Treasury Department Circular to the Collectors of the Customs, 18 December 1793
Treasury Department Circular
to the Collectors of the Customs
Treasury Department
December 18th 1793.
Sir
It has been made a question whether by the sixth section of the Act entitled “An Act for raising a farther sum of money for the protection of the frontiers and for other purposes therein mentioned,”1 the allowance to one fishing vessel is still restricted to the sum of one hundred and seventy Dollars for one season, as prescribed by the preceding Act concerning fisheries of the United States &ca.2
From the construction of the Act above recited, the restriction being considered as still to operate, I have to request that you will for the present conform to that construction, and not exceed the sum of One hundred and seventy Dollars in the allowance to any one of the fishing vessels for one season.
I am Sir Your Obed Servant.
A Hamilton
LS, to Jeremiah Olney, Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence; copy, to Nathaniel Fosdick, RG 56, Letters to Collectors at Small Ports, “Set G,” National Archives; copy, to Nathaniel Fosdick, RG 56, Letters to the Collector at Portland, National Archives; copy, to Samuel Gerry, United States Finance Miscellany, Treasury Circulars, Library of Congress; copy, to Benjamin Lincoln, RG 36, Collector of Customs at Boston, Letters from the Treasury, 1789–1807, Vol. 4, National Archives; copy, to Benjamin Lincoln, RG 56, Letters to the Collector at Boston, National Archives; copy to Benjamin Lincoln, RG 56, Letters to Collectors at Small Ports, “Set G,” National Archives; copy, RG 56, Circulars of the Office of the Secretary, “Set T,” National Archives; copy, RG 56, Letters to Collectors at Gloucester, Machias, and Frenchman’s Bay, National Archives; LS, to William Ellery, The Sol Feinstone Collection, Library of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.
1. Section 6 of this act reads as follows: “That all drawbacks and allowances authorized by the act aforesaid, which have not been heretofore abolished or changed, shall continue to operate, as in the said act prescribed in relation to the several duties which shall become payable by virtue of this act, and that in addition thereto, there shall be allowed and paid upon provisions salted within the United States, except upon dried fish, upon the exportation thereof to any foreign port or place, as follows, to wit: On pickled fish, at the rate of eight cents per barrel, and on other provisions at the rate of five cents per barrel; and from and after the first day of January next, there shall be an addition of twenty per centum to the allowances, respectively granted to ships or vessels employed in the bank or other cod fisheries, and in the terms provided by an act, intituled ‘An Act concerning certain fisheries of the United States, and for the regulation and government of the fishermen employed therein,’ and during the continuance of the said act” ( 260 [May 2, 1793]).
2. H is referring to Section 1 of “An Act concerning certain Fisheries of the United States, and for the regulation and government of the Fishermen employed therein” ( 229–32 [February 16, 1792]). For this section, see H to Benjamin Lincoln, December 5, 1793.