still are loud in
their complaints. A few of them have reason; but the most noisy are
not the best of them. They are persons who have become bankrupt, by
unskilful attempts at commerce with America. That they may have some
pretext to offer to their creditors, they have bought up great masses of
this dead money in America, where it is to be had at five thousand for
one, and they show the certificates of their paper possessions, as
if they had all died in their hands, and had been the cause of their
bankruptcy. Justice will be done to all, by paying to all persons what
this money actually cost them, with an interest of six per cent, from
the time they received it. If difficulties present themselves in the
ascertaining the epoch of the receipt, it has been thought better that
the State should lose, by admitting easy proofs, than that individuals,
and especially foreigners, should, by being held to such as would be
difficult, perhaps impossible.

4. Virginia certainly owed two millions, sterling, to Great Britain,
at the conclusion of the war. Some have conjectured the debt as high as
three millions. I think that state owed near as much as all the rest put
together. This is to be ascribed to peculiarities in the tobacco trade.
The advantages made by the British merchants, on the tobaccos consigned
to them, were so enormous, that they spared no means of increasing those
consignments. A powerful engine for this purpose, was the giving good
prices and credit to the planter, till they got him more immersed in
debt than he could pay, without selling his lands or slaves. They then
reduced the prices given for his tobacco, so that let his shipments be
ever so great, and his demand of necessaries ever so economical, they
never permitted him to clear off his debt. These debts had become
hereditary from father to son, for many generations, so that the
planters were a species of property, annexed to certain mercantile
houses in London.

5. The members of Congress are differently paid by different States.
Some are on fixed allowances, from four to eight dollars a day. Others
have their expenses paid, and a surplus for their time. This surplus is
of two, three, or four dollars a day.

6. I do not believe there has ever been a moment, when a single whig, in
any one State, would not have shuddered at the very idea of a separation
of their State from the confederacy. The tories would, at all times,
have been glad to see the confederacy