Administration that, after so much has been expended on that account, you should leave an increase of, rather than an impaired fleet. On this subject, the expense of the navy greater than the object seemed to require, and a merely nominal accountability, I have, for the sake of preserving perfect harmony in your councils, however grating to my feelings, been almost uniformly silent, and I beg that you will ascribe what I now say to a sense of duty and to the grateful attachment I feel for you." Nevertheless, the internal duties were abolished as one of the first acts of Mr. Jefferson's Administration, and at the same time Congress adopted Mr. Gallatin's scheme of regulating the discharge of the public debt. The truth appears to be that the repeal of these taxes was a party necessity, and that under the pressure of that necessity both the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy were induced to lower their estimates to a point at which Mr. Gallatin would consent to part with the tax. Mr. Gallatin never did officially recommend the repeal. This measure was founded on a report of John Randolph for the Committee of Ways and Means, and Mr. Randolph's recommendation rested on letters of the War and Navy Secretaries promising an economy of $600,000 in their combined departments. These economies never could be effected. The resource which for the time carried Mr. Gallatin successfully over his difficulties was simply the fact that he had taken the precaution to estimate the revenue very low, and that there was uniformly a considerable excess in the receipts over the previous estimate; but even this good fortune was not enough to save Mr. Gallatin's plan from failure. The war with Tripoli had already begun, and further economies in the navy were out of the question. Government attempted for two years to persevere in its scheme, but it soon became evident that, even with the increased production of the import duties, the expense of that war could not be met without recovering the income sacrificed by the repeal of the internal taxes in 1802. Accordingly an addition of 2-1/2 per cent, was imposed on all imported articles which paid duty _ad valorem_. The result of the whole transaction, therefore, amounted only to a shifting of the mode of collection, or, in other words, instead of raising a million dollars from whiskey, stamps, &c., the million was raised on articles of foreign produce or manufacture. This extra tax was called the Mediterranean Fund, and was supposed to be a temporary resource for the Tripolitan war.