consequence whereof I have requested him to stay till the sense of the General Assembly would be communicated to him on the subject. What he will determine finally, is with himself. As Congress has made the concurrence of nine voice: necessary in every act, there is ample security against the Committee's sitting in Philadelphia, unless infatuated.

I have enclosed on paper No. 3, the act of the legislature of Pennsylvania, granting to Congress the power of levying and collecting an impost of five per cent. on imports, &c. This act is complete as to the impost, but very deficient on the supplementary funds, only containing, in the seventh section, a general and vague promise to raise and levy on the persons and estates of the inhabitants of the state, their proportion thereof, in such manner as the legislature may direct. To the full amount of this assumption, they were, and are, holden by the eighth of the Articles of the Confederation. If they meant to comply, why did they not point out specific and adequate funds and appropriate them, and make the collectors thereof amenable to, and removable by the United States in Congress, alone? It must be clear to every person who reads their acts, that they neither have complied nor intend to comply, with their part, and which is the principal part of the system recommended.

A correspondent in South Carolina has lately enclosed to me the South Carolina Gazette of April 22d, containing the act of that state, in pursuance of the recommendations of Congress of April 18th, 1783. I have thought proper to enclose this to you, that it may be laid before the Assembly. If I remember rightly, this makes the eighth act, on this subject, which has come to my hands, and which I have transmitted to the State. Congress has received no information of the compliance of any of the other five, viz. :- North Carolina, Georgia, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

It is worthy of notice that only two or three states have passed acts respecting the supplementary funds, which came in lieu of the land-tax, capitation and excise, originally proposed by Mr. Morris, and which he has always contended for, as necessary to accompany the impost, and equalize the operation of his system, on the various kinds of interest taxable in the United States. Of this opinion, Congress seems also to have been when they passed the recommendation of April 18th, 1783. For they expressly say

"That none of the preceding resolutions shall take effect until all of them shall be acceded to by every state; after which unanimous accession, however, they shall be considered as forming a mutual compact among all the states," &c.

I find that the supplementary funds are very unpopular this way. The lords of extensive soil are more ready to mortgage to Congress a twentieth part of what enters their ports than a hundredth part of what goes off from their plantations. But will the commercial states suffer the impost to be carried into effect before the supplementary funds are granted? Can the United States in Congress suffer it, without a violation of their faith pledged in the above, in part recited, resolution?

The very unequal operation of such a partial arrangement must be obvious. You will observe that in the requisition of the last month, the foreign interest has preference (and with good reason,) to the domestic interest. Suppose then, an impost only granted and appropriated, in preference as it would and ought to be to the payment of foreign interests, and to commence its operations. Let one instance in our State. Large sums of money would be drawn from us to the common treasury, whereby we should be exhausted of our resources, at the same time that a balance might be due to us on a just settlement; but this balance is to come out of the supplementary funds, which the State, to. pay the balance, having refused to grant, would in fact have an annual choice, whether they will pay by making requisitions on themselves, or not. The disposition discovered lately, by some states in Congress to discriminate betwixt the foreign debt and the domestic debt, the striking out two years' interest of the domestic debt from the report of the grand committee, which reported the requisition for this year, and other occurrences, convince me that the states, which are large public creditors, are viewed by the others with a zealous and watchful eye, and of the necessity of preventing any severance of the different kinds of debt in the provision for payment.

The commutation, the Loan Office certificates and every other species of domestic debts, are viewed by different persons as objectionable; and it is, perhaps, unfortunate for us, that all the particular states are not equally interested in the fair and honest payment of our domestic debt. Yet while it is blended with our foreign debt and the assent of nine states in Congress is necessary annually to provide for the latter, the former is secure; quite otherwise might it be if the revenue of an impost in the hands of Congress was mortgaged to pay our foreign interest, and the payment of our domestic interest depended on the annual assent of nine states in Congress to a requisition, which would be afterwards to be complied with by thirteen states, from the greater part of which a large balance would be to be drawn in favor of the others. On the whole it appears to me that the general interest and harmony, if not the very existence of the Union depends on our preserving the only constitutional mode of annual requisitions on the several states for all the supplies of the year, notwithstanding this has been

called, and infinite pains have been taken to make the people believe it to be " a futile measure." I hope and trust that the time is near at hand when the sanguine pursuit of new-fangled, and (to use the modern phrase) balloon schemes of financeering will be abandoned; and doubt not but a cheerful compliance with the requisitions of Congress, and the reëstablishment of public credit will be the happy consequence.

I have the pleasure to inform you that notwithstanding every opposition, from those who wish to fix the public attention only to the funds recommended on the 19th of April, 1783, the business of the western territory is in a good train. I entertain a full expectation that Congress will be able to open a land office for the sale of one or two states by next Christmas. There is also good news from North Carolina. That state has made us a cession. No official account has yet come to hand; but a delegate of that state told me a few days ago, that his friend had written him that the state had ceded to Congress a large tract of land, said to be near eight millions of acres. An official account is daily expected.

Georgia has not sent forward any delegates to Congress, though it is reported that the Cincinnati of that state were represented at their late general meeting in Philadelphia. There is no account of their even having in contemplation to cede any lands to Congress. It is said that they are very busy in land-jobbing, and that none of their principal men dare leave the state time enough to come to Congress for fear of being out-manoeuvred ; but will the Union suffer the small number of inhabitants in that state, to engross and divide among themselves that vast tract of most excellent soil lying betwixt them and the Mississippi? And will the commercial states also admit them to an equal participation in the revenue of an impost? I hope you will approve of the facilities introduced in payment of part of the requisition for this year-Hic labor, hoc opus. This was perseveringly opposed by the Superintendent of Finance, and finally acceded to by some only of his supporters, and that with great reluctance, and after a most warm and doubtful contest. Time and experience will now decide who have been in the right. The charm of remitting all payments to Philadelphia, is now broken, and I hope that vortex will no longer swallow down the treasury of other states.

The reports for abolishing the office of Continental Receiver in the several states, for reducing the civil list, and for sending troops to defend our western lands, have not yet been acted upon, as more than a week was thrown away in attempting to vacate the seats of the delegates of Rhode Island, A continuation of the Journal, which I intend to enclose, will give you a view, as I expect, of the rise, progress and termination of the inquisitorial progress against us. This affair so intimately concerns the State, that I

pray you to lay it before the Assembly for their consideration. If their honor has been touched in the pressure of their delegates, I hope they will not forget their sovereignty, or be wanting in respect to themselves. If their delegates have committed the State, let them be censured.

Since the termination of this affair, we have had the pleasure of giving the vote of the State for the ordinance for putting the Office of Finance into commission, and of seeing that ordinance carried by that vote.

As this is probably the last official letter I may write, I must beg you to accept my thanks for the attention shown to me in your correspondence, and to assure the State that it will not be in the power of any future scenes I may pass through in life, to obliterate from my mind the grateful sense I entertain of the singular honor conferred on me by three successive elections, to the important station I hold in their service.

I am, &c.,

DAVID HOWELL.

P. S.- Next Thursday, the 3d of June, Congress will adjourn and leave the committee sitting. I propose to go up the Bay to the head of Elk, by water, and then take the stage to Philadelphia, where I must stay two or three days to obtain settlement of some accounts. I propose also to stay a few days in the Jerseys, with my relations, and to take passage from New York for Rhode Island. As the time of setting my face northward approaches, I feel an increasing anxiety to see my family and friends. Blessed be God, I have as yet been favored with perfect health, notwithstanding we have had some very hot days, and the sun's rays are daily approaching towards a perpendicular direction. I never enjoyed, in any period of my life, a better state of health than since I left home. I have not been sick a single day; I have not even had one bad cold, or any indisposition to prevent me from attending Congress a single day. I was indeed absent two or three stormy days in the winter, when I was pretty certain there would not be a House. But never have been out of the House when any business of consequence has been under consideration, during the whole time since I took my seat last July. Few members, I believe, can give a better account of themselves.

The principal gentlemen of this place are removing to their country seats. The horse races were attended here the week before last, and are all over, as are also the balls, routs, hops, fandangoes, and plays. I assure you there has been a merry winter in this place, according, at least, to accounts, for I have seen but little of their diversions. I did not even look out upon the horse races, although they were to be seen from the windows in the back room of the State House; nor have I attended a single play, although

the theatre has been open twice a week the chief of the winter, and the play house adjoins the house where I lodge. I have attended several balls, and been honored with sufficient attention from the principal people in the place.

Pray inform Mr. John Brown that, as no treaty has been entered into with the Emperor of Morocco, or the Barbary powers, Congress has issued nothing as yet in the nature of Mediterranean papers. The report on our motion for a pass for Capt. Sheldon has not been taken up, nor can anything be obtained in time to be of use to him.

I pray you to apologize to the Assembly, or to the Clerk at least, for the bad writing and inaccuracy of my letters. They have been written generally in haste and never copied. That is a business I never was fond of. DAVID HOWELL.

DAVID HOWELL TO Gov. GREENE.

NEW YORK, January 12th, 1785. SIR :-As I arrived at Trenton before a Congress was formed, I proceeded directly forward to Philadelphia and applied at the office of the paymaster general for settlement of accounts in behalf of our State's short levies, agreeably to order of Assembly. After putting this business in train I returned to Trenton and took a seat in Congress on the first day of the session.

A second journey to Philadelphia enabled me to complete the settlement; and I transmitted, by the hands of Mr. John Innes Clark, the certificates I obtained, to the general treasurer.

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For want of material to fill up a letter, more than from any other cause, I have deferred writing to the present time. In justice to myself, I must also hint at another cause. It has been suggested to me that my former ommunications to the State have been too lengthy, and carry the appearance of a wish to obtrude my own political dogmas. I shall only observe that I am justified in this line of conduct by the communications of our foreign ministers to Congress; and even by the communications of Congress to the states, in which may be seen, not only a statement of facts, but opinions and reasonings, as well as scraps of letters from their servants, with their opinions and arguments, and even (so strong was their desire to illuminate,) the opinions and reasonings of the minister, a very respectable character, of a foreign court.

As I well knew that my letters were to be laid before men, who were not only tenacious of their rights but careful of understanding them, I have written with a frankness, which (at least, in my humble opinion,) the public has a right to expect from their servants, and to this day, I find no reason to retract or alter any thing I have written in my official character.

If it is the character of a politician to conceal, or to deliver with reserve