fairs, would be in them like a fish out of
water; every thing would be new to him, and he awkward in every thing.
I confessed to him that I had considered Johnson rather as fit for the
Treasury department. 'Yes,' says he, 'for that he would be the fittest
appointment that could be made; he is a man acquainted with figures, and
having as good a knowledge of the resources of this country as any man.'
I asked him if Chancellor Livingston had occurred to him. He said yes;
but he was from New York, and to appoint him while Hamilton was in, and
before it should be known he was going out, would excite a newspaper
conflagration, as the ultimate arrangement would not be known. He said
McLurg had occurred to him as a man of first-rate abilities, but it is
said that he is a speculator. He asked me what sort of a man Wolcot was.
I told him I knew nothing of him myself; I had heard him characterized
as a cunning man. I asked him whether some person could not take my
office per interim, till he should make an appointment; as Mr. Randolph,
for instance. 'Yes,' says he; 'but there you would raise the expectation
of keeping it, and I do not know that he is fit for it, nor what is
thought of Mr. Randolph.' I avoided noticing the last observation, and
he put the question to me directly. I then told him, I went into society
so little as to be unable to answer it. I knew that the embarrassments
in his private affairs had obliged him to use expedients, which had
injured him with the merchants and shop-keepers, and affected his
character of independence; that these embarrassments were serious, and
not likely to cease soon. He said, if I would only stay in till the end
of another quarter (the last of December), it would get us through the
difficulties of this year, and he was satisfied that the affairs of
Europe would be settled with this campaign: for that either France would
be overwhelmed by it, or the confederacy would give up the contest. By
that time, too, Congress will have manifested its character and views. I
told him that I had set my private affairs in motion in a line which
had powerfully called for my presence the last spring, and that they
had suffered immensely from my not going home; that I had now calculated
them to my return in the fall, and to fail in going then, would be
the loss of another year, and prejudicial beyond measure. I asked
him whether he could not name Governor Johnson to my office, under an
express arrangement t