To Alexander Hamilton from Thomas Smith, 1 August 1792
From Thomas Smith
Loan Office [Philadelphia] Penna Augt 1, 1792
Sir
I have received a letter from Mr. A. J. Dallas secretary to the Commonwealth with enclosures which I now forward for your inspection.1
The whole of the subscriptions since the 1st June last in Certificates of the Assumed Debt of this State, amo. to £ 46,985. equal to 125,293 30/ which with 674,675 Dollars received before the 30th sepr. 1791 makes in the whole 799,968 30/.
Mr. Donnaldson Regr2 & Mr Nicholson Compr.3 are of opinion that there are very few of the Certificates of the State Debt now outstanding.
I have had but one small Certificate of the sort called the New Loan Issued by David Rittenhouse Treasr & John Nicholson Compr. under the funding law of this State4 since my conference with you which I offered to receive but informed the Person that nothing further could be done in it untill I received further Instructions on which it was withdrawn.
I have the honor &c.
Honble. Alex. Hamilton secy Treasy U S.
LC, RG 53, Pennsylvania State Loan Office, Letter Book, 1790–1794, Vol. “615-P,” National Archives.
1. According to the executive minutes of Pennsylvania, a copy of “… the opinion of the Attorney General [Jared Ingersoll] which was received on the twenty-eighth instant, respecting the question whether the New Loan certificates of Pennsylvania are subscribable to the loan proposed by Congress to the State creditors,… was … enclosed to Thomas Smith Esquire Commissioner of Loans for this State, in a letter from the Secretary of the Commonwealth” (, 433). See enclosure.
2. John Donnaldson was register general of Pennsylvania.
3. John Nicholson was comptroller general of Pennsylvania. See Thomas Mifflin to H, December 27, 1791, note 1.
4. Rittenhouse was treasurer of Pennsylvania from 1776 to 1789.
“New loan” certificates were issued under “An Act for the Further Relief of the Public Creditors who are Citizens of This State by Receiving on Loan Certain Debts of the United States of America …” (, XII, 158–64 [March 1, 1786]).