“For Heavens sake, Use for once your Influence to defer this till my Arrival—when it will not be Necessary. My Public Transactions are not blended with my private affairs. Every Farthing will be Immediately accounted for. Of this I pledge my Honor,” William Duer wrote to Alexander Hamilton on March 12, 1792. “If a Suit should be brought on the Part of the Public, under my present distrest Circumstances, My Ruin is complete.”
Duer’s panic is unmistakable in his letter. His financial plans had unraveled, but those failed plans looked to not only ruin him, but possibly the young country’s entire financial standing. Such was his situation that he felt emboldened to contact his former boss and his cousin by marriage. Duer had been secretary of the Treasury Board when the United States was under the Articles of Confederation. Hamilton had appointed him assistant secretary of the Treasury in 1789, after the adoption of the Constitution.
