Philadelphia, Dec. 11, 1782.
Sir:
Congress are equally affected and alarmed by the information they have
received, that the Legislature of your State, at their last meeting,
have refused their concurrence in establishing a duty on imports. They
consider this measure as so indispensable to the prosecution of the
war, that a sense of duty, and regard to the common safety, compel
them to renew their efforts to engage a compliance with it. And in
this view, they have determined to send a deputation of three members
to your State, as expressed in the inclosed resolution. The gentlemen
they have appointed will be able to lay before you a full and just
representation of public affairs, from which, they flatter themselves,
will result a conviction of the propriety of their solicitude upon
the present occasion. Convinced by past experience of the zeal and
patriotism of the State of Rhode Island, they cannot doubt that it will
yield to those urgent considerations which flow from a knowledge of our
true situation.
They will only briefly observe that the increasing discontents of
the army, the loud clamors of the public creditors, and the extreme
disproportion between the public supplies and the demands of the public
service, are so many invincible arguments for the fund recommended by
Congress. They feel themselves unable to devise any other that will
be more efficacious, less exceptionable, or more generally agreeable;
and if this is refused, they anticipate calamities of a most menacing
nature--with this consolation, however, that they have faithfully
discharged their trust, and that the mischiefs which follow cannot be
attributed to them.
A principal object of the proposed fund is to _procure loans abroad_.
If no security can be held out to lenders, the success of these must
necessarily be very limited. The last accounts on the subject were not
flattering; and when intelligence shall arrive in Europe, that the
State of Rhode Island has disagreed to the only fund which has yet
been devised, there is every reason to apprehend it will have a fatal
influence upon their future progress.
Deprived of this resource, our affairs must in all probability hasten
to a dangerous crisis, and these States be involved in greater
embarrassments than they have yet experienced, and from which it may be
much more difficult to emerge. Congress will only add a request to your
Excellency, that if the Legislature should not be sitting, it may be
called together as speedily as possible, to enable the gentlemen whom
they have deputed to perform the purpose of their mission.