With great respect and esteem, I am, &c.
MRS. MADISON TO MRS. GALLATIN.
29th July, 1813.
... You have heard no doubt of the illness of my husband, but can have no idea of its extent and the despair in which I attended his bed for nearly five weeks. Even now I watch over him as I would an infant, so precarious is his convalescence. Added to this are the disappointments and vexations heaped upon him by party spirit. Nothing, however, has borne so hard as the conduct of the Senate in regard to Mr. Gallatin. Mr. Astor will tell you many particulars that I ought not to write, of the desertion of some whose support we had a right to expect, and of the manœuvring of others always hostile to superior merit. We console ourselves with the hope of its terminating both in the public good and Mr. Gallatin’s honorable triumph....
A. J. DALLAS TO MRS. GALLATIN.
22d July, 1813.
My dear Madam,—Our friend Mr. Macon has just written to me that Mr. Gallatin’s nomination has been rejected by a majority of one vote. I find from another quarter that Mr. Anderson and Mr. Stone voted against it.
I did not choose to tease you with the agitation of the subject while I was at Washington. The question turned upon this; if Mr. Madison would declare the Secretary’s office vacant, the Senate would confirm the nomination; but he firmly refused to do so. The Federalists were very busy on the occasion; but the malcontent junto of self-styled Republicans were worse; and Armstrong,—he was the devil from the beginning, is now, and ever will be. In short, every art has been employed to defeat the mission, to ruin the Administration, and to depreciate Mr. Gallatin. In the last object the host of ill-assorted enemies will fail; but the political mischief that has been done and will be done is incalculable....
J. J. ASTOR TO GALLATIN.
New York, 9th August, 1813.