e Secretary of the Treasury, and justifying every
payment, measure, and investment, had gone to the Congress. Nine days
later Giles brought forward nine resolutions of censure against the
Secretary of the Treasury. But by this time Congress had made up its
mind, and many of the Republicans were disgusted and humiliated. The
Federalists were triumphant, and amused themselves with Giles, drawing
him on, to confound him with ridicule and proof of the absurdity of his
charges. Madison, desperate, lost his head and the respect of many of
his colleagues, by asserting hysterically that the House was impotent to
change the truth of the accusations, and that in the tribunal of public
opinion the Secretary would be condemned. But Hamilton was triumphantly
vindicated by Congress and the Nation at large. His house was in a state
of siege for weeks from people of all parts of the country, come to
congratulate him; his desk obliterated by letters he had no time to
read. The Federals were jubilant. Their pride in Hamilton was so great
that a proclamation from above would not have disturbed their faith, and
they were merciless to the discomfited enemy. In truth, the Virginian
trio and their close adherents were mortified and confounded. In their
hearts they had not believed Hamilton guilty of dishonesty, but they had
been confident that his affairs were in chaos, that large sums must have
escaped, not conceiving that any mortal could at the same time create
gigantic schemes, and be as methodical as a department clerk in every
detail of his great office.

Although Hamilton had commanded his brain to dwell exclusively upon the
vindication and its means, the deeps below were bitter and hot. When the
work was over, and exhausted in body and mind he went about his duties
mechanically, or attempted to find distraction in his family, he felt as
if the abundant humanity in him were curdled; and he longed for a war,
that he might go out and kill somebody. It was small compensation that
the Virginian ring were grinding their teeth, and shivering under daily
shafts of humiliation and ridicule. So terrible was the position in
which they had placed him, so immeasurably had they added to the sum of
his contempt for human kind, that individually they occupied, for a
time, but a corner of his thought.

His only solace during this trial had been Washington; he had been too
busy and too frozen for Mrs. Croix. But that closest of his friends,
although f