To George Washington from Edmund Randolph, 10 February 1794
From Edmund Randolph
Philadelphia february 10. 1794
Sir
The bill, drawn by Edward Church on the Secretary of State and accepted by me, amounts to one hundred and fifty pounds sterling.1 The Secretary of the Treasury is disinclined to pay it out of the monies in his hands. I must therefore request you to give an order for the payment, out of the contingent fund at your disposal.2 The form of the Order may be somewhat in this shape. “The President of the U.S. desires the Secretary of the Treasury to cause a bill of exchange, drawn at Lisbon, on the 19th of October 1793 for one hundred and fifty pounds sterling, by Edward Church in favor of Jacob Dohrman & comp.; and accepted by the secretary of State in behalf of his department on the 10th of January 1794, to be adjusted and paid out of the contingent fund at his disposal. If the forms of the Treasury department require any further document from the President, he wishes it to be prepared and sent to him for his signature.”3 I have the honor, sir, to be with the highest respect yr mo. ob. serv.
Edm: Randolph
ALS, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; LB, DNA: RG 59, GW’s Correspondence with His Secretaries of State; LB, DNA: RG 59, Domestic Letters.
1. Edward Church, the U.S. consul at the Portugese port of Lisbon, reported in his first letter to former secretary of state Thomas Jefferson of 22 Oct. 1793 that he had drawn a bill for £150 Sterling in favor of the mercantile firm of Jacob Dohrman and Company for the charter of a vessel to sail from Lisbon to New York City. This was done in order to procure a means for sending diplomatic dispatches to Jefferson ( , 27:262–64). Jefferson submitted this letter and its enclosures to GW on 23 Dec. 1793 ( , 272).
2. Section 3 of “An Act making appropriations for the support of government for the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety,” 26 March 1790, authorized the president “to draw from the treasury a sum not exceeding ten thousand dollars, for the purpose of defraying the contingent charges of government” ( . 1:105).
3. On this same date, GW directed Alexander Hamilton to pay this bill ( , 283).