From Alexander Hamilton to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, [12 September 1796]
To Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
[New York, September 12, 1796]
Dr Sir
I have received your letter1 transmitting me a draft on H & S Johnson & Co.2 for 857 Dollars & 14 Cents on account of Kinloch’s debt to Mr. Church.3 Lest I should not see you here give me leave to request information in whose care the affairs of Mr. Church have been left by you—& whether any thing more has been done with Mrs Cattle’s alias Bowman’s note.4 The above bill has been accepted.
I trouble you with two letters, one to an old military acquaintance Fleury5—another to a person who not knowing what to do with his money when he left this Country deposited it with me upon my bond in duplicates between 6 & 700 pounds.6 It is very long since I have heared any thing of him. Perhaps he may not exist. You will oblige me by inquiry & if dead concerning his relations, as I am disposed to exonerate myself of my charge.
My best wishes for your happiness & success will follow you every where
Yrs. truly
A Hamilton
P.S. You will excuse the use I make of your Name in these letters. Ducher was a member of the National Convention7
Charles C. Pinckney Esq
ALS, Pinckney Family Papers, Library of Congress.
1. Letter not found.
2. Horace and Seth Johnson were New York City merchants.
3. The following entry appears in H’s Cash Book, 1795–1804, under the date of October 11, 1796: “To J. B. Church for this sum received of H & S Johnson in payt. of Draft received on account of Kinlochs Bond 850.57” (AD, Hamilton Papers, Library of Congress). For information on “Kinloch’s debt to Church,” see Pinckney to H, June 5, 1796.
4. Sabina Lynch, the daughter of Thomas Lynch of South Carolina, married William Cattell, who died in 1778. She then married John Bowman.
5. See the Marquis de Fleury to H, May 28, 1796. H endorsed Fleury’s letter of May 28: “answered by General Pinckny.” For a statement of Fleury’s account with the United States, see Oliver Wolcott, Jr., to H, September 1, 1796.
6. This letter, which has not been found, was addressed to Gaspard Joseph Amand Ducher. Ducher was appointed vice consul ad interim at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1786. In 1788 he was transferred to Wilmington, North Carolina, and in June, 1790, he returned to France. See H’s Cash Book, March 1, 1782–1791.