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quarto, three letters, 32 pages, Butterworth's retained copies of this series of letters, on thin tissue like paper, in very good clean and legible condition. Butterworth writes to Cobb a series of highly detailed and informational replies to Cobb's requests for information on the possible establishment of a Branch Mint of the United States in New York City: "United States Assay Office, New York, Mar. 9, 1860 Sir, I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 27th . enclosing a copy of a Bill submitted to the Department by the Committee of Commerce of the House of Representatives for the establishment of a Branch Mint at New York, and requesting my views as to the expediency of establishing such Branch, the expense of putting it in operation, and the annual expense of carrying on the operations thereafter, including an estimate of the probable cost of the necessary buildings &c; also asking a statement of the operations of the Assay Office since its establishment, including the annual cost of carrying on the operations, with such further information as I can procure on the subject. In complying with your request, I propose to notice in their order the several topics embraced in your letter. 1. With respect to the Bill referred to you by the Committee of Commerce, I would remark that it has been framed without a proper recognition of the functions of the Assay Office already existing. Its effect, should it become a law, - would be to establish in New York another Assay office with a coinage department added. In no part of this Bill is there anything to indicate that the existing Assay Office is to be merged in the Branch Mint. On the contrary, leaving the Assay Office undisturbed, it provides for another establishment, "in connection with the Assay Office" it is true, but having a corps of officers whose titles & duties will be identical with those of the existing Assay Office, though with a lower grade of salaries. The only new office which it creates is that of Chief Coiner, except indeed that it provides for "one Melter and one Refiner", while in the Assay Office, as in the Mint, these titles are combined and indicate one & the same officer, called the "Melter & Refiner". The Assay Office at New York, established by the Act of March 4, 1853, needs only the addition of a coinage department, and the legal authority to coin money, to make it a complete Mint establishment. I respectfully suggest therefore, that instead of erecting a distinct institution, or of disturbing the existing one, it would be a much simpler procedure to add a Coinage Department to the Assay Office. I enclose a form of Bill framed in conformity with this suggestion. 2. Of the expediency of establishing a Branch Mint in New York, particularly if accomplished in the manner above indicated by the addition of a Coinage Department to the Assay Office, I think there can be little doubt. I do not undertake that I am called upon to express an opinion respecting the location of the existing Mint establishment of the United States. The amount of their business respectively must be the measure by which to determine the extent to which they are severally ministering to the wants of commerce. But whatever may be the claims of other localities, no argument is necessary to show that New York is preeminently entitled to all the advantages which a Government Mint is designed to afford. The same reasons that have determined the location of Mints at London, Paris, & Vienna indicate New York as at least one of the points for a Mint of the United States. It is not only the commercial metropolis of the country, but by its maritime and inland connections is the focal point of the particular commerce in the precious metals. Were the question of the location of the Mint of the United States a new one, the opinion would be unanimous in favor of New York. It is true that the Assay Office now affords i.
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