As in presenting a Memorial to your Excellency on the objects of my mission, I should necessarily repeat in part a conference, which I had by order of Congress with General Washington, previous to my departure, I prefer presenting your Excellency with such extracts from it as relate to my purpose. They are as follows. "1. That considering the diffused population of these States, the composition and temper of a part of its inhabitants, the want of a sufficient stock of national wealth as a foundation for credit, and the almost extinction of commerce, the attempts we have been compelled to make for carrying on the war, have exceeded the national abilities of this country, and by degrees brought it to a crisis, which render immediate assistance and efficacious succor from abroad indispensable to its safety. "2. That notwithstanding from the confusion always attendant on a revolution, from our having had governments to frame, and every species of civil and military institution to create, from that inexperience in affairs necessarily incident to a nation in its commencement, some errors may have been committed in the administration of our finances, to which a part of our embarrassments are to be attributed; yet they are principally to be attributed to our essential want of means; to the want of a sufficient stock of wealth as mentioned in the first article, which, continuing to operate, will make it impossible, by any merely interior exertions, to extricate ourselves from these embarrassments, restore public credit, and furnish the funds requisite for the support of the war. "3. That experience has demonstrated the impracticability of maintaining a paper credit, without funds for its redemption; the depreciation of our currency was in the main a necessary effect of the want of those funds, and its restoration is impossible for the same reasons, to which the general diffidence, that had taken place among the people, is an additional, and in the present state of things, an insuperable obstacle. "4. That the mode, which for want of money has been substituted for supplying the army, by assessing a proportion of the productions of the earth, has hitherto been found ineffectual, has frequently exposed the army to the most calamitous distress, and from its novelty and incompatibility with ancient habits, is regarded by the people as burthensome and oppressive, has excited serious discontents, and, in some places, alarming symptoms of opposition. This mode has besides many particular inconveniences, which contribute to make it inadequate to our wants, and ineligible but as an auxiliary.