The entire amount of the national debt when fairly funded was about $78,000,000. Had no political complications in its foreign relations embarrassed the government, this burden might have been easily carried in spite of Indian wars and even in spite of the whiskey rebellion, though these troubles steadily tended to increase the sum. The annual charge was in 1796 nearly $4,000,000, but after the year 1800 an additional charge of $1,100,000 on deferred stock was to be provided for by taxation, and this future addition to the annual charge hung over the government during all these years as a perpetual anxiety. The population of the country in 1791 was not quite 4,000,000 souls, of whom 700,000 were slaves. The expenditures, including the charge on the debt, amounted in 1796 to about $7,000,000 a year, and the receipts nearly balanced the expenditures. Considering the poverty of the country, taxation was high; so high as to make any increase dangerous. Thus the new government was not in a condition to hazard experiments, and needed five or ten years of careful management in order to give the country time for expansion. In the middle of this state of affairs, while the Treasury was wrestling with the problems of Indian wars and domestic revolt, came the ominous signs of foreign aggression. War was thought to be imminent, either with France or England, from 1795 to 1800, and the government was in great straits to provide for it. The time now came when the Federalists would probably have been delighted to recover the ten millions which had been unnecessarily assumed, and the theory of a national debt must have taken a different aspect in their eyes. Mr. Hamilton had not calculated on this emergency; his system had rested on the assumption that the old situation was to be permanent. The question was forced upon the country whether it should increase its debt or neglect its defences.