CHAPTER LXXI.
FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES.--PARTY JEALOUSIES.--OPERATIONS AGAINST THE
INDIANS.

Congress re-assembled on the 4th of January (1790), but a quorum of
the two Houses was not present until the 8th, when the session was
opened by Washington in form, with an address delivered before them in
the Senate chamber. Among the most important objects suggested in the
address for the deliberation of Congress, were provisions for national
defence; provisions for facilitating intercourse with foreign nations,
and defraying the expenses of diplomatic agents; laws for the
naturalization of foreigners; uniformity in the currency, weights, and
measures of the United States; facilities for the advancement of
commerce, agriculture, and manufactures; attention to the post-office
and post-roads; measures for the promotion of science and literature,
and for the support of public credit.

This last object was the one which Washington had more immediately at
heart. The government was now organized, apparently, to the
satisfaction of all parties; but its efficiency would essentially
depend on the success of a measure which Washington had pledged
himself to institute, and which was yet to be tried; namely, a system
of finance adapted to revive the national credit, and place the public
debt in a condition to be paid off. At the close of the war the debt
amounted to forty-two millions of dollars; but so little had the
country been able to fulfil its engagements, owing to the want of a
sovereign legislature having the sole and exclusive power of laying
duties upon imports, and thus providing adequate resources, that the
debt had swollen, through arrears of interest, to upwards of
fifty-four millions. Of this amount nearly eight millions were due to
France, between three and four millions to private lenders in Holland,
and about two hundred and fifty thousand in Spain; making altogether,
nearly twelve millions due abroad. The debt contracted at home
amounted to upwards of forty-two millions, and was due, originally, to
officers and soldiers of the revolutionary war, who had risked their
lives for the cause; farmers who had furnished supplies for the public
service, or whose property had been assumed for it; capitalists who,
in critical periods of the war, had adventured their fortunes in
support of their country's independence. The domestic debt, therefore,
could not have had a more sacred and patriotic origin; but in the long