[Envelope address: Samuel Hodgson Esquire Philadelphia] [Docket notation, upper right, rotated:] [undecipherable] Gen[era]l / [undecipherable] 23 [undecipherable] March [1798] / C. [undecipherable] Pittsburg March 23^rd 1798 Sir, Your letters of the 16^th instant with their several enclosures together with News papers are just received. I am apprehensive that the certified copy of the account you have obtained and sent me will not answer the purpose intended as some of the Men named therein say that they have not been paid, And Lieut Martin also says he does not recollect having signed his Name as witness, And the duplicate having been either inadvertently or intentionally destroyed there remains no other Means of investigating that Business but by obtaining the Original. I have therefore to request you to make another application for it and to give full assurance of its being safely returned without delay. The Quarter Master General is now absent, as soon as he returns I shall have the Business concerning the Payment of the Ship Carpenters arranged and I am sorry to have it to say that John Taylor, the Superintendent, is so much addicted to strong drink as to render him very unfit for that business. It is a disagreeable task to me to make a formal representation of his conduct to the Secretary of War, and therefore I have to request you to mention to Mr Humphries, in Confidence, that the building of the Gallies would go on much better if the Superintendent paid proper attention to the business. I have this day found it necessary to draw on you at ten days sight in favor of General John Neville for a thousand dollars, and also, this day, in favor of James Hogg at forty days sight for three hundred dollars both which sums be pleased to pay and charge as usual. I am Sir, Your Most obed^t Humble Servant [undecipherable] Samuel Hodgson Esquire Philadelphia