Beschreibung:

HAMILTON, Alexander. Letter signed ("Alexander Hamilton") TO WILLIAM ELLERY (1727-1820), Treasury Department, 6 April 1791. Docketed by Ellery. 2¼ pages, 4to, seal hole at center crease catching a few letters text, double matted and framed . HAMILTON SENDS INSTRUCTIONS TO THE NEWPORT COLLECTOR, A SIGNER. Hamilton writes to the Newport, Rhode Island collector, concerning the case of captain William Brightman and "the schooner Fly ". Brightman evidently tried to have his ship registered as an American vessel to avoid import duties on his cargo of fish. Hamilton rules that since the fish were caught in the Bay of Gaspee, "within the Dominions of Great Britain," and that "the duties have legally accrued." As to changing the registry, Hamilton notes: "It is not possible to register her as an American Bottom. He went to Gaspee in May 1790, and I presume bought the vessel afterwards, so that she was not American property on or before the sixteenth day of May 1789, which is indispensably necessary to the registry of a foreign built Vessel."