The Hon^ble Dwight Foster Accountants Office April 15^th 1798 Sir I have received your letter of the 11 Inst^t requesting information on claims stated in a petition of Alexander Power styling himself attorney in fact for Edwards Bryan and upward of twenty five other persons late Soldiers in the Penns^a lines. It appears that the claims stated in his petition are for the depreciation of pay due to sundry Soldiers amounting to near sixteen hundred por in specie which the State of Pennsylvania included in their accounts against the United States and were exhibited for allowance to the late general Board of Commissioners appointed to liquidate and settle the accounts between the United States and the Individual States but whether it was admitted as a credit to the state by the Commissioners it cannot at this time be ascertained — the petitioner remarks that he did not apply to the State of Pennsylvania for the sums so charged for the depreciation of the pay of said Soldiers until after the limitation act made by the State under date of the 25 March 1786, had expired, which enacted that all certificates for depreciation of pay which should not be claimed on or before the 1 April 1787 should be escheated to the State; this was known to the Petitioner when he purchased the claims from the Individuals but being under expectation that the same had not been [undecipherable] to the State and that the claim would rest as a proper charge against the United States, under these impressions he filed claims in this Office on the 25 March 1794, (two days before the limitation act of 27 March 1792 had expired) for like names of persons mentioned in the petition purporting to be from Soldiers late of the