Report on the Petition of Robert Oliver and Hugh Thompson, [2 February 1795]
Report on the Petition of Robert Oliver
and Hugh Thompson1
[Philadelphia, February 2, 1795,
Communicated on February 2, 1795]2
[To the President of the Senate]
The Secretary of the Treasury to whom was referred by the Senate, the Memorial of Oliver and Thompson3 respectfully makes thereupon the following report.
It is the object of this Memorial to obtain restitution for a sum of duties alleged to have been overpaid in the district of Baltimore in consequence of certain mistakes.
The business of rectifying mistakes in similar cases after a considerable period of time has elapsed and the accounts of the Officers made up rendered and settled is very delicate, and even very dangerous. If the rectifying of these mistakes too is to let in evidence, subsequent to the entry of a different value or a different quality of Goods from that which appeared at the entry, the practice would be liable to insuperable objections. It would amount to nothing less than the dispensing with the evidence of that identity, which results from the actual inspection of Goods by the public Officers at the time of their entry and landing.
Where mistakes are those of the Public Officers, and are early discovered and capable of being indubitably ascertained, they are rectified of course. Where they are of the parties so as to render supplementary proof necessary and especially where they have been of long standing, they ought not to be rectified. These rules are equally applicable where they operate for or against the public.
The mistakes alleged by the present Memorial are of so long standing as to suggest a very strong Objection on that account.
Upon the whole matter the Secretary is of opinion that a special interposition of the Legislature in favour of the Memorialists is inexpedient.
Which is respectfully submitted.
Alexander Hamilton
Secy of the Treasy
DS, RG 46, Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury, National Archives.
1. Oliver and Thompson were members of a Baltimore merchant firm.
2. , IV, 818. Although this report was sent to the Senate on February 2, 1795, it had been prepared before H had resigned as Secretary of the Treasury.
3. On April 8, 1794, the House received “A memorial of Oliver and Thompson, of the town of Baltimore, praying that certain errors made to the injury of the memorialists, in the payment of the duties on fifteen boxes of Irish linens, and thirty pipes of Madeira wine, imported into the United States in the years one thousand seven hundred and ninety-one, and one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two, may be rectified” (, II, 115). The memorial is dated March 10, 1794, and is endorsed by H: “The Comptroller will consider this after which we will converse. A H” (DS, RG 46, Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury, National Archives). The petition was read in the Senate on May 7, 1794, and referred to H (, IV, 95). On February 5, 1795, after H’s report on their petition had been read in the Senate and “ordered to lie for consideration,” Oliver and Thompson’s memorial was again presented in the House of Representatives and again referred to committee (, IV, 818, 1173; , II, 315).