every one comprehend a distance readily when stated to them in miles & cents; so they would in feet and cents, pounds & cents
&c . . .
The
Notes on the Establishment of a Money Unit was bound in with the first edition (privately printed in 1785) of the
Notes on the State of Virginia
.
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2. BOARD OF TREASURY.
Board of Treasury, April 8, 1786. [Begins:] Sir We do ourselves the honor of enclosing the report of this board upon the several references
of Congress relative to the establishment of a mint for the United States of America . . .
Without name of place or printer [
New-York,
1786].
Mss. Div.
4to. 14 leaves, no title-page; addressed by Samuel Osgood and Walter Livingston to His Excellency the President of Congress.
Evans 20042.
Samuel Osgood, 1748-1813, soldier, legislator and politician, was first elected to the Continental Congress in 1781. In 1785 he was appointed
one of the three commissioners of the Treasury. Osgood was one of the founders of the American Academy of Fine Arts. Walter
Livingston was Osgood’s colleague as a commissioner of the Treasury. The third commissioner was Arthur Lee.
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3. ROTHERAM,
John.
Observations on the proposed Plan for an Universal Standard of Weights and Measures; in a Letter to Sir John Sinclair, bart
. . .
Edinburgh:
W. Creech [and others],
1791.
8vo. 20 leaves including the half-title; no copy was seen for collation.
Jefferson’s copy was sent to him by Sir John Sinclair, in return for Jefferson’s gift to him of his own report on the same
subject [see no. 3760]. Sir John wrote from London on December 25, 1790: “Sir John Sinclair’s best Compliments to Mr Jefferson, had the pleasure of receiving his report, upon the subject of establishing
an uniformity in the weights, measures, and coins of the United States; the principles of which evidently proves, Mr Jeffersons
thorough acquaintance with that important branch of police. He embraces the earliest opportunity of sending Mr Jefferson a
very interesting letter upon the subject, by a very respectable mathematician, who has been amongst the first to prove, that
the linear measure of England, the averdupois weight, and the Winchester measure of capacity, are very intimately connected
together and maybe ascertained from the same standard. D
r Rotheram, in the postscript, has very properly remarked, that the English and Americans,
as brethren should use the same weights and measures.--Sir John Sinclair finds with infinite regret an idea very prevalent in England,
that if the late rupture with Spain, had ended with war, the Americans were rather inclined to consider the Spaniards as their
Brethren, than the English. It would give him much satisfaction, had he it in his power to contradict, with some degree of
authority, what he hopes is an ill-founded, and injurious aspersion: for surely the interests of America and of England, are,
or ought to be, the same, and he wishes that societies were established on both sides of the water, for the purpose of promoting
so desirable a connexion . . .”
For Sir John Sinclair, see the Index.
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