To Alexander Hamilton from Tench Coxe, 15 February 1793
From Tench Coxe
Treasury Department,
Revenue Office, February 15th. 1793.
Sir,
I have the honor to apprize you that “The act supplementary to the Act for the Establishment & support of Light Houses, Beacons, Buoys and public piers” will expire by its own limitations in regard to the unceded establishments of that Nature on the first day of July next.1
It appears necessary therefore that a New Act of continuance should be passed as several important instances of want of cession exist. It will be remembered that it has been found on Inspection, that the Jurisdiction of the establishments in Massachusetts has not been duly ceded.2
I have the honor to be, with great respect, sir, your most Obedt. Servant
Tench Coxe.
Commissr. of the Revenue.
The honble.
The Secretary of the Treasury.
LC, RG 58, Letters of Commissioner of Revenue, 1792–1793, National Archives.
1. Section 1 of this act reads as follows: “That all expenses which shall accrue from the first day of July next, inclusively, for the necessary support, maintenance, and repairs of all lighthouses, beacons, buoys, the stakeage of channels, on the sea-coast, and public piers, shall continue to be defrayed by the United States, until the first day of July, in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three, notwithstanding such lighthouses, beacons, or public piers, with the lands and tenements thereunto belonging, and the jurisdiction of the same, shall not in the mean time be ceded to, or vested in the United States, by the state or states respectively, in which the same may be, and that the said time be further allowed, to the states respectively to make such cession” ( 251 [April 12, 1792]).
2. See Coxe to H, January 19, 1793.