bled to judge whether our treaties are regarded by them
as fixing at all the measure of their demands or as guarding from the
exercise of force our vessels within their power, and to consider how
far it will be safe and expedient to leave our affairs with them in
their present posture.

I lay before you the result of the census lately taken of our
inhabitants, to a conformity with which we are now to reduce the ensuing
ratio of representation and taxation. You will perceive that the
increase of numbers during the last ten years, proceeding in geometrical
ratio, promises a duplication in little more than twenty-two years. We
contemplate this rapid growth and the prospect it holds up to us, not
with a view to the injuries it may enable us to do others in some future
day, but to the settlement of the extensive country still remaining
vacant within our limits to the multiplication of men susceptible of
happiness, educated in the love of order, habituated to self-government,
and valuing its blessings above all price.

Other circumstances, combined with the increase of numbers, have
produced an augmentation of revenue arising from consumption in a ratio
far beyond that of population alone; and though the changes in foreign
relations now taking place so desirably for the whole world may for a
season affect this branch of revenue, yet weighing all probabilities of
expense as well as of income, there is reasonable ground of confidence
that we may now safely dispense with all the internal taxes,
comprehending excise, stamps, auctions, licenses, carriages, and refined
sugars, to which the postage on newspapers may be added to facilitate
the progress of information, and that the remaining sources of revenue
will be sufficient to provide for the support of Government, to pay the
interest of the public debts, and to discharge the principals within
shorter periods than the laws or the general expectation had
contemplated. War, indeed, and untoward events may change this prospect
of things and call for expenses which the imposts could not meet; but
sound principles will not justify our taxing the industry of our
fellow-citizens to accumulate treasure for wars to happen we know not
when, and which might not, perhaps, happen but from the temptations
offered by that treasure.

These views, however, of reducing our burthens are formed on the
expectation that a sensible and at the same time a salutary reduction
may take place in our habi