1. Written in either 1790 or 1791, but the editors lean toward the former on the presumption that Hamilton was enclosing a draft of his “First Report on the Further Provision Necessary for Establishing Public Credit,” presented to the House on 13 Dec. 1790. The secretary also submitted a “Second Report …” (proposing a national bank) on 13 Dec., but he did not finish this report until that day. Another possibility (which the editors of the Hamilton Papers accept) is that the enclosure was the “Report on the Subject of Manufactures,” communicated on 5 Dec. 1791 (Syrett and Cooke, Papers of Hamilton description begins Harold C. Syrett and Jacob E. Cooke, eds., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (26 vols.; New York, 1961–79). description ends , VII, 210, 236; IX, 528). In view of the great length of this report, however, Hamilton could scarcely have expected JM and Jefferson to read and comment on it by the next day. Another circumstance weighing against the 1791 date is the increasingly strained relations between Hamilton and the two Virginians.