His silence was his expiation.
The Treasury Department and its control, past and present, was the object of his unceasing criticism.

In April, 1796, he said, "The situation of the gentleman at the head of the department [Wolcott] was doubtless delicate and unpleasant; it was the more so when compared with that of his predecessor [Hamilton].

Both indeed had the same power to borrow money when necessary; but that power, which was efficient in the hands of the late secretary and liberally enough used by him, was become useless at present.

He wished the present secretary to be extricated from his present difficulty.

Nothing could be more painful than to be at the head of that department with an empty treasury, a revenue inadequate to the expenses, and no means to borrow." Nevertheless he feared that if it were declared that the payment of the debt incurred by themselves were to be postponed till the present generation were over, it might well be expected that the principle thus adopted by them would be cherished, that succeeding legislatures and administrations would follow in their steps, and that they were laying the foundations of that national curse,--a growing and perpetual debt.
On the last day of the session W.Smith had challenged the correctness of Gallatin's charge that there had been an increase of the public debt by five millions under the present administration, and claimed that there were errors in Gallatin's statement of more than four and a half millions.