This development of the views of administration furnished additional motives to the American government for exerting all the faculties of the nation, to expel the British garrisons from New York and Charleston. The efforts of the Commander-in-chief to produce these exertions were earnest and unremitting, but not successful. The state legislatures declared the inability of their constituents to pay taxes. Instead of filling the continental treasury, some were devising means to draw money from it; and some of those who passed bills imposing heavy taxes, directed that the demands of the state should be first satisfied, and that the residue only should be paid to the continental receiver. By the unwearied attention and judicious arrangements of the minister of finance, the expenses of the nation had been greatly reduced. The bank established in Philadelphia, and his own high character, had enabled him to support in some degree a system of credit, the advantages of which were incalculably great. He had through the Chevalier de la Luzerne obtained permission from his most Christian Majesty to draw for half a million of livres monthly, until six millions should be received. To prevent the diversion of any part of this sum from the most essential objects, he had concealed the negotiation even from congress, and had communicated it only to the Commander-in-chief; yet, after receiving the first instalment, it was discovered that Doctor Franklin had anticipated the residue of the loan, and had appropriated it to the purposes of the United States. At the commencement of the year 1782, not a dollar remained in the treasury; and, although congress had required the payment of two millions on the 1st of April, not a cent had been received on the twenty-third of that month; and, so late as the 1st of June, not more than twenty thousand dollars had reached the treasury. Yet to the financier every eye was turned; to him the empty hand of every public creditor was stretched forth; and against him, instead of the state governments, the complaints and imprecations of every unsatisfied claimant were directed. In July, when the second quarter annual payment of taxes ought to have been received, the minister of finance was informed by some of his agents, that the collection of the revenue had been postponed in some of the states, in consequence of which the month of December would arrive before any money could come into the hands of the continental receivers. In a letter communicating this unpleasant intelligence to the Commander-in-chief, he added, "with such gloomy prospects as this letter affords, I am tied here to be baited by continual clamorous demands; and for the forfeiture of all that is valuable in life, and which I hoped at this moment to enjoy, I am to be paid by invective. Scarce a day passes in which I am not tempted to give back into the hands of congress the power they have delegated, and to lay down a burden which presses me to the earth.