The Life of Albert Gallatin

by Henry Adams

... Another year has revolved over our heads, and on a retrospect (how shall I ever dare to accuse you with want of fortitude or resignation?) I mark it as one of those in which I have experienced most unhappiness. Take notice, however, that I do not set it down as one of those in which I have been least happy.... I think that no man ever felt less uneasiness from a mere loss of money than I do. The folly of applying a part of our property to the building of houses, &c., the bad sale of my lands to Mr. Morris, the final loss of the balance of 3000 dollars he owed me, the eventual loss of the 1000 dollars I had lent to Badollet in our company’s business and which he has consumed, the almost total destruction of what I might have called a handsome estate, I mean my property in Europe, and I may add of my future prospects there,—all these, although they are losses incurred since our union, have never had the least effect on my spirits or happiness. To be in debt was at all times viewed by me with a kind of horror, and that feeling has become so much the habit of my mind that it has perhaps disarmed me from that fortitude which is necessary in order to meet any of the accidents of life; at least I am sure that I cannot exercise it in that particular instance. Hence the egregious folly, knowing myself as I did, ever to have entered in business with anybody, so as to put it in the power of any person to involve me in a situation in which no possible consideration would have induced me voluntarily to fall. A folly still more aggravated by the knowledge I had that I could not personally attend myself, and that the business would be chiefly conducted by a man whose disposition and turn of mind were unknown to me.... From all these considerations arises that fluctuation of mind which you cannot but have observed in my correspondence on the subject of the contract for arms.... Should I agree to that contract, and should we fail in the execution from any accident whatever, it is a risk of 26,000 dollars, that is to say, more than we as a company, and I as an individual, are worth....

18th January, 1799.

... I begin to think that one of the causes of my opposition to a great extension of Executive power is that constitutional indolence which, notwithstanding some share of activity of mind, makes me more fit to think than to act. I believe that I am well calculated to judge and to determine what course ought to be followed either in private or public business. But I must have executive officers who will consult me and act for me. In that point of view my connection with Bourdillon was unfortunate.... My eyes are no better. I neither read nor write after dark, and I go to bed earlier. But every morning when I rise, almost an hour elapses before I can read without feeling something like fatigue. In the evening I might read if I chose; it is only out of caution that I have given it up. Hence I have but very little time to do anything whatever. For rising at 9, attending Congress from 11 till 3, and, it being dark almost immediately after dinner, I have literally but one hour, from 10 to 11, to read or write anything whatever. I have made this year no statement and have prepared myself for no business in Congress. As to Congress, we stand on higher ground than during last session, and can feel that a change of public opinion in the people and of confidence in the Executive party has taken place....

25th January, 1799.

... I have this day, upon mature consideration, taken the contract for arms in my own name (this last was necessary, as the application had been made and reported upon by the quarter-master-general of Pennsylvania in my name), and have only got inserted as a proviso that I might deliver the arms either in the western country or in Philadelphia, so that if any unforeseen accident should prevent a completion of the contract at home I might be enabled to transfer it to some one person here, and not run the risk to which I had alluded in my gloomy letter to you....

1st February, 1799.

... I have very much recovered my spirits, and feel ready to continue my exertions to extricate ourselves. I think we have well-grounded hopes to do it within a reasonable time, and your last letter on the success of the last blast, although it does not dazzle me, induces me to believe that we may not finally be losers by those glass-works which have caused me so much anxiety and have so much contributed to involving us in our difficulties. You ask, “Who is Curtius?” Poor fellow! I am afraid by this time I can only inform you who he was. For by the last post from Petersburg, in Virginia, we hear that he was on the point of death by a pleurisy, and no hopes left of his recovery. His name was John Thompson, his age only twenty-three, too young to be Giles’s successor in the ensuing Congress, but would have undoubtedly been elected in the following one. One of the brightest geniuses of Virginia and the United States; spoke with as much eloquence as he wrote, and remarkable for extensive information and immense assiduity. His loss will be as severe to the Republican interest as any we have yet felt. I never saw him, and he knew me only from report and from my political conduct....

1st March, 1799.

... I have been overwhelmed with business since my last to you. I have been obliged to correct for the press two speeches on the navy, which I enclose; you will find, however, that they are not written by me but by Gales, and although correct in point of sense are not so as to style. I have also written one on the subject of the alien bill, and in addition to that I have had our goods to select and sundry political meetings to attend on the subject of our next election for governor. Thos. McKean is to be our man, and James Ross the other.... Do you want a dish of politics till I see you? The President nominated Mr. Murray minister to France with powers to treat, with instructions that he should not go from Holland to Paris until he should have received assurances of being met by a similar envoy; and he sent along with it a letter from Talleyrand to the secretary of the French legation at the Hague, in which, referring to some former conversations of the secretary with Murray, he added that they would lead to a treaty, and that the French government were ready to admit any American envoy as the representative of a free, great, and independent nation. Murray, I guess, wanted to make himself a greater man than he is by going to France and treating, and wrote privately, it is said, to the President on the subject. The President, without consulting any of his Secretaries, made the nomination. The whole party were prodigiously alarmed. Porcupine and Fenno abused the old gentleman. The nomination instead of being approved was in the Senate committed to a select committee. They then attacked so warmly the President that he sent a new nomination of Ellsworth, P. Henry, and Murray, and none of them to go until assurances are received here that France will appoint a similar envoy. Which will postpone the whole business six months at least....

The summer and autumn of 1799 were passed at New Geneva, and when Mr. Gallatin returned to Philadelphia for the session of 1799-1800, he brought his wife with him, and they kept house in Philadelphia till the spring. There were therefore no domestic letters written during this season, and his repugnance to writing was such that even the letters he received were chiefly filled with grumbling at his silence. There seems at no time before 1800 to have been much communication by writing between Mr. Gallatin and the other Republicans. One or two unimportant letters from Edward Livingston, Matthew L. Davis, Walter Jones, or Tench Coxe, are all that remain on Mr. Gallatin’s files. The long series of Mr. Jefferson’s notes or letters, most carefully preserved, begin only in March, 1801. The same is true of Mr. Madison’s and Mr. Monroe’s. Mr. Gallatin had no large constituency of highly-educated people to correspond with him; he was greatly occupied with current business; his own State of Pennsylvania was the seat of government, and its affairs were carried on directly by word of mouth. Mr. Jefferson, the leader of the party, did attempt by correspondence and by personal influence to produce some sort of combination in its movements, but sharp experience taught him to remain as quiet as possible, and his relations were chiefly with his confidential Virginia friends. In this respect the Federalists were much better organized than their rivals.