on. Without
the sympathy of either the Senate or House, Mr. Gallatin's position
became daily more irksome, until at last he abandoned all attempt to
control the drift of party policy, took the war party at their word, and
sent in to the House a war budget.

Unfortunately for the country, the Republican party knew neither how to
prepare for war, nor how to keep the peace. Mr. Madison had none of the
qualifications of a war President; neither executive ability, decision
of character, nor yet that more important faculty, knowledge of men. In
his attachment to Mr. Madison and in loyalty to what remained of the
once proud triumvirate of talent and power, Mr. Gallatin supplied the
deficiencies of his fellows as best he could, until an offer of
mediation between the United States and Great Britain on the part of the
emperor of Russia presented an opportunity for honorable withdrawal and
service in another and perhaps more congenial field. In March, 1813, the
Russian minister, in a note to the secretary of state, tendered this
offer. Mr. Gallatin had completed his financial arrangements for the
year, and requested Mr. Madison to send him abroad on this mission.
Unwilling to take the risk of new appointments, the President acceded to
this proposal, and gave him leave of absence from his post in the
Treasury. Mr. Gallatin did not anticipate a long absence, and felt, as
he said to his old friend Badollet, that he could nowhere be more
usefully employed than in this negotiation. Certainly he could have no
regret in leaving a cabinet which had so little regard to his own
feelings and so little political decency as to confer the appointment of
adjutant-general in the United States army on his malignant assailant,
William Duane of the "Aurora."

Mr. Gallatin's mission, followed by the resignation of his post in the
cabinet, finally dissolved the political triumvirate, but not the
personal friendship of the men. Numerous attempts were made to alienate
both Jefferson and Madison from Gallatin while he held the portfolio of
the Treasury, but one and all they signally and ignominiously failed.
For Mr. Jefferson Mr. Gallatin had a regard near akin to reverence. A
portrait of the venerable sage was always on his study table. When about
setting out for France in 1816 he tendered his services to his old chief
and wrote to him that 'in every country and in all times he should never
cease to feel gratitude, respect, and attachment for him.' Je