University of Virginia Library

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.[1]

Dear Sir,—I am sorry that I can give you no other
account of our public situation, than that it continues
equally perplexed and alarming as when I lately gave
you a sketch of it. Our army has as yet been kept
from starving, and public measures from total stagnation,
by draughts on the States for the unpaid
requisitions. The great amount of these you may

judge of from the share that has fallen to Virginia.
The discharge of debts due from the purchasing departments
has absorbed a great proportion of them,
and very large demands still remain. As soon as the
draughts amount to the whole of the monthly requisitions
up to the end of March, they must cease, according
to the new scheme of finance. We must then
depend wholly on the emissions to be made in pursuance
of that scheme, which can only be applied as
the old emissions are collected and destroyed. Should
this not be done as fast as the current expenditures
require, or should the new emissions fall into a course
of depreciation, both of which may but too justly be
feared, a most melancholy crisis must take place. A
punctual compliance on the part of the States with
the specific supplies will indeed render much less
money necessary than would otherwise be wanted;
but experience by no means affords satisfactory encouragement
that due and unanimous exertions will
be made for that purpose,—not to mention that our
distress is so pressing that it is uncertain whether
any exertions of that kind can give relief in time. It
occurs besides, that as, the ability of the people to
comply with the pecuniary requisitions is derived from
the sale of their commodities, a requisition of the
latter must make the former proportionably more
difficult and defective. Congress have the satisfaction,
however, to be informed that the legislature of
Connecticut have taken the most vigorous steps for
supplying their quota both of money and commodities;
and that a body of their principal merchants
have associated for supporting the credit of the new
paper, for which purpose they have, in a public address,
pledged their faith to the assembly to sell their
merchandize on the same terms as if they were to be
paid in specie. A similar vigor throughout the Union
may perhaps produce effects as far exceeding our
present hopes, as they have heretofore fallen short of
our wishes.

It is to be observed that the situation of Congress
has undergone a total change from what it originally
was. Whilst they exercised the indefinite power of
emitting money on the credit of their constituents,
they had the whole wealth and resources of the continent
within their command, and could go on with
their affairs independently and as they pleased.
Since the resolution passed for shutting the press,
this power has been entirely given up, and they are
now as dependent on the States as the King of England
is on the Parliament. They can neither enlist,
pay nor feed a single soldier, nor execute any other
purpose, but as the means are first put into their
hands. Unless the legislatures are sufficiently attentive
to this change of circumstances, and act in conformity
to it, every thing must necessarily go wrong,
or rather must come to a total stop. All that Congress
can do in future will be to administer public
affairs with prudence, vigor and economy. In order
to do which they have sent a committee to Head-Quarters
with ample powers, in concert with the
Commander-in-Chief and the heads of the Departments,
to reform the various abuses which prevail,

and to make such arrangements as will best guard
against a relapse into them.