“It becomes you deeply to reflect on this subject. Is there a country upon earth which hath such resources for the payment of her debts as America? Such an extensive territory; so fertile, so blessed in its climate and productions. Surely there is none. Neither is there any to which the wise Europeans will sooner confide their property. What then are the reasons that your money hath depreciated? Because no taxes have been imposed to carry on the war; because your commerce hath been interrupted by your enemies’ fleets; because their armies have ravaged and desolated a part of your country; because their agents have villanously counterfeited your bills; because extortioners among you, inflamed with the lust of gain, have added to the price of every article of life; and because weak men have been artfully led to believe that it is of no value. How is this dangerous disease to be remedied? Let those among you who have leisure and opportunity collect the monies which individuals in their neighbourhood are desirous of placing in the public funds. Let the several legislatures sink their respective emissions, that so there being but one kind of bills there may be less danger of counterfeits. Refrain a little from purchasing those things which are not absolutely necessary, that so those who have engrossed commodities may suffer, (as they deservedly will,) the loss of their ill gotten hoards, by reason of the commerce with foreign nations, which the fleets will protect. Above all, bring forward your armies into the field. Trust not to appearances of peace or safety. Be assured that unless you persevere you will be exposed to every species of barbarity. But if you exert the means of defence which God and nature have given you, the time will soon arrive when every man shall sit under his own vine and fig-tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. “The sweets of a free commerce with every part of the earth will soon reimburse you for all the losses you have sustained. The full tide of wealth will flow in upon your shores, free from the arbitrary impositions of those whose interest and whose declared policy it was to check your growth. Your interests will be fostered and nourished by governments that derive their power from your grant, and will be obliged, by the influence of cogent necessity, to exert it in your favour. “It is to obtain these things that we call for your strenuous, unremitted exertions. Yet do not believe that you have been or can be saved merely by your own strength. No! it is by the assistance of heaven; and this you must assiduously cultivate by acts which heaven approves. Thus shall the power and the happiness of these sovereign, free and independent states, founded on the virtue of their citizens, increase, extend and endure, until the Almighty shall blot out all the empires of the earth.”