Office of Army Accounts. M^r White New York June 16^th 1787 Dear Sir The business of ascertaining the balances of specie due to the Non commissioned Officers & Privates of the southern Lines, on account of the 4 Months pay granted to the Army in 1783 has fallen to my lot in this Office. I have completed all the States southward of Maryland. I have now began on that, and am in need of your advice on the subject to enable me to proceed — I have observed in your Pay Rolls that you have deducted 4 months pay from each of the Non commissioned & Privates in the year 1783 and in your Accounts Current that you have given the Pay M^t Gen. credit for the amount of these deductions, as so much cash received by them — I find also among your papers, an abstract of the 4 Months thus deducted, in the second column of this Abstract you have inserted the monies received by the men from Ford, Claggett & their Paymasters, which in many instances is in full of the balance — but near one half of them appears to have one months pay still due to them, this balance was not carried out by you, nor is the abstract added up or signed by you, which leaves me at a loss, and prevents me from checking or proving it by the entries in your Account Current — I suppose there is a considerable balance in the whole due to the Line in specie, and that you have in your settlements given the United States credit for it as tho actually paid — If this is the case I wish to be informed, and whether this abstract is to be my rule & guide, by which I am to distinguish the sums deducted from the Soldiers pay on settlement — the amount rec^d by him — and the balance still due to him — M^r Purie is in Virginia and Capt. Howell on a visit to M^rs Howell who is sick a Philidelph^a which is the reason I have taken the liberty of writing to you — I wait your answer and am &c Jno. White Esq^r. C. Swan. a Capt. Howell's absence