France is opening
her ports for their oil, but in the mean while their ancient debts are
pressing them, and they have nothing to pay with. The Massachusetts
Assembly, too, in their zeal for paying their public debt, had laid
a tax too heavy to be paid, in the circumstances of their State. The
Indians seem disposed, too, to make war on us. These complicated causes
determined Congress to increase their forces to two thousand men. The
latter was the sole object avowed, yet the former entered for something
into the measure. However, I am satisfied the good sense of the people
is the strongest army our governments can ever have, and that it will
not fail them. The commercial convention at Annapolis was not full
enough to do business. They found, too, their appointments too narrow,
being confined to the article of commerce. They have proposed a meeting
at Philadelphia in May, and that it may be authorized to propose
amendments of whatever is defective in the federal constitution.
When I was in England, I formed a portable copying press, on the
principles of the large one they make there, for copying letters.
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