TO A COMMITTEE OF CONGRESS.
Office of Finance, May 15th, 1783.
Gentlemen,
In consequence of the conversation which passed between us this morning, I shall give you the best information in my power as to the state of my Department and the resources I can command.
You have in the enclosed paper an account of receipts and expenditures from the commencement of the year to the end of the last month; by which it appears, that there is an advance on credit to the amount of near six hundred thousand dollars, exclusive of what may appear in Mr Swanwick's accounts for the month of April. A large sum is also due on General Greene's drafts, and the contractors are to be paid in this month for the supplies of January last. At the end of this month, therefore, that anticipation must necessarily be much increased, as will appear from the slightest reflection after what is to be said of our resources.
These are either foreign or domestic. As to the first, I enclose the copy of the last letter I have received from Mr Grand, and I have to add to what is contained in that letter, that the day it was received, my drafts on him, over and above those mentioned in it, amounted to three millions forty thousand two hundred and seventyeight livres. I have directed, therefore, Mr Barclay to pay over to Mr Grand any moneys, which may be in his possession, and I have directed Messrs Willink & Co. of Amsterdam to do the same, after deducting what may be necessary to pay the interest of their loan falling due the 1st of June next. But as I have no accounts of how much has been borrowed since the end of January, and as all which had been borrowed before was disposed of, I cannot determine how far they can come in aid of Mr Grand. Neither can I tell until the receipt of his accounts what aid he may stand in need of. In these circumstances I am obliged to leave about eighteen hundred thousand livres (which remain of a sum placed in the hands of Messrs Le Couteulx for answering drafts intended through Havana,) to answer any deficiency of other funds to pay my drafts on Mr Grand. These then, Gentlemen, are all the foreign resources, except what the French Court may advance on the late resolutions of Congress, and you will see by the enclosed translation of a letter from the Minister of France, what little hope is to be entertained from that quarter.
Our domestic resources are twofold. First, certain goods and other property, such as horses, wagons, &c. These latter will produce very little, and the former are, by the peace, very much reduced in value, and from the nature of the goods themselves they are chiefly unsaleable. Very little reliance, therefore, can be placed on this first dependence. The amount I cannot possibly ascertain, for I do not yet know, and cannot until the opening of them now in hand shall be completed, the kinds, quality and situation. Some are damaged, those which were deemed most saleable have been tried at vendue, and went under the first cost, and much the greater part will certainly not sell at a fourth of their value.
The only remaining resource is in the taxes, and what they may amount to, it is impossible to tell. But you have enclosed an account of what they yielded the four first months of this year, and you will see from thence, that if all expense had ceased on the first day of this month, the anticipations already made would not have been absorbed by the same rate of taxation in eight months more.
Now then, Gentlemen, you will please to consider, that if your army is kept together they will consume as much in one month as the taxes will produce in two, and probably much more; to make them three months' pay will require I suppose at least six hundred thousand dollars, and every day they continue in the field lessens the practicability of sending them home satisfied. The anticipations of revenue are threefold, two of which appear as to their effects in the public accounts, and one very considerable one, though it produces great relief, is not seen. It consists in the drawing of bills on me for the public service by different persons and at different usances. I imagine that these amount at the present moment to one hundred thousand dollars. The other anticipations consist in loans from the bank on the issuing of my own notes. As to the first of these it is limited in its nature by the capital of the bank, which being small will not admit of great deductions, and it depends much upon circumstances, whether the bank will go to the extent which they may go. If they find the revenues increasing and the expenses diminishing, they will, but otherwise, they certainly will not. As to the notes I issue, and which form the greatest part of my anticipations, these have also a certain limit, to exceed which would be fatal. I must not so extend that circulation, as that I shall be unable to pay them when presented, for that would totally destroy their credit, and, of course, their utility.
If anything of this sort should take place before the army are disbanded, you will see at once that they could be fed no longer, and must of course disband themselves. I will not dwell on the consequences, but I will draw one clear conclusion, which you have, doubtless, by this time anticipated, viz. that unless they are disbanded immediately, the means of paying them, even with paper, will be gone. And this sentiment I have not delivered to you, but to a former committee, as well as to many individual members of Congress.
But when I speak of disbanding the army, I beg to be understood as meaning to reserve a sufficient garrison for West Point; and on this subject I pray to be indulged in a view of our political and military situation as far as relates to this capital object of my department. And first, as to our political situation, I conceive that we are at peace. It is true, that the definitive treaty is not, that we know of, completed; but it is equally true, that all the other belligerent powers have been disarming for mouths past, and I presume they are at least as well acquainted with the state of things as we are. To express doubts of the sincerity of Britain on this subject is, I know, a fashionable, but in my opinion a very foolish language. We have the best evidence of their sincerity, which the nature of things will admit, for we know they are unable to carry on the war, and we see and feel, that they are passing every act, and doing everything in their power to conciliate our affections. Expressions of doubts as to their sincerity, if intended to foster enmity against them, will fail of the effect and produce the direct contrary, for everybody will soon learn to consider them as unjustly suspected, and their Ministers will take care to inculcate and enforce the sentiment.
As to our military situation some of the troops in the southern States have already mutinied, the principal part of them are ordered away, and since the Floridas are ceded to Spain it follows, that those troops which may remain in the southern States will have to operate against the Spaniards if they operate at all. So that every man, except those under the General's immediate command and the little garrison of Fort Pitt, are in fact disbanded to every purpose but that of expense.
The prisoners are some of them going, and the rest gone into New York, so that in a few days the enemy will be able to do everything which they could do if the greater part of our army were gone home. For they could not take West Point if it is properly garrisoned, and they could ravage the country in spite of our army when theirs shall be all collected.
Our situation, therefore, seems to be this. We are keeping up an army at a great expense, and very much against their inclinations for a mere punctilio, and by that means incapacitating ourselves from performing what they begin to consider as a kind of engagement taken with them. I shall detain you no longer on this subject, but must repeat one observation, which is, that unless the far greater part of our expenses be immediately curtailed, the object Congress had in view by their resolutions of the 2d instant, cannot possibly be accomplished.
I have the honor to be, &c.
ROBERT MORRIS.[16]