Besides this, it will be necessary that I should confer with the Commander in Chief, on the various expenditures of the war, and the means of retrenching such as are unnecessary. Let me add, that the accounts of my private business must be adjusted, so as that all my affairs may be put into the hands of other persons, and subjected to their management. My necessary commercial connexions, notwithstanding the decided sense of Congress, expressed in their resolution of the 20th of March, might, if the business were transacted by myself, give rise to illiberal reflections, equally painful to me and injurious to the public. This reason alone would deserve great attention; but, further, I expect that my whole time, study, and attention will be necessarily devoted to the various business of my department.
Having thus stated some of the causes, which will prevent me from immediately entering on the arduous task assigned me, I pray leave to call the attention of Congress to the advanced season, and then I am persuaded their own good sense will render it unnecessary for me to observe, that very little can be expected from my exertions during the present campaign; they will, therefore, easily perceive the propriety of the request I am to make, that the business may go on according to the present arrangements, or such other as Congress may devise, until I can take it up, which I promise to do as speedily as possible. By this means, I may be enabled so to dispose of the several members of my department, as to form them into a regular system; whereas, by throwing the whole immediately upon me, I shall be inevitably involved in a labyrinth of confusion, from which no human efforts can ever afterwards extricate me.
Another consideration of great magnitude, to which I must also pray the attention of Congress, is the present public debts. I am sure no gentleman can hope that these should be immediately paid out of an empty treasury. If I am to receive and consider the applications on that subject, if I am to be made responsible, that alone will, I fear, be full employment for the life of one man, and some other must be chosen to attend to the present and provide for the future. But this not all; if from that, or any other cause, I am forced to commit a breach of faith, or even to incur the appearance of it, from that moment my utility ceases. In accepting the office bestowed on me, I sacrifice much of my interest, my ease, my domestic enjoyments, and internal tranquillity. If I know my own heart, I make these sacrifices with a disinterested view to the service of my country. I am ready to go still further; and the United States may command everything I have, except my integrity, and the loss of that would effectually disable me from serving them more. What I have to pray, then, is, that the adjustment of all past transactions, and of all that relates to the present system, may be completed by the means already adopted, that whatever remains unpaid may become a funded debt, and that it may in that form be committed to me, to provide for the yearly interest and for the _eventual_ discharge of the principal. This task I will cheerfully undertake; and if, in the progress of things, I am enabled to go further, with equal cheerfulness it shall be done; but I must again repeat my serious conviction, that the least breach of faith must ruin us forever.