To James Madison from Alexander J. Dallas, 16 July 1816
From Alexander J. Dallas
16 July, 1816.
Dear Sir,
I trouble you with a draft of the agreement with Mr. Hassler relative to the survey of the coast.1 The work is an important one, and must require both time and money to complete it. I am confident that Mr. Hassler is the only person equal in all respects to the undertaking, within the reach of the government.
The circular to the banks is prepared for issuing, and the prospect of an accumulation of revenue in New York was so favorable that I had drafted a treasury notice assigning funds to pay all the treasury notes, which were payable in New York, during the year 1814 and the early months of 1815, on the first day of September next. The inclosed letter from Mr. Irving2 has, however, induced me to pause upon both measures. The crisis described by Mr. Irving will not immediately affect Philadelphia and Baltimore, where the banks continue to issue notes, most licentiously, for the accommodation of the merchants. The paper balloon will, nevertheless, explode unless some relief can be afforded to the sufferers in New York, and some reform be introduced at the banks of Philadelphia and Baltimore. I will reflect upon the powers of the treasury, and beg the favor of your views as to the best course to be pursued.
The collector of Philadelphia has sent a report,3 which accompanies this letter, relative to the site for a custom-house. The apportionment of the sum appropriated by Congress is left to the department under the direction of the President. As we can procure a custom-house at Boston for $29,000, the sum to be applied at Philadelphia may exceed the one-fifth of the appropriation. I think the purchases in the other commercial cities will also be within the amount of an equal distribution. I am, dear sir, most respectfully and faithfully, your obedient servant,
A. J. Dallas
Printed copy (Dallas, Life and Writings of Alexander James Dallas, 460–61). For enclosures, see n. 1.
1. On 11 June 1816, Ferdinand R. Hassler proposed to the Treasury Department that he commence work on the coastal survey that had been authorized by Congress in 1807, subject to his conditions that he be granted greater independence from Treasury supervision and that he receive a higher salary than $2,500 per annum to support his family “in as high a rank of society as may come within my reach, by honest means.” Without commenting on these conditions, Dallas replied on 18 June 1816 that the president would authorize a salary of $3,000, plus an allowance of $2,000 to cover additional expenses. Satisfied with this response, Hassler hastened to Washington where he presented on 12 July 1816 a draft of “Articles of Engagement” between the Treasury and himself. These articles consisted of ten alphabetized points of agreement with subordinate terms concerning time and labor, the use of instruments, the employment of engineers, and the management of records and accounts, which gave Hassler a degree of latitude in the conduct of his work. After JM had reviewed these matters, they were revised into a shorter contract on 3 Aug. 1816, with Dallas’s concluding remark that “it only remains to repeat the President’s solicitude for a successful and speedy execution of the great national work which is thus confided to you” (Principal Documents Relating to the Survey of the Coast of the United States, since 1816 [New York, 1834], 3–10).
2. The letter has not been found, but Dallas possibly referred to William Irving of the New York firm of Irving & Smith and brother of Washington Irving (Henry Wysham Lanier, A Century of Banking in New York, 1822–1922 [New York, 1922], 114).
3. Report not found.