[Address panel: William Simmons Esquire / Account^t War Department / [undecipherable]] [Notation, lower right:] [undecipherable] of Receit [undecipherable] 11^th [undecipherable] Recd & Answd [undecipherable] West Point November 7^th 1796. Sir Returned to this place on the 5^th of the month with the money from New York for the pay of the corps to the 30^th of September and I have here received your letters of the 29^th ultimo. Including an account paid by your order to the printer of Newburg, my expenditures from monies in my hands unappropriated have amounted to one hundred Dollars and I am, [undecipherable], at a loss, in what manner to obey your further directions to pay adjunct Smalls amount and the demand for balances of bounties. The taking of 316 dollars to pay Cap^t Littlefields detachment has left me no money to pay the absentees; and however wrong you might have deemed a measure, which a degree of accommodation only could induce me to undertake, I had hoped that [strikethrough: undecipherable] so far entitled to your indulgence as not to be ordered to pay from amounts, which you knew I had no funds to discharge. Indisposition obliges me to write in haste. with perfect respect [strikethrough: I am] Sir, your very humble Serv^t. Neh. Turner L. & I. Paymaster C. C. E. William Simmons Esquire