From George Washington to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 11 November 1796
To the Commissioners for the District of Columbia
Philadelphia 11th Novr 1796.
Gentlemen,
Enclosed is the Act with my signature, requesting Thomas Beall of George, and John M. Gantt to reconvey to the Commissioners of the Federal City all the lands within the same which had been vested in them, in trust.1
Yesterday the Secretary of the Treasury shewed me the copy of the letter he had written to you on Monday last,2 as also of the one he had addressed to the President & Board of Directors relative to your application for a loan from the Bank of the United States.
In consequence of the latter a Committee has been appointed to examine, and report their opinion on the said application: the result of which was unknown to him at that time.3 Until I am informed of this, I shall forbear to send the other Act, authorising the resort to the Legislature of the State of Maryland.4 With respect & esteem—I am Gentn Yr Obedt Servt
Go: Washington
ALS, DLC: U.S. Commissioners of the City of Washington records. The commissioners received this letter on 16 Nov. (see DNA: RG 42, Records of the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, Proceedings, 1791–1802). They replied to GW on 17 November.
1. GW enclosed his executive order to Thomas Beall and John Mackall Gantt, which is printed below as an enclosure to this letter. The commissioners had sent GW the order, unsigned, in their letter to him of 3 November.
2. The previous Monday was 7 November. No letter of that date from Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott, Jr., to the D.C. commissioners has been identified, but the letter probably pertained to Wolcott’s efforts to secure a loan from the Bank of the United States.
3. For Wolcott’s letter to the president and directors of the Bank of the United States, dated 5 Nov., see GW to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 7 Nov., and n.3. Wolcott had applied for a loan from that bank on behalf of the commissioners (see Commissioners for the District of Columbia to GW, 31 Oct., first letter).
Wolcott’s 5 Nov. letter was referred to a committee of the Bank of the United States, which drafted a report explaining the reasons for the rejection of the commissioners’ loan application. The undated “Report and Resolution of the President and Directors of the Bank of the United States,” officially adopted on 18 Nov. by bank president Thomas Willing and the bank directors, reads in part: “That the application of the Commissioners is opposed on various grounds; but more particularly by a reference to the nature and Character of Bank operations, which are adverse as, well to negotiations for extensive periods of time, as to those that are bottomed upon the inactive quality of real estate.” The committee added that “discounts should be made for a term not exceeding sixty days.” Wolcott enclosed a copy of the “Report” in a letter to the commissioners of 19 November. However, the report or a similar document may have been composed on or before 16 Nov., on which day, Wolcott wrote the commissioners: “I am sorry to inform you that the application to the Bank of the United States has not proved successful—until yesterday I endulged expectation, of being able to communicate more agreeable intelligence—By the next post I will transmit Copies of my letters & of the answer of the Bank, which will I presume satisfy you that I have done all in my power to serve you.” Wolcott advised the commissioners of the inquiries he made “to ascertain whether the sum you want can be obtained from any other quarter.” In a letter of 28 Nov., Wolcott informed the commissioners of his failure to identify another source for a loan (all in DNA: RG 42, Records of the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, Letters Received; see also GW to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 21 Nov.).
4. With their second letter to GW of 31 Oct., the commissioners had transmitted a draft of an executive order, which, when signed and executed, would authorize them to apply to the Maryland legislature for a loan. GW implemented the instrument on 21 Nov. (see GW to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 21 Nov.).