tioned gentleman was much in favor with all the principal men in that State, I had any conversation with."

Mr. ARNOLD, being present at the reading, informed Congress that he was surprised how such a notion should have prevailed with respect to him; that he had never held any correspondence with either Knowlton or Wells, and requested that he might be furnished with the extract above. In this he was indulged without opposition. But it was generally considered, notwithstanding his denial of the correspondence, that he had, at least at second hand, conveyed the intelligence to Vermont.

A long petition was read, signed as alleged, by near two thousand inhabitants (but all in the same handwriting) of the territory lately in controversy between Pennsylvania and Virginia, complaining of the grievances to which their distance from public authority exposed them, and particularly of a late law of Pennsylvania interdicting even consultations about a new State within its limits; and praying that Congress would give a sanction to their independence, and admit them into the Union. The petition lay on the table, without a single motion or remark relative to it.

The order of the day was called for, to wit, the resolution of Saturday last in favor of adequate and substantial funds.

The subject was introduced by Mr. WILSON, with some judicious remarks on its importance, and the necessity of a thorough and serious discussion of it. He observed that the United States had, in the course of the Revolution, displayed both an unexampled

activity in resisting the enemy, and an unexampled patience under the losses and calamities occasioned by the war. In one point only he said they had appeared to be deficient, and that was a cheerful payment of taxes. In other free governments it had been seen that taxation had been carried further, and more patiently borne, than in States where the people were excluded from the governments; the people considering themselves the sovereign as well as the subject, and as receiving with one hand what they paid with the other. The peculiar repugnance of the people of the United States to taxes, he supposed, proceeded, first, from the odious light in which they had been, under the old government, in the habit of regarding them; secondly, from the direct manner in which taxes in this country had been laid, whereas in all other countries taxes were paid in a way that was little felt at the time. That it could not proceed altogether from inability, he said, must be obvious: nay, that the ability of the United States was equal to the public burden could be demonstrated. According to calculations of the best writers, the inhabitants of Great Britain paid, before the present war, at the annual rate of at least twenty-five shillings sterling per head. According to like calculations, the inhabitants of the United States, before the Revolution, paid, indirectly and insensibly, at the rate of at least ten shillings sterling per head. According to the computed depreciation of the paper emissions, the burden insensibly borne by the inhabitants of the United States had amounted, during the first three or four years of the war, to not less than twenty millions of dollars per annum—a burden, too,

which was the more oppressive as it fell very unequally on the people. An inability, therefore, could not be urged as a plea for the extreme deficiency of the revenue contributed by the States, which did not amount, during the past year, to half a million of dollars; that is, to one sixth of a dollar per head. Some more effectual mode of drawing forth the resources of the country was necessary. That, in particular, it was necessary that such funds should be established as would enable Congress to fulfil those engagements which they had been enabled to enter into. It was essential, he contended, that those to whom was delegated the power of making war or peace should, in some way or other, have the means of effectuating these objects; that, as Congress had been under the necessity of contracting a large debt, justice required that such funds should be placed in their hands as would discharge it; that such funds were also necessary for carrying on the war, and as Congress found themselves in their present situation, destitute both of the faculty of paying debts already contracted, and of providing for future exigencies, it was their duty to lay that situation before their constituents, and at least to come to an éclaircissement on the subject. He remarked, that the establishment of certain funds for paying would set afloat the public paper; adding, that a public debt, resting on general funds, would operate as a cement to the Confederacy, and might contribute to prolong its existence, after the foreign danger ceased to counteract its tendency to dissolution. He concluded with moving that it be resolved,

"That it is the opinion of Congress that complete

justice cannot be done to the creditors of the United States, nor the restoration of public credit be effected, nor the future exigencies of the war provided for, but by the establishment of general funds to be collected by Congress.'

This motion was seconded by Mr. FITZSIMMONS. Mr. BLAND desired that Congress would, before the discussion proceeded further, receive a communication of sundry papers transmitted to the Virginia Delegates by the Executive of that State, two of which had relation to the question before Congress. These were first, a resolution of the General Assembly declaring its inability to pay more than fifty thousand pounds, Virginia currency, towards complying with the demands of Congress; secondly, the act repealing the act granting the impost of five per cent. These papers were received and read.

Mr. WOLCOTT expressed some astonishment at the inconsistency of these two acts of Virginia; supposed that they had an unfavorable aspect on the business before Congress, and proposed that the latter should be postponed for the present. He was not seconded.

Mr. GORHAM favored the general idea of the motion, animadverting on the refusal of Virginia to contribute the necessary sums, and at the same moment repealing her concurrence in the only scheme that promised to supply a deficiency of contributions. He thought the motion, however, inaccurately expressed, since the word "general" might be understood to refer to every possible object of taxation, as well as to the operation of a particular tax throughout the States. He observed that the non-payment

of the one million two hundred thousand dollars demanded by Congress, for paying the interest of the debts for the year — demonstrated that the constitutional mode of annual requisitions was defective; he intimated that lands were already sufficiently taxed, and that polls and commerce were the most proper objects. At his instance the latter part of the motion was so amended as to run "establishment of permanent and adequate funds to operate generally throughout the United States."

Mr. HAMILTON Went extensively into the subject; the sum of it was as follows: he observed that funds considered as permanent sources of revenue were of two kinds-first, such as would extend generally and uniformly throughout the United States, and would be collected under the authority of Congress; secondly, such as might be established separately within each State, and might consist of any objects which were chosen by the States, and might be collected either under the authority of the States or of Congress. Funds of the first kind, he contended, were preferable; as being, first, more simple, the difficulties attending the mode of fixing the quotas laid down in the Confederation rendering it extremely complicated, and in a manner insuperable; secondly, as being more certain, since the States, according to the said plan, would probably retain the collection of the revenue, and a vicious system of collection prevailed generally throughout the United States a system by which the collectors were chosen by the people, and made their offices more subservient to their popularity than to the public revenue; thirdly, as being more economical, since