MINT.

Communicated to Congress, January 11, 1803.

Gentlemen of the Senate
     and of the House of Representatives:

I transmit you a report, received from the Director of the Mint, on the subject of that institution.

TH: JEFFERSON.

January 11, 1803.

. . . . . . . .

Mint of the United States, 1st January, 1803.   

The Director of the Mint of the United States begs leave respectfully to make his annual report on the issues and state of the mint.

He is happy to inform the President that the bullion, deposited in the mint during the past year, has far exceeded what was expected at the beginning of it, notwithstanding the considerable check given to deposites, for sometime, by frequent reports from the seat of Government, during the last session of Congress, that the mint be abolished.

Since the 1st day of January, 1802, there has been issued from the mint a sum, amounting, in the whole, to five hundred and sixteen thousand one hundred and fifteen dollars and eighty-threee cents, as will appear in detail by schedule No. 1, hereunto annexed, which have been added to the current coin of the Union. Of this sum, one hundred and twenty nine thousand seven hundred and thirty dollars and ninety one cents, in value, in gold, have been coined from bullion and gold dust imported into the United States, and collected to the mint, as a centre, from the different parts of the Union. The balance of the gold coinage has been coined from clipped, plugged, and otherwise spoiled foreign coins, which have been sent to the mint as bullion. Had not this whole sum been coined in the United States, it must have been remitted to the European markets, in which case the freight, insurance, and commissions, with the profits on the cents, would have amounted to a sum nearly equal to the current expenditures of the mint.

All these deposites were private property, the certificates for which were sold, generally, as soon as given, to the banks in this city, at a fourth and a half per cent. discount for the delay of coinage. The banks are fond of keeping the coin in their vaults, as part of their capitals, on account of the ease with which they are counted, without the trouble of weighing. The Bank of the United States, indeed, having a considerable part of their specie in this coin, have been enabled, for some time past, to cancel their five dollar notes, and to substitute the payment of half eagles, by which our coins begin to be more generally dispersed among the people.

There have never been any of the precious metals coined on account of the Government of the United States.

Comparative issues from the mint, for the past year, have amounted to seventeen thousand four hundred and sixty-two dollars and sixty-five cents, as will appear from schedule No. 3, from which the profits on the copper coinage, amounting to $5,644 33 should be deducted. Besides the cents on hand, we have near twenty-four tons of copper planchettes ready for striking; the coinage of which are in daily operation, at the rate of fifteen thousand cents a day.

It is a duty incumbent upon the Director of the Mint respectfully to call the President's attention to the expiration of the law of the United States, for continuing the mint at Philadelphia, on the 4th of March next, by its own limitation. It, therefore, becomes absolutely necessary that the subject should be brought before Congress, so early, that provision may be made for the contingency. If Congress should rise without doing any thing therein, the mint could not be continued in Philadelphia, with propriety; neither could it be removed to the seat of Government, for want of a law to authorize it.

It is but doing justice to merit to say, that the officers of the mint, concerned in the coinage, and the workmen, have greatly increased in their professional knowledge, and have acquitted themselves with strict integrity, and particular attention to their several departments, for many years past; so that not a dollar has been lost, except in one solitary instance, when the culprit was detected by their assiduity and care, prosecuted and punished, and it was by their exertions that the mint was kept open during the late distress of the city, by the fever of last summer.

If the mint should remain in its present situation, there will be a necessity of, at least, two additional horses, and some repairs to the machinery - part of it having been repaired, the past year, from necessity. At least five hundred dollars will be necessary, in that case, to be added to the usual estimate, to be appropriated for the purchase of horses, and further repairs to the present machinery.

All which is respectfully submitted to the President, by his very obedient and humble servant,

ELIAS BOUDINOT, Director.

To the President of the United States.

An abstract of the Coins struck at the Mint of the United States, from 1st January to 31st December, 1802.

Mint of the United States, Treasurer's Office, Philadelphia, 31st December, 1802.

Comparative statement of the coins issued by the Mint of the United States, from the year 1798 to 1802, inclusive, viz.

Mint of the United States, Treasurer's Office, Philadelphia, 31st December, 1802.

An Abstract of the Expenditures of the Mint of the United States, from 1st January to 31st December, 1802, inclusive.

Mint of the United States, Treasurer's Office, Philadelphia, 31st December, 1802.

A Statement of the gain on Copper coined at the Mint of the United States, from 1st January to 31st December, 1802.

Mint of the United States, Treasurer's Office, Philadelphia, 31st December, 1802.