man of his most cherished vice; and every argument
was brought forth in opposition, from the historic relation of whiskey
to health and happiness, to the menace of adopting another British
measure. The bill passed; but it was a different matter to enforce it,
as many an excise officer reflected, uncheerfully, whilst riding a rail.
On the 28th of January Hamilton sent in his Report in favour of the
establishment of a mint, with details so minute that he left the framers
of the necessary bill little excuse for delay; but it had the same
adventurous and agitated experience of its predecessors, and only limped
through, in an amended form, after the wildest outburst of democratic
fanaticism which any of the measures of Hamilton had induced. The
proposition to stamp the coins with the head of the President was
conclusive of an immediate design to place a crown upon the head of
Washington. Doubtless the leaders of the Federal party, under the able
tuition of their despot, had their titles ready, their mine laid.
Jefferson, in the Cabinet, protested with such solemn persistence
against so dangerous a precedent, and Hamilton perforated him with such
arrows of ridicule, that Washington exploded with wrath, and demanded to
know if neither never intended to yield a point to the other.

During this session of Congress, Hamilton also sent in Reports on Trade
with India and China, and on the Dutch Loan. He was fortunate in being
able to forget his enemies for days and even weeks at a time, when his
existence was so purely impersonal that every capacity of his mind, save
the working, slept soundly. By now, he had his department in perfect
running order; and his successors have accepted his legacy, with its
infinitude of detail, its unvarying practicality, with gratitude and
trifling alterations. When Jefferson disposed himself in the Chair of
State, in 1801, he appointed Albert Gallatin--the ablest financier,
after Hamilton, the country has produced--Secretary of the Treasury, and
begged him to sweep the department clean of the corruption amidst which
Hamilton had sat and spun his devilish schemes. Gallatin, after a
thorough and conscientious search for political microbes, informed his
Chief that in no respect could the department be improved, that there
was not a trace of crime, past or present. Jefferson was disconcerted;
but, as a matter of fact, his administrations were passed complacently
amidst Hamilton legacies and institutions.