REPORT TO CONGRESS RESPECTING TRANSFERABLE CERTIFICATES.
Office of Finance, July 31st, 1783.
The debts which have been found due to persons by settlements at the Treasury Office, have not been evidenced by transferable certificates for the following reasons.
1st. All such certificates have by experience been found to be only another kind of paper money, continually depreciating both by increase of quantity and defect of funds.
2dly. The consequence thereof is, that the same is daily brought into fewer hands and for less value, by which one of two things must happen, either that those few become very rich by their speculations, or, that being defrauded they become clamorous against the government.
3dly. If the certificates are transferable in the manner proposed by the motion, they are evidence of the debt as due to the bearer, and therefore whether obtained by accident, force, or fraud, vest him with a right, to the prejudice of the injured or unfortunate party.
4thly. Being, therefore, a precarious property, they become less valuable from that circumstance.
5thly. When the original proprietors become divested of them, some of the reasons in favor of revenues to redeem them lose their force, and the advocates for just measures being lessened, the probability of carrying them through is decreased.
6thly. While the evidence of such debts is in the treasury books and the stock transferable there, the public debt becomes a property, the object of purchase, instead of being as in the other case the means of making purchases as money.
But if there be powerful reasons in favor of the motion, which have escaped the Superintendent of Finance, he shall very readily comply with such order as to the wisdom of Congress may seem meet.
ROBERT MORRIS.