Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/97

.] was not ultimately concluded till the year 1781. Although the greatest exertions were made before that time, when came requisitions for men and money,—its defects then were immediately discovered: the quotas of men were readily sent; not so those of money. One state feigned inability; another would not comply till the rest did; and various excuses were offered: so that no money was sent into the treasury—not a requisition was fully complied with. Loans were the next measure fallen upon: upwards of 80,000,000 of dollars were wanting, beside the emissions of dollars forty for one. These show the impossibility of relying on requisitions.

[Here his excellency enumerates the different delinquencies of different states, and the consequent distresses of Congress.] If the American spirit is to be depended upon, I call him to awake, to see how his Americans have been disgraced; but I have no hopes that things will be better hereafter. I fully expect things will be as they have been, and that the same derangement will produce similar miscarriages. Will the American spirit produce money or credit, unless we alter our system? Are we not in a contemptible situation? Are we not the jests of other nations?

But it is insinuated by the honorable gentleman, that we want to be a grand, splendid, and magnificent people: we wish not to become so: the magnificence of a royal court is not our object. We want a government, sir—a government that will have stability, and give us security; for our present government is destitute of the one and incapable of producing the other. It cannot, perhaps, with propriety, be denominated a government, being void of that energy requisite to enforce sanctions. I wish my country not to be contemptible in the eyes of foreign nations. A well-regulated community is always respected. It is the internal situation, the defects of government, that attract foreign contempt: that contempt, sir, is too often followed by subjugation. Advert to the contemptuous manner in which a shrewd politician speaks of our government.

[Here his excellency quoted a passage from Lord Sheffield, the purport of which was, that Great Britain might engross our trade on her own terms; that the imbecility and inefficacy of our general government were such, that it was impossible we could counteract her policy, however rigid or illiberal towards us her commercial regulations might be.] 11