Arthur Lee to the Public

An address from some of the citizens of Philadelphia, to the United States in Congress, contains a number of assertions so contrary to what I have understood to be fact, that I cannot refrain from animadverting upon it; more especially as the evident tendency of the misrepresentation it contains is to persuade you, that you have done your duty in the union in a pre-eminent and distinguished manner. This is a flattering persuasion, more likely therefore to be admitted without any strict examination of the facts on which it is founded; and the conclusion, I am afraid, will be a relaxation of your exertions, from a false conception that you have already done comparatively too much.

This can redound neither to your honor, nor to that of the union. I trust therefore that I shall consult both, in holding out to you a true state of your conduct, in contradiction to the flattering but false one which is contained in the address. I trust too that your candour and good sense will prefer salutary admonition to delusive adulation. Deception is always dangerous, but most so when it affects the honor and interests of the people.

The address says, the citizens of Philadelphia have been "free of their fortunes. The monthly return of taxes from Pennsylvania, of which the city and liberties form so great a part, has not been exceeded by any, and we wish they had been proportionably equalled by every State in the union. To which we may add the establishment of the bank, which has extended its usefulness to the public service, and acquired a permanency as effectual, and in some instances superior to those of older nations."

That you may judge how free you have been of your fortunes, and what proportion your contributions have borne to your means, it will be necessary to place before you those contributions, and those means. And as you have appealed to the monthly returns of taxes, to those returns, which are compleat for 1782, I shall appeal.

The requisition from you, for that year, was 1,012,868 Dol.

The whole of your payments in the same was 107,923 or 1-10th

The requisition from the State of Rhode-Island, for the same year, was 179,041

The payments of that State were 37,642 or 1-5th

Of the exact truth of this statement you may be informed at the Office of Finance, or at the Treasury. As both these were more immediately accessible to you, than to any other citizens of the United States, it is somewhat surprizing that you should have held up to the world a boast, that your contributions had been exceeded by none - when it was so easily refutable, by an appeal to the records within your reach, and even under your eyes. From them it appears, that even the State of Rhode-Island, the abused and reprobated State of Rhode-Island, that State against which this very decent reflection in your address, "We do not amuse the world with calling on Congress to do justice to the army, and to the creditors of America, and at the same time withhold the means by which that justice is to be fulfilled," was principally intended, has doubled the proportion of your payments, having furnished one-fifth of her quotas; and your State (of which the city and its liberties form so great apart) but one-tenth.

Many of the other States, as Georgia, the two Carolina's, Virginia, New-Jersey, and New-York, have contributed so largely in specific supplies for the army, that, I am persuaded, if those were added to their money-payments, your proportion of contribution would be found among the lowest in the union.

But taking it upon the contribution more favourable to your pretentions, that of money, what foundation does it furnish for your vain-glorious boasting, that you have been free of your fortunes for the public service - or how does it warrant your arrogating superior merit to yourselves, by vilifying the rest of the union? Is the paying one hundred thousand dollars, when one million was required for the public service, being "free of your fortunes?" Is paying a little more in money, and much less in specifics, than most of the other States, a just ground for pluming yourselves at their expence? Is the State that furnishes subsistence for the soldier, less meritorious than that which supplies money to purchase the subsistence? Or, does the profit accruing to individuals, through whose hands the money must pass to be converted into subsistence, stamp a preference on pecuniary to those of specific contributions?

So much for your contributions, which, compared either with what was required of you, or with the effectual supplies of other States, furnish certainly no real matter for claims of pre eminence, or public boasting.

But infinitely less will the foundation for these claims appear, when we measure your contributions with your means, compared with those of other States in the union. And I am sure you must accede to the fairness of this mode of adjusting the merits of a State, since it is an eternal rule of justice, that to whom much is given, from them much shall be required. The following estimate then will shew the sums that centered in Philadelphia in one year, from the residence of Congress in that city, which was an advantage enjoyed by no other State, and consequently an exclusive faculty of contribution.

I have estimated every thing as low as possible, because the lowest estimate will shew you, that you have not contributed in proportion to your extraordinary means, and much less equivalent to the ordinary and extraordinary means together.

The estimate for one year stands thus:

Drawn to Philadelphia, from the other States, by their contributions to the United States, Dol. 313,031

Public money in specie put into the bank, 462,505

Clear profit on goods imported and supplied to other

States, whose importations were stopt by the enemy being in them; the prime cost supposed

650,000, and the profit two prices, 1,625,000

Profit on public bills on France, 148,568

Monies expended in Philadelphia by members of

Congress, their officers, those necessarily attending to do business with Congress, and their officers, foreign Ministers, &c. 194,642

2,743,746

These are some of your extraordinary means, for it is not possible to form any estimate of them all; and surely from these alone a great deal more might have been reasonably expected, before you could with any propriety boast of your having been "free of your money." I am sensible that the whole of what was drawn from the other States, in their quotas and imported on loan from Europe, though centered in Philadelphia, was not expended among its citizens, and therefore I am willing to allow any deduction on those sums, which any one better informed than myself may shew to be reasonable. Truth is my object, and a just estimate of your merits. To detract from these I would not willingly exaggerate a single dollar.

Nor were the ordinary means of raising your quota less eminently in your favour. To shew this let it be remembered, that for four years your State had not felt the ravaging hand of an army, or enemy, or an impress: That your militia had not been called, during that period, to serve out of the State, but the countrymen have been at uninterrupted liberty to cultivate their lands, and the citizens to pursue their trade: That your commerce flourished, your tradesmen prospered, and your citizens were enriched, beyond any former example in a similar period of time. The war, which was a burthen and calamity to other States, was to you a golden blessing, fertile of elegance and opulence.

As proof of this, let me remind you, that in one year your imports in goods amounted to one million of money: That, in one year, your flour shipped to the Havannah brought you upwards of half a million in specie: That your privateers brought in a multitude of most valuable prizes: That such was the enormous profit you derived from commerce, that you could afford to give as far as ten per cent per month for the use of money: That in fine we may say, without any exaggeration, that, in point of fortune, your tradesmen had become gentlemen, and your merchants princes.

Such were your means, and such your advantages, in 1782; compare them with your contributions, and see how amazingly they out-measure them - how little reason you have to boast, that you have been "free of your fortunes," or to arrogate pre-eminence in public merit. Superior to every State in the advantages arising from the residence of Congress - superior to most in the prosperity of your agriculture, your manufactures, and your commerce - even in monied contributions you was inferior, by one half, to one State, viz. Rhode-Island, and in that of specifics inferior to almost every State.

But the comparison (odious I confess comparisons are, but you have begun them) in the quotas of troops, will shew you to have been still more deficient in your duty to the union.

This estimate stands thus:

Here you will perceive, that in proportionable contributions of men Massachusetts has almost trebled you. Rhode-Island, Connecticut, New-Jersey, and Delaware, have nearly doubled your quota. New-Hampshire and Maryland out-number you by one-third. New-York, and North-Carolina, under all their disadvantages, are equal; and that it is the single State of Virginia only you can pretend to have exceeded. You will permit us then to wish, in your own words, that Pennsylvania had "proportionably equalled the other States," in furnishing men to bring the war to an "happy issue," and that you had not amused the world, with boasting of your having "made every exertion which principle could inspire, or fortitude support," while you were so defective in the most material of all exertions.

But a review of the circumstances of the different States in 1782, will set your delinquency in a more just and strong light. Georgia and South-Carolina were under the ravaging hand of an enemy. North-Carolina was recovering from the desolation of two armies. Virginia was hardly emerged from two preceding years of devastation from an enemy, in part of the State, and a constant impress in the rest. Her militia had been drawn from the culture of her fields, to fight afar off, at Cambden, Guilford, King's Mountain, and the Cowpens. She had been exhausted, both of men, money and provisions, by almost the whole weight of the southern war in 1780. In the succeeding year a hostile army laid waste every thing before it. Our own army consumed all that could be seized, where the enemy did not come; her militia was on constant duty; her shores were continually plundered by the refugee barges; her fields were laid waste, or uncultivated; her commerce was entirely destroyed; and her paper, the only monied re source she could have, was depreciated to absolute annihilation. So circumstanced, so exhausted by the burthen and devastation of war in her very bosom; so overwhelmed with accumulated calamities; and so deprived of all resources - it was not reasonable to expect contributions from her, either in men or money. It must be remembered too, that early in the war that State had the peculiar misfortune of having her chief commercial city burnt, which gave an irrecoverable blow to her commerce, and the various resources derivable from that. Next in the list stands Maryland, which was free from the inroads and injuries of war, and exerted herself accordingly. Delaware did its duty as to men, but was unpardonably deficient in money-contributions.We come now to Pennsylvania, in long and full possession of internal peace, agriculture, trade and commerce. It seemed among the other States like the land of promise, a land flowing with milk and honey; her cities enlarging, her inhabitants increasing in wealth, and her fields seeming to laugh and sing. Yet out of her abundance what did she contribute? - a handful of men, and one-tenth of her quota in money. This, when we appeal to facts, appears to be the prodigality with which you devoted your lives and fortunes to the support of the union. Continuing our review, we shall find New-Jersey, New-York and Connecticut, occasionally burthened with the maintenance of the army, or exposed to the depredations of the enemy. Yet those States did in the whole contribute as largely, in men and money, as the untouched and prosperous State of Pennsylvania.

Rhode-Island had been free from an enemy only since the arrival of the French troops; her capital having been a British post almost three years; her navigation chiefly destroyed; her manufactures, and the various branches of business depending on her foreign trade, entirely failing.

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The most fertile parts of the State liable to daily ravages from the enemy, and many of her wealthy inhabitants retiring, and carrying off their property to other States for shelter, while those who remained were worn out with excessive military duty on the shores; yet so recently after such unparalleled sufferings, the State of Rhode-Island doubled, in proportion, your contributions. Massachusetts, though by no means possessed of your advantages, exceeded you more in her quota of men than she was inferior to you in her supply of money. But there is yet a fact, with regard to filling up her line, which will prove how greatly the exertions of Massachusetts transcended those of Pennsylvania. The fact is, that the bounties for raising their men amounted to 200 specie dollars a man, so that this service was an immediate expence to her of near half a million of dollars. This observation applies also with equal force in favour of Rhode-Island, on the scale of comparative merit. Whoever will examine into the State debt and taxes of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, will find that in the former they treble those in the latter; an infallible criterion of which has been most free of her fortunes, which has made the greatest exertions, has borne and must bear the greatest burthens, and which, though unboasting, deserves most praise. And if we consider too that the great source of wealth to Massachusetts, the fishery, was entirely stopt by the war, it will lighten still more the Pennsylvania scale. Permit me, gentlemen, to hope you are convinced, that the exertions of the other States, in support of the war, have at least been as you wished, proportionably equal to your own. I am happy to have had the means of shewing you your wishes were fulfilled.

But you assume a merit in the establishment of a bank in your city, and charge that institution as a service rendered by you to the United States; and yet in truth this establishment was a peculiar benefit to you, procured by the favour of Congress, and the use of the public money. When you would not fill up the subscription, so as to enable the bank to open agreeable to its charter, four hundred thousand dollars of the public money was put into the bank, which was to supply the place of the stock, and the bank opened almost two years before the original subscription was filled up. This deposit of public money was therefore the foundation-stone of your bank, from which you have derived so much reputation, and such eminent advantages.

And now, gentlemen, give me leave to advise you, when next you are inclined to make a parade of your merits, to be sure that they are real. You cannot but feel how unbecoming it is to assume merits that do not belong to you - how humiliating to be exposed as vain boasters. When too you are next inclined to draw comparisons, be pleased to remember they are invidious, if true; if false, odious. Let me exhort you to redeem your character, by doubling your exertions; and - let your pride pardon what your nature needs, the salutary caution of a friend.