When Freneau was vehemently accused by Hamilton of attacking members of the government while in the pay of the government, Jefferson took up his defense and wrote to the speaker of the House to point out that Freneau received a nominal salary and had even "to pay himself special translators for languages with which he was unacquainted."[254] Finally, on October 11, Freneau sent in his resignation to date from October 1, 1793. Such are the bare facts and as Freneau's paper was to play an important part in the quarrel with Hamilton, it is important to state them exactly. The battle did not begin in earnest until the first months of 1792. But Jefferson's distaste for the financial structure erected by Hamilton increased during the summer and fall of that year. To Carmichael he grudgingly admitted that the domestic debt "funded at six per cent., is twelve and a half per cent. above par." "But," he added, "a spirit of gambling, in our public paper has seized too many of our citizens, and we fear it will check our commerce, arts, manufactures, and agriculture unless stopped."[255] To Gouverneur Morris he declared that the fever of gambling on government funds has seized everybody, "has laid up our ships at the wharves, as too slow instruments of profit, and has even disarmed the hand of the tailor of his needle and thimble. They say the evil will cure itself. I wish it may; but I have rarely seen a gamester cured, even by the disasters of his vocation."[256] One may wonder at this point what course of conduct was open to Jefferson. He might have placed his views of the situation before Washington and tried to open his eyes to the danger of the Republic. He might have broken completely with Hamilton and declared to the President that he had to decide between the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of State, but as a matter of fact his hands were tied since he had accepted the "Assumption" and had not dared categorically to decide against the Bank Bill. Apparently he had reached an impasse. But it was not in Jefferson's temperament to try to overcome insuperable obstacles or stay very long in a blind alley. Since experience had shown that the general government "tended to monarchy" and this tendency strengthened itself from day to day, the only remedy was for the States to erect "such barriers at the constitutional line as cannot be surmounted either by themselves or by the General Government."[257] An opportunity presented itself to experiment with the idea in a proposed convocation of a convention in Virginia to amend the Constitution. Jefferson, consulted on this occasion, sent to Archibald Stuart his ideas on the modifications desirable; to lengthen the term of the representatives and diminish their number; to strengthen the Executive by making it more independent of the legislature.