have ample time to look about for his successor, the resignation was not
to become effective until Congress had met and shown its temper. According
to Jefferson, Washington once remarked to him that he supposed Hamilton
"had fixed on the latter part of next session to give an opportunity to
Congress to examine into his conduct." Although Hamilton had made up his
mind to retire, he intended to march out with flying colors, as became the
victor on a hard-fought field. So far, he had met and beaten all enemies
who had dared to assail his honor; he meant to beat them again if they
renewed the attack, and he had word that one encounter was coming more
formidable than any before.

Hamilton's success in carrying his measures through Congress, by sheer
dexterity of management when numbers were against him, added intense
bitterness to the natural chagrin felt by the defeated faction. Men like
Jefferson and Madison were subject to traditions of behavior that required
them to maintain a certain style of public decorum no matter how they
might rage in private. But new men with new manners were coming on the
scene, and among them the opposition to Hamilton had found a new leader--
William Branch Giles of Virginia. He was a Princeton graduate of the class
of 1781, had studied for the bar, and had been admitted to practice in
1786. To the full legal equipment of the period he added an energy and an
audacity that speedily brought him legal and political distinction. He was
active and outspoken in advocating the adoption of the new Constitution,
at a time when popular sentiment in Virginia was strongly inclined to be
adverse. He had no hesitation about undertaking unpopular causes, and
hence British debt cases became a marked feature of his practice. Virginia
State law had suspended the recovery of debts due British subjects until
reparation had been made for the loss of negro slaves taken away by the
British during the war, and until the western posts had been surrendered.
But the peace treaty of 1783 stipulated that creditors on neither side