Alexander Hamilton Papers
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To Alexander Hamilton from John Murray, 12 July 1794

From John Murray1

New York, July 12, 1794. “I have this day been obliged to pay £65.0.9 costs in a suit commenced in the name of Royal Flint, Wm. Seton, John Murray, Alexr. Hamilton & Jonathan Burrall against George Joy & Daniel Badcock; this suit it is well known I was always averse to having commenced, but it seems it was pressed by Mr. Holker & Mr. Ross. I shall thank you to point out the mode in which the money I have advanced may be recovered, otherwise I shall be obliged to call on you & others to pay their proportions. I did not think it necessary to have an attachment issued, that would only have added to the costs.”2

ALS, Hamilton Papers, Library of Congress.

1Murray, a New York City merchant who had extensive shipping interests, was a director of the Bank of New York.

This letter concerns the protracted efforts to settle the affairs of the bankrupt Daniel Parker and Company, with which William Duer had been associated. In October, 1788, Andrew Craigie, who had agreed to serve as Parker’s representative, suggested a plan for settling the claims of the Philadelphia creditors of Daniel Parker and Company. The principal creditor was John Holker, who at that time was the French consul in Philadelphia and agent for supplying the French navy. Under this plan a board of trustees, some of whom were to be the company’s creditors, would arrange for the settlement of the claims (Davis, Essays description begins Joseph Stancliffe Davis, Essays in the Earlier History of American Corporations (“Harvard Economic Studies,” XVI [Cambridge, 1917]). description ends , I, 254–55). In 1789 Craigie proposed that the board of trustees consist of William Seton, Murray, H, Jonathan Burrall, Holker, and John Ross (Davis, Essays description begins Joseph Stancliffe Davis, Essays in the Earlier History of American Corporations (“Harvard Economic Studies,” XVI [Cambridge, 1917]). description ends , I, 257). Subsequently Royal Flint was added to the list of trustees. See Ross to H, November 29, 1791. Also see H to Holker, January 29, 1789. In 1790 these trustees began a suit in the New York Court of Chancery to recover money owed to Daniel Parker and Company by the firm of “Frederick William Geyer late of Boston in north America but now or late of the City of London Merchant and Jacobus De la Lande and Hendrick Fynje both of the City of Amsterdam Merchants being partners in Trade.” The suit was brought against Joy and Badcock, New York City merchants, because they were the firm’s trustees. The course of this suit in the Court of Chancery can be followed in Miscellaneous Chancery Papers, Clerk of the Court of Appeals, Albany, on deposit at Queens College, New York City.

2On the cover of this letter H wrote: “To be sent to Mr. Ross with a request that the needful may be done.”

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