place, but that officer did not at that time occupy a seat in the Cabinet; and there was no Department of the Interior. The members of the Cabinet all passed as Republicans. But the Federalists, of whom there were scattered remnants here and there, — some of them looked up to as venerable relics, — were by no means excluded from place. When De Witt Clinton had declined the mission to England, Adams urged it upon Rufus King of New York, who then stood in the politics of the country as a fine and reverend monument of ancient Federalism.
The new administration had hardly taken the reins in hand, when that spirit of hostility to it which prevailed among the following of Jackson, Crawford, and Calhoun appeared even among persons in federal office; and the question whether it would not be well to fill the service with friends, or at least to clear it of enemies, presented itself in a very pointed form. Then Adams proved the quality of his principles, as witness, by way of example, this case: The member of the House of Representatives from Louisiana denounced Sterret, the Naval Officer at New Orleans, as a noisy and clamorous reviler of the administration, who had even gone so far as to get up a public demonstration to insult the member of Congress for having voted to make Mr. Adams President. The member of Congress, therefore, demanded Sterret's removal. There seemed to be no doubt about the facts. The insulting demonstration had not actually come off,
