s
through a medium which represents them truly.

Without taking a full review of measures which were reprobated by one
party and applauded by the other, the reader may be requested to
glance his eye at the situation of the United States in 1797, and to
contrast it with their condition in 1788.

At home, a sound credit had been created; an immense floating debt had
been funded in a manner perfectly satisfactory to the creditors: an
ample revenue had been provided; those difficulties which a system of
internal taxation, on its first introduction, is doomed to encounter,
were completely removed; and the authority of the government was
firmly established. Funds for the gradual payment of the debt had been
provided; a considerable part of it had been actually discharged; and
that system which is now operating its entire extinction, had been
matured and adopted. The agricultural and commercial wealth of the
nation had increased beyond all former example. The numerous tribes of
warlike Indians, inhabiting those immense tracts which lie between the
then cultivated country and the Mississippi, had been taught, by arms
and by justice, to respect the United States, and to continue in
peace. This desirable object having been accomplished, that humane
system was established for civilizing, and furnishing them with the
conveniences of life which improves their condition, while it secures
their attachment.

Abroad, the differences with Spain had been accommodated; and the free
navigation of the Mississippi had been acquired, with the use of New
Orleans as a place of deposit for three years, and afterwards, until
some other equivalent place should be designated. Those causes of
mutual exasperation which had threatened to involve the United States
in a war with the greatest maritime and commercial power in the world,
had been removed; and the military posts which had been occupied
within their territory, from their existence as a nation, had been
evacuated. Treaties had been formed with Algiers and with Tripoli, and
no captures appear to have been made by Tunis; so that the
Mediterranean was opened to American vessels.

This bright prospect was indeed, in part, shaded by the discontents of
France. Those who have attended to the particular points of difference
between the two nations, will assign the causes to which these
discontents are to be ascribed, and will judge whether it was in the
power of the President to have avoided them