While one party sincerely believed his object to be the preservation of the constitution of the United States in its original purity; the other, with perhaps equal sincerity, imputed to him the insidious intention of subverting it.
While his friends were persuaded, that as a statesman, he viewed all foreign nations with an equal eye; his enemies could perceive in his conduct, only hostility to France and attachment to her rival.
It was his fortune to hold a conspicuous station in times which were peculiarly tempestuous, and under circumstances peculiarly unfavourable to the fair action of the judgment.

In the midst of prejudices against the national debt, which had taken deep root, and had long been nourished, he was called to the head of a department, whose duty it was to contend with those prejudices, and to offer a system which, in doing justice to the creditor of the public, might retrieve the reputation of his country.

While the passions were inflamed by a stern contest between the advocates of a national, and of state governments, duties were assigned to him, in the execution of which there were frequent occasions to manifest his devotion to the former.

When a raging fever, caught from that which was desolating France, and exhibiting some of its symptoms, had seized the public mind, and reached its understanding, it was unfavourable to his quiet, and perhaps to his fame, that he remain uninfected by the disease.

He judged the French revolution without prejudice; and had the courage to predict that it could not terminate in a free and popular government.
Such opinions, at such a time, could not fail to draw a load of obloquy upon a man whose frankness gave them publicity, and whose boldness and decision of character insured them an able and steady support.