been engaged, to overthrow the American system, and to substitute the foreign. Go home to your native Europe, and there inculcate upon her sovereigns your Utopian doctrines of free trade; and when you have prevailed upon them to unseal their ports, and freely to admit the produce of Pennsylvania and other states, come back, and we shall be prepared to become converts and to adopt your faith.”
This assault was an astonishing performance. Gallatin had come to America a very young man. Under the presidency of the first Adams he had been intellectually the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives. He had been a member of that famous triumvirate, Jefferson, Madison, Gallatin. Jefferson had made him Secretary of the Treasury; and Madison, equally sensible of his merits, had kept him in that most important position. His services had put his name in the first line of the great American finance ministers. Clay had met him as one of his colleagues at Ghent, and he would hardly have denied that the conclusion of the treaty of peace was owing more to Gallatin's prudence, skill, and good temper, than to his own efforts. As Minister to France under Monroe, Gallatin had added to his distinguished services by his patriotism and rare diplomatic ability. When Clay, as Secretary of State, needed a man of peculiar wisdom and trust worthiness to whom to confide the interests of this Republic, he had thought first of Gallatin. It was Gallatin whom he had selected first for the most
