New York April 8. 1785
Sir,
I learn with pleasure that Mr. Osgood has accepted of the appointment of one of the Commissioners of the Board of Treasury.1
The confidence I have in this Gentlemans Character has determined me to add my best endeavours in rendering every service to the Public, in the arduous Department, to which the Suffrages of the United States have been pleased to call me, which the present state of the Revenue will admit of.
Your Excellency will therefore be pleased to Signify to Congress for my acceptance of the Honorable Trust reposed in me, and to assure them that I enter into the Execution of the Office, with a diffidence which nothing can alleviate but a well grounded hope that the Members of Congress will give every support to the Department, which its present Situation, and general importance claims: and that they will use their influence with their Respective States, on whose exertions all must ultimately depend, to comply chearfully and without delay with such requisitions as the United States shall judge necessary.
I have the honor to be, Your Excell's Most Huml Servt
Walter Livingston
Receiver's copy, Papers of Continental Congress, item 78, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
1 See Rufus King to Elbridge Gerry, March 20, note 4.