Treasury Department Circular to the Collectors of the Customs, 30 March 1790
Treasury Department Circular
to the Collectors of the Customs1
Treasury Department
March 30th 1790.
Sir
Having observed that the several Collectors have hitherto differed in the mode of transmitting to this office, the drafts of the Treasurer of the United States which have been drawn on them and paid: I now desire that those drafts with a receipt endorsed on them, may be transmitted, as soon as they are paid, to my Office, when they shall be covered by a regular Warrant, and your account credited at the Treasury.
In addition to the receipt on the Bill you may for your own security take a separate receipt from the holder, which you will retain: and as a further precaution, it may be well when you forward those drafts, to do it under the eye of some disinterested person, who, in case the same should miscarry, can give evidence of their having been sent on.
I am, Sir, Your obedt. Servt.
A Hamilton
LS, to Sharp Delany, Bureau of Customs, Philadelphia; LS, to Charles Lee, Charles Lee Papers, Library of Congress; LS, to Benjamin Lincoln, RG 36, Collector of Customs at Boston, Letters from the Treasury, 1790–1810, Vol. 2, National Archives; LS, Office of the Secretary, United States Treasury Department; copy, Circulars of the Treasury Department, 1789–1814, Library of Congress; copy, RG 56, Circulars of the Office of the Secretary, “Set T,” National Archives; LS, to Jonathan Fitch, Montague Collection, MS Division, New York Public Library.
1. On the copy of the circular in the Library of Congress there is written “Circular except to Massachusetts.” Actually this circular printed above was sent to the collector in Boston, but not to the other collectors in Massachusetts. See “Treasury Department Circular to the Collectors of the Customs in Massachusetts Except Boston,” March 30, 1790.