to be prescribed for the first time; custom-houses and loan-offices regulated; provision made for the efficient collection and distribution of the revenue; the accounts of receipts and expenditures systematized; in all of which the easy attainment of complete information at the Treasury was to be united with the preservation of central and local accountability. Everything connected with the finance of the country was in a state of almost inextricable confusion. The national debt, originating chiefly in the Revolution, was of two kinds, foreign and domestic. The foreign debt, amounting to nearly twelve millions, was due to France, Holland, and a fraction to Spain. The domestic debt, due to individuals in America for loans to the government or supplies furnished to the army, reached forty-two millions. Another class of debts, amounting to some twenty-five millions, rested upon a different footing; the States individually had constructed works of defense within their respective limits, and advanced pay, bounties, provisions, clothing, and munitions of war to Continental troops. Hamilton proposed not only that the foreign debt should be paid strictly according to the terms of contract, but that all domestic debts, including those of the particular States, should be funded, and that the nation should become responsible for their payment to the full amount.
Oliver Wolcott[1] was a young man of thirty, but not without experience in finance, having been for nine years almost constantly employed by his
- ↑ For the origin of the Wolcott family in America, see Vol. I. 593, 594. A tradition exists concerning the Wolcott coat of arms which is of interest to the curious in matters of heraldry. John Wolcott of Wolcott, who lived in the reign of Henry V., and who married Matilda, daughter of Sir Richard Cornwall of Bereford, Knight, won a game of chess in a contest with the king through skillful uses of the castles; whereupon Henry, in recognition of the remarkable event, changed Wolcott's coat of arms by substituting castles on the shield in place of sheaves of wheat. (Stiles's History of Ancient Windsor.)
Wolcott Arms. Wolcott Arms.
Henry Wolcott came to America in 1630; was in 1635 among the first settlers of Windsor; participated in the first legislative proceedings of both Massachusetts and Connecticut; and was annually re-elected to the councils of the latter State during life. His daughter Anna married Matthew Griswold, the first magistrate of Saybrook, and founder of Lyme, and among her illustrious descendants is the present Chief Justice of the United States, Morrison R. Waite. Simon Wolcott, one of the sons of Henry, married the beautiful Martha Pitkin, and their fourth son was the famous Governor Roger Wolcott, who rose to highest military and civil honors. Among his numerous children were Governor Oliver Wolcott (born 1726, died 1797), who signed the Declaration of Independence; and Ursula, who married her cousin, Governor
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