Hamilton resigned the department of the Treasury on January 31, 1795, and Oliver Wolcott, Jr., succeeded him in that most important of the early offices of the government.

General Henry Knox, the first secretary of war, pressed by his own private affairs and the interests of a large family, withdrew on December 28, 1794, and Timothy Pickering, the postmaster-general, had been appointed in his stead January 2, 1795.

The Navy Department was not as yet established (the act creating it was passed April 30, 1798), but the affairs which concerned this branch of the public service were under the direction of the secretary of war.

The administration of Washington was drawing to a close.

In the lately reconstructed cabinet, honest, patriotic, and thorough in administration, there was no man of shining mark.