Skip to main content
View PDF

S[tephen] Pleasonton to MVB, 4 January 1826

Sir,

I have had the honor to receive your note of the 1st enclosing a letter to you from Gerrit Gates. The suit now pending against the sureties of John Gates, late Paymaster, was instituted for the double prospects of establishing our claim against them, and of vindicating the character of some of our accounting officers, whose official acts, it is alledged, had been misrepresented, on a former trial by John Gates who having been discharged from prison on a suit against him was admitted as a witness in the suit. The testimony of Gates, which was calculated to shake the public confidence in the settlement of their accounting officers, having been made public, it was deemed important that the refutation should also be made public in the place where the injury was done, and with this view the necessary <proofs> have been transmitted to the District Attorney with instructions to accelerate the trial as much as possible. As Gates or his sureties have a petition before Congress, as I am informed; where the accounting officers will doubtless be heard on the subject of his claim, I have concluded to suspend the trial <at Utica>, until the close of the present Session of Congress, and have this day written to Mr. Beardsly our Attorney to that effect.

I am &c,

signed, S. Pleasonton

Agent of the Treasury

Images for this document are currently unavailable.
Source: DNA National Archives and Records Administration
Collection: RG 206 Dept. of the Treasury, Records of the Solicitor of the Treasury
Series: Series 5 (1 January 1825-3 March 1829)