It has become so powerful and massive since that time, that we can hardly
realize what a rickety structure it then was, and how readily, in less
capable hands, it might have collapsed.

Randolph, then Secretary of State, seems to have been in a panic. Fauchet,
the French minister at that time, reported to his government that Randolph
called upon him and with a grief-stricken countenance declared, "It is all
over; a civil war is about to ravage our unhappy country." He represented
to Fauchet that there were four men whose talents, influence, and energy
might save it. "But debtors 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