To Alexander Hamilton from Tobias Lear, 21 September 1789
From Tobias Lear1
United States September 21st. 1789.
Sir
By the command of the President of the United States, I do myself the honor to transmit to you the enclosed letters, which have been received by him, the subject of which come properly under the cognizance of the Treasury Department of the United States.
The letters enclosed are, one from Mr. Leonard De Neufville2 dated June 1789. relating sundry transactions between himself & Partners and the United States, & between himself and Partners and the State of South Carolina, together with several papers refered to in the Letter. One from Doctor Franklin3 dated June 3d. 1789. relating to the Accounts between Mr Ray de Chaumont4 and the United States, accompanyed by the Copy of a letter from Monsieur Le Compte De Vergennes5 to M. Marbois6 charges des affaires of France, upon the same subject, & dated April 26th. 1789. One from Mr. La Vadiere relating to a depreciation which he says Congress had promised to his brother Colo. De la Vadiere7 who died in 1779, in the service of the United States.
I have the honor to be with perfect consideration Sir your most Odedient & most h’ble Servant
Tobias Lear
Secretary to the President of the
United States
The honrble Alexander Hamilton
Secretary for the Department of
the Treasury of the United States
LC, George Washington Papers, Library of Congress.
1. Lear, a native of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and a Harvard graduate, was Washington’s private secretary.
2. Neufville was an Amsterdam merchant.
3. Benjamin Franklin.
4. Jacques Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont was a contractor for the French government.
5. Constantin Gravier, Comte de Vergennes, was Minister Plenipotentiary at Coblentz.
6. François, Marquis de Barbé-Marbois.
7. Lewis de La Radiere, a colonel of engineers with the Continental Army, who had been killed at West Point in 1779.