I have received your letter, informing me that a committee had been appointed by a meeting of the merchants of New York, for the purpose of addressing me upon the present distressed condition of that city, and requesting an audience at as early an hour as my convenience will admit.

I will receive the committee at two o’clock to-day, and will at that, or any other time, more agreeable to them, be pleased to receive any communication which they may desire to present to me. To avoid the misapprehensions to which oral communications are liable, and also to avoid the errors which, with the best intentions, are so apt to occur, on both sides, in giving accounts of such interviews, I think it most proper that the representation of the committee be made in writing. In that form, I shall be happy to receive it, and when so received, it shall be respectfully considered, and answered in the same manner.