[Administrative notation on outer wrapper: Captn Fleming / received 25 Jany / [96]] West Point, Feby 18. 1796 Sir, Your favors of the 15^th. 19^th. 27^th & 30^th ultimo I have received. I have sent to Col. Fish my duplicate receipts for the 267 dollars, being the pay of the ordnance detachment for Oct. Nov. & Dec. 1795. and my duplicate receipts for the three thousand dollars for contingent expences in the ordnance department at this post. I now enclose you the ordnance detachments receipts for their Oct. Nov. & Dec's pay amount 265 dollars & 99 cents. I also enclose you a pay roll for last month's pay for said detachment. The having to pay Dan'd Olds & [undecipherable] Peter Davis on the expiration of their terms of service, the former on the 25 of December & the latter on the 10 of January, to prevent their being detained on expences here, obliged me to let them sign written receipts, the printed receipt roll I received the 23 ultimo. For uniformity the receipt rolls I now send are all dated the 6 instant. Sickness & death of my son, about 3 years old, prevented my answering your favors sooner, & has prevented my now having ready to send to you a packet of vouchers. There shall not be the least unnecessary delay in closing my accounts. I take the freedom of enclosing you for your perusal, a copy of a small correspondence between Col. Rochefontaine & myself relative to the money business. The source of which correspondence was my finding after he took the immediate command of his regiment here, he had in view, (by his requisitions on me for materials &c) to prosecute the plan of building another house & having other work done for the accommodation of himself & regiment, to the amount of, the head carpenter told me, of about 5 or 6000 dollars. As no estimates had been furnished by him for the money, I conceived it my duty to write to him a letter, of which N° 1 is a copy, — The enclosed, N° 2 is copy of his answer, & N° 3 is my reply to his answer. The original of the copy of the letter from the Secretary of War I referred to in my letter N° 1, was dated November the 21. 1795. — I am, with great respect, Sir, Your most obedient Humble servant G. Fleming Will: Simmons Esquire. — [Copy] West Point, January 29. 1796 Sir, The preceding is a copy of a letter from the Hon. the Secretary of War, the 30 last, I have just received. Immediately on receiving the original I shewed it to Col. Howard who told me he would report the objections wished by his directions to the Secretary of War, and asked he would in future make estimates for him, agreeable to his letter. I then referred to the Secretary of War the money done here for the ordnance department by my directions. In a letter from me, which Col. [undecipherable] acknowledged the receipt, for his letter of which the foregoing is a copy, the original I showed you some days ago, I informed him that I had shewed to Col. Howard's on my books, the amount of the money I had received from the War department since his arrival. & that he told me 500 dollars more would be sufficient to answer his purposes, or completing the accommodations of the Artillerists & Engineers. This I have received and with it I have had to draw for 1000 dollars which you brought me, and the 3000 dollars that I was informed in a letter received at the Post from the War department are in the hands of Col. Fish of New York for me. The 1000 dollars & 3000 dollars I imagined would be about sufficient to help the debts contracted for the United States to about the 8 instant. I now doubt whether these four thousand will be sufficient. On estimates being sent to the Secretary of War & the money deposited in my hands with his instructions from him mentioning the use it is to be put to, I will be responsible for what the Accountant mentions in his letters to me accompanying public money — "the due application of it." I have been under the very disagreeable necessity of borrowing several times, considerably large sums of money, to prevent the repairing of the quarters of the artillerists & engineers from being stopped. Estimates regularly furnished, & the money deposited in my hands prior to my making purchases of the materials & hiring of the work men, would have prevented my being distressed for payments. As Col. Howard, at times seemed to contemplate the having your regiment [undecipherable] & his workmen handed off by the men, to save them here, it may be he has not sent an estimate of what it would cost. I have the honor to be, with great respect & esteem. Sir your most obedient Humble Servant Col. Rochefontaine, Com: of the Artillerists & Engineers — West Point. G. Fleming The following is a copy of a letter from Col. Rochefontaine in answer to the above. West Point, January 30. 1796 Sir, I received your letter of yesterday with the copy of a letter of the Secretary of War of the 21 of November 1795, by which he desires you to send him the details of the works performed with the money expended, and to have in future estimates of the objects on which appropriations are requested. I read the letters I had seen before, and at the times I did not contemplate it as having any other object but to throw some order on future expenditures, and to procure in the meantime some information to the Secretary of War upon the former proceedings — as to what has been done, I have nothing to do with it. Major Howard had his instructions from the Secretary to do it, & he will give of it an account himself: as to the estimate of what is to be done, I will do it as soon as I have some documents to regulate my calculations upon — a powder Magazine I conceive necessary, and a sort of Military stores either by repairing the old one, or by erecting a new one. As the last estimate given are much better calculated [undecipherable] than myself, for the other, I need it — in want of the price of Bricks by the thousands brought to Fort Clinton, the price of lime, the price of [undecipherable] & carriages by the thousand and by days labor — For general, & good Timber will also be requisite, if you can give me what it will be obliged to you. I am with great Esteem Sir your ob: tho': The following is a copy of a letter from G. Fleming to Col. Rochefontaine in answer to the above. West Point, [undecipherable: probable reading Feby] 12. 1796 Sir, Your favors of the 30 ultimo I received the 31. My reasons for addressing you by letter N° 2 ultimo, was to give you a full [undecipherable] matter issued here, in the money line, relative to the accommodations in your regiment, on the day you took the command and from Col. Howard's, and to my claim to get the necessity of your making me estimates for the Secretary, there in a [undecipherable] to his letter, for money to be forwarded to me in time, for the purchase of materials & [undecipherable] of journeys employed by your directions after your having taken the immediate command of your regiment here. I paid last summer for good Hard bricks 60/ per delivered at the commissary landing, [undecipherable] those [undecipherable] cost about 6/ per to cart them from said landing to Fort Clinton. Good slacked lime I paid last summer [undecipherable] a bushel for delivered at said landing — I imagine it would cost about 1¼ per bushel to cart it to said fort. I paid Masons & Bricklayers 1⅓ per day — Carpenters 1⅔ per day and for house frame timber about 25 per hundred feet superficial measure. The estimates for the repairs of the ordnance and military stores were furnished the Secretary of War with the beginning of last April — he transmitted to me the money for the repairing of them; but the materials I had purchased with said money. The workmen I had engaged to repair said store houses Col. Howard applied for & invited to the use. The Artillerists & Engineers quarters — informing me he was to make a furnishing of the repairing of said quarters in time, would enable me to repair the ordnance department store houses to be used — would be too late in the season. No estimate has been sent, however, neither for a powder magazine to be built — The head carpenter handed to me an estimate this morning of materials for such house. I asked him to make a calculation how much money it would amount to, & then deliver it to you. If his calculation meets with your concurrence, on your sending the estimate to me I will forward it to the War Department, & request the money to be immediately sent to me. I have the honor to be, with great respect. Sir Your most obedient Humble Servant Col. Rochefontaine Com. of the Corps of Artillerists & Engineers, West Point.