University of Virginia Library

3007. FINANCES, Sound system of.—[continued].

The British ministers
found some hopes [of success in the war] on the state of our finances. It is true that
the excess of our banking institutions, and
their present discredit, have shut us out from
the best source of credit we could ever command
with certainty. But the foundations of
credit still remain to us, and need but skill
which experience will soon produce, to marshal
them into an order which may carry us
through any length of war.—
To Marquis de Lafayette. Washington ed. vi, 425. Ford ed., ix, 508.
(M. 1815)

See Banks and Debt.