will be a great blessing to me. my other two данните their mother in Virginia.”

New York, December 26th, 1789.

XVII. 1789.

Provision

for the sup

lic credit.

CHAPTER measures; the encouragement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures; the promotion of science and literature; and an effective system for the support of public credit. To the difficulties involved in this last subject may port of pub indeed be traced the primary causes of the constitution, and it had already attracted the notice of the national legislature. The former session had necessarily been consumed in framing laws for putting the new government in operation; but, a few days before its close, a resolution was passed by the House of Representatives, in which it was declared that an adequate provision for the support of public credit was essential to the national honor and prosperity, and the Secretary of the Treasury was directed to prepare a plan for the purpose, and report it to the House at the next session. The national debt had its origin chiefly in the Revolution. It was of two kinds, foreign and domestic. The foreign debt amounted to

him repent his having acted from what he conceived to be a sense of indispensable duty. On the contrary, all his sensibility has been awakened in receiving such repeated and unequivocal proofs of sincere regard from his countrymen.

"With respect to myself, I sometimes think the arrangement is not quite as it ought to have been, that I, who had much rather be at home, should occupy a place, with which a great many younger and gayer women would be extremely pleased. As my grandchildren and domestic connexions make up a great portion of the felicity, which I looked for in this world, I shall hardly be able to find any substitute, that will indemnify me for the loss of a part of such endearing society. I do not say this because I feel dissatisfied with my present station, for everybody and every thing conspire to make me as contented as possible in it; yet I have learned too much of the vanity of human affairs to expect felicity from the scenes of public life. I am still determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience, that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go.

"I have two of my grandchildren with me, who enjoy advantages in point of education, and who, I trust, by the goodness of Providence, will be a great blessing to me. My other two grandchildren are with their mother in Virginia.". New York, December 26th, 1789.