ion,
the base scramble began. Couriers and relay-horses by land, and
swift-sailing pilot-boats by sea, were flying in all directions. Active
partners and agents were associated and employed in every State,
town, and country neighborhood, and this paper was bought up at five
shillings, and even as low as two shillings in the pound, before the
holder knew that Congress had already provided for its redemption at
par. Immense sums were thus filched from the poor and ignorant, and
fortunes accumulated by those who had themselves been poor enough
before. Men thus enriched by the dexterity of a leader, would follow of
course the chief who was leading them to fortune, and become the zealous
instruments of all his enterprises.

This game was over, and another was on the carpet at the moment of my
arrival; and to this I was most ignorantly and innocently made to hold
the candle. This fiscal manoeuvre is well known by the name of the
Assumption. Independently of the debts of Congress, the States had,
during the war, contracted separate and heavy debts; and Massachusetts
particularly, in an absurd attempt, absurdly conducted, on the British
post of Penobscot: and the more debt Hamilton could rake up, the more
plunder for his mercenaries. This money, whether wisely or foolishly
spent, was pretended to have been spent for general purposes, and ought,
therefore, to be paid from the general purse. But it was objected, that
nobody knew what these debts were, what their amount, or what their
proofs. No matter; we will guess them to be twenty millions. But of
these twenty millions, we do not know how much should be reimbursed
to one State, or how much to another. No matter; we will guess. And so
another scramble was set on foot among the several States, and some got
much, some little, some nothing. But the main object was obtained, the
phalanx of the Treasury was reinforced by additional recruits. This
measure produced the most bitter and angry contests ever known in
Congress, before or since the Union of the States. I arrived in the
midst of it. But a stranger to the ground, a stranger to the actors on
it, so long absent as to have lost all familiarity with the subject,
and as yet unaware of its object, I took no concern in it. The great and
trying question, however, was lost in the House of Representatives.
So high were the feuds excited by this subject, that on its rejection
business was suspended. Congress met and adjourned from day t