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Sir:

As the intelligence I am to communicate is in my opinion of the highest consequence to the Mercantile Interest of America I presume any apology for the Freedom I take in writing to your Excellency is unnecessary.

The Discovery I am to make is an Intended Forgery of the paper Currency of America so ingeniously executed as to elude Discovery. One of the persons concerned in this nefarious Business has applied

to me to print off a considerable Number of Notes of different Provisions. I give him such an answer as inclined him to believe I would comply with his request, that I might have it in my power to destroy in Embryo, a Scheme artfully calculated to invade private property & materially injure the Credit of a commercial Nation. He went away satisfied and returned in a few hours with a wood cut of one of the Notes, an exact copy of the Original, and Metal Corners precisely the same as those on the reverse side; he had sundry other Notes with Metal ornaments which he also wanted impressions of. He is meanly dressed as a Sailor & apparently ignorant, but his Habit and Conversation have the appearance of Disguise. There is no doubt but he has Accomplices in London, for on Discovering a deficiency of two Articles in the Border of a Note, of which he wanted 1,000 Copies, he informed me he would send to town for them. The wood cuts & Metal Borders are so nicely imitated as to render a Discovery of the Forgery extremely Difficult.

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