erest, two four and a half, and one four per cent The enemy was
disconcerted but not discouraged. Five fresh resolutions were moved
almost immediately. Impartial historians have agreed that Jefferson
suggested these shameful resolutions, and that Madison drew them up.
Giles brought them forward. In a vociferous speech he asserted that no
man could understand the Secretary's report, that his methods and
processes were clothed in a suspicious obscurity. It was his painful
duty to move the adoption of the following resolutions: That copies of
the papers authorizing the foreign loans should be made; that the names
of the persons to whom and by whom the French debt had been paid be sent
to Congress; that a statement of the balances between the United States
and the Bank be made; that an account of the sinking-fund be rendered,
how much money had come into it and where from, how much had been used
for the purchase of the debt and where the rest was deposited. The fifth
demanded an account of the unexpended revenue at the close of the
preceding year. Giles charged that a serious discrepancy existed between
the report of the Secretary and the books of the Bank--not less than a
million and a half. It had been the purpose of Jefferson and Madison to
bring forward the resolutions with an air of comparative innocence. But
the vanity of Giles carried him away, and his speech informed Congress,
and very shortly the country, that the honesty of the Secretary of the
Treasury had been impeached, and that he was called upon to vindicate
himself.

In crises Hamilton never lost his temper. The greater the provocation,
as the greater the danger, the colder and more impersonal he became. Nor
was it in his direct impatient nature to seek to delay an evil moment
any more than it was to protect himself behind what the American of
to-day calls "bluff." In this, the severest trial of his public career,
he did not hesitate a moment for irritation or protest. He called upon
his Department to assist him, and with them he worked day and night,
gathering, arranging, elaborating all the information demanded by
Congress. When he was not directing his subordinates, he was shut up in
his library preparing his statements and replies. His meals were taken
to him; his family did not see him for weeks, except as he passed them
on his way to or from the front door. He sent in report after report to
Congress with a celerity that shattered his health, but kept hi