[Page 1: Illegible Text placeholder — Some or all of the pages of this file are wholly or in part illegible. We have not been able either to locate a better copy of the document, or to enhance its legibility electronically] [Cover/address leaf — endorsement text written sideways, largely illegible: [undecipherable] / [undecipherable] [undecipherable] / and [undecipherable] [undecipherable]] Fort S^t Tammany 12^th Decemb^r 1796 [hi] I have been to charleston, where I have received from M^r Stevens the pay for the troops from the first of January to the thirty first of August, and fifteen hundred dollars for the recruiting Service - In a few days I shall transmit the payrolls. Enclosed is an estimate of the pay due to Capt. Girardean's troop of dragoons which have been authorized by the President of the United States. I should have sent the muster & payrolls had they been correctly made out - The Secretary of War directed that they should not be mustered beyond the fifteenth of September, but the rolls have been carried up to the twenty fourth day of October, and the pay not charged according to the act of the Second of January 1795. It will therefore be necessary that new rolls should be made. I request you would submit this estimate to the Secretary of War, and that you would find out the money for this and Capt. Randolph's troop as soon as possible. I have not received any roll for the [undecipherable] Infantry, which has also been authorized. I cannot therefore make an estimate for them, or inform you whether any part has been called into Service. The militia are continually making applications to me upon the Subject of their pay. I hope that a final decision will be made upon their claims the next Session of Congress. I have