efore expect, that the
actual expenses for outfit were to be paid. When I prepared my account
for settlement with Mr. Barclay, I began a detail of the articles of
clothes, carriage, horses, and household furniture. I found that they
were numerous, minute, and incapable, from their nature, of being
vouched; and often entered in my memorandum-book under a general head
only, so that I could not specify them. I found they would exceed a
year's salary. Supposing, therefore, that, mine being the first case,
Congress would make a precedent of it, and prefer a sum fixed for the
outfit, as well as the salary, I have charged it in my account at a
year's salary; presuming there can be no question that an outfit is a
reasonable charge. It is the usage here (and I suppose at all courts),
that a minister resident, shall establish his house in the first
instant. If this is to be done out of his salary, he will be a
twelvemonth at least without a copper to live on. It is the universal
practice, therefore, of all nations, to allow the outfit as a separate
article from the salary. I have inquired here into the usual amount of
it. I find that, sometimes, the sovereign pays the actual cost. This is
particularly the case of the Sardinian ambassador now coming here, who
is to provide a service of plate, and every article of furniture, and
other matters of first expense, to be paid for by his court. In other
instances, they give a service of plate, and a fixed sum for all other
articles, which fixed sum is in no case lower than a year's salary.

I desire no service of plate, having no ambition for splendor. My
furniture, carriage, and apparel are all plain, yet they have cost me
more than a year's salary. I suppose that in every country, and in every
condition of life, a year's expense would be found a moderate measure
for the furniture of a man's house. It is not more certain to me, that
the sun will rise to-morrow, than that our government must allow the
outfit, on their future appointment of foreign ministers; and it would
be hard on me, so to stand between the discontinuance of a former rule,
and institution of a future one, as to have the benefit of neither. I
know, I have so long known the character of our federal head, in its
present form, that I have the most unlimited confidence in the justice
of its decisions. I think I am so far known to many of the present
Congress, as that I may be cleared of all views of making money out of
any