testimony of the building itself was conclusive as to its origin, and with due respect to the opinion of the committee, the same might have been said of that in the Treasury; built of a single thickness of brick, and in the upper part of only the width of a brick in the partition walls, with wooden blocks in the fire places, gaping seams between the courses, and exhibiting marks of scorching on the wood work in the fire places of rooms where the conflagration had not reached, the offices temporarily hired for the several departments, seemed to have been constructed for the pillage of insurance companies. The testimony of the clerks showed too, that the fire originated in some book cases in a room directly behind the fire place of the Auditor's office, to which room the fire was chiefly confined.

The committee it will be seen, carefully confined their exculpation of Wolcott to the fact that the boxes he was seen to remove were his private property, leaving open the suspicion insinuated by the individuals who had made the statement, that he was not unwilling that the records of the department should be destroyed; but the testimony of the principal clerks explained his declining to assume the direction of affairs, in the presence of Mr. Dexter, the Secretary, and in the fact that the fire was already under control. A suit was afterwards trumped up against Mr. Dexter, in the name of the individual who owned the building in which the War Office was situated, the real object of which was a political one. Upon some papers in the cause, preserved by Wolcott, is endorsed the following:

a

MEMORANDUM.

LITCHFIELD, CONN., 1825.

While I was attending a Circuit Court of the United States, at Albany, in the fall of the year 1801, the interrogatories subjoined were presented to the Hon

a Hodgson vs. Dexter, I. Cranch, 345.

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ourable James Kent to obtain my answers on oath. On perusing them, I perceived at once that a snare had been prepared by my political adversaries at Washington, to obtain minute answers to a great variety of questions affecting my honour and the characters of public men with whom I had been associated in the public service. I determined at once that I would not answer any interrogatories out of court, but would go to Washington, and there meet any accusations which any politicians or others might have the hardihood to adduce. I appeared at Washington, visited Mr. Jefferson, the Vice-President, the Heads of Departments, and Speaker of the House of Representatives. When the Court convened, I attended, and presented the interrogatories which had been sent to Albany, and offered myself to meet any inquiry which might be instituted. I stated that I would not voluntarily answer such questions, but would submit myself to any order of the court. The interrogatories were read before a numerous and respectable audience, from all parts of the country, and they excited general disgust and indignation. The intriguers soon perceived that their trap had been sprung, without injury to those for whom it had been set. They fell to quarrelling among themselves in presence of the court, who commanded silence. I was then sworn in open court, and put in the answer, of which a copy is recorded, which explained the cause of the fire, in a manner wholly satisfactory to the audience.

I consider the manner in which the interrogatories which were sent to Albany were framed, as one of the most flagitious and profligate devices of party malice, of which I have any knowledge. I PRESERVE THE PAPERS AS COLUMBUS IS SAID TO HAVE PRESERVED HIS CHAINS, AS MEMORIALS OF THE INDIGNITIES I HAVE SUFFERED WHILE IN THE SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES, FROM THE EVIL EFFECTS OF WHICH, I HAVE BEEN PROTECTED BY THE KIND PROVIDENCE OF A MERCIFUL AND JUST God.

The interrogatories certainly merited the appellation bestowed upon them. They were prepared with great minuteness and the utmost professional art. The cross examination of a house-breaker's suspected accomplice could not have exhibited a more searching ingenuity. They were directed not to any of the legitimate objects of the suit, but solely to the implication of Wolcott in the firing of the War Department, to conceal frauds, of which it was assumed to have been the scene, and in an alleged obstruction, even by personal violence, ! of attempts to extinguish it. The source from which this dastardly and scandalous blow at the reputation of men of pure and unsullied character proceeded, was well understood. The Mr. Joseph Hodgson who appeared as plaintiff on the record, was but the cats-paw of more distinguished

personages. The refutation, however, of these slanders is to be found in public opinion. There no impression was ever made by them beyond the contracted list of those who, capable of such acts themselves, were ready to suspect any and all of similar knavery. And had further disproof been wanting, it was given by the searching but unavailing investigations of men, not unwilling to detect in the acts of their predecessors, the means of their more complete destruction.

Is it to be wondered at, that when such scenes as these were enacted under the instigation or countenance of the anti-federal leaders; when the lying pen of Callender was subsidized by Jefferson to slander his political enemies; when Paine received the honors of an ambassador for an attack upon Washington; when Bache, Freneau, Duane, and a countless horde of lesser mercenaries, were rewarded by the patronage of party; when every wretch, who, by zealous assiduity in sedition or falsehood, had arrived at the dignity of a state prosecution-every clerk, who, turned out of employ for worthlessness or incapacity, sought to revenge himself by furnishing garbled accounts or fabricated conversations, was exalted into a political martyr; when a general warfare was carried on against their private character as well as their political opinions, that the federalists cherished a bitter and envenomed hatred against their opponents; that with the righteous indignation of outraged honor and calumniated purity, they, in turn, pursued and exposed the practices with which they were encountered, and by which they were defeated? Much has been said and written of the vindictiveness with which they assailed their successful rivals when finally driven from power; but let their experience of the malignity of those rivals be remembered, let the ferocity with which the whole artillery of legislative and executive vengeance was armed against them, be recalled, and the assertions of the federalists, if ever unjust, will at least be

found not without example or provocation. or provocation. Never was a body of men more unscrupulously or wickedly belied in their own day and generation; never a party in reviling which more ingenuity and zeal was displayed; but the names to which the future historian will turn with most satisfaction, and the patriot of succeeding ages will point with most pride, will yet be found in the ranks of those of whom WASHINGTON was the chief and the example.

An attempt was made in the early part of the session to obtain the repeal of the law, directing the valuation of lands and dwelling houses, and the enumeration of slaves; but the committee of ways and means, who were directed to enquire into the expediency of the measure, reported on the 30th December against it. The committee stated that the valuation not being complete in all the states, the repeal of the act would defeat the direct tax in those states. One great object contemplated at the time of its passage, and which still existed, was to organize a system for laying direct taxes, in case the legislature should at any time be obliged to resort to them, and to relinquish the object after the expenses had been incurred, would be a proof of instability, not of wisdom. Though it was hoped that further direct taxes would not become necessary, yet as it was impossible to pronounce this with certainty, the committee considered it expedient to pursue a system, which, in cases of emergency, would draw into the treasury with certainty and expedition any reasonable sum which the public necessities would require. The attempt at this session failed, and the valuations were finally completed. Of the tax of $2,000 000, imposed by the law of 1798, the sum of $734,223 97, it may be mentioned, was collected during 1800, the nett balance of over $1,000,000 being received in subsequent years.

An unsuccessful effort was likewise made to procure the release of the claims of the United States upon the debtor States, for the balances found due upon the final

settlement of the accounts. Congress, by the act of February 15th, 1799, had engaged that any state against which a balance had been ascertained, might discharge itself by a legislative engagement, to be passed before April 1st, 1800, to pay to the United States within five years the sum assumed in the debt of such State or by expending monies to the like amount in the erection of fortifications. New York alone, had, within the limited time, passed such an act, and had already received credit at the treasury for a portion of her balance expended in fortifications. As there were no means of compelling payment, and it was unwise to keep alive a source of irritation, the committee recommended the relinquishment of the claim. The measure, however, failed.

The most important of the acts of this session, was the well known act "for the more convenient organization of the Courts of the United States," which became a law on the 13th of February. By this act it was provided that the Supreme Court should be holden at Washington twice a year, by any four judges, and that after the next vacancy, it should consist of five justices only. For the better establishment of the Circuit Court, the United States was divided into districts, which were classed into six circuits, in each of which there was to be a court consisting of three circuit judges, who were vested with the powers before granted to the Circuit Courts of the United States.

This law was one of those acts of the federal administration which excited the most deadly hostility of Mr. Jefferson and the Virginia party. The detestation in which they held the federal judiciary is well known, and some of its motives have already been hinted at. It was there that they beheld the great conservative principle of the constitution, the strongest hold of the national government upon the people, the only check on the encroachment of the states, the instrument which enforced salutary but disagreeable laws, the power which collected debts.