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

to —— - Alexander Hamilton, The Works of Alexander Hamilton, (Federal Edition), vol. 10 [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. 10.

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

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to ——

  • Albany,

October 1, 1793.

Contemptible as you are, what answer could I give to your last letter? The enclosed is a copy of what shortly will appear in one of the gazettes of the City of New York:

“One Andrew G. Francis, late clerk in the Treasury Department, has been endeavoring to have it believed that he is possessed of some facts of a nature to criminate the official conduct of the Secretary of the Treasury, an idea to which, for obvious reasons, an extensive circulation has been given by a certain description of persons.

“The public may be assured that the said Francis has been regularly and repeatedly called upon to declare the grounds of his suggestion, that he has repeatedly evaded the inquiry, that he possesses no facts of the nature pretended, and that he is a despicable calumniator.”2

[2]This letter is reprinted from the History of the Republic, vol. v., p. 424. At the previous session Giles and Madison had made this attack on Hamilton, who had replied to them, and who then, on December 16, 1792, asked for another inquiry. Before this his enemies attempted to arouse feeling against him by procuring one Francis, a dismissed clerk, to declare that Hamilton had speculated in soldiers’ certificates, and they are said even to have sent a lawyer to Philadelphia to collect evidence. Hamilton thereupon published the card quoted above, which dashed the whole slander to pieces. It was in this connection that this letter was written, but the whole matter is so blindly stated in the History of the Republic that it is impossible to tell whether the letter was addressed to the lawyer just referred to, to some anonymous assailant, or to some one of the Secretary’s open enemies.