reat and precious consolation. It was not without a struggle that I
yielded to the very urgent motives which compelled me to relinquish a
station in which I could hope to be, in any degree, instrumental in
promoting the success of an administration under your direction; a
struggle which would have been far greater had I supposed that the
prospect of future usefulness was proportioned to the sacrifices made."

Justice to a growing family was the chief cause of Hamilton's
resignation. "The penurious provision made for those who filled the high
executive departments in the American government," says Marshall,
"excluded from a long continuance in office all those whose fortunes
were moderate, and whose professional talents placed a decent
independence within their reach. While slandered as the accumulator of
thousands by illicit means, Colonel Hamilton had wasted in the public
service great part of the property acquired by his previous labors, and
had found himself compelled to decide on retiring from his political
station."[73]

Oliver Wolcott, of Connecticut, who had been the federal comptroller
under Hamilton for some time, was appointed to succeed that officer; and
General Knox, who had offered his resignation as secretary of war at the
close of the year, was succeeded by Timothy Pickering, who was at that
time the postmaster-general. "After having served my country nearly
twenty years," wrote Knox in his letter tendering his resignation on the
twenty-eighth of December, "the greatest portion of which under your
immediate auspices, it is with extreme reluctance that I find myself
constrained to withdraw from so honorable a station. But the natural
and powerful claims of a numerous family will no longer permit me to
neglect their essential interests. In whatever situation I shall be, I
shall recollect your confidence and kindness with all the fervor and
purity of affection of which a grateful heart is susceptible."

Washington always loved Knox. His frankness and good nature, his eminent
integrity and unswerving faithfulness in every period of his public
career, endeared him to the president; and it was with sincere sorrow
that he experienced the official separation. "The considerations which
you have often suggested to me," Washington wrote in reply to Knox, "and
which are repeated in your letter as requiring your departure from your
present office, are such as to preclude the possibility of my urging
your continuance