proven that this source of revenue is in the
United States "the most productive, the easiest to collect, and least
burdensome to the great mass of the people." But still the war-cloud did
not break. Mr. Canning contented himself with war in disguise, and by
his Order in Council of November 11, 1807, shut the ports of Europe to
American trade, and wiped away the advantages of the United States as a
neutral power. The United States answered with the act of embargo on
December 22, 1807, completing, as far as it was possible for legislation
to effect it, the blockade of the Treasury Department as regarded
revenues from foreign imports. The immediate effect, however, of these
acts in Great Britain and America was an enormous temporary increase of
importations in the interim from the time of the passage of the act
until the date when it took effect. To aid merchants in this peculiar
condition of affairs an act was passed by Congress, on March 10, 1808,
extending the terms of credit on revenue bonds.

Mr. Gallatin's report of December 16, 1808, closed the record of his
eight years of management of the Department. In the second term of
Jefferson's administration, 1805-1808, the gross amount of imports had
risen to $443,990,000, and the customs collected to nearly $60,000,000.
In the entire eight years, 1800-1808, the gross amount of importations
was $781,000,000, and the customs yielded $105,000,000. The entire
expenses of the government in the same period, including $65,000,000 of
debt, had been liquidated from customs alone.

The specie in the Treasury on September 20, 1808, reached nearly
$14,000,000. Mr. Jefferson knew of the amount in the Treasury when he
wrote his last message, November 8, 1808, and he could not have been
ignorant of Mr. Gallatin's warning of the previous year that a
continuance of the embargo restriction would reduce the revenue below
the point of annual expenditures and require an additional impost; yet
he had the ignorance or the presumption to say in his message, "Shall it
(the surplus revenue) lie unproductive in the public vaults? Shall the
revenue be reduced? or shall it not rather be appropriated to the
improvement of roads, canals, rivers, education, and other great
foundations of prosperity and union under the powers which Congress may
already possess or such amendments of the Constitution as may be
approved by the States? While uncertain of the course of things, the
time may be advantageously