To the honourable the General Assembly.
Gentlemen:
I find upon enquiry that no office is kept wherein the general
state of public accounts is entered, and as it is impossible to do justice to the State with regard to its Expenditures and advances, without regular and clear statements and entries of the public accounts, I conceive it of great consequence that such office be established. A State which has been so great a part of the burthen, which has supplied so much of its property to the uses of the General Confederacy and which must bear so considerable a proportion of the Common Expenses, must be especially interested in having its accounts so kept as that its just debits and credits can be clearly ascertained, nor is the interest of the people in the clearness of accounts inconsiderable, since that alone can restrain abuses in the expenditures of public money.My duty therefore, obliges me to point out to the honourable the General Assembly this defect in our civil arrangement, for which I doubt not they will make effectual provision.