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would relish such a proposition. I have heard from others, that they will choose to undergo any thing together, rather than to be separated, and that they will remonstrate against it in the strongest terms. ‘The Executive, therefore, if voluntary agents in this mea- sure, must be drawn into a paper war with them, the more disa- greeable, as it seems that faith and reason will be on the other side. As an American, I cannot help feeling a thorough mortifi- cation, that our Congress should have permitted an infraction of our public honor; as a citizen of Virginia, 1 cannot help hoping and confiding, that our supreme Executive, whose acts will be considered as the acts of the Commonwealth, estimate that honor too highly to make its infraction their own act. I may be per- mitted to hope, then, that if any removal takes place, it will be a general one: and, as it is said to be left to the Governor and Council to determine on this, I am satisfied, that, suppressing
every other consideration, and weighing the matter dispassionately, they will determine upon this sole question, Is it for the benefit of
those for whom they act, that the Convention troops should be re- moved from among them? Under the head of interest, these cir- cumstances, viz. the expense of building barracks, said to have been £25,000, and of removing the troops backwards and for- wards, amounting to, | know not how much, are not to be pre- termitted, merely because they are Continental expenses; for we are a part of the Continent; we must pay a shilling of every dollar wasted. But the sums of money, which, by these troops, or on their account, are brought into, and expended in this State, are a great and local advantage. ‘This can require no proof. If, at the conclusion of the war, for instance, our share of the Continental debt should be twenty millions of dollars, or say that we are called on to furnish an annual quota of two millions four hundred thousand dollars, to Congress, to be raised by tax, it is obvious that we should raise these given sums with greater or less ease, in proportion to the greater or less quantity of money found in circulation among us. I expect that our circulating mo- ney is, by the presence of these troops, at the rate of $30,000 a week, at the least. I have heard, indeed, that an objection arises to their being kept within this State, from the information of the com- missary that they cannot be subsisted here. In attending to the information of that officer, it should be borne in mind that the county of King William and its vicinities are one thing, the terri- tory of Virginia another. If the troops could be fed upon long letters, I believe the gentleman at the head of that department in this country, would be the best commissary upon earth. But till I see him determined to act, not to write; to sacrifice his domestic
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