nations of Europe have tried and trodden every path of force or folly in fruitless quest of the same object, yet we still expect to find, in juggling tricks and banking dreams, that money can be made out of nothing, and in sufficient quantity to meet the expenses of a heavy war by sea and land.  It is said, indeed, that money cannot be borrowed from our merchants as from those of England.  But it can be borrowed from our people.  They will give you all the necessaries of war they produce, if, instead of the bankrupt trash they now are obliged to receive for want of any other, you will give them a paper-promise funded on a specific pledge, and of a size for common circulation.  But you say the merchants will not take this paper.  What the people take the merchants must take, or sell nothing.  All these doubts and fears prove only the extent of the dominion which the banking institutions have obtained over the minds of our citizens, and especially of those inhabiting cities or other banking places; and this dominion must be broken, or it will break us.  But here, as in the other case, we must make up our mind to suffer yet longer before we can get right.  The misfortune is, that in the mean time, we shall plunge ourselves into inextinguishable debt, and entail on our posterity an inheritance of eternal taxes, which will bring our government and people into the condition of those of England, a nation of pikes and gudgeons, the latter bred merely as food for the former.  But, however these two difficulties of men and money may be disposed of, it is fortunate that neither of them will affect our war by sea.  Privateers will find their own men and money.  Let nothing be spared to encourage them.  They are the dagger which strikes at the heart of the enemy, their commerce.  Frigates and seventy-fours are a sacrifice we must make, heavy as it is, to the prejudices of a part of our citizens.  They have, indeed, rendered a great moral service, which has delighted me as much as any one in the United States.  But they have had no physical effect sensible to the enemy; and now, while we must fortify them in our harbors, and keep armies to defend them, our privateers are bearding and blockading the enemy in their own sea-ports.  Encourage them to burn all their prizes, and let the public pay for them.  They will cheat us enormously.  No matter; they will make the merchants of England feel, and squeal, and cry out for peace.

I much regretted your acceptance of the war department.  Not that I know a person who I think would better conduct it.  But, conduct it ever so wisely, it will be a sacrifice of yourself.  Were an angel from Heaven to undertake that office, all our miscarriages would be ascribed to him.  Raw troops, no troops, insubordinate militia, want of arms, want of money, want of provisions, all will be charged to want of management in you.  I speak from experience, when I was Governor of Virginia.  Without a regular in the State, and scarcely a musket to put into the