Before I close this letter I will pray leave to repeat to your Excellency a sentiment often expressed before, that I despise every scheme or system, which must depend for its success on mystery or concealment, and am convinced that our credit will never be fully established, until all our public affairs are open to the public eye. I ardently long for the arrival of that moment, when I may lay a state of them before the world, in an account of the moneys received and the moneys expended, with the debts we owe, and the produce of the funds assigned for the payment of them. Your Excellency is not a stranger to many of the reasons why such an account cannot now be framed, and will, I doubt not, sincerely co-operate with me in removing them. I have the honor to be, &c. ROBERT MORRIS. * * * * * TO JOHN WENDELL. Office of Finance, May 1st, 1782. Sir, I have been duly honored with yours of the 7th and 15th of April. From what you propose with respect to the establishment of a bank in New Hampshire, as well as from the ideas which you say are entertained of the increase of my private fortune, I am convinced that you and other gentlemen are alike mistaken as to the nature of the National Bank, and my official connexions and transactions. The confidence you have been pleased to repose in me, and your communication of sentiment as to public affairs, require of me, that I I should give such explanation of both, as the multiplicity of objects, which engross my attention will permit. The bank is a mere thing, in which any man may be interested, who chooses to purchase stock. Personally I have no other concern in it, than any other gentleman may have, who pleases to invest his property in it. The government have nothing to do with the bank, except merely to prevent the Directors, should they be so inclined, from extending their operations in a manner disproportionate to their capital, thereby endangering their credit. Any aid which the government derives from the bank is by lodging proper securities with it, and borrowing money for short periods on the discount of interest at the rate of six per cent, which is receiving ninetynine and paying a hundred at the end of two months. The moneys so borrowed are punctually repaid. By accepting the office I now hold I was obliged to neglect my own private affairs. I have made no speculation in consequence of my office, and instead of being enriched I am poorer this day, than I was a year ago.