SECOND SESSION OF THE SIXTH CONGRESS. 395 XV. man to supply him with wood. A small part-a few CHAPTER cords only, has he been able to get. Most of that was expended to dry the walls of the house, before we came 1800. in, and yesterday the man told him it was impossible to procure it to be cut and carted. He has had recourse to coals; but we can not get grates made and set. We have indeed come into a new country." The public offices had hardly been established at Washington, when the War Office took fire and was burned, occasioning the destruction of many valuable papers. In the course of the winter a like accident happened to the Treasury Department, though there the destruction of papers was less. In the rabid party fury of the times, Pickering's dismissal from office had been ascribed by the Aurora, which all the other opposition papers copied, to great pecuniary defalcations; and now, in the same spirit, these fires were attributed to design on the part of certain public officers, who, it was said, hoped thus to destroy the evidence of their deficiencies. Before the choice of electors in South Carolina was yet known, and while the event seemed to depend on that state, Congress came together at the new city. The Nov. 22. president's speech announced the prospect of an arrange. ment with France; but, at the same time, suggested that the United States could not, without dangerous imprudence, abandon the means of self-defense adapted to their situation, and to which, notwithstanding their pacific policy, the violence and injustice of other nations might soon compel them to resort. Considering the extent of the American sea-coast, the vast capital engaged in trade, and the maritime resources of the country, a navy seemed to be the most effectual instrument of defense. Seasonable and systematic arrangements for that purpose, so that, in case of necessity, a naval armament CHAPTER might be quickly brought into use, appeared to be as XV. much recommended by a wise and true economy as by 1800. regard for future peace and security. Perseverance in the fortification of the principal sea-ports was recom mended as a subsidiary means of defense, and attention also to the manufacture of arms. These, with a reor ganization of the judiciary establishment, and the necessary legislation for the District of Columbia, constituted the chief topics of the speech. Ever since the dismissal of his colleagues, Wolcott had felt his position in the cabinet very uncomfortable; but the urgency of his friends, and the desire to leave the affairs of his department on a good footing, had hitherto induced him to remain. He had fixed, however, on the end of the year as a period for retiring, of which he notified the president and the House, asking, at the same time, an investigation into his official conduct. He left the treasury in a flourishing condition. The duties on imports had exceeded those of the year preceding by nearly two millions and a half; the sum of $734,000 had been received from the direct tax; the internal duties produced near a million; and as the disbanding of the additional regiments had diminished the expenses below the estimates, the treasury contained, when Wolcott left it, a balance of $2,623,000, a greater amount than at the close of any previous year. The larger part of the loan of $3,500,000, authorized at the last session, had been taken up, but repayments had been made nearly to an equal amount. The total receipts of the year, loans included, came to $12,451,000, very nearly the same with those of the previous year. The total expenditures amounted to about twelve millions, near a million more than those of the year preceding. The balance in the treasury was mainly derived from WOLCOTT AND PICKERING. 397 the balance on hand at the commencement of the CHAPTER year. XV. Dexter was appointed Secretary of the Treasury in 1800. Wolcott's place. The War Department, after two or three unsuccessful attempts to find a successor for Dexter, remained without a head. Neither Wolcott nor Pickering, however they might be denounced by their Virginia rivals as monarchists and aristocrats, had, like Jefferson, Madison, and so many other Southern democrats, hereditary plantations to retire to, where they might play the patriarch, and live in aristocratic leisure on the unpaid labors of a numerous family of slaves. After twelve years of laborious and important public service, Wolcott left office with not six hundred dollars in his pocket. His ideas extended no farther than to the purchase of a small farm in his native Connecticut on which to support his family. Pickering had no property except some wild lands in the Wyoming settlements of Pennsylvania, purchased after his retirement from the army, but not yet paid for. Thither he had retired with his numerous young family, to cut a farm out of the wilderness. But his Massachusetts friends of the Essex Junto, unwilling to see his services thus lost to the public, bought his lands at a generous price, and so enabled him to purchase a small farm near his native Salem, where he lived. for a quarter of a century in the extremest republican simplicity, but not without, as we shall presently see, an active participation in public affairs. Among the first subjects of discussion in Congress was the erection of a monument to Washington, in conformity with the resolves adopted at his death. A bill had been introduced and partially discussed at the last session for building a marble mausoleum of a pyramidal shape, with a base of a hundred feet. This was violent XV. 1800. CHAPTER ly opposed by many Republican members, who thought a plain slab of marble quite enough. History and his country's gratitude would serve, they said, as his true monument. In the course of the debate, attention was called to an unexecuted resolve of the Continental Congress, adopted on Washington's resigning his military command, for an equestrian statue. This would be cheaper than the pyramid, yet not quite so plain and sim ple as the slab. The bill for a mausoleum finally passed the House, with an appropriation of $200,000. The Senate reduced the appropriation to $150,000, and proposed a board of commissioners to agree upon a proper monument. The House proposed other amendments; and, finally, in the hurry at the close of the session, the whole subject was postponed. The next Congress, in which the opponents of Washington's policy had an overwhelming majority, found other subjects more interesting than his memory and honor; and, after a lapse of some fifty years, the erection of a monument has at length been undertaken by private subscription. Dec. 11. Shortly after the opening of the session, Davie arrived at Norfolk, bringing with him the convention with Dec. 15. France. When it was laid before the Senate, those Federal members who had opposed the mission raised a loud complaint that no indemnity had been secured for the spoliations committed on American commerce, and that the old treaties with France had not been definitively dissolved. Out of distrust, probably, of what the incoming administration might do, they refused to ratify the article referring those two subjects to future negotiation; proposing, as a substitute for it, a limitation of the convention to eight years. A strong effort was also made to expunge the provision for the mutual restoration of public vessels-a provision solely for the benefit CONVENTION WITH FRANCE. 399 XV. of the French. But this failed, out of fear lest the French CHAPTER might insist, in their turn, upon retaining all captured vessels and property-a provision principally beneficial 1800. to America. During the summer, quite a number of French privateers had fallen into the hands of the American cruisers, amounting, with those previously taken, to about fifty sail. There were also numerous recaptures of merchant vessels previously taken by the French. Lieutenant Charles Stewart, in the schooner Experiment, of twelve guns, being chased by a French brig and a schooner, the one of eighteen and the other of fourteen guns, had the address to separate the hostile vessels, after which he engaged and carried the schooner, on board of which was the mulatto general Rigaud, who had been deprived of his command in St. Domingo, and ordered to France. Later in the season, Stewart engaged and captured a British letter of marque, which, on being chased and brought to action, had refused to show her colors, or to answer repeated hails. Of course, on discovering her national character, she was immediately set at liberty. Fortunately, no lives had been lost, except one on board the Experiment. About the same time, the French national corvette Berceau, of twenty-four guns, after a sharp action of two hours, struck to the Boston sloop of war Captain Little, and, though very much cut up, was brought safely into port. Nov. Adams would decidedly have preferred the convention as it originally stood, so he informed the Senate; but he ratified it, nevertheless, as it had been altered, and ap- 1801. pointed Bayard, as minister, to carry out the ratification Feb. 1 to France. Bayard, however, declined the appointment, and, without any further nomination, Adams left the matter to the incoming administration. By the terms |