From Alexander Hamilton to John Randall, 27 November 1794
To John Randall
Treasury Department
November 27th 1794
Sir
Agreeably to the request contained in your letter of the 22d instant1 I have directed the Treasurer of the United States to remit to your draught on the office of Discount & Deposit at Baltimore for seven hundred and fifty dollars—which sum when added to the funds already placed in your hands forms the whole of the monies allotted for the Fortification2 to be erected at Annapolis, excepting two hundred and fifty dollars reserved for the purchase of the land.3
If it should be the opinion of the Engineer that a further sum will be required to complete the works it would be adviseable to transmit an estimate thereof immediately to this Office to enable Congress to determine whether any and what fu[r]ther provision is necessary to be made in this case.
I am with consideration Sir Your Obedient Servant
A Hamilton
John Randall Esqr
Collector
Annapolis
Copy, RG 56, Letters to and from the Collectors at Bridgetown and Annapolis, National Archives; copy, RG 56, Letters to Collectors at Small Ports, “Set G,” National Archives.
1. Letter not found.
2. For information concerning the fortification of ports and harbors, see Henry Knox to H, March 29, 1794.
3. “An Act supplementary to ‘An act to provide for the Defence of certain Ports and Harbors in the United States’” ( 367 [May 9, 1794]) provided “That the port and harbor of the city of Annapolis be fortified, in such manner, and at such time or times, as the President of the United States may direct.” The act also authorized the President to “receive from the State of Maryland, a cession of lands on which the said fortification, and its necessary buildings, may be erected.”