On the Correspondence of Governor I). D. Tompkins. 229 



And yet if they had paid him his just due they would not have can- 

 celled their obligations to him, as his pecuniary claims on them ex- 

 ceeded any debts he owed either to the State or to the nation. 

 Letters preserved in this collection of manuscripts from President 

 Monroe and Henry Clay prove that after the war ami after Governor 

 Tompkins' death. 'then" was still due to him from the United States 

 about $92,000, of which only oae-half was ever paid to his family. 



With regard to the controversy on his indebtedness to the State 

 proceeding from Comptroller Mclntyre and from the legislature, the 

 historian Hammond admits that both political parties wished to pay 

 him what might he due, hut dilTered ahoul the form, and adds: "Both 

 parties admitted that lie had nut wasted or appropriated to his own use 

 the public moneys." The reason the controversy assumed the shape 

 it ultimately did/and of the adverse action of the two houses, was that 

 both parties thought they could make political capital out of it, and 

 eac h party thought it could make more than the other. 



As late as the year 1847, his death having occurred in 1825, or twenty- 

 two years previously, his family presented his claims at Washington, 

 and were paid by the government nearly *:»<), 000, though it was only a 

 part of what was due to him as generally admitted. To make more 

 intelligible an extract I am about to read regarding Governor Tomp- 

 kin's embarrassment in money matters, I will mention that in the 

 village now called Tompkinsville, on Staten Island, Governor Tomp- 

 kins was once the possessor of a large number of acres of land, now 

 covered with houses, and the streets of the village are to this day 

 named after his sons and daughters. 



The extracts to which I refer are from two letters addressed to me 

 in 1883 and 1885, regarding the Tompkins' papers by Henry B. Daw- 

 son, of Morrisania, an eminent historical writer, who was for many 

 years editor of the Historical Magazine. He writes : 



" The letter-books and some of the papers of Governor Tompkins 

 were in my possession for some years, and I think I am con.pe ent to 

 pass upon the value of those manuscripts, as materials for history. I 

 say without hesitation that there is nothing in the country to be com- 

 pared with them for importance concerning the war of 1812, and the 

 crowning part which New York with her governor bore in that con- 

 flict, can nowhere else be seen. The United States were dependent on 

 the personal indorsement of that same governor to the Bank of America 

 for the money which they could not provide anywhere else; and after 

 all, those same United States permitted its paper to go to protest on 



