I hope, Sir, that Congress will excuse me for picturing the situation I was in, and the feelings which arose out of it. By the Act of the 7th of February, 1781, it was declared to be the duty of the Superintendent of Finance, "to digest and report plans for improving and regulating the finances." Congress well know, that I have from time to time attempted the performance of this duty, and they know also, that such plans have not met with their approbation. The clear inference is, what I have already declared both previously and subsequently to my appointment, that my abilities are unequal to the task I am called to perform. If, therefore, Congress would at any time have made a new appointment, I should have considered it as the greatest favor. But since they saw fit to continue me in office, I prepared the best plans which I could devise, and finding they were not agreeable to the ideas of Congress, I waited for the adoption of such as might be suggested from some other quarter, or originated among themselves. I patiently, but anxiously waited until the 24th of January last; but then a clear view of those circumstances, which have since followed, compelled me to request they would appoint some other man to be the Superintendent of their Finances, if effectual measures were not taken by the end of May, to make permanent provision for the public debts of every kind. On the 26th of February, finding that no successor was yet appointed, and that the plans of Congress were not yet completed, I requested leave _to give due and seasonable information of my removal to those who had confided in me_. By this means I became pledged to the world, not to continue in office after the end of May, unless such measures as I conceived to be effectual, should be taken before that period, to provide for the public debts. On the 7th of March, I received the report of a committee on the finances, with orders to transmit my observations. These are contained in a letter of the 8th. On the 9th day of April, (no plan being yet adopted) a committee called on me to know, whether three months' pay could be advanced to the army. I stated to them the incapacity of the public treasury to complete in any short period the one month's pay already promised, as also the great anticipations made on the public revenue. And on the 14th, in a letter recapitulating the hazardous situation of things, I informed them that I believed the object they had in view was practicable by means of a large paper anticipation. On the 18th the plan was adopted for funding the public debts.