1. This letter, which is addressed to “Mr. Watts,” was presumably written to either John or Robert Watts. Both lived in New York City and were sons of John Watts, Sr., who had been a member of the provincial council and who under an act of attainder on October 22, 1779, had to forfeit his estates to New York State (Harry B. Yoshpe, The Disposition of Loyalist Estates in the Southern District of the State of New York [New York, 1939], 17). John Watts, Sr., left New York for England, and on June 16, 1784, his two sons purchased their father’s former property (Yoshpe, Disposition of Loyalist Estates, 38, 131).

H was on more than one occasion associated with both sons as an attorney. For John Watts, Jr., see H et al. to Patrick Murdock, September 7, 1790 (PAH description begins Harold C. Syrett, ed., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (New York and London, 1961– ). description ends , VII, 25–26); Philip Schulyer to H, October 12, 1795 (PAH description begins Harold C. Syrett, ed., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (New York and London, 1961– ). description ends , XIX, 311–13); the entry in H’s Cash Book, 1795–1804, under the date of March 16, 1796 (AD, Hamilton Papers, Library of Congress). For Robert Watts, see entries in H’s “Cash Book,” March 1, 1782–1791 (PAH description begins Harold C. Syrett, ed., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (New York and London, 1961– ). description ends , III, 20, 58); entries in H’s Cash Book, 1795–1804, under dates of May 9, 1796, and January 10, 1797 (AD, Hamilton Papers, Library of Congress).

2. John Sloss Hobart, who was a member of the Provincial Congress from 1775 to 1777, was a justice of the New York Supreme Court from 1777 to 1798. On January 11, 1798, he was elected to the United States Senate, but on April 12, 1798, he was appointed United States judge for the District of New York, a position which he held until his death in 1805.