[Docket/cover page — heavily obscured by ink damage; partial text only] [[undecipherable] Board[?]] [[undecipherable] Jan[uary?] [undecipherable]] [[undecipherable]] Pay Office New York January 24. 1786 Gentlemen [underline: A Discription] Colo. [undecipherable] in opening the accounts of the Army, has raised charges against every person to whom money has been paid, at either for pay, subsistence, contingences or on account — and I have in the course of my settlements brought as many of the Officers to account on those principles as lay in my power, and where it has [what has so far closed] been done, the accounts were [undecipherable] closed in the Books of this Office — but there yet remains numerous accounts that must, [be] unsettled, [undecipherable] [undecipherable] [undecipherable] when I give up the duties of my Office [undecipherable] — on which [undecipherable] my opinion on which, according to the nature of the several accounts, I take the liberty to submit to your honorable Board, that I may receive directions, and [undecipherable] [undecipherable] proceed on the most expeditious and regular plan in the closing of so extensive a business — [seriously] [certain] Those charges which arise from services performed [I am truly [undecipherable]] when the accounts were settled at the time, I propose [undecipherable] by balancing obliging the respective accounts to which such services belong — on this principle that it is necessary to make a person produce vouchers attested [undecipherable] or for [undecipherable] obtained by him and that the evidence at the time, must be now ascertain than any which can be produced now — Those Accounts which are founded on recepts for monies received on account, to be paid to others, or for recruiting, & which are unsolvd, I propose to make out by States, a complete account of, by States, that if the same, may if it is found expedient, be furnished the executive of the States, or some other person appointed for the purpose that actions may be brought for the recovery of the money — but it appears [undecipherable] [shal] their accounts only longer open in no United States Office, where [it has] this method has been so long attended with no success — a [undecipherable] part of these accounts are balances charges against Militia Officers and the [undecipherable] in the Army, who received the regimental pay [prior to the appointment] of regimental paymasters in 1778, 1779, and the beginning [mostly] of 1777 — These persons being now out of service from the kind of receiving the money and scattered throughout the States, if alive, will but few of them, [undecipherable] be brought to account — They received the money, as [undecipherable] numbers [undecipherable] principly on the returns & musters of the Army examined, agreeably to the directions of the Generals and for men who were on the spot to receive the money, as then the military Officers had another duty of [undecipherable] to perform at the [accepted of this branch] time, and only from necessity accepted [undecipherable] the money, and to [undecipherable] which they paid without any compensation for their trouble or reward as no resolution of Congress has them enjoined & requiring them to account with the publics, and as they had taken up the Idle from foreign Service, that they had in the first instances produced sufficient vouchers to satisfy that I beg leave also to suggest, that the Act of Congress of Nov. 3^d 1783, having directed men to deliver to the regimental agents the certificates, for the arrears due to the army, that I did lodge the agents receipts in the following words viz. "Rec'd of J.P. — certificates amounting to — numbered from — to —, all which certificates I do hereby promise to deliver to the individuals to whom they respectively belong, or deposit them for their benefit as the supreme executives of the [State?]" [undecipherable] 1783 — copies of which receipts or obligations I have transmitted [I am informed [undecipherable]] omitted to the respective executives, [undecipherable] but, that the States have only called on the agents to deliver up their remaining certificates, without obliging them to account for that they had [undecipherable] vouchers from the individuals [undecipherable] that when they had delivered them out, as was [undecipherable] [then / which they did not attest] the agents at liberty to [undecipherable] the certificates [undecipherable], has originated rather from a [undecipherable] this resolution and of the one of May 11. 1785. as it ought to be the duty of some Officer to call the agents to account, [then] for which reason, I think it necessary the attention of Congress to the subject, that the duty of the States or the Officers of Congress may be clearly [undecipherable] — and I beg leave also to suggest the propriety it publics, that the money was due, they were in the second instance only accountable to the men for its payment as they had generally never taken any vouchers & when [in many instances] they were taken bound last or miss [undecipherable] them from the accounts of their service — and as but a small part [undecipherable] of this money [undecipherable] probably remains in the [undecipherable] of those Officers, [undecipherable] provision that calling them taking further measures to call [them] their Officers to account will be attended with more expence to the United States than any advantages that may probably arise and therefore believe submit to the consideration of the Board, the propriety of ballancing their accounts, by charging the same to the pay of the real amount of the pay of the Army [undecipherable] but it. proceeds of the settlement made by the States — and would do make it necessary that I produce an account of the charges which ought to be made on the part of the United States for the payments made in the old emissions — but the States having taken no preparatory step for the proposed [undecipherable] having closed the depreciation accounts, & I suppose [undecipherable] [undecipherable] only a discount to the Continent of the balances they have actually paid for depreciations. [undecipherable] at this [I presume that any] to the Commissioners as a Board. toward their accounts now rendered will be of little service, and that the accounts as they have been kept by the States, cannot without great labor be stated in the manner I have mentioned — I therefore [undecipherable] [undecipherable] will be worked [undecipherable] [undecipherable], I beg leave to submit the same consideration of the Board, and desire that I may [any] [undecipherable] accordingly take as early measures as possible & transmit them [28874] [Board of Treasury]