He may, however, for some wise purpose of his own, suffer our indiscretions and folly to place our national character low in the political scale;--and this, unless more wisdom and less prejudice take the lead in our government, will most certainly happen." That the imbecility of the federal government, the impotence of its requisitions, and the inattention of some of the states to its recommendations, would, in the estimation of the world, abase the American character, could scarcely be termed a prediction.

That course of national degradation had already commenced.
As the system recommended to the states on the 18th of April, 1783, had been matured by the best wisdom in the federal councils, a compliance with it was the last hope of the government; and congress continued to urge its adoption on the several states.

While its fate remain undecided, requisitions for the intermediate supply of the national demands were annually repeated, and were annually neglected.
Happily, a loan had been negotiated in Holland by Mr.Adams, after the termination of the war, out of which the interest of the foreign debt had been partly paid; but that fund was exhausted, and the United States possessed no means of replacing it.

Unable to pay the interest, they would, in the course of the succeeding year, be liable for the first instalment of the principal; and the humiliating circumstance was to be encountered of a total failure to comply with the most solemn engagements, unaccompanied with the prospect of being enabled to give assurances, that, at any future time, their situation would be more eligible.

If the condition of the domestic creditors was not absolutely desperate, the prospect of obtaining satisfaction for their claims was so distant and uncertain, that their evidences of debt were transferred at an eighth, and even at a tenth of their nominal value.
The distress consequent on this depreciation was great and afflicting.
"The requisitions of congress for eight years past," say the committee in February, 1786, to whom the subject of the revenue had been referred, "have been so irregular in their operation, so uncertain in their collection, and so evidently unproductive, that a reliance on them in future as a source from whence moneys are to be drawn to discharge the engagements of the confederacy, definite as they are in time and amount, would be not less dishonourable to the understandings of those who entertain such confidence, than it would be dangerous to the welfare and peace of the union." Under public embarrassments which were daily increasing, it had become, it was said, "the duty of congress to declare most explicitly that the crisis _had_ arrived, when the people of the United States, by whose will, and for whose benefit, the federal government was instituted, must decide whether they will support their rank as a nation, by maintaining the public faith at home and abroad, or whether, for want of a timely exertion in establishing a general revenue, and thereby giving strength to the confederacy, they will hazard not only the existence of the union, but of those great and invaluable privileges for which they have so arduously and so honourably contended." The revenue system of the 18th of April, 1783, was again solemnly recommended to the consideration of the several states, and their unanimous and early accession to it was declared to be the only measure which could enable congress to preserve the public faith, and to avoid the fatal evils which will inevitably flow from "a violation of those principles of justice which are the only solid basis of the honour and prosperity of nations." In framing this system, a revenue adequate to the funding of the whole national debt had been contemplated, and no part of it was to go into operation until the whole should be adopted.