willingness to have taken a seat in the Cabinet is what I had not supposed.” Considering the state of Monroe’s mind in 1808, Madison might be excused for failing to see that Monroe would accept the State Department in February, 1809. Indeed, the suddenness of the change would have startled Monroe’s best friends; and even in December, 1809, he would have fared ill had his remarks to Jefferson been brought to John Randolph’s ears. Monroe’s adhesion having been thus attested, Madison made no immediate use of the recruit, but held him in reserve until events should make action necessary. Perhaps this delay was one of Madison’s constitutional mistakes, and possibly a prompt removal of Robert Smith might have saved some of the worst disasters that befell the Government; but in truth Madison’s embarrassments rose from causes that only time could cure, and were inherent in American society itself. A less competent administrative system seldom drifted, by reason of its incompetence, into war with a superior enemy. No department of the government was fit for its necessary work. Of the State Department, its chief, and its long series of mortifying disasters, enough has been said. In November, 1809, it stood helpless in the face of intolerable insults from all the European belligerents. Neither the diplomatic nor the consular system was better than a makeshift, and precisely where the Government felt most need of ministers,--at Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin, and St. Petersburg,--it had no diplomatic and but few consular agents, even these often of foreign allegiance. The Treasury, hitherto the only successful Executive department, showed signs of impending collapse, not to be avoided without sacrifices and efforts which no one was willing to make. The accounts for the year ending September 30 showed that while the receipts had amounted to $9,300,000, the actual expenses had exceeded $10,600,000. The deficit of $1,300,000, as well as reimbursements of debt to the amount of $6,730,000, had been made good from the balance in the Treasury. The new fiscal year began with a balance of only $5,000,000; so that without a considerable curtailment of expenses, a loan or increased taxation, or both, could not be avoided. Increased taxation was the terror of parties. Curtailment of expense could be effected only on the principle that as the government did nothing well, it might as well do nothing. Any intelligent expenditure, no matter how large or how small, would have returned a thousand-fold interest to the country, whatever had been the financial cost; but the waste of money on gunboats and useless cruisers, or upon an army so badly organized and commanded as to be a hindrance in war, was an expense that might perhaps be curtailed, though only by admitting political incapacity.