The actual receipts arising from revenue alone exceeded the current expenses, including the interest paid on the debt, by a sum of more than five and one half millions of dollars.

The public debt on January 1, 1812, was $45,154,463.

Since Gallatin took charge of the department, the United States had in ten years and nine months paid in full the purchase money of Louisiana, and increased its revenue nearly two millions of dollars.

For eight years eight millions of dollars had been annually paid on account of the principal and interest of the debt.

And as though intending to leave as the legacy of his service a lesson of financial policy, he said:-- "_The redemption of principal has been effected without the aid of any internal taxes, either direct or indirect, without any addition during the last seven years to the rate of duties on importations, which on the contrary have been impaired by the repeal of the duty on salt, and notwithstanding the great diminution of commerce during the last four years._ It therefore proves decisively the ability of the United States with their ordinary revenue to discharge, in ten years of peace, a debt of forty-two millions of dollars, a fact which considerably lessens the weight of the most formidable objection to which that revenue, depending almost solely on commerce, appears to be liable.