To Alexander Hamilton from Roger Alden, Brockholst Livingston, Carlile Pollock, Gulian Verplanck, and Joshua Waddington, 29 December 1791
From Roger Alden, Brockholst Livingston,
Carlile Pollock, Gulian Verplanck, and Joshua Waddington1
New York 29 Decr: 1791
Sir
A number of your fellow Citizens desirous of expressing the sense they entertain of the important Services you have rendered your Country, have raised by Subscription a Sum of money to defray the expence of a Portrait of you, ⟨to⟩ be executed by Mr Trumbull, and placed in one of our public Buildings.2
We have therefore to request that you will b⟨e⟩ so condescending as to allow Mr Trumbull to wait upon y⟨ou⟩ for the above purpose, at such time as will suit your convenie⟨nce⟩ and will also be pleased to permit the representation to exhib⟨it⟩ such part of your Political Life as may be most agreeable to yourself.
We have the honor to be, with perfect sentiments of esteem & respect; Your most humble sert.
| Gulian Verplanck |  |
|
| Roger Alden | ||
| Brockholst Livingston | Committ⟨ee⟩ | |
| J Waddington | ||
| Carlile Pollock |
To Alexander Hamilton Esqr
Secretary of the Treasury of the United States
LS, Hamilton Papers, Library of Congress.
1. Alden, Pollock, and Waddington were New York City merchants; Livingston, the son of William Livingston, was a leading New York City attorney; and Verplanck was the president of the Bank of New York. H, with the assistance of Livingston, had served as Waddington’s counsel in the famous case of Rutgers v Waddington in New York in 1784.
2. This full-length portrait of H by John Trumbull was completed in 1792 and now hangs in the Assembly Room of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York in New York City. H did not sit for the portrait; it was executed from Trumbull’s earlier bust portrait of H which the artist had painted at the request of John Jay (Harry MacNeill Bland and Virginia W. Northcott, “The Life Portraits of Alexander Hamilton,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., XII [April, 1955], 190–91). See frontispiece of this volume.