From Alexander Hamilton to John Chaloner, [22 August 1783]
To John Chaloner1
[Albany, August 22, 1783]
Dr Sir
Mrs. Hamilton has requested her sister2 who left this a few days since on her way to Philadelphia to purchase a few articles there for her, and if she found it necessary to apply to you for the money. I will be obliged to you to advance it on my account and I will in a short time repay it.
We have accounts here that induce us to believe Carleton has received final orders for the evacuation of New York.3 I am Dr Sir
Yr. Obed serv
A Hamilton
Mr. Chaloner
ALS, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
1. H, who had resigned as a member of the Continental Congress, arrived in Albany on August 11, 1783. See H to George Clinton, June 11, July 27, 1783 ( , III, 377, 418–19); H to Robert R. Livingston, August 13, 1803 ( , III, 431–32).
2. Margarita Schuyler, who had married Stephen Van Rensselaer on June 6, 1783, was Elizabeth Hamilton’s sister.
3. On August 17, 1783, Sir Guy Carleton, who had succeeded Sir Henry Clinton as commander in chief of the British forces in North America in May, 1782, wrote to Elias Boudinot, President of Congress: “The June Packet, lately arrived, has brought me final Orders for the evacuation of this place; be pleased Sir to inform Congress of this proof of the perseverance of the Court of Great Britain in the pacific system expressed by the provisional articles, and that I shall lose no time, as far as depends upon me, in fulfilling His Majesty’s commands” (LS, Reel 66, Item 52, p. 217, Papers of the Continental Congress, Library of Congress). Boudinot presented the letter to Congress on August 21, 1783 ( , XXIV, 517).
The British forces completed the evacuation of New York on December 4, 1783.