Oct 27, 2022 - Sale 2619

Sale 2619 - Lot 14

Price Realized: $ 11,875
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000
U.S. TREASURY CHANGING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE BANK OF NEW YORK HAMILTON, ALEXANDER. Letter Signed, as Secretary of the Treasury, to the President and Directors of the Bank of New York, informing them that the collectors at three major ports have been ordered to refuse notes issued by the Bank of New York. 1 page, 4to; small tear at left edge repaired with cello tape verso, folds, docketing verso. "Treasury Department" [Philadelphia], 15 April 1793
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"The Collectors of New York, Sag-Harbour and Perth Amboy having been instructed to discontinue after the 1st of June next, to receive, and exchange for Specie, the cash notes and Post notes of the Bank of New York, I have thought it proper to communicate this arrangement for your information."
When Hamilton assumed the office of Treasury Secretary in 1789, he turned to two of the nation's largest banks--the Bank of New York and the Bank of North America--for short term loans to help pay the government's debts. Partly to service the loans, and partly to control the amount of gold and silver coin ("specie") available for use by the government, Hamilton occasionally ordered the collectors of duties at the nation's various ports to accept as payment the notes issued by these and other state banks. The Treasury then took the collectors' notes to the same banks and received specie in exchange. On April 15, 1793, when Hamilton's efforts to balance credit and specie had helped bring the financial crash of 1792 under control, the collectors were instructed by Hamilton to cease accepting notes issued by the Bank of New York, thereby clearing the way for the Bank of the United States to play a larger role in the national economy and to provide an increasingly stable national currency.
Published in The Papers of Alexander Hamilton Digital Edition, ed. Harold C. Syrett (Charlottesville: U of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2011), 319.