Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

It is asserted, on good authority, that 2,170,337 dollars are necessary to be raised by Congress the present year, 1786, in specie; of which no less than 1,724,426 dollars are due on the foreign debt. No reasonable hope can possibly exist, that the States will raise that sum by the ordinary mode of requisition, as the actual sum in specie, which ought to be paid by the several States before the 1st of January next, amounts to 3,700,000 dollars, including the specie part of past requisitions; and this sum is exclusive of any provision for the domestick debt. During the present rage, in many of the States, for paper money, a fallacious medium, and in the present disordered and enfeebled state of government throughout the Union, is it in the wisdom of Congress to avert a total ruin of our credit and character, as a people, with foreigners, or our own citizens? The question is a solemn one-- our affairs have come to a crisis; a revenue can be expected only from a grant of the five per cent. impost, and from taxes commensurate to the supplementary fund; and nothing but an immediate and universal adoption of the measures recommended on the 18th of April, 1783, can rescue us from bankruptcy, or preserve the union of the States from a speedy dissolution. And until publick and private honesty, industry, perseverance and oeconomy take place of visionary schemes to acquire riches suddenly, and to get rid of our embarrassments by dishonest means, we can never expect to support any respectability, character or credit among ourselves or abroad; but after preying for some time upon each other, we shall become at length the prey of foreigners, or of some ambitious tyrants of our own citizens, to whom the people will submit rather than live in anarchy, and thus verify the predictions of all our enemies.