The Orders in Council of November 11, 1807, avowedly adopted to compel all nations to give up their maritime trade or accept it through Great Britain, reached Washington on December 18, 1807, and were immediately replied to by the United States by an embargo act on December 22. The history of the political effect of this measure is beyond the limits of this economic study, and will be touched upon in a later chapter, but the result of its application upon the Treasury falls within this analysis of the methods of Mr. Gallatin's administration. On December 18 Gallatin wrote Jefferson that "in every point of view, privations, sufferings, revenue, effect on the enemy, politics at home, etc.," he preferred "war to a permanent embargo;" nevertheless he was called upon to draft the bill. The correctness of Mr. Gallatin's prevision was soon apparent. In his report of December 10, 1808, he reviewed the general effect of the measure. "The embargo has brought into and kept in the United States almost all the floating property of the nation. And whilst the depreciated value of domestic product increases the difficulty of raising a considerable revenue by internal taxes, at no former time has there been so much specie, so much redundant unemployed capital in the country." Again stating his opinion that loans should be principally relied on in case of war, he closed with the following words: "The high price of public stocks (and indeed of all species of stocks), the reduction of the public debt, the unimpaired credit of the general government, and the large amount of existing bank stock in the United States [estimated by him at forty millions of dollars], leave no doubt of the practicability of obtaining the necessary loans on reasonable terms." The receipts into the Treasury during the year ending September, 1808, the last of Jefferson's administration, were $17,952,419.90 The disbursements during the same period were 12,635,275.46 ------------- Excess of receipts $5,317,144.44 And the specie in Treasury, October 1, 1808 $13,846,717.82