Pay Office New York January 4 1786 Sir, Your letters of the 8 & 10 Ulle, respecting your three months pay were received this day — in answer to which I have to inform you, that you stand charged in this Office with the same, as paid you by M^r Hailes Stokley — and if that has not been the case, it would not have been in my power to send you the money, until the estimate for the Virginia Line was compleated — as soon as it is, it shall be laid before Congress, and then expect their direction to settle with the whole line at once, for which reason no individual settlement can at present take place. Joseph Howell M^r Jon^a Smith.