The Public Debt. 13 



Ballances of Taxes laid for the payment of Interest 



in the State Debt and the first three classes of 



Army Notes as appears from the Treasury 



Booke Nov. 1st, 1789, being the Ballance of 



fifteen Taxes- including abatements, Collecting £ s. d. 



fees, etc., 40,489 14 10 



Ballance of Excise and Impost Bonds in Interest 



Certificates and the 1st three classes of Army 



Notes including collecting fees, etc., 9,070 15 2 



A Tax fourpence on the pound laid on list of 1788 



for the payment of interest on the State debt 



and the ballance of the three first classes of 



State Army Notes, the net avails estimated at 20,266 14 4 

 Tax of eight pence on the pound on the same list 



laid for the payment of the ballance of State 



Bills, orders on 2/6 & 1/ Taxes and part of the 



principal of the State Debt, the net avails 



estimated at 40,538 8 8 



Excise for payment of Interest on State debt, etc., 



estimated at 5,000 



Total, 115.365 13 



The comptroller also stated that the collections on the old taxes 

 mentioned in the first item of the above statement would probably 

 fall far below the sum as given ; that there would be a loss upon the 

 excise and impost bonds; and that the amount of excise for the 

 current year, which he had estimated at five thousand pounds, was 

 very uncertain. This was the last excise levied by the state. In its 

 May session of 1790, the assembly repealed all acts relating to the 

 laying of an excise. This repeal was to take-effect July 1, 1790, but 

 was not to interfere with the collection of what was due at the time 

 of the repeal.^ Soon, however, an event occurred which made it un- 

 necessary to use all of the funds originally intended for the payment 

 of the state debt. 



2. Assumption of State Debt. 

 This event was the passage of an act (approved August 4, 1790) 

 by the United States Congress, at the suggestion of Alexander Hamil- 

 ton, for the assumption of the state debts. ^ In this act, entitled "An 

 Act making Provision for the Debt of the United States," provision 



1 Conn. Laws, 1784-95, p. 391. 



2 Acts of Congress, 1790, chap. 34. 



