War Department, April 8. 1800 I have received your letter of this date on the subject of compensation to the clerks in your Office. The object of your letter of the 1^st instant was understood to be precisely what it is now explained and the answer was intended to be explicit. The existing law upon the subject of compensation to Clerks, gives to the Heads of Departments the power of varying the compensation to those employed in their respective Departments — affixing however a certain proportion (which cannot be exceeded) of an aggregate sum, to each of the branches, when a Department is distributed into branches, as is the case of the that of War. This law is permanent and has run little more than one Year; [undecipherable] communications you had with the Head of Dep^t relative to the same, and such an apportionment made between the Offices of the principals or Secretarys, and those of the branches, as was thought just and proper by Congress. I have no reason for thinking differently of the apportionments made by this law, now, from what I did when it passed. Are the compensations that were allowed last year in your Office equal to those allowed in the Auditor's or any other analogous Office, to Clerks? If so, I can give no aid to make them higher. The Salaries to Chief Clerks to Secretaries in my opinion ought to be higher than those in any branch of a Department. There appears to me to be an evident distinction — the business of, and the confidence reposed in the first, is of a higher nature than that which applies to the latter, and an excess of Salary in consequence is thought to be just and reasonable. I am Sir, Your ob^t Servant James McHenry [Docket: War Dep^t / April 8. 1800 / The Accountant of / the War Department]