ad paid for her navy was a debt of three hundred millions
of pounds sterling. He opposed appropriations even for the three
frigates, United States, Constitution, and Constellation,--the
construction of which had been ordered,--the germs of that navy which
was later to set his theory at naught, redeem the honor of the flag,
protect our commerce, and release the country and the civilized world
from ignominious tribute to the Mediterranean pirates, who were
propitiated in this very session only at the cost of a million of
dollars to the Treasury of the United States, and by the gift of a
frigate.

In the debate over the payment of the sum of five millions, which the
United States Bank had demanded from the government, the greatest part
of which had been advanced on account of appropriations, he lamented the
necessity, but urged the liquidation. This was the occasion of another
personal encounter. In reply to a charge of Gallatin that the
Federalists were in favor of debt, Sedgwick alluded to Gallatin's part
in the Whiskey Insurrection, and said that none of those gentlemen whom
Gallatin had charged with "an object to perpetuate and increase the
public debt" had been known to have combined "in every measure which
might obstruct the operation of law," nor had declared to the world
"that the men who would accept of the offices to perform the necessary
functions of government were lost to every sense of virtue;" "that from
them was to be withheld every comfort of life which depended on those
duties which as men and fellow-citizens we owe to each other. If," he
said, "the gentlemen had been guilty of such nefarious practices, there
would have been a sound foundation for the charge brought against them."
Gallatin made no reply. This was the one political sin he had
acknowledged. 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