Office of Finance, April 23d, 1783. Sir, On the 21st of February, 1782, Congress were pleased to approve of the establishment of a mint, and to direct the Superintendent of Finance to prepare and report a plan for conducting it. This matter has been delayed by various circumstances until the present moment. I now enclose specimens of a coin, with a view that if Congress should think proper to appoint a committee on the subject, I may have the honor of conferring with them, and explaining my ideas of the plan for establishing and conducting a mint. Such plan when reported by a committee, will more probably meet the ideas of Congress than any which I might prepare. I have the honor to be, &c. ROBERT MORRIS.[14] [14] _April 29th._ This morning when I received the book from the office of the Secretary of Congress, in which the Acts of Congress that respect this department are entered every day, I perceived that the committee who had conferred with me respecting my continuance in office after the last day of next month had not reported the whole of the conversation which passed, and that the report as entered on the Journals of Congress, mistakes the sense of what passed on my part. I, therefore, wrote a note to Mr Osgood, informing the committee that they had misconstrued my sentiments. He soon called, and upon my repeating some material parts of the conversation, he acknowledged they had been omitted. I requested him to call the committee together again, but he said they had made their report, and are dissolved, but he would immediately return to Congress, have my note to him read, and move to have the report of the committee expunged from the Journals. _Diary._ * * * * * TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS. Office of Finance, May 1st, 1783. Sir, When I saw the journal of the 28th of last month, I was surprised to find that the report of the honorable committee appointed to confer with me relative to my continuance in office, did not contain those ideas, which I had endeavored to convey. I immediately wrote a note to the chairman mentioning "that the committee had misapprehended the conference on my part." When the conversation passed, I had no expectation of seeing it introduced into the report, or I should certainly have asked permission to deliver my sentiments in writing. I am placed, Sir, in a very painful situation and must therefore entreat your indulgent interpretation of what I am compelled to say. I had the honor of two conferences with the committee, and in the mornings after those conferences, respectively, made short minutes of what had passed. It is my custom to make such minutes with respect to most of my transactions, and as they were originally intended merely to aid my own memory, they are not very minute or particular. Those to which I now refer are contained in the following words;