From Alexander Hamilton to Richard Wylly, 9 April 1791
To Richard Wylly1
Treasury Department, April 9, 1791.
Sir:
The acting Paymaster General of the Treasury2 has reported to me the circumstances under which the certificate of the late Paymaster General,3 for $123, 283 70/90, mentioned in your letter of the 1st ultimo, was issued.4 I find that it is already passed to the credit of the State of Georgia, in the books of the Pay Office, and that it will be included in the statement of the general board of commissioners for settling the accounts of the several States with the United States. You cannot, therefore, receive that certificate in payment of subscription to the loan proposed by the act of Congress of the 4th of August, 1790.5
I am, sir, &c.
A. Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury.
Richard Wylly, Esq.
, Claims, 188.
1. Wylly was commissioner of loans for Georgia.
2. Joseph Howell.
3. John Pierce.
4. In 1785 Georgia had acquired from Pierce a certificate of credit in the account of the United States for the sum of $123,283 70/90 which the state had paid the officers of the Georgia line at the close of the American Revolution. For some years thereafter Georgia attempted unsuccessfully to collect interest on this certificate. In his letter of March 1, 1791, to the Treasury Department Wylly wrote:
“I was applied to, some years since, for interest on a certificate of Mr. Pierce’s to this State, for $123,283 70/90, but as it was not noticed in his register, nor like his other certificates, I would not pay it.… I shall … be obliged to you to instruct me what I am to do with it, and at what time the interest is to commence, as that did not appear plain to me when I saw it.” (, Claims, 188.)
5. “An Act making provision for the (payment of the) Debt of the United States” ( 138–44).