From George Washington to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, 17 January 1791
To the United States Senate and House of Representatives
[Philadelphia] January 17. 1791.
Gentlemen of the Senate, and House of Representatives
I lay before you an official statement of the appropriation of ten thousand dollars, granted to defray the contingent expences of government by an act of the 26th of March 1790.1
a copy of two resolutions of the Legislature of Virginia, and of a petition of sundry Officers and assignees of Officers and Soldiers of the Virginia line on continental establishment, on the subject of bounty-lands allotted to them on the north-west side of the Ohio:2 and
a copy of an act of the Legislature of Maryland to empower the Wardens of the Port of Baltimore to levy and collect the duty therein mentioned3
Go: Washington
LS, DNA: RG 46, First Congress, 1789–1791, Records of Legislative Proceedings, President’s Messages. The first and last paragraphs of this document in RG 46 have been deleted and the word “out” written in what is presumably a later hand, probably in preparation for printing.
1. The enclosed statement of expenditures accounted for a part of the $10,000 appropriated in Section 3 of the Appropriations Act of 26 Mar. 1790 “for the purpose of defraying the contingent charges of government.” The act directed that the president “cause a regular statement and account of such expenditures to be laid before Congress at the end of the year” ( 4:105–7). The account listed payments of $91.80 to Peter Maverick “for sundry Seals furnished for the Supreme Court and other Courts of the United States” on 17 Aug. 1790, of $1,061.00 to Royal Flint “Agent for Jeremiah Wad[s]worth being the amount of an account for apprehending the Cranes & others concerned in counterfieting” on 27 Aug. 1790, of $8.00 to Mark Leavenworth “Agent for Amos Doolittle for a Seal made for the district Court of Connecticut” on 31 Aug. 1790, of another $5.50 to Peter Maverick for a seal for the district court of Rhode Island on 2 Sept. 1790, and of $19.33 to Cyrus Griffin, district judge for Virginia, “for cash paid by him for a Seal & an Iron Screw for use of said district” on 5 Oct. 1790, for a total expenditure of $1,184.91 (DNA: RG 46, First Congress, 1789–1791, Records of Legislative Proceedings, President’s Messages).