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A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875
Sir, Philada Decem 2d 1779 You will receive herewith enclos'd an Act of Congress of the first instant refering the Accounts of the Postmaster General to the board of Treasury to be adjusted and liquidated and also augmenting the salaries of the Postmaster General & the Comptrolers to commence on the first Day of September last.(1)
I am, Sir, with great respect, your humble Servt,
S.H. President
LB (DNA: PCC, item 14).
1 This December I resolve was a belated response to Bache's October 5 letter to Huntington reminding Congress of the insufficiency of Post Office department salaries and of his continued inability to pay post riders punctually because payments on the department's accounts were chronically in arrears. See JCC, 15:1149, 1203-4, 1338-39; and PCC, item 61, fols. 43-46, 459-62.
Congress had long been aware of deficiencies in the Post Office, but seemed incapable of offering more than piecemeal reforms, as it adopted recommendations of the Post Office Committee on four occasions between October 1779 and January 1780 in response to Bache's complaints. See Huntington to Bache, December 29, 1779, and January 8, 1780; JCC, 15:1411-12, 1415, 16:19, 21-22; and Jennings B. Sanders, Evolution of the Executive Departments of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1935), pp. 155-57.
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