If the union of the States is not preserved, and even their unity, in many great points, instead of being the happiest people under the sun, I do not know but we may be the most miserable. We shall find our foreign affairs the most difficult to manage of any of our interests; we shall see and feel them disturbed by invisible agents, and causes, by secret intrigues, by dark and mysterious insinuations, by concealed corruptions of a thousand sorts. Hypocrisy and simulation will assume a million of shapes; we shall feel the evil, without being able to prove the cause. Those, whose penetration reaches the true source of the evil, will be called suspicious, envious, disappointed, ambitious. In short, if there is not an authority sufficiently decisive to draw together the minds, affections, and forces of the States, in their common foreign concerns, it appears to me we shall be the sport of transatlantic politicians of all denominations, who hate liberty in every shape, and every man who loves it, and every country that enjoys it. If there is no common authority, nor any common sense to secure a revenue for the discharge of our engagements abroad for money, what is to become of our honor, our justice, our faith, our universal, moral, political, and commercial character? If there is no common power to fulfil engagements with our citizens, to pay our soldiers, and other creditors, can we have any moral character at home? Our country will become the region of everlasting discontents, reproaches, and animosities, and instead of finding our independence a blessing, we shall soon become Cappadocians enough to wish it done away. I may be thought gloomy, but this ought not to discourage me from laying before Congress my apprehensions. The dependence of those who have designs upon us, upon our want of affection to each other, and of authority over one another, is so great, that in my opinion, if the United States do not soon show to the world a proof, that they can command a common revenue to satisfy their creditors at home and abroad, that they can act as one people, as one nation, as one man, in their transactions with foreign nations, we shall be soon so far despised, that it will be but a few years, perhaps but a few months only, before we are involved in another war. What can I say in Holland, if a doubt is started, whether we can repay the money we wish to borrow? I must assure them in a tone, that will exclude all doubt that the money will be repaid. Am I to be hereafter reproached with deceiving the money-lenders? I cannot believe there is a man in America, who would not disdain the supposition, and therefore I shall not scruple to give the strongest assurances in my power. But if there is a doubt in Congress, they ought to recall their borrowers of money.