son alone would deserve great attention; but,
further, I expect that my whole time, study, and attention will be
necessarily devoted to the various business of my department.

Having thus stated some of the causes, which will prevent me from
immediately entering on the arduous task assigned me, I pray leave to
call the attention of Congress to the advanced season, and then I am
persuaded their own good sense will render it unnecessary for me to
observe, that very little can be expected from my exertions during the
present campaign; they will, therefore, easily perceive the propriety
of the request I am to make, that the business may go on according to
the present arrangements, or such other as Congress may devise, until
I can take it up, which I promise to do as speedily as possible. By
this means, I may be enabled so to dispose of the several members of
my department, as to form them into a regular system; whereas, by
throwing the whole immediately upon me, I shall be inevitably involved
in a labyrinth of confusion, from which no human efforts can ever
afterwards extricate me.

Another consideration of great magnitude, to which I must also pray
the attention of Congress, is the present public debts. I am sure no
gentleman can hope that these should be immediately paid out of an
empty treasury. If I am to receive and consider the applications on
that subject, if I am to be made responsible, that alone will, I fear,
be full employment for the life of one man, and some other must be
chosen to attend to the present and provide for the future. But this
not all; if from that, or any other cause, I am forced to commit a
breach of faith, or even to incur the appearance of it, from that
moment my utility ceases. In accepting the office bestowed on me, I
sacrifice much of my interest, my ease, my domestic enjoyments, and
internal tranquillity. If I know my own heart, I make these sacrifices
with a disinterested view to the service of my country. I am ready to
go still further; and the United States may command everything I have,
except my integrity, and the loss of that would effectually disable me
from serving them more. What I have to pray, then, is, that the
adjustment of all past transactions, and of all that relates to the
present system, may be completed by the means already adopted, that
whatever remains unpaid may become a funded debt, and that it may in
that form be committed to me, to provide for the yearly interest a