To Alexander Hamilton from Peter Corne, [n.p., n.d.]
From Peter Corne1
[n.p., n.d.]. Asks Hamilton’s opinion on what steps he should take to recover his losses in New York State during the American Revolution. States that the commissioners of sequestration seized and sold all his “Stock grain Hay Farming Carriages & utensills Contrary to the intention of Congress” and that damages to his farm in Cortlandt Manor in Westchester County by the American forces amounted to at least six hundred dollars.
ALS, Hamilton Papers, Library of Congress.
1. Corne was a Loyalist from Westchester County, New York, who had moved to New York City during the British occupation of that city during the American Revolution. He became involved in a public controversy between civilian and military officials in the city. With permission of the mayor he erected posts for scales on a wharf. Samuel Brownjohn cut down the posts as a public nuisance. When the military authorities fined Brownjohn and sent him to prison for noncompliance, many inhabitants viewed him “as a Martyr” and a symbol of opposition to military rule (“Historical Memoirs From 16 March 1763 to 12 November 1783 of William Smith,” folio vol. VII, under date of February 6, 1782 [AD, Manuscript Division, New York Public Library]). It has been suggested that this incident was one of the events leading to the establishment of civilian rule in the city (Oscar Theodore Barck, Jr., New York City During the War for Independence. With Special Reference to the Period of British Occupation [New York, 1931], 69–70).