He was in no mood to see the reverse side of the picture; and indeed his cares were so many and overwhelming at this time that it is little wonder he believed he had lost for ever the gay buoyancy of his spirits.  In addition to the predominating trials, financial matters were demanding all the leisure he should have given to rest, heavy failures in England having seriously affected the money concerns of the United States; and the rebellions in the West against the Excise Law were sounding a new alarm.  Moreover, his constant efforts to obtain Duer’s release were unavailing; he could get no word of Lafayette; and the last packet had brought a rumour of the murder of Gouverneur Morris by the mob.  Altogether, he may be excused for forgetting that he was still the most dazzling figure in America, in the full tide of actual success, and an object of terrified hatred to a powerful ring who could reach their zenith over his political corpse, and by no other means whatever.

He picked up his hat, and went forth reluctantly to a Cabinet meeting.  It was early, and he saw Washington for a few moments alone in the library.  The President was in a no more cheerful or amiable frame of mind than himself.  His responsibilities in this terrible crisis wore on his spirits and temper; and the daily fear that his Secretaries would come to blows,—­for Jefferson was in the worst humour of the quintette,—­to say nothing of the assaults of the press, made him openly regret the hour he was persuaded into the Executive Chair.  But his entire absence of party spirit, despite his secret sympathy with every measure of Hamilton’s, his attitude of stern neutrality, never emerged more triumphantly from any trial of his public career; nor did he ever exhibit the magnanimity of his character more strikingly than in his undisturbed affection for Hamilton, while daily twitted with being the tool of his “scheming and ambitious Secretary.”

Hamilton saw a copy of Freneau’s Gazette in the waste-basket, but by common consent they ignored the subjects which would be unavoidable in a few moments, and spoke of the stifling heat, of the unhealthy state of Philadelphia, the menace of the San Domingo refugees pouring into the city, of the piles of putrid coffee and hides on the wharves at the foot of Mulberry Street, and of the carcasses of rotting hogs and horses which lay everywhere.

“Thank Heaven, we can get our women and children out of it,” said the President.  “And unless we can finish this business in another week, I shall take the Government to the country.  I suppose we are entitled to escape with our lives, if they leave us nothing else.”