The charge was made soon after Hamilton's victory that it was largely due to the influence of speculators. The advance in the market value of securities produced by Hamilton's measures certainly gave an opportunity to speculators of which they availed themselves with the unscrupulous activity characteristic of the sordid tribe. Jefferson has left an account of "the base scramble." "Couriers and relay horses by land, and swift sailing pilot boats by sea, were flying in all directions. Active partners and agents were associated and employed in every state, town, and country neighborhood, and this paper was bought up at five shillings, and even as low as two shillings in the pound, before the holder knew that Congress had already provided for its assumption at par. Immense sums were thus filched from the poor and ignorant, and fortunes accumulated by those who had themselves been poor enough before." This account is highly colored. The struggle was too close, and the issue was long too doubtful, to admit of speculative preparations extending to every "town and country neighborhood." If speculation took place on such a large scale, it must have been also taking risks on a large scale, for assumption was not assured until Jefferson himself put his shoulder to the wheel. The lack of means for prompt diffusion of intelligence naturally provided large opportunity for speculation by those in a position to keep well-informed, and undoubtedly large profits were made; but the circumstances were such that it seems most probable that profits were less than market opportunities would have allowed had not the issue been so long in doubt. Nevertheless there was much speculative activity, and the charge was soon made that it extended into Congress.[Footnote: This charge was put forth by John Taylor in pamphlets printed in 1793 and 1794, in which he reviewed the financial policy of the Administration and gave a list of Congressmen who had invested in the public funds. The facts on which this charge rests have been collected and examined by Professor Beard in his _Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy_. His analysis shows that out of sixty-four members of the House, twenty-nine were security holders, and of these twenty-one voted for and eight voted against assumption. But the facts disclosed do not sustain his theory that the issue was essentially a conflict between capitalism and agrarianism. The assumption bill was lifted to its place on the statute book through the leverage exerted by Hamilton and Jefferson, with Washington's prestige as their fulcrum. The characters of these three men resist schemes of classification according to economic interest. The principal value of analysis of the economic elements of the struggle is to protect from undervaluation the motives that actuated the opposition to Hamilton's measures. The historian has the advantage of a perspective denied to participants in events, and this fact is apt to turn unduly to the