I have now to inform you, that the State of Pennsylvania had emitted five hundred thousand pounds in bills of credit, funded in such manner, that there could be no reasonable doubt of their redemption. But the public confidence had been so impaired, that these bills, soon after they came out, rapidly depreciated, notwithstanding the solidity of the funds by which they had been secured. The executive authority of Government, therefore, declined issuing more of them than were then in circulation (being one hundred and thirty thousand pounds), and called together the Legislature. The Assembly, at their late meeting, took measures for the collection of a very considerable tax, sufficient to absorb all the paper then in circulation, and which was receivable in taxes, as also a considerable balance in specie. It is therefore evident, that if the tax has time to operate before any more of the paper be issued, it must necessarily rise in value. The Assembly did me the honor to commit this sum of five hundred thousand pounds to my care, for the purpose of paying to Congress a balance due on the resolutions of that honorable body, of the 18th of March, 1780, and of procuring the specific supplies which had been called for, the greater part of which had been unpaid. In this situation, it has been my study to effect both these objects, without making any new issues of the paper money. I cannot easily describe to you the good consequences which would follow from the appreciation of it. You will partly conceive them, when I inform you, that it is now at five for one, and that my expectation of specific supplies, or rather of furnishing rations to the amount of them, is very much founded upon the rise of its value.