To Alexander Hamilton from Tench Coxe, 9 August 1794
From Tench Coxe1
Treasury Department, Revenue Office, August 9, 1794. “Brown & Francis & Co. having agreed to make one hundred & twenty eight pieces of Iron cannon,2 I have to request that you will possess the supervisor of Rhode Island3 of the sum of 5400 Dollars which is to be paid them in advance.”4
LC, RG 75, Letters of Tench Coxe, Commissioner of the Revenue, Relating to the Procurement of Military, Naval, and Indian Supplies, National Archives.
1. For information concerning the fortifications and the naval armament, see Henry Knox to H, March 29, April 21, 1794. See also H to Coxe, April 4, 1794.
2. A copy of the articles of agreement between Coxe on behalf of the United States and “John Brown, John Francis, and Rufus Hopkins, Nicholas Power, Obadiah Brown, Brown, Benson, and Ives, and Jabez Bowen, being the owners of the furnace Hope,” dated August 8, 1794, may be found in the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. The contract is printed in , Naval Affairs, I, 53–54. See also Coxe to H, June 27, 1794.
3. John S. Dexter.
4. On August 9, 1794, Coxe wrote to Dexter: “I enclose to you a contract … with Brown Francis and others, owners of and agents for the Furnace Hope, for one hundred & twenty-eight pieces of Iron cannon, executed by me…” (LC, RG 75, Letters of Tench Coxe, Commissioner of the Revenue, Relating to the Procurement of Military, Naval, and Indian Supplies, National Archives). On the same day he notified Brown and Francis that the “sum of 5400 dollars will be lo[d]ged in Mr. Dextors hands…” (LC, Letters of Tench Coxe, Commissioner of the Revenue, Relating to the Procurement of Military, Naval, and Indian Supplies, National Archives).