There being nothing to focus the debate and exclude the fictitious and irrelevant, it rambled in any direction a speaker's fancy might suggest.

Moreover, its quality was impaired because any consideration of motive was of the nature of talking about a man behind his back and this, everyone knows, is very different from saying things to his face.

Assertions and innuendos which would hardly have been hazarded had Hamilton been present, or which, had they been made, would have been forthwith met and refuted, were indulged in without restraint.

Although one of the reasons given for requiring a written report was that the House would be the better informed, the debate does not indicate that the arguments by which Hamilton had vindicated his proposals had really been apprehended.
The question whether or not any discrimination could be made between original holders of the public securities and those who had acquired them by purchase was considered at length by Hamilton in his report.

The public securities had been at such a heavy discount that now, if they were to be met at face value, speculators would reap large profits.