University of Virginia Library

TO JOSEPH JONES.[1]

Dear Sir,—I wish it was in my power to enable
you to satisfy the uneasiness of people with respect
to the disappointment in foreign succours. I am
sensible of the advantage which our secret enemies
take of it. I am persuaded also that those who ought
to be acquainted with the cause are sensible of it;
and as they give no intimations on the subject, it is
to be inferred that they are unable to give any that
would prevent the mischief. It is so delicate a subject,
that, with so little probability of succeeding, it
would perhaps be hardly prudent to suggest it. As

soon as any solution comes out you shall be furnished
with it.

We continue to receive periodical alarms from the
commissary's and quarter-master's departments. The
season is now arrived when provision ought to be
made for a season that will not admit of transportation,
and when the monthly supplies must be subject
to infinite disappointments, even if the States were to
do their duty. But instead of magazines being laid
in, our army is living from hand to mouth, with a
prospect of being soon in a condition still worse.
How a total dissolution of it can be prevented in the
course of the winter is, for any resources now in prospect,
utterly inexplicable, unless the States unanimously
make a vigorous and speedy effort to form
magazines for the purpose. But unless the States
take other methods to procure their specific supplies
than have prevailed in most of them, the utmost
efforts to comply with the requisitions of Congress
can be only a temporary relief. This expedient, as I
take it, was meant to prevent the emission of money.
Our own experience, as well as the example of other
countries, made it evident that we could not by taxes
draw back to the treasury the emissions as fast as
they were necessarily drawn out. We could not follow
the example of other countries by borrowing,
neither our own citizens nor foreigners being willing
to lend as far as our wants extended. To continue to
emit ad infinitum, was thought more dangerous than
an absolute occlusion of the press. Under these circumstances,
the expedient of specific requisitions was

adopted for supplying the necessities of the war. But
it is clear the success of this expedient depends on
the mode of carrying it into execution. If, instead
of executing it by specific taxes, State emissions or
commissary's and quarter-master's certificates, which
are a worse species of emissions, are recurred to,
what was intended for our relief will only hasten our
destruction.

As you are at present a legislator,[2] I will take the
liberty of hinting to you an idea that has occurred
on this subject. I take it for granted that taxation
alone is inadequate to our situation. You know as
well as I do, how far we ought to rely on loans to
supply the defects of it. Specific taxes, as far as they
go, are a valuable fund, but from local and other difficulties
will never be universally and sufficiently
adopted: purchases with State money or certificates
will be substituted. In order to prevent this evil,
and to ensure the supplies, therefore, I would propose,
that they be diffused and proportioned among the
people as accurately as circumstances will admit; that
they be impressed with vigor and impartiality; and
paid for in certificates not transferable, and to be
redeemable, at some period subsequent to the war, at
specie value, and bearing an intermediate interest.
The advantage of such a scheme is this, that it would
anticipate during the war the future revenues of
peace, as our enemies and all other modern nations
do. It would be compelling the people to lend the

public their commodities, as people elsewhere lend
their money to purchase commodities. It would be
a permanent resource by which the war might be
supported as long as the earth should yield its
increase. This plan differs from specific taxes in this,
that as an equivalent is given for what is received,
much less nicety would be requisite in apportioning
the supplies among the people, and they would be
taken in places where they are most wanted. It
differs from the plan of paying for supplies in State
emissions or common certificates, in this, that the
latter produce all the evils of a redundant medium,
whereas the former, not being transferable, cannot
have that effect, and moreover do not require the
same degree of taxes during the war.