The indebtedness he divided as follows: The foreign debt, $10,070,307,
with arrears of interest amounting to $1,640,071. The liquidated
domestic debt, $27,383,917, with arrears of interest amounting to
$13,030,168. The unliquidated part he estimated at $2,000,000, and the
aggregate debt of the State at $25,000,000; making a total of nearly
$80,000.000.
He also hinted at his long-cherished scheme of a National Bank, and a
possible excise law, and gave considerable space to the miserable
condition of landed property and the methods by which it might be
restored to its due value.
XVII
The talk in the drawing-room of Mrs. Croix that night was of little else
but the Secretary's Report. Mrs. Croix, so said gossip, had concluded
that this was the proper time for the demise of her recalcitrant
officer, and had retired to weeds and a semi-seclusion while Mrs.
Washington pondered upon the propriety of receiving her. Her court cared
little for the facts, and vowed that she never had looked so fair or so
proud; Hamilton, that she shone with the splendour of a crystal star on
the black velvet skies of the Tropics.
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