From George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, 8 April 1794
To Alexander Hamilton
United States April 8. 1794
Sir,
I cannot charge my memory with all the particulars which have passed between us, relative to the disposition of the money borrowed. Your letters, however, and my answer; which you refer to in the foregoing statement, and have lately reminded me of, speak for themselves, and stand in need of no explanation.1
As to verbal communications, I am satisfied, that many were made by you to me on this subject; and from my general recollection of the course of proceedings, I do not doubt, that it was substantially as you have stated it in the annexed paper, that I have approved of the measures, which you, from time to time, proposed to me for disposing of the Loans, upon the condition, that what was to be done by you, should be agreeable to the Laws.2
Go. Washington
LB, DLC:GW; copy, DNA: RG 233, Third Congress, 1793–95, House Records of Legislative Proceedings, Committee Reports and Papers; Broadside, DLC: Jefferson Papers.
1. For background on this letter, see Hamilton to GW, 24 March. The statement is Hamilton’s “Report on Principles and Course of Proceeding with Regard to the Disposition of the Moneys Borrowed Abroad by Virtue of the Acts of the Fourth and Twelfth of August, 1790, as to the Point of Authority,” of 1 April 1794 (, 16:231–33). GW consulted with Edmund Randolph before writing this letter. For Randolph’s suggested reply, see his second letter to GW of 1 April.
2. The laws authorizing federal loans were “An Act making provision for the [payment of the] Debt of the United States,” 4 Aug. 1790, and “An Act making Provision for the Reduction of the Public Debt,” 12 Aug. 1790 (. 1:138–44, 186–87).