Despotic governments are in war superior to others by the union of efforts, the secrecy of operations, and the rapidity with which every wheel may be moved by one sovereign will. This superiority, however, is amply compensated to free governments by the ardent attachment of their citizens, and the general confidence, which enables them to make exertions beyond their force, and expend in one year the revenues of many. A single view of our enemy, in the unequal contest she now carries on, will demonstrate these advantages more clearly than any arguments. The credit of Great Britain is not only her chief, but it is almost her only support. Inferior in everything else to the associates combined against her, she still makes head everywhere, and balances the opposition through the four quarters of the globe. While we feel the force of these last struggling of her ambition, we must admire the source from whence they flow. Admiring, we should endeavor to imitate, and in order to succeed, we need only to make the attempt. There was a time when public confidence was higher in America than in any other country. Hence the existence of that paper, which bore us through the conflict of five years' hostility. In the moment when no others dared oppose Great Britain in her career towards universal empire, we met her ambition with our fortitude, encountered her tyranny with our virtue, and opposed her credit with our own. We may perceive what our credit would have done, had it been supported by revenue, from what it has already effected without that support. And we have no reason to doubt but that it may be restored, when we reflect on the fate which paper currencies have formerly sustained. The appeal, as I have already had the honor to observe, is made by Congress to the several States. Some of them have answered by passing the laws required, others are silent. Whence this silence proceeds, I confess myself at a loss to determine. Some reasons, indeed, I have heard assigned by individuals in conversation, but I cannot conceive that they should have weighed with the Legislatures. Indeed I can hardly conceive how any reasons can have weighed against a matter of such importance as the keeping public faith inviolate.