I beg leave to ask your Excellency, whether you judge that the Congress ought to pay two hundred millions of silver dollars, for the two hundred millions of paper dollars which are abroad? I presume your Excellency will not think that they ought; because I have never met with any man in America or in Europe, that was of that opinion. All agree, that Congress ought to redeem it at a depreciated value. The only question then, is, at what depreciation? Shall it be at seventyfive, forty, thirty, twenty, ten, or five, for one? After it is once admitted, that it ought to be redeemed at a less value than the nominal, the question arises, at what value? What rule? I answer, there is no other rule of justice than the current value, the value at which it generally passes from man to man. The Congress have set it at forty for one; and they are the best judges of this, as they represent all parts of the continent where the paper circulates. I think there can be little need of illustration; but two or three examples may make my meaning more obvious. A farmer has now four thousand dollars for a pair of oxen, which he sells to a commissary to subsist the army. When the money was issued in 1775, he would have been glad to have taken one hundred. A laborer has now twenty dollars a day for his work; five years ago, he would have been rejoiced to have received half a dollar. The same with the artisan, merchant, and all others, but those who have fixed salaries, or money at interest. Most of these persons would be willing to take hard money for his work and his produce, at the rate he did six years ago. Where is the reason, then, that Congress should pay them forty times as much as they take of their neighbors in private life? The amount of an ordinary commerce, external and internal, of a society, may be computed at a fixed sum. A certain sum of money is necessary to circulate among the society, in order to carry on their business. This precise sum is discoverable by calculation, and reducible to certainty. You may emit paper, or any other currency for this purpose, until you reach this rule, and it will not depreciate. After you exceed this rule, it will depreciate; and no power, or act of legislation hitherto invented, will prevent it. In the case of paper, if you go on emitting forever, the whole mass will be worth no more than that was, which was emitted within the rule. When the paper, therefore, comes to be redeemed, this is the only rule of justice for the redemption of it. The Congress have fixed five millions for this rule. Whether this is mathematically exact, I am not able to say; whether it is a million too little, or too much, I know not. But they are the best judges; and by the accounts of the money being at seventy for one, and bills of exchange at fiftyfive for one, it looks as if five millions was too high a sum, rather than too small.