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and our tranquillity at home, require provision for a debt of not less than fifty millions of dollars, and I pronounce that this provision will not be adequately met by separate acts of the States. If there are not revenue laws which operate at the same time through all the States, and are exempt from the control of each-the mutual jealousies which begin already to appear among them will assuredly defraud both our foreign and domestic creditors of their just claims.

The deputies of the army are still here, urging the objects of their mission. Congress are thoroughly impressed with the justice of them, and are disposed to do every thing which depends on them. But what can a Virginia Delegate say to them, whose constituents declare that they are unable to make the necessary contributions, and unwilling to establish funds for obtaining them elsewhere? The valuation of lands is still under consideration.

DEAR SIR,

TO EDMUND PENDLETON.

Philadelphia, February 7, 1782.

Congress are still occupied with the thorny subject of Vermont. Some plan for a general liquidation and apportionment of the public debts is also under their consideration, and I fear will be little less perplexing. It is proposed that until justice and the situation of the States will admit of a valuation of lands, the States should be applied to for power to substitute such other rule of apportioning

the expenditures as shall be equitable and practicable, and that Commissioners be appointed by the concurrent act of the United States and each State, to settle the accounts between them. The scheme is not yet matured, and will meet with many difficulties in its passage through Congress. I wish it may not meet with much greater when it goes down to the States. A spirit of accommodation alone can render it unanimously admissible; a spirit which but too little prevails, but which in few instances is more powerfully recommended by the occasion than the present. If our voluminous and entangled accounts be not put into some certain course of settlement before a foreign war is off our hands, it is easy to see they must prove an exuberant and formidable source of intestine dissensions.

TO EDMUND PENDLETON.

Philadelphia, February 25, 1782.

Dear Sir,

You have been misinformed, I find, with respect to that article in the scheme of the Bank, which claims for it the exclusive privilege of issuing circulating notes. It is true, Congress have recommended to the States to allow it such a privilege, but it is to be considered only during the present war. Under such a limitation it was conceived both necessary to the success of the scheme, and consistent with the policy of the several States; it being improbable that the collective credit and specie of the whole would support more than one such institution, VOL. 1-8

or that any particular State would, during the war, stake its credit anew on any paper experiment whatever.

DEAR SIR,

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Philadelphia, March 18, 1782.

I have met with a bundle of old pamphlets belonging to the public library here, in which is a map published in 1650, which, from this and other circumstances, I am pretty confident is of the same impression with that of Dr. Smith's." It represents the South Sea at about ten days' travel from the heads or falls, I forget which, of James River. From the tenor, however, of the pamphlet to which it is immediately annexed, and indeed of the whole collection, there is just ground to suspect that this representation was an artifice to favor the object of the publications, which evidently was to entice emigrants from England by a flattering picture of the advantages of this country, one of which, dwelt on in all the pamphlets, is the vicinity of the South Sea, and the facility it afforded of a trade with the Eastern world. Another circumstance, which lessens much the value of this map to the antiquary, is, that it is more modern by twenty-five years than those extant in Purchase's Pilgrim, which are referred to in the negotiations between the British and French Commissaries touching the bounds of Nova Scotia, as the first of authenticity relating to this part of the world. If, notwithstanding these considerations, you still desire that a copy be taken from the map

above described, I shall with pleasure execute your orders; or if you wish that a copy of Virginia, or of the whole country, may be taken from those in Purchase, your orders shall be equally attended to. I much doubt, however, whether that book be so extremely scarce as to require a transcript from it for the purpose you seem to have in view.

Congress have taken no step in the business of the Western territory since the report of the Committee, of which I have already given you an account, and which, we hear, arrived at Richmond on the day of the adjournment of the Assembly. We wish it to undergo their consideration, and to receive their instructions before we again move in it.

TO EDMUND PENDLETON.

Philadelphia, March 19, 1782.

DEAR SIR,

The Ministerial speeches, with other circumstances, place it beyond a doubt that the plan for recovering America will be changed. A separate peace with the Dutch-a suspension of the offensive war here an exertion of their resources thus disencumbered against the naval power of France and Spain-and a renewal of the arts of seduction and division in the United States, will probably constitute the outlines of the new plan. Whether they will succeed in the first article of it, cannot be ascertained by the last intelligence we have from Holland. It is only certain that negotiations are on foot, under the auspices of the Empress of Russia.

DEAR SIR,

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Philadelphia, March 26, 1782.

A letter has been lately received from you by the President of Congress, accompanied by a bundle of papers procured from the Cherokees by Colonel Campbell. As it appears that these papers were transmitted at the request of the late President, it is proper to apprize you that it was made without any written or verbal sanction, and even without the knowledge of Congress; and not improbably with a view of fishing for discoveries which may be subservient to the aggressions meditated on the territorial rights of Virginia. It would have been unnecessary to trouble you with this, had it not appeared that Colonel Campbell has given a promise of other papers; which if he should fulfil, and the papers contain any thing which the adversaries of Virginia may make an ill use of, you will not suffer any respect for the acts of Congress to induce you to forward hither.

DEAR SIR,

TO EDMUND PENDLETON.

Philadelphia, April 2, 1783.

The only event with which the period since my last has enabled me to repay your favor of the twenty-fifth ultimo, is the arrival of four Deputies from Vermont, with a plenipotentiary commission to ac

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