effect of Hamilton's challenge. Two days after Hamilton's letter to the
Speaker, a memorial from Andrew G. Fraunces was laid before the House
making charges which amounted to this: that there was a combination
between Hamilton and other officers of the Treasury Department to evade
payment of warrants so that they could be bought up for speculative
purposes. Hamilton's request for an investigation was allowed to lie on
the table, but the memorial from Fraunces was referred to a select
committee of which Giles was a member. This circumstance turned out to be
much to Hamilton's advantage. Giles was an erect, bold, manly foe; he
could not stomach the sort of testimony upon which depended the charges
against Hamilton's personal integrity, and he concurred in a report on
Hamilton finding that the evidence was "fully sufficient to justify his
conduct; and that in the whole course of this transaction the Secretary
and other officers of the Treasury have acted a meritorious part towards
the public."

Giles, while exonerating Hamilton of the charge of dishonesty, did not
desist from pressing his motion for further investigation of the Treasury
Department. But he admitted that imputations upon the Secretary's
integrity had been quite removed, and he now urged that "the primary
object of the resolution is to ascertain the boundaries of discretion and
authority between the Legislature and the Treasury Department." In thus
shifting his ground he presented a new issue in which the House--and
indeed Giles's own party associates--took little interest. The fact was
that the attack on Hamilton had failed, that the purpose of showing
him to be unworthy of Washington's confidence had been abandoned as
impracticable, and that all that remained was a proposal that the House
should again engage in a laborious investigation of the desirability of
attempting a new delimitation of the functions of the Treasury Department
and of Congress. But this, of course, did not concern Hamilton. He had