University of Virginia Library

TO JOSEPH JONES.[1]

Dear Sir,—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 discontinue another practice equally destructive
with temporary enlistments. Unless an
end can by some means or other be put to State
emission 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,
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 design in Congress to gratify the
avidity of land mongers, but the best security for
their virtue, in this respect, will be to keep it out of

their power. They have been much infested, since
you left us, with memorials from these people; who
appear to be equally alarmed and perplexed. Mr.
G. Morgan, as agent for the Indiana claimants, after
memorializing Congress on the subject, has honored
the Virginia delegates with a separate attention. He
very modestly proposes to them a reference of the
controversy between the company and Virginia to
arbitration, in the mode pointed out in the Confederation
for adjusting disputes between State and
State. We have given him for answer, that as the
State we represent had finally determined the question,
we could not, with any propriety, attend to his
proposition; observing at the same time, that if we
were less precluded, we could not reconcile with the
sovereignty and honor of the State an appeal from
its own jurisdiction to a foreign tribunal, in a controversy
with private individuals.