Is succeeded by Colonel Pickering.] [Sidenote: Colonel McHenry appointed secretary of war.] On the 19th of August, the secretary of state had resigned[38] his place in the administration, and some time elapsed before a successor was appointed.[39] At length, Colonel Pickering was removed to the department of state, and Mr.M'Henry, a gentleman who had served in the family of General Washington, and in the congress prior to the establishment of the existing constitution, was appointed to the department of war.

By the death of Mr.Bradford, a vacancy was also produced in the office of attorney general, which was filled by Mr.
Lee, a gentleman of considerable eminence at the bar, and in the legislature of Virginia.
[Footnote 38: See note No.XII.at the end of the volume.] [Footnote 39: See note No.XIII.at the end of the volume.] Many of those embarrassments in which the government, from its institution, had been involved, were now ended, or approaching their termination.
The opposition to the laws, which had so long been made in the western counties of Pennsylvania, existed no longer.
[Sidenote: Treaty with the Indians north-west of the Ohio.] On the third of August, a definitive treaty was concluded by General Wayne with the hostile Indians north-west of the Ohio, by which the destructive and expensive war which had long desolated that frontier, was ended in a manner perfectly agreeable to the United States.

An accommodation had taken place with the powerful tribes of the south also; and to preserve peace in that quarter, it was only necessary to invest the executive with the means of restraining the incursions which the disorderly inhabitants of the southern frontier frequently made into the Indian territory; incursions, of which murder was often the consequence.
Few subjects had excited more feeling among the people, or in the government of the United States, than the captivity of their fellow citizens in Algiers.

Even this calamity had been seized as a weapon which might be wielded with some effect against the President.
Overlooking the exertions he had made for the attainment of peace, and the liberation of the American captives; and regardless of his inability to aid negotiation by the exhibition of force, the discontented ascribed the long and painful imprisonment of their unfortunate brethren to a carelessness in the administration respecting their sufferings, and to that inexhaustible source of accusation,--its policy with regard to France and Britain.
[Sidenote: Treaty with Algiers.] After the failure of several attempts to obtain a peace with the regency of Algiers, a treaty was, at length, negotiated on terms which, though disadvantageous, were the best that could be obtained.
The exertions of the executive to settle the controversy with Spain respecting boundary, and to obtain the free use of the Mississippi, had been unavailing.

A negotiation in which Mr.Short and Mr.
Carmichael were employed at Madrid, had been protracted by artificial delays on the part of the Spanish cabinet, until those ministers had themselves requested that the commission should be terminated.
[Sidenote: Treaty with Spain.] At length, Spain, embarrassed by the war in which she was engaged, discovered symptoms of a temper more inclined to conciliation, and intimated to the secretary of state, through her commissioners at Philadelphia, that a minister, deputed on the special occasion, of higher rank than Mr.Short, who was a resident, would be able to expedite the negotiation.