The House adjourned the same day.
While thus engaged in debates which called into exercise his varied information and displayed not only the extent of his learning but his remarkable powers of reasoning and statement, Mr.Gallatin never lost sight of reform in the administration of the finances of the government.
To the success of his efforts to hold the Treasury Department to a strict conformity with his theory of administration, Mr.Wolcott, the secretary, gave ample if unwilling testimony.

To Hamilton he wrote on April 5, 1798, "The management of the Treasury becomes more and more difficult.

The legislature will not pass laws in gross; their appropriations are minute.

Gallatin, to whom they yield, is evidently intending to break down this department by charging it with an impracticable detail." During these warm discussions Gallatin rarely lost his self-control.
Writing to his old friend Lesdernier at this period, he said, "You may remember I am blessed with a very even temper; it has not been altered by time or politics." * * * * * The third session of the fifth Congress opened on December 3, 1798.

On the 8th, when the President was expected, Lieutenant-General Washington and Generals Pinckney and Hamilton entered the hall and took their places on the right of the speaker's chair.