From Alexander Hamilton to Rufus King, 24 April [1796]
To Rufus King1
[New York] April 24 [1796]2
Dr. Sir
I return you a certain draft,3 with a little substitute for the close of it proposed by Mr. J——4 with an eye to your suggestion.
Our Petition went yesterday by express.5 It had more than 3200 signers which is within about 300 of the highest poll we ever had in this City on both sides, at the most controverted election. Nothing can more clearly demonstrate our unanimity & I feel no doubt of equal or greater unanimity throughout the state.
The Meeting men have not dared to publish the names of this Committee, because it imprudently contained a considerable proportion of persons hostile to its object—several of them actually on our Petition.6 You see by this their embarrassment & their weakness.
Yrs.
A H
ALS, Hamilton Papers, Library of Congress.
1. This letter concerns the efforts of supporters of the Jay Treaty both in and out of the Government to secure the adoption by the House of Representatives of legislation for the implementation of the Jay Treaty. For an account of the struggle in the House over this legislation, see the introductory note to H to George Washington, March 7, 1796.
2. In , V, 632, and in , X, 98, this letter is incorrectly dated “1795.”
3. This draft has not been found.
4. John Jay.
5. See H to King, April 20, 1796, note 2, and April 23, 1796, note 6.
6. For the meeting of April 22, 1796, see “To the Citizens Who Shall be Convened This Day in the Fields in the City of New York,” April 22, 1796