretary, gave ample if unwilling testimony. To Hamilton he wrote on
April 5, 1798, "The management of the Treasury becomes more and more
difficult. The legislature will not pass laws in gross; their
appropriations are minute. Gallatin, to whom they yield, is evidently
intending to break down this department by charging it with an
impracticable detail."

During these warm discussions Gallatin rarely lost his self-control.
Writing to his old friend Lesdernier at this period, he said, "You may
remember I am blessed with a very even temper; it has not been altered
by time or politics."

* * * * *

The third session of the fifth Congress opened on December 3, 1798. On
the 8th, when the President was expected, Lieutenant-General Washington
and Generals Pinckney and Hamilton entered the hall and took their
places on the right of the speaker's chair. They had been recently
appointed to command the army of defense.

The President's speech announced no change in the situation. "Nothing,"
he said, "is discoverable in the conduct of France which ought to change
or relax our measures for defense. On the contrary, to extend and
invigorate them is our true policy. An efficient preparation for war can
alone insure peace. It must be left to France, if she is indeed desirous
of accommodation, to take the requisite steps. The United States will
steadily observe the maxims by which they have hitherto been governed."
The reply to this patriotic sentiment was unanimously agreed to, and was
most grateful to Adams, who thanked the House for it as "consonant to
the characters of representatives of a great and free people."

On December 27 a peculiar resolution was introduced to punish the
usurpation of the executive authority of the government of the United
States in carrying on correspondence with the government of any foreign
prince or state. Gallatin thought this resolution covered too much
ground. The criminality of such acts did not lie in their being
usurpations, but i