From Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, 12 March 1793
To George Washington1
Treasury Departmt. 12 Mar: 1793.
Sir,
By an Act entitled “an Act providing for the payment of the first installment, due on a Loan made of the Bank of the U. States”2 the President of the United States is authorised & empowered to apply two hundred thousand Dollars of the money which may have been borrowed, in pursuance of the 4th. section of the Act entitled, “an Act making provision for the reduction of the public debt,”3 in payment of the first installment due to the Bank of the United States, upon a Loan made of the said bank, in pursuance of the eleventh section of the Act for incorporating the subscribers to the said Bank.4
As the installment above alluded to has been due for some time, I have to request your authority to issue a Warrant for the payment thereof, agreeably to the provision of the Law.
I have the honor to be &c.
Alex: Hamilton
Secy. of the Treasury
LC, George Washington Papers, Library of Congress.
1. For background to this letter, see H to the President and Directors of the Bank of the United States, January 1, 1793; H to Edmund Randolph, March 12, 1793.
2. 338 (March 2, 1793).
3. 187 (August 12, 1790). This section provided “That the President of the United States be, and he is hereby authorized to cause to be borrowed, on behalf of the United States, a sum or sums not exceeding in the whole two millions of dollars, at an interest not exceeding five per cent., and that the sum or sums so borrowed, be also applied to the purchase of the said debt of the United States.… Provided, That out of the interest arising on the debt to be purchased in manner aforesaid, there shall be appropriated and applied a sum not exceeding the rate of eight per centum per annum on account both of principal and interest towards the repayment of the two millions of dollars so to be borrowed.”
4. For Section 11 of this act, see H to the President and Directors of the Bank of the United States, January 1, 1793, note 1.