While General Washington thus devoted a great part of his time to rural pursuits, to the duties of friendship, and to institutions of public utility, the political state of his country, becoming daily more embarrassed, attracted more and more deeply the anxious solicitude of every enlightened and virtuous patriot. From peace, from independence, and from governments of their own choice, the United States had confidently anticipated every blessing. The glorious termination of their contest with one of the most powerful nations of the earth; the steady and persevering courage with which that contest had been maintained; and the unyielding firmness with which the privations attending it had been supported, had surrounded the infant republics with a great degree of splendour, and had bestowed upon them a character which could be preserved only by a national and dignified system of conduct. A very short time was sufficient to demonstrate, that something not yet possessed was requisite, to insure the public and private prosperity expected to flow from self government. After a short struggle so to administer the existing system, as to make it competent to the great objects for which it was instituted, the effort became apparently desperate; and American affairs were impelled rapidly to a crisis, on which the continuance of the United States, as a nation, appeared to depend. In tracing the causes which led to this interesting state of things, it will be necessary to carry back our attention to the conclusion of the war. A government authorized to declare war, but relying on independent states for the means of prosecuting it; capable of contracting debts, and of pledging the public faith for their payment, but depending on thirteen distinct sovereignties for the preservation of that faith, could not be rescued from ignominy and contempt, but by finding those sovereignties administered by men exempt from the passions incident to human nature. The debts of the union were computed, on the first of January, 1783, at somewhat more than forty millions of dollars. "If," say congress, in an address to the states, urging that the means of payment should be placed in their hands, "other motives than that of justice could be requisite on this occasion, no nation could ever feel stronger; for to whom are the debts to be paid? "_To an ally_, in the first place, who to the exertion of his arms in support of our cause has added the succours of his treasure; who to his important loans has added liberal donations, and whose loans themselves carry the impression of his magnanimity and friendship. "_To individuals in a foreign country_, in the next place, who were the first to give so precious a token of their confidence in our justice, and of their friendship for our cause, and who are members of a republic which was second in espousing our rank among nations.