To Alexander Hamilton from Jeremiah Olney, 18 August 1792
From Jeremiah Olney
Providence, August 18, 1792. “The Sloop Bacon, Arnold Rhodes Master, Entered here from Washington in North Carolina, on the Eleventh Instant, having on board Seven Puncheons of foreign Spirits, unaccompanied with any other Certificates than a general One.… As in this Transaction, there is a deviation from Law,1 tho’ there appears no design to defraud the Revenue, yet I have thought proper to take the Rum into possession, and shall wait your directions how to proceed.”
ADfS, Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence.
1. Section 10 of “An Act repealing, after the last day of June next, the duties hereto-fore laid upon Distilled Spirits imported from abroad, and laying others in their stead; and also upon Spirits distilled within the United States, and for appropriating the same” reads as follows: “That whenever it shall be intended that any ship or vessel shall proceed with the whole or any part of the spirits which shall have been brought in such ship or vessel from any foreign port or place, from one port in the United States to another port in the said United States, whether in the same or in different districts, the master or person having the command or charge of such ship or vessel, shall previous to her departure, apply to the officer of inspection, to whom report was made, for the port from which she is about to depart, for a certificate of the quantity and particulars of such of the said spirits as shall have been certified or reported to him to have been entered as imported in such ship or vessel, and of so much thereof as shall appear to him to have been landed out of her at such port; which certificate the said officer shall forthwith grant. And the master or person having the command or charge of such ship or vessel, shall within twenty-four hours after her arrival at the port to which she shall be bound, deliver the said certificate to the proper officer of inspection of such last mentioned port. And if such ship or vessel shall proceed from one port to another within the United States, with the whole or any part of the spirits brought in her as afore-said, without having first obtained such certificate; or if within twenty-four hours after her arrival at such other port, the said certificate shall not be delivered to the proper officer of inspection there, the master or person having the command or charge of said ship or vessel, shall in either case forfeit the sum of five hundred dollars; and the spirits on board of her at her said arrival, shall be forfeited, and may be seized by any officer of inspection” ( 201–02 [March 3, 1792]).