An act of Congress has passed, to adjust the public debts between the individual states and the United States. I shall say nothing of what did not come under my own observation. When I was in Congress, sixteen vessels had had sea letters in the East India trade, and two hundred vessels entered and cleared out, in the French West India Islands, in one year. I must confess that public credit has suffered, and that our public creditors have been ill used. If requisitions have not been complied with, it must be owing to Congress, who might have put the unpopular debts on the back lands.
Commutation is abhorrent to New England ideas.
Speculation is abhorrent to the Eastern States. Those inconveniences have resulted from the bad policy of Congress. There are certain modes of governing the people which will succeed. There are others which will not. The idea of consolidation is abhorrent to the people of this country.