To Alexander Hamilton from George and Jacob Gilbert, 16 February 1801
From George and Jacob Gilbert1
Philadelphia February 16th. 1801.
Sir
As the period when Congress will rise is close at hand, and the opportunity of your saving us from ruin by a fair representation of facts must then, in all probability, cease, we take the liberty, with great respect, of praying your attention, to the Letter we address’d you some time since,2 and remain
Your Most obedient & very humble servants.
George and Jacob Gilbert
General Hamilton
ALS, Hamilton Papers, Library of Congress.
1. The Gilberts were Philadelphia tailors who had contracted with the Federal Government in 1794 to supply artillery coats for the United States Army (Tench Coxe to H, July 21, first letter of October 8, 1794).
2. Letter not found.
On May 5, 1794, the Gilberts petitioned the House of Representatives “praying relief in consideration of the losses they will sustain in furnishing certain articles of clothing at the prices specified in their contract with the Secretary of the Treasury, from the enhanced rates of workmen’s wages, occasioned by the late calamity in the city of Philadelphia, as well as from the operation of the present embargo” (
, II, 136). The petition was submitted to H, then Secretary of the Treasury, for his opinion. No further action was taken until February 28, 1800, when the petition was again submitted to the House and referred to the Secretary of the Treasury, Oliver Wolcott, Jr. On March 25, 1800, Wolcott submitted a report on the Gilberts’ petition to the House, and it was ordered to lie on the table ( , III, 608, 641). On December 24, 1801, Andrew Geyer, Jonathan Meredith, Abraham Wilt, and David Meredith, all Philadelphia businessmen, presented a petition to the House “praying to be exonerated and discharged from the forfeitures and penalties incurred by the petitioners, and the deceased [Frederick A. C. Muhlenberg], in his life time, as securities of George and Jacob Gilbert, on account of a contract for supplying the Army of the United States with clothing, for certain reasons specified in the said petition, as also, a petition of the said George Gilbert and Jacob Gilbert, presented to this House, on the twenty-eighth of February, one thousand eight hundred” ( , IV, 26). This petition was referred to the Committee of Claims, and on December 31, 1801, the House resolved not to grant the petition ( , IV, 29).