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Subject Area: Economics
Subject Area: Political Theory

GALLATIN TO JEFFERSON. - Albert Gallatin, The Writings of Albert Gallatin, vol. 1 [1879]

Edition used:

The Writings of Albert Gallatin, ed. Henry Adams (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1879). 3 vols.

Part of: The Writings of Albert Gallatin, 3 vols.

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GALLATIN TO JEFFERSON.

Department of Treasury, 1st July, 1805.

Dear Sir,—

It appears from the enclosed letters of F. Baring and Mr. Merry that the last British instalment of £200,000 will be paid in London on 15th instant. This is a great relief to us, and still more to the banks, as the exportation of that sum in specie would have distressed them at this moment beyond measure. That being paid, the only extraordinary expense to be provided for is the 3,750,000 dollars claims assumed by the convention with France, payment of which may now be daily expected. On this day, after having paid the quarterly interest on the public debt, we have more than 4,200,000 dollars left in the Treasury; so that, instead of paying only two millions of those claims from the Treasury and borrowing the rest as we had stated in our estimates to Congress, we will be able to pay the whole without borrowing anything.

This will, if the bills come all at once and immediately, drain the Treasury very low. But as, if we overcome this difficulty, there is no probability, unless in case of war, that during your Administration any other loan shall be wanted, it was an object to strain every nerve to meet this demand without recurring to that kind of resource. Within six weeks we will be at ease, and may then resume the suspended expenditures, particularly the payments on account of the sinking fund, which are much in arrears.

I submit the draft of an answer to R. Morris, which I have purposely made less explicit than your opinion seemed to purport, in order to be able to decide according to the circumstances of the case when they shall all be known.

I do not recollect any instance of a suit on a revenue bond in which I have interfered. The district attorneys have on some occasions, as I understand, assumed the responsibility of giving some indulgence.

But less is shown in that species of suits than in any other, not only because there must be a certainty in the collection of the revenue, but because the law directs in that case that the bond shall be put in suit on the day it becomes due if not paid. This subject, as to details, is under the immediate superintendence of the Comptroller, as he has the direction both of the revenue and of all the suits in the United States, and if Mr. Sheaff had made an application to me I should have refused it to him.

If you have no objection to his letter to you being thus placed on the public files of that office, it may be referred in that manner; but if you have any, Mr. Sheaff should write to the Comptroller or to me and obtain from the district attorney a statement of the case, with his opinion that the security of the United States will not be injured by the delay which may be granted.

Respectfully, your obedient servant.