As a committee man, he was incomparable.

No one could be better equipped for the direction of the Treasury Department than he, but he was not satisfied with direction; he would manage also; and he went to the work with untiring energy.

A quarter of a century later he said of it, in a letter to his son, "To fill that office in the manner I did, and as it ought to be filled, is a most laborious task and labor of the most tedious kind.

To fit myself for it, to be able to understand thoroughly, to embrace and control all its details, took from me, during the two first years I held it, every hour of the day and many of the night and had nearly brought on a pulmonary complaint.

I filled the office twelve years and was fairly worn out." Mr.Gallatin first drew public attention to his knowledge of finance in the Pennsylvania legislature.