erfectly safe. They are under a million of dollars, and we can
economize the government two or three millions a year. The impost alone
gives us ten or eleven millions annually, increasing at a compound ratio
of six and two thirds per cent, per annum, and consequently doubling
in ten years. But leaving that increase for contingencies, the present
amount will support the government, pay the interest of the public debt,
and discharge the principal in fifteen years. If the increase proceeds,
and no contingencies demand it, it will pay off the principal in a
shorter time. Exactly one half of the public debt, to wit, thirty-seven
millions of dollars, is owned in the United States. That capital then
will be set afloat, to be employed in rescuing our commerce from the
hands of foreigners, or in agriculture, canals, bridges, or other useful
enterprises. By suppressing at once the whole internal taxes, we abolish
three fourths of the offices now existing, and spread over the land.
Seeing the interest you take in the public affairs, I have indulged
myself in observations flowing from a sincere and ardent desire of
seeing our affairs put into an honest and advantageous train. Accept
assurances of my constant and affectionate esteem and high respect.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CCXCIV.--TO ALBERT GALLATIN, April 1,1802

TO ALBERT GALLATIN.

Washington, April 1,1802.

Dear Sir,

I have read and considered your report on the operations of the sinking
fund, and entirely approve of it, as the best plan on which we can set
out. I think it an object of great importance, to be kept in view and
to be undertaken at a fit season, to simplify our system of finance, and
bring it within the comprehension of every member of Congress. Hamilton
set out on a different plan. In order that he might have the entire
government of his machine, he determined so to complicate it as that
neither the President nor Congress should be able to understand it, or
to control him. He succeeded in doing this, not only beyond their reach,
but so that he at length could not unravel it himself. He gave to the
debt, in the first instance, in funding it, the most artificial and
mysterious form he could devise. He then moulded up his appropriations
of a number of scraps and remnants, many of which were nothing at all,
and applied them to different objects in reversion and remainder, until
the whole system was involved in impenetrable fog; and while he was
givin