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can judge, the temper of Congress is in general by no means prone to it, although there may be individuals on both sides who would both wish and endeavour it.

Congress have just finished an estimate of supplies for the ensuing year, requiring of the States the value of six millions of dollars in specie. The principal part of the requisition consists of specific articles, the residue of specie or the new emissions, receivable as specie. If the States fulfil this plan punctually, there is no doubt that we shall go smoothly through another campaign; and if they would forbear recurring to State emissions and certificates, in procuring the supplies, it may become a permanent and effectual mode of carrying on the war. But past experience will not permit our expectations to be very sanguine. The collection and transportation of specific supplies must necessarily be tedious and subject to casualties; and the proceedings of separate popular bodies must add greatly to the uncertainty and delay. The expense attending the mode is of itself a sufficient objection to it, if money could by any possible device be provided in due quantity. The want of this article is the source of all our public difficulties and misfortunes. One or two millions of guineas properly applied, would diffuse vigor and satisfaction throughout the whole military departments, and would expel the enemy from every part of the United States. It would also have another good effect. It would reconcile the army and every body else to our republican forms of government; the principal inconveniences which are imputed to them being really the fruit of defective revenues. What other States effect

by money, we are obliged to pursue by dilatory and indigested expedients, which benumb all our operations, and expose our troops to numberless distresses. If these were well paid, well fed, and well clothed, they would be well satisfied, and would fight with more success. And this might and would be as well effected by our governments as by any other, if they possessed money enough, as in our moneyless situation the same embarrassments would have been experienced by any government.

TO JOSEPH JONES.

Philadelphia, November 1780.

DEAR SIR,

Many attempts have been made to bring the Vermont dispute to an issue, but the diversity of opinions that prevail on one side, and the dilatory artifices employed on the other, have frustrated them. All the evidence has been heard, and the proposition for including it within the jurisdiction of some one of the States, debated for some time, but the decision was suspended. An arrangement of the army founded on General Washington's letter has passed Congress, and is now with the General for his observations on it. It includes a recommendation to the States to fill up their quotas. No arrangement of the civil departments has taken place. A new medical system has been passed. Shippen is again at the head of it.. Craig and Cochran have not been forgotten. The instructions relating to the Mississippi have passed entirely to my satisfaction. A committee is now preparing a statement of the reasons and principles on which they stand.'

DEAR SIR,

TO JOSEPH JONES.

Philadelphia, November 14, 1780.

I do not learn that any of the States are particularly attentive to prevent the evils arising from certificates and emissions from their own treasury, although they are unquestionably the bane of every salutary arrangement of the public finances. When the estimate for the ensuing year was on the anvil in Congress, I proposed a recommendation to the States to discontinue the use of them, and particularly in providing the specific articles required. It met, however, with so cool a reception, that I did not much urge it. The objection against it was, that the practice was manifestly repugnant to the spirit of the acts of Congress respecting finance; and if these were disregarded, no effect could be expected from any additional recommendations. The letters from General Washington and the Commissary General, for some time past, give a most alarming picture of the state and prospects of the magazines. Applications to the contiguous States on the subject, have been repeated from every quarter, till they seem to have lost all their force. Whether any degree of danger and necessity will rouse them to provide for the winter season now hastening upon us, I am unwilling to decide, because my fears dictate the worst. The inroads of the enemy on the frontier of New York have been most fatal to us in this respect. They have almost totally ruined that fine wheat country, which was able, and from the energy of

their Government, was most likely, to supply magazines of flour, both to the main army and to the northwestern posts. The settlement of Schoharie, which alone was able to furnish, according to a letter from General Washington, eighty thousand bushels of grain for the public use, has been totally laid in ashes.

I make no apology for inaccuracies and bad writing, because you know the manner in which we are obliged to write for the post, and having been prevented by company from doing any thing last night, I am particularly hurried this morning.

DEAR SIR,

TO JOSEPH JONES.

Philadelphia, November 21, 1780.

I am glad to find you have at last got a House of Delegates, and have made so auspicious a beginning, as an unanimous vote to fill up our line for the war. This is a measure which all the States ought to have begun with. I wish there may not be some that will not be prevailed on even to end with it. It is much to be regretted that you are not in a condition to discontine another practice equally destructive with temporary enlistments. Unless an end can by some means or other be put to State emissions and certificates, they must prove the bane of every salutary regulation. The depreciation in this place has lately run up as high as one hundred for one, and it cannot be satisfactorily accounted for, on any other principle than the substitution of certificates in the payment of those taxes which were intended to

reduce its quantity and keep up a demand for it. The immediate cause of this event is said to have been the sudden conversion of a large quantity of paper into specie, by some tories lately ordered into exile by this State. It is at present on the fall, and I am told the merchants have associated to bring it down and fix it at 75. The fate of the new money is as yet suspended. There is but too much reason, however, to fear that it will follow the fate of the old. According to the arrangement now in force, it would seem impossible for it to rise above one for forty. The resolutions of Congress which establish that relation between the two kinds of paper, must destroy the equality of the new with specie, unless the old can be kept down at forty for one. In New Jersey, I am told, the Legislature has lately empowered the Executive to regulate the exchange between the two papers, according to the exchange between the old and the new, in order to preserve the equality of the latter with specie. The issue of this experiment is of consequence, and may throw light perhaps on our paper finance.

The only infallible remedy, whilst we cannot command specie, for the pecuniary embarrassments we labor under, will, after all, be found to be a punctual collection of the taxes required by Congress.

I hope you will not forget to call the attention of the Assembly, as early as the preparations for defence will admit, to the means of ratifying the Confederation, [by a cession of territory,] nor to remind it of the conditions which prudence requires should be annexed to any territorial cession that may be agreed on. I do not believe there is any serious de

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