From Alexander Hamilton to William Rawle, 13 January 1794
To William Rawle1
Treasury Department
Jaunary 13. 1794
Sir
Inclosed you will find the Copy of a letter of the 4. instant from the Comptroller of the Treasury.2
The subject of it is particularly interesting to the public Credit. I request that you will adopt such prompt and efficacious measures as you shall deem advisable to bring the point of the liability of public Stock to attachment to a determination in the Court of the U States.
Haveing heretofore consulted Wm Lewis Esqe3 on the point you will please to confer and Cooperate with him.
All reasonable expences will be defrayed at the Treasury.
I am with Consideration &c, Sir Your Obt. Servt.
A Hamilton
Wm Rawle Esqr Attorney of the
District of Pennsylvania
LS, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
1. During the American Revolution Rawle, who was a Loyalist, went to London where he became a student in the Middle Temple. After his return to the United States he was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1783 and was made a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1786. On November 7, 1791, Rawle was appointed United States attorney for the District of Pennsylvania to fill the vacancy left by the appointment of William Lewis to the Federal judiciary. Rawle continued to serve in this capacity throughout the seventeen-nineties.
2. Oliver Wolcott, Jr. See also H to Rawle, March 13, 1792; Wolcott to H, June 6, 1792.
3. Lewis served as the first United States attorney for the District of Pennsylvania. From the summer of 1791 until the spring of 1792, when he returned to private practice, he was judge of the United States District Court for the District of Pennsylvania.