[717] "If we are now to pay the debts due to the British merchants, what have we been fighting for all this while?" was the question the people "sometimes" asked, testifies George Mason. (Henry, ii, 187.) But the fact is that this question generally was asked by the people. Nothing explains the struggle over this subject except that the people found it a bitter hardship to pay the debts, as, indeed, was the case; and the idea of not paying them at all grew into a hope and then a policy.
[718] Journal, H.D. (1787), 80.
[719] Hening, xii, 528. Richard Henry Lee thought that both countries were to blame. (Lee to Henry, Feb. 14, 1785; quoted in Henry, iii, 279.)
[720] For an excellent statement regarding payment of British debts, see letter of George Mason to Patrick Henry, May 6, 1783, as quoted in Henry, ii, 186-87. But Mason came to put it on the ground that Great Britain would renew the war if these debts were not paid.
[721] Story, in Dillon, iii, 338.
[722] Hening, x, chaps. ii and ix, 409-51.
[723] For a general review of the state of the country see infra, chaps. VII and VIII.
[724] Hening, xi, chap. xlii, 171.
[725] Ib., chap. xxxi, 350.
[726] Journal, H.D., 52.