War Department — Accountant's Office August 30 1793 Sir On being appointed agent of the War department in the Territory of the United States South of the Ohio, it is my duty to give you instructions respecting that part of your agency which appertains to the paying of the Troops in the service of the United States. The Comptroller's instructions to the Pay Master of the Troops are to be your general guide; it is to be observed that those instructions were contemplated to embrace a System for settlement of the army accounts up to the last August 1792 which will not apply to your transactions. Your business will be to attend to that part intended to operate after that period so far as the same may apply. The instructions of the Comptroller with the form of the Rolls therein referred to were furnished from the War Office. You will find that the form of a Pay Roll for service to August 31. 1792 marked B does not apply to you, the form A of a monthly Muster, and the form C of Monthly Pay Roll of a Company with the form D of a Subledgionary pay roll will be essentially the forms that you will use, and as they were intended for the regular troops of course they will vary according to circumstances, when applied to the Militia. Instance the form D in the heading will be changed to a Pay Roll of Regiment or otherwise as it may happen to the number enrolled. The forms E & I of muster and pay rolls for detachments you will observe by the Comptrollers instructions, more pointedly apply to the detachments of the main army, or of troops held for a considerable time in service, where the main body would be stationary and from which parties would be detached. As your payments to the Militia chiefly will be for transitory services in such cases these forms will not apply, but in any instance where they may apply you will strictly attend to them. I wish to turn your attention to the instructions for paying the troops through subordinate paymasters. You are directed to notify the paymasters that no assignments of pay of a non Commissioned Officer or private are to be considered as valid; that they will produce separate receipts for the sums advance on each pay roll in the settlement of their accounts with the accountant of the War Department. — That in case when the men are unable to sign their names to receipts for their pay, the signature of one Commissioned Officer or two non Commissioned Officers as witnesses to his payment will be deemed necessary vouchers, and you will also instruct them that no partial payments are to be made; the amount due to each person as settled in the pay roll is to be paid and receipted for accordingly. By the [undecipherable] the Comptrollers instructions it will appear that it is expected the money would be in your hands to make the payments of the troops monthly — this probably may not be the case with the Militia, as the distance is so great from the seat of the general Government, that information to be given to the Secretary of War of any body of Militia called into service & the remittance of their pay would be likely to consume more time, than that of their service — of course being discharged and dispersed it is necessary in such case to provide rules for their payment, when personal application would be either inconvenient or impossible. You will therefore notify the Paymasters that when a claimant does not come forward in person, Application is to be made by powers of attorney properly acknowledged, which are in all cases to be considered & treated as revokable instruments until payment is made thereon by the Paymasters & that he will also notify the Soldiery by advertisments in the Gazette [undecipherable] of general resort, where their payments will be made & to advise them of the Law that no assignment of their pay will be considered as valid & that it will be prefered to have the application made in person. — I am Sir Your Ob^t Serv^t — Joseph Howell — P.S. — As the blank rolls for companies which were printed, are all expended, You are furnished from the War Office in lieu thereof with rolls for detachments which can be easily substituted for the former by altering the word Detachment. David Henley Agent of the War Department in the Territory of the United States South of the Ohio —