The distresses which your State has lately suffered, will not, I fear, permit the collection of this quota in hard money, although the subsistence of the army will naturally call for an expenditure to a great amount in such articles as the State can furnish. The mode hitherto pursued of granting receipts and certificates by every one empowered or employed to impress or purchase, cannot but be attended with much confusion and difficulty, if not with oppression and fraud. It is the duty of those who are intrusted with the management of the public affairs, to prevent as much as possible these evils, and as much as possible to equalize and diminish those burdens, which the people must bear. It would give me great pleasure to be put in such a situation, as that I might at once contract for the supplies of the southern army; but I have not specie for the purpose; nor do I find that taxes are yet laid in the Southern States to procure it. Wherefore, I must wait yet some time, until the public treasury is replenished, until the hard money now in America gets somewhat more diffused, and until I have a prospect of receiving back from those States in hard money their quota of the public taxes.
In this situation of things, I have devised and proposed to the Delegates of the three Southern States, the following plan. To appoint a Receiver of the taxes in each State, agreeably to the Act of Congress, and to empower such Receiver to issue notes on the warrants of the General, payable in those taxes, or from the amount of them when collected. By which means those articles necessary for the consumption of the army may be purchased, and the quota of the State be thereby paid.
The Delegates of North and South Carolina thought the plan eligible, but one of the Delegates of Georgia was disinclined to that part of it, which requires the previous passing of a law to raise the quota of taxes called for by the United States. I am this morning informed, that upon a reconsideration of the matter, a majority of the Delegates of South Carolina are also of opinion, that it would be better not to make the enacting such a law an indispensable part of the system. I am very sorry for this circumstance, because, as all the Delegates from the three States mentioned, approve of the plan in other respects, I did expect their warm recommendation of it to their respective Legislatures; for your Excellency will perceive at a single glance, that it originated in the sincere desire of relieving those States, and has that relief for its object, as far as the public service of the United States will possibly permit.