showed in conducting foreign war. Even a return to Washington’s system would not answer their purpose, for they were obliged to restore the extreme practices of 1798, and to re-enact the laws which had then been denounced and discarded as the essence of monarchy. Bitterly as all good Republicans regretted to create a standing army, that vote was easy compared with other votes it made necessary. Doubtless an army was an evil, but the effects of the evil were likely to appear chiefly in the form of taxes; and the stanchest war Republicans flinched at taxation. The British minister, who saw so much of these difficulties that he could not believe in the possibility of war, reported to his Government a story which showed how uneasily the Administration balanced itself between the two bodies of its supporters. In December, during the debate on the Army Bill, the Committee of Ways and Means was repeatedly urged to produce a scheme of war-finance, but failed to do so. Foster reported, on what he called good authority, that when the chairman of that committee went to Gallatin for information to meet questions in the House, the secretary declined giving estimates until the Army Bill should be disposed of; and he explained that if he submitted a plan of taxes, the Government would be charged with wanting to damp the ardor of Congress.[129] Every one knew that the ardor of Congress feared nothing so much as damping; but every one who knew Gallatin was persuaded that as long as he remained Secretary of the Treasury, taxes must proportionally increase with debt. Foster’s story was probably true; for although Ezekiel Bacon, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, wrote as early as Dec. 9, 1811, to the secretary for advice, the secretary delayed his answer until January 10, the day when Congress agreed to pass the Army Bill. The letter was read to the House January 20, and proved, as had been foreseen, a serious discouragement to the war spirit. Yet Gallatin made an under-estimate of financial difficulties; for while he assumed the fixed charges at $9,600,000, and estimated the receipts from customs under the existing duties at only $2,500,000 during war, he assumed also the committee’s estimate of $10,000,000 as the annual loan that would be required to meet the expense of war. In order to pay the fixed charges of government, the customs revenue must be raised to $6,000,000; and for this purpose he asked Congress not only to double the existing duties, but also to reimpose the old duty on salt. To meet the remaining charge of $3,600,000 and the accruing interest on new loans, he asked for internal taxes to the amount of $5,000,000.