51To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 21 September 1790 (Washington Papers)
Doctor Craigie has communicated to me, a letter from Mr Daniel Parker to him, dated, London the 12th of July, which mentions that he had just seen Mr De Miranda, who had recently conversed with the Marquis Del Campo, from whom he had learnt that the Court of Spain had acceded to our right of navigating the Mississippi. Col: Smith has also read to me a passage out of another letter of the 6th...
52To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 29 September 1790 (Washington Papers)
I have been duly honor’d with your two letters of the 18th and 20th of Septemr. My opinion on a certain subject has been forwarded, and I hope will, ere this, have come to hand. Inclosed you will be pleased to receive a list of such characters, as from the documents furnished by Mr Lear, from my inquiries, and from the intimations contained in your letter of the 20th, appear to stand, upon the...
53To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 30 September 1790 (Washington Papers)
I had lately a visit from a certain Gentleman the sole object of which was to make some observations of a delicate nature, concerning another Gentleman employed on a particular errand; which, as they were doubtless intended for your ear, and (such as they are) ought to be known to you, it is of course my duty to communicate. He began (in a manner somewhat embarrassed which betrayed rather more...
54To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 5 October 1790 (Washington Papers)
I had the honor of receiving your letter of the 27th ulto, by the mail on the 2d inst: and have in the interval made some enquiries relative to a successor to the late Collector of George town in south Carolina. I am apprehensive from the result, that the necessary information cannot be obtained but from the place, to which end the necessary steps will be taken. I shall also make the requisite...
55To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 6 October 1790 (Washington Papers)
I have recieved from Nathl Gilman Esquire the Commissioner of Loans for New Hampshire, a letter of the 27th September informing me, that he has transmitted his commission to you with a resignation of his Office. I beg leave on this occasion to call to your mind the name of Woodbury Langdon Esquire, who from my recollection of circumstances, and from the result of my enquiries to day, appears...
56To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 8 October 1790 (Washington Papers)
I do myself the honor to inform you, that the result of my enquiries concerning the character of Capt: Jonathan Maltbee, is, that he is a man of fair character and an experienced & good Seaman, who might be expected to execute his duty faithfully as the Commander of a revenue Cutter. I do not learn however, that either he or Capt. Law are remarkable for their activity. The principal point of...
57To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 17 October 1790 (Washington Papers)
I had the honor of receiving your letter of the 10th instant by the last post. It is certainly very possible, that motives, different from the one avowed, may have produced a certain communication; and in matters of such nature, it is not only allowable, but the dictate of prudence, to receive suggestions with peculiar caution. A British Packet arrived yesterday. The accounts she brings, are...
58To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 26 October 1790 (Washington Papers)
I have had the honor to receive your several letters of the 12th, 13th, & 15th inst: which finding me in the act of removal from New York to Philadelphia, I have been prevented from the due acknowledgement of their reception at an earlier moment. The Baron Perin’s claim shall be examined as soon as the Officers of the Treasury can complete the arrangement of their Books & papers, which I trust...
59To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 28 October 1790 (Washington Papers)
I had the honor duly to receive your two letters of the 3d and 6th inst:. The packet for the Baron de Steuben contained in the former, was delivered to him agreeably to your direction. The papers concerning Capt. Lyde were transmitted by the post following that which took my letter of the 29th Ulto. No more proper characters having been pointed out by further enquiry, I have, pursuant to your...
60To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 4 November 1790 (Washington Papers)
I have the honor to inform you, that a letter, of which a copy is enclosed, has come to my hands from the Loan officer of North Carolina, since the date of my last letter. On considering minutely the course of the business of the new Loans and the future operations of the Treasury, as they will affect the public stocks, it appeared necessary to the prevention of frauds by Counterfeiters and...
61To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 2 December 1790 (Washington Papers)
The day before yesterday I received a letter from Mr Woodbury Langdon declining the appointment offered him. there was a letter with it for you which I immediately forwarded. Since that time I have conversed with Mr Langdon I have heared from Mr Gilman; the former is warm in his recommendation of Mr Keith Spence; he states that his insolvency was owing to the loss of a valuable ship & Cargo,...
62To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 13 December 1790 (Washington Papers)
I have the honor to transmit here with the copy of a report intended to be presented to the House of Representatives on the subject of a National Bank. This communication would have been earlier made if it had been in my power; but it has been impossible for me to prepare it sooner. With the most perfect respect I have the honor to be Sir, Your Most Obedient & Most humble Servant LB , DLC:GW ....
63To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 15 December 1790 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury has the honor respectfully to inform the President of the United States that a wish of the Collector of Boston to spend a part of the time of the Session of Congress at the Seat of Government has been intimated to him. An absence from his Office at this season of the year being the least likely to be inconvenient, and it being probable that much useful information...
64To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 23 December 1790 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury has the honor respectfully to submit to the President of the United States the propriety of appointing a Keeper for the Light-house at Portland in the District of Maine. The enclosed recommendations from that quarter were transmitted to the Superintendant of the Light-houses of Massachusetts under the idea that the appointment was to be made by him. An enquiry of...
65To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 24 December 1790 [letter not found] (Washington Papers)
Letter not found: from Alexander Hamilton, 24 Dec. 1790. Tench Coxe wrote to Tobias Lear on 29 Dec. 1790: “I find on examining the current papers that the communications which the Secretary of the Treasury had the honor to make to the President of the United States on Friday, was transmitted by one of the Gentlemen in the office without enclosing the papers therein refered to. I do myself the...
66To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 5 January 1791 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury has the honor respectfully to inform the President of the United States that in pursuance of his instructions, due public notice was given in the Gazettes of Virginia and of the principal sea ports of the United States, that proposals would be received at the Treasury Office untill the 31st Ultimo, for building by Contract a Light-house, and the necessary...
67To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 6 January 1791 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury has the honor respectfully to transmit to the President of the United States an account of the cost of a seal for the use of the District Court of Maine, on which he begs leave to remark, that there does not occur any reason to deem it immoderate. The Legislature having by their resolution of the 2nd of August last assigned a part of the fund provided for the...
68To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 8 January 1791 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury has the honor respectfully to transmit to the President of the United States a Contract made by the Collector of Portsmouth in New Hampshire with Titus Salter for furnishing the Light house on New Castle Island with oil, wick, fuel & candles, and for the care & lighting of the same from the 15th day of August 1789 to the 1st day of July next, including some small...
69To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 23 February 1791 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury presents his respects to the President and sends him the opinion required which occupied him the greatest part of last night. The Bill for extending the time of opening subscriptions passed yesterday unanimously to an order for engrossing. LB , DLC:GW . See GW to Hamilton, 16 Feb. 1791 . See Journal of the House The Journal of the House of Representatives: George...
70Enclosure: Opinion on the Constitutionality of an Act to Establish a Bank, 23 February 1791 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury having perused with attention the papers containing the opinions of the Secretary of State and the Attorney General concerning the constitutionality of the Bill for establishing a National Bank, proceeds, according to the order of the President, to submit the reasons which have induced him to entertain a different opinion. It will naturally have been anticipated,...
71To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 24 February 1791 (Washington Papers)
The Bill supplementary to the Bank bill passed the House of Representatives Yesterday—General Schuyler informs me that the friends of the Bank proposed that it should pass to a second reading immediately, and that Mr Carroll opposed it, and moved that it should be printed—that by a rule of the House it was of necessity to comply with Mr Carroll’s objection, a departure requiring unanimous...
72To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 4 March 1791 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury presents his respects to The President of the United States—He has just ascertained that General Matthews would not accept—His son is older than was believed—29 years of age & has a family As he will have the benefit of his fathers influence which is considerable and is a young man of real merit & as the appointment of any other candidate would be subject to the...
73To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 12 March 1791 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury has the honor respectfully to submit to the President of the United States a Contract made by the Collector of New London, with Nathaniel Richards for supplying the Light house belonging to that Port. This Contract not having been originally made in a manner sufficiently explanatory of the business, was returned for the purpose of being put into such form as...
74To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 12 March 1791 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury has the honor respectfully to submit to the President of the United States a Contract which has been recently transmitted from South Carolina for the Keeping of the Light-house in that State. The terms are somewhat less than those of the Ligh[t]house Keeper at Cape Henlopen, and considering the expences of living in south Carolina it is humbly conceived they are...
75To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 27 March 1791 (Washington Papers)
I have embraced the first moment of leisure to execute your wish, on the subject to which the enclosed Notes are applicable—They are neither so accurate nor so full, as I should have been glad to make them: but they are all that my situation has permitted. Nothing new has occured in my Department worth mentioning —I thought that the following extract of a letter from Mr King might not be...
76To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 10 April 1791 (Washington Papers)
I have the honor of your letter of the 4th instant addressed to the Secretary of State the Secretary at War and myself; to which due obedience shall be paid on my part. A letter from Mr Short dated at Amsterdam the 2d of December has just come to hand giving me an account of his proceedings to that period; a copy of which will be forwarded by the tuesday’s post. He informs me, among other...
77To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 11 April 1791 (Washington Papers)
I have just received a letter from Mr King in these words —“Mr Elliot, who it has been said was appointed will not come to America, owing say his friends here to a disinclination on his part which has arisen from the death of his eldest or only son. Mr Seaton yesterday read me an abstract of a letter from London dated February 2. & written, as he observed, by a man of information, which...
78To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 14 April 1791 (Washington Papers)
I have the honor to send herewith a copy of my letter of the 10th inst: and of that from Mr Short of the 2d of December to which it refers; and also the copy of another letter from Mr Short of the 25th of January. The result of my submission to the Vice President and the heads of Departments has been, that they have unanimously advised me to instruct Mr Short to proceed to open a second loan...
79To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 17 April 1791 (Washington Papers)
Treasury Department [Philadelphia] 17 April 1791. Informs GW of the death of the comptroller of the Treasury, whose “loss is sincerely to be regretted as that of a good officer and an honorable & amiable man.” ADf , CtHi : Oliver Wolcott, Jr., Papers; LB , DLC:GW . Nicholas Eveleigh, whom GW had named comptroller on 11 Sept. 1789, had been in poor health since he took office, and Eveleigh’s...
80To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 17 April 1791 (Washington Papers)
You will probably recollect that previous to your departure from this place, anticipating the event which has taken place with regard to the death of Mr Eveleigh, I took the liberty to mention to you that Mr Woolcott the present Auditor would be in every respect worthy of your consideration as his successor in office. Now that the event has happened, a concern as anxious as it is natural, for...
81To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 8 July 1791 (Washington Papers)
Philadelphia, 8 July 1791. Respectfully submits a contract between the superintendent of the establishments on the Delaware River and John Wilson for building a beacon boat for its shoals and humbly gives his opinion, after comparing Wilson’s contract with that of Warwick Hale, enclosed, and after inquiring into the proportional value of a similar boat already built and into the present rates...
82To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 8 July 1791 (Washington Papers)
Philadelphia, 8 July 1791. Presents his respects to the president and transmits a dispatch just received from Georgia. LB , DLC:GW . The enclosed dispatch, probably from John Habersham, federal customs collector at Savannah, to Alexander Hamilton, has not been identified. It apparently covered a letter of 2 June from Maj. Richard Call to army contractors Speirs, McLeod, & Co. (see Knox to GW,...
83To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 29 July 1791 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury has the honor respectfully to submit to the President of the United States, a contract made by the Collector of the District of Washington in North Carolina, for the stakage of all the shoals & channels of that State to the Northward of the District of Wilmington, which have been heretofore thus designated. The former stakes having generally fallen to decay, or...
84To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 29 July 1791 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury having had the honor to lay before the President of the United States, the correspondence of Mr Short respecting the loans made, & to be made, pursuant to the several Acts of Congress for that purpose; begs leave to note particularly for his consideration two circumstances which appear in that correspondence. First, that there are moments when large sums may be...
85To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 15 August 1791 (Washington Papers)
Treasury Department [Philadelphia] 15 August 1791. Communicates a letter from the superintendent of lighthouses in South Carolina, “by which it appears that the Lantern Story and all the wooden work of the Light house in that state have lately been consumed by fire,” with two proposals for rebuilding the lighthouse, the more favorable one from Conrad Hook & John Naverson, the terms of which,...
86To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 16 September 1791 (Washington Papers)
I have the honor to enclose the copy of a letter from Mr Brown of Kentucke, to Genl Irvine, giving an account of some interesting particulars in the Western Country. Part of the letter, I have understood, has been forwarded to you, but not the whole. Genl Irvine is of opinion that the waters will be still so far practicable as to permit the progress of the Troops under Genl Butler; by the...
87To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 22 September 1791 (Washington Papers)
I have received a letter from the Minister of France, of which the inclosed is a copy. Having full authority from you in relation to payments to France, & there being funds out of which that which will constitute the succour: requested may with propriety be made; and being fully persuaded that in so urgent & calamitous a case, you will be pleased with a ready acquiescence in what is desired. I...
88To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 6 October 1791 (Washington Papers)
Mr Chew having confirmed the character received by you, of Mr Barratt, I have written to Mr Vining requesting him to ascertain whether the appointment will be acceptable to him. Mr Houston of Georgia declines the offer made to him, on the score of want of a familiar acquaintance with figures, and its being inconsistent with the State of his affairs, to translate himself wholly to the seat of...
89To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 16 October 1791 (Washington Papers)
I have the honor of your letter of the 10th instant. Mine to you of the 6th, which was sent by duplicates, will have informed you of the then state of the business of the Supervisorship of the District of Delaware. I have, within two days, received a letter from Mr Vining stating that an absence from home had delayed the receipt of my letter, & the ascertaining of Mr Barratt’s inclination in...
90To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 21 November 1791 (Washington Papers)
Treasury Department, Philadelphia, 21 Nov. 1791. Submits two contracts: one between the collector of New London, Conn., and Nathaniel Richards for supplying the lighthouses in that district for one year, to end on 1 Oct. 1792, the terms of which were somewhat more favorable than those of the preceding year; and another between the collector of New London and the keeper of the lighthouse there,...
91To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 17 January 1792 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury has the honor to communicate to the President a letter of the 7th of January 1792 from the Collector of Alexandria, in answer to one written at the direction of the President; and also the Answer of the Collector of Boston to an enquiry in relation to the Keeper of the Lighthouse at Portland. LB , DLC:GW . Neither of the enclosures has been found (see Syrett,...
92To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 23 January 1792 (Washington Papers)
I have the honor to submit the draft of a Report, pursuant to an Order of the House of Representatives of the first day of November last; and to be With the highest respect & most faithful Attachment, Sir, Your Most Obedient & hble Servant LB , DLC:GW . The enclosure was a copy of Alexander Hamilton’s report on the public debt and loans, dated 23 Jan. 1792, which he transmitted to the House of...
93II: From Alexander Hamilton, c.25 Jan. 1792 (Washington Papers)
Mr Hamilton presents his respects to the President & submits the following alterations in the Letter. instead of “I shall be glad ” &c. to say “it is my desire” or “it appears adviseable” that you prepare &c. Instead of “when our Constituents ” &c. Say [“]When the Community are called upon for considerable exertions, to relieve a part, which is suffering undr the hand of an enemy, it is...
94To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 4 February 1792 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury has the honor respectfully to enclose to the President of the United States a Contract between the Superintendant of the establishments on Delaware river, & Thomas Conaroe the elder for repairing the public Piers adjacent to Reeding Island in the said river. This contract was transmitted at a moment when the absence of the President rendered the submission of it...
95To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 13 February 1792 (Washington Papers)
Philadelphia, 13 Feb. 1792. Communicates “some letters which have recently come to hand respecting the execution of the Excise Law in Kentuckey.” LB , DLC:GW . The enclosures have not been identified. Residents of the Kentucky District of Virginia earlier had petitioned the U.S. House of Representatives to suspend collection of the federal excise tax on distilled spirits in the district until...
96To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 18 February 1792 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury has the honor to communicate for the information of the President a letter which he has just received from the Supervisor of North Carolina. The complexion of things there tho’ not pleasing is rather better than worse. LB , DLC:GW . For the background to this letter, which probably involved difficulties in collecting the excise tax on distilled spirits, see GW to...
97To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 23 February 1792 (Washington Papers)
Treasury Department, Philadelphia, 23 Feb. 1792. Submits a contract made by the superintendent of the New Castle Island lighthouse in New Hampshire with Titus Salter for supplying, keeping, lighting, and superintending the occasional repairs of that building and humbly opines that it is not disadvantageous to the United States, as its terms are the same as those in the last agreement for the...
98To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 1 March 1792 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury has the honor to submit to the President of the United States the draft of a report on the subject of the Act concerning distilled Spirits. There are one or two blanks in the draft, to the filling of which some additional examination & enquiry are requisite. The suggestions however to which they relate are true, as they stand, and the sense will be apparent. The...
99To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 4 March 1792 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury has the honor to communicate to the President of the U: States certain resolutions of the Bank of the U: States, in answer to communications from the Treasury. He will ask the President’s orders on Monday. the first resolution will particularly require attention. LB , DLC:GW . For the background to the establishment of the Bank of the United States in late...
100To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 8 March 1792 (Washington Papers)
The Secretary of the Treasury has the honor to submit to the President a letter which he has drafted in answer to one from the Minister Plenipotentiary of France, and which contains such Ideas as have appeared to him compatible with the Law, with the state of the Treasury and with a liberal attention to the conjuncture. He will wait on the President this evening for his orders, as Mr Ternant...