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Subject Area: Economics
Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

to nicholas gouverneur 2 - Alexander Hamilton, The Works of Alexander Hamilton, (Federal Edition), vol. 9 [1774]

Edition used:

The Works of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Henry Cabot Lodge (Federal Edition) (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904). In 12 vols. Vol. 9.

Part of: The Works of Alexander Hamilton, (Federal Edition), 12 vols.

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to nicholas gouverneur2

Mr. B. last evening delivered me your letter, enclosing a copy of your correspondence with Mr. Lewis. In one other respect I feel myself painfully situated, having received a favorable impression of your character. I am sorry to observe any thing to have come from you which I am obliged to consider as exceptionable. Your second letter to Mr. Lewis contains a general, and of course an unjustifiable reflection on the profession to which I belong, and of a nature to put it out of my power to render you any service in the line of that profession. I really believe that you did not attend to the full force of the expression when you tell Mr. Lewis, “ Attorneys like to make the most of their bills of cost”; but it contains in it other insinuations which cannot be pleasing to any man in the profession, and which must oblige any one that has the proper delicacy to decline the business of a person who professedly entertains such an idea of the conduct of this profession. I make allowance for your feelings when you wrote that letter, and am therefore reluctantly drawn into these observations1 .

[2]A merchant of New York.

[1]Reprinted from Reminiscences of F. A. Hamilton, p. 6.