Office of Army Accounts May 5^th 1786 Gentlemen Agreably to the direction of your honorable Board they beg to state on the petition of Patrick Bennet praying a depreciation Allo on the Forage Master Department. — That the paper money being a tender and considered when paid, as a compleat discharge of all debts and contracts during the period of its circulation, it remains only with Congress to point out such characters or departments as they please to except from this general rule, and as there is not any provision of this nature for the Quarter Mast Department, the executive Officers of Congress are not at present at liberty to make any such allowance. That M^r Bennet, having left the service agreably to his own desire on the 17 March 1780 cannot be intitled to his depreciation supposing that the Quarter Master department are eventually to receive it and on the same principles with the Officers of the line, because the Act of the 10 April 1780 granting the same, and the several subsequent resolutions of the 8^th Day of August 1780 and the 15^th of May and 12^th of August 1780 have declared it to be the uniform intention of Congress to exclude all such as were not in the service on that Day, I am therefore of opinion without an examination into the justice