Office of Finance, October 13th, 1781.
Sir,
As the organization of the Treasury Department will soon be completed, it becomes my duty to inform you of that circumstance, and to request that you will prepare for a full settlement of your accounts. I must also request, that you will be pleased to make out and transmit to me an accurate list of all the certificates issued, with their dates, sums, and the persons to whom they were given. It will be necessary that an account of the public debt be prepared for the public inspection. This cannot be done until the proper materials be obtained from the several offices; wherefore, I make no doubt that you will exert yourself to comply with my request. As I am informed that the late Treasury Board gave orders for sending back the blank certificates, I suppose they are now on the way hither; but, if that should not be the case, I must require an immediate performance of the directions given by the Board, and I must insist that no more certificates be issued on any pretence whatever.
With great respect, I have the honor to be, &c.
ROBERT MORRIS.
TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA.
Philadelphia, October 16th, 1781.
Sir,
I would willingly write you an official letter by this post, on the subject of supplies for the year 1782; but I must decline it, until I can obtain the proper estimates, which are now preparing. In the meantime, as I learn that your Legislature are now sitting, I write you this private letter on that subject.
My former public letters will fully have stated my ideas as to the present demands on the existing requisitions of Congress. I hope and expect, that those requisitions will be immediately complied with. It is my decided opinion, founded on the best observations I have been able to make, and the most accurate and extensive information I could possibly obtain, that paper emissions will no longer answer the purpose of carrying on this war, and experience must by this time have convinced every dispassionate observer, that specific supplies are at once burdensome to the people, and almost useless to the government.