Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/437

1809. an obstinate struggle did the Senate give way so far that at last Congress agreed upon ordering four frigates to be fitted out, and as many gunboats as the public service might in the President's judgment require.

The reasons gives by the Senate for persisting in its plan were proof that something remained untold; for they showed the hand and influence of the Smiths, rather than the interests of Madison's coming Administration. David R. Williams, who was a member of the Conference Committee, reported to the House that the managers for the Senate gave three reasons for insisting on their bill:—
 * "The first of them was that they wanted a pledge from this House that it was willing to come forward and defend the nation; another was that these [frigates] were necessary to defend the gunboats in their operations; and a third, that men could not be got to enlist for the service of the gunboats, and that to remedy this evil they might be enlisted to man the frigates, and afterwards transferred."

A Navy Department which used its frigates to defend gunboats and decoy seamen was hardly fit to be trusted with unlimited credit on the Treasury. Gallatin lost his temper at finding his authority threatened with overthrow by an influence which he knew to be incompetent, and believed to be selfish and corrupt. Irritated by the vote of January 10, the Secretary of the Treasury studied the