Alexandria Advertiser And Commercial Intelligencer

FROM THE (PITTSBURGH) RECORDER
REPUBLICAN FINANCE;
OR
A NEW WAY TO PAY OFF OLD
DEBTS.

From the Wilmington Mirror.

PUBLIC DEBT.
Unredeemed principal on
the 1st of January,
1801,
80,161,307 60
Unredeemed principal on
the 1st of January,
1802,
77,851,890 29
Treasury Department
Register's Office, Dec. 12, 1801,
JOSEPH NOURSE, Register.

Thus it appears from the testimony of
a federal legislature, that since Mr. Jefferson
came into office, the national debt has
been diminished 2,259,317 dolls. and 31
cents.
Whilst he has also relieved us from all
odious oppressive internal taxation.
Must not these facts diffuse a general
joy over the country?
A federal secretary of the treasury, in
a letter to the committee of ways and
means, dated 22d of January, 1800,
states that "the principal of the debt of
"the United States had increased since
"the establishment of the present govern-
"ment, the sum of 1,516,338 dolls. and
"20 cents."
This, it will be remembered, was after
twelve years of peace.

In less than one year, president Jefferson's
wise and frugal measures have de-
creased it nearly three millions.
These things, fellow citizens, are wor-
thy your attentive and serious considera-
tion—they are
STUBBORN FACTS.

THIS piece has been transplanted into
Smith's National Intelligencer, that copious
fountain head of Jeffersonian misrepre-
sentations. A few additional facts, which
are quite as stubborn as the foregoing, re-
main to be annexed to the list. Fact
FIRST. It is here said that, in the first
twelve years of the federal government,
fifteen hundred thousand dollars had been
added to the public debt. But it will be
remembered that these were not years of
peace; but of almost perpetual war. The
war with the North Western tribes broke
out in 1790, and a peace was not signed
until August 3d, 1795. This contest
lasted for five years. It cost five or six
millions. The United States bought a
peace from the savages, by giving twenty
thousand dollars worth of goods in hand;
and by pledging themselves to pay nine
thousand five hundred dollars worth of
goods per annum, forever. It is long
since the Algerine business had cost even.
teenteen hundred thousand dollars; as has al-
ready been proved in this paper. Prepa-
rations for a French war cost several mil-
lions of dollars. The Western expedition
cost thirteen hundred thousand dollars, or
some such sum; and the hot water insur-
rection of Northampton, eighty thousand.
The French and British piracies deprived
this country of many millions of impost,
that would otherwise have been poured in
the federal treasury.
TWELVE YEARS OF PEACE! Smith
might as well have said that we had
twelve years of incessant rain, or twelve
years of thunder and lightning, or twelve
years of an earthquake! This single affir-
mation, this audacious, this more than
common falsehood, must of itself, be suffi-
cient, with every man of candor, to ascer-
tain the genuine character of the National
Intelligencer, that favorite organ of presi-
dential imposture.
FACT SECOND. This writer has grossly
contradicted himself. In his paragraph,
Citizen Stubborn Facts tells us that the
national debt has been diminished by the
sum of two millions two hundred and
sixty thousand dollars. But, in his con-
clusion, the reduction is mounted up to
nearly three millions;—when, by his own
account, there is a deficiency of seven
hundred and forty thousand. dollars.
Whenever Samuel Smith can prove that
twenty two and a half make NEARLY
thirty, then, and not till then, shall we
believe that he is an editor of independence
and veracity.
FACT THIRD. If Mr. Jefferson has
paid off two or three millions of dollars of
public debt, he did so with the money,
which the preceding administration had col-
lected in the treasury. To ascribe the
merit of this discharge to him, is just as it