rs of English merchants, they will be deprived of
their liberty if they take the smallest step." He wanted to know whether
Fauchet could lend "funds sufficient to shelter them from English
persecution." Fauchet's letter was captured by the British and made
public. Randolph's explanations did not clear up the obscurity that
surrounds the affair. His version was that the four men were flour
merchants who were being pressed by their creditors "and that the money
was wanted only for the purpose of paying them what was actually due to
them in virtue of existing contracts." Even on his own showing it was a
shady transaction, and he retired from Washington's Cabinet under a cloud.

Washington always had difficulty about the composition of his Cabinet. A
capable man had been found to succeed Randolph as Attorney-General in the
person of William Bradford, an able Pennsylvania lawyer, but he died in
1795, and was succeeded by Charles Lee of Virginia. When Knox resigned in
1794, the vacancy was filled by transferring to the War Department
Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, who had previously served as
Postmaster-General. When Hamilton retired, January, 1795, he was
succeeded by Oliver Wolcott of Connecticut, who had been Comptroller of
the Treasury. After Randolph had been discredited by the Fauchet
letter, the office of Secretary of State went a-begging. It was offered to
William Paterson of New Jersey, to Thomas Johnson of Maryland, to Charles
Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, but all these men declined.
Washington got word that Patrick Henry, the old antagonist of the
Constitution, was showing Federalist leanings in opposition to Jefferson
and Madison, and Henry was then tendered the appointment, but he
too declined. Others were approached but all refused, and meanwhile
Pickering, though Secretary of War, also attended to the work of the State
Department. The matter was finally settled by permanently attaching
Pickering to the State Department, while the vacancy thus created at the
head of the War Department was filled by James McHenry, an appointment
which Washington himself described as "Hobson's choice."

Hamilton, although out of the Cabinet, still remained a trusted adviser,
and he rendered splendid service at a dangerous crisis. In spite of the
fact that the Jay treaty had been ratified by the Senate in June, 1795, it
was an issue in the Fall elections that year. Jefferson held that the
treaty was an "execrable thin