Alexander Hamilton Papers
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From Alexander Hamilton to Benjamin Lincoln, 18 February 1792

To Benjamin Lincoln

Treasury Department
February 18. 1792.

Sir

It appears from the abstract of unclaimed interest, rendered by the Commissioner of loans of your State,1 that you have a credit on his books for 337⁵⁰⁄₁₀₀ Dollars, being the amount of interest on 15,000, 6 per Cent and 15,000, 3 per Cent Stock, for the quarter ending the 31st of March 1791.

This Stock is supposed to have been purchased by you under the Act making provision for the reduction of the public debt;2 and as the interest is now payable at the Treasury it is proper, if the supposition be right, that a power be executed by you to the Trustees named in that act for the purpose of receiving it.3 The power ought to name the Trustees by their proper names, annexing their official additions, as they stand in the act. It will be well to let one be prepared by the District Attorney4 and to transmit it to this Office.

I am, with consideration,   Sir, Your Obed Servant.

Alexander Hamilton

Benjamin Lincoln Esqr.
Boston.

LS, RG 36, Collector of Customs at Boston, Letters from the Treasury, 1789–1808, National Archives; copy, RG 56, Letters to Collectors at Small Ports, “Set G,” National Archives; copy, RG 56, Letters to the Collector at Boston, National Archives.

1Nathaniel Appleton’s account of interest paid and unclaimed for this period may be found in RG 217, Miscellaneous Treasury Accounts, 1790–1894, Account No. 1914, National Archives.

2“An Act making Provision for the Reduction of the Public Debt” provided that the surplus resulting from duties on goods and tonnage was to be applied to the purchase of the public debt (1 Stat. description begins The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America (Boston, 1845). description ends 186 [August 12, 1790]). Lincoln had been directed to purchase stock for the sinking fund under a resolution of the commissioners of the sinking fund of January 18, 1791 (ASP description begins American State Papers, Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States (Washington, 1832–1861). description ends , Finance, I, 235).

3The act provided that “the purchases to be made of the said debt, shall be under the direction of the President of the Senate, the Chief Justice, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Attorney General …” (1 Stat. description begins The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America (Boston, 1845). description ends 186).

4Christopher Gore.

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