The original two million acres of public lands sold to the Ohio Company was reduced to less than a million. Soon after, another million was sold to John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, on a speculation, of which about one-fourth was eventually taken. The State of Pennsylvania purchased the "Erie triangle," in order to get a north-west frontage on Lake Erie. These three sales were accomplished under the Confederation. The price averaged about seventy-five cents an acre. The care of the public lands had been given to the Treasury Department. Hamilton, in 1790, presented to Congress an elaborate plan for their disposal. Under this plan, individuals were to be dealt with as well as companies. Lots of one square mile, containing 640 acres, were to be placed upon sale at two dollars per acre. Public offerings were to be made at Cincinnati, Pittsburg, and Philadelphia. But the hostility of the Indians reduced the number of purchasers. Prior to 1800, only a million acres had been disposed of in this manner. A law of that year provided a system of registers and receivers, to be stationed at land offices scattered through the North-west Territory. A credit system was also established, whereby so small a portion as a half-section could be purchased on instalment payments, with interest at six per cent. This law made the lands very attractive, as credit propositions always are. Prospective landholders rushed across the mountains and stood in line before the register's doors. The saying, "Doing a land-office business," brings the scene to the imagination. As the embargo and the War of 1812 cut off men from employment on the sea and along the coast, their attention was directed to the possibilities of the public lands. Between 1800 and 1820, nearly twenty million acres were sold, bringing in cash receipts of over forty-five million dollars. After 1806, the old certificates and other forms of government paper were no longer received in payment for lands. The credit system had been adopted to allow poor men to purchase farms and pay for them from the products of the land. But it tempted many to purchase more land than they could pay for. In order to relieve these creditors, Congress passed no less than fourteen acts. One of these reduced the price for future purchasers to $1.25 an acre and made it possible to purchase so small a quantity as eighty acres. This clemency brought further demands and paved the way for the later pre-emption acts.