The only remaining resource is in the taxes, and what they may amount to, it is impossible to tell. But you have enclosed an account of what they yielded the four first months of this year, and you will see from thence, that if all expense had ceased on the first day of this month, the anticipations already made would not have been absorbed by the same rate of taxation in eight months more. Now then, Gentlemen, you will please to consider, that if your army is kept together they will consume as much in one month as the taxes will produce in two, and probably much more; to make them three months' pay will require I suppose at least six hundred thousand dollars, and every day they continue in the field lessens the practicability of sending them home satisfied. The anticipations of revenue are threefold, two of which appear as to their effects in the public accounts, and one very considerable one, though it produces great relief, is not seen. It consists in the drawing of bills on me for the public service by different persons and at different usances. I imagine that these amount at the present moment to one hundred thousand dollars. The other anticipations consist in loans from the bank on the issuing of my own notes. As to the first of these it is limited in its nature by the capital of the bank, which being small will not admit of great deductions, and it depends much upon circumstances, whether the bank will go to the extent which they may go. If they find the revenues increasing and the expenses diminishing, they will, but otherwise, they certainly will not. As to the notes I issue, and which form the greatest part of my anticipations, these have also a certain limit, to exceed which would be fatal. I must not so extend that circulation, as that I shall be unable to pay them when presented, for that would totally destroy their credit, and, of course, their utility. If anything of this sort should take place before the army are disbanded, you will see at once that they could be fed no longer, and must of course disband themselves. I will not dwell on the consequences, but I will draw one clear conclusion, which you have, doubtless, by this time anticipated, viz. that unless they are disbanded immediately, the means of paying them, even with paper, will be gone. And this sentiment I have not delivered to you, but to a former committee, as well as to many individual members of Congress.