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A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875
Journals of the Continental Congress --FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 1783
On the report of a committee, consisting of Mr. [John] Rutledge, Mr. [Nathaniel] Gorham and Mr. [Thomas] Fitzsimmons, to whom was referred a letter of the 14 October last from Dr. Franklin, so far as it relates to the mode of paying the salaries of the ministers and other officers of the United States in Europe:
Resolved, That the salaries of the ministers and other officers of the United States in Europe, be estimated in future in dollars, at the rate of four shillings and six pence sterling per dollar:
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That they be paid in bills of exchange upon France or Holland, at the rate of five livres, five sous tournois per dollar, without regard to the variations which may be occasioned by the course of exchange:
That these resolutions retrospect to the first day of January, 1782, when the salaries of the said officers were made payable in America; and that the excess beyond the said net sum in bills of exchange, which has accrued or which shall accrue upon the quarter due on the first day of January last, be carried to the credit of the United States, and accounted for by the Secretary for Foreign affairs, in the adjustment of the accounts of his department on the first day of April next.1
[Note 1: 1 This report was also entered in the manuscript Secret Journal, Foreign Affairs. The report, in the writing of Robert R. Livingston, is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 19, II, folio 345. According to the indorsement, it is the report of Mr. [Samuel] Osgood, Mr. [John] Rutledge and Mr. [Samuel] Wharton, they being the members of the committee appointed December 27, 1782, on Doctor Franklin's letter of October 14, as shown by Committee Book No. 186; but, on February 26, as shown by the same record, Mr. [Nathaniel] Gorham and Mr. [Theme] FitzSimons were appointed in place of Osgood and Wharton.]
On motion of Mr. [Eliphalet] Dyer, seconded by Mr. [Oliver] Wolcott,
Ordered, That the report of the committee to whom were referred two paragraphs of the report of the grand committee on a memorial from the officers of the army, be committed.
War Office, March 6th 1783.
Sir,
On the system of the Quarter Master's Department referred to me, I beg leave to report that I have compared the allowances of forage, waggons, and bat horses to the officers as proposed therein with the several resolves of Congress by which officers are entitled to this provision and I find them correspondent excepting in the allowances to the Adjutant General's Department--the officers of which are entitled by the resolve of the first of August last to a greater proportion than the proposed system provides for--in this instance I would recommend that the system should accord with the resolve alluded to.
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The system proposes certain alterations in the allowance to officers whose supplies of forage, waggons and bat horses have not been so fixed by any resolve as to constitute a claim to any particular allowance. These alterations are pointed out by the Quarter Master as necessary, and as they result from experience I think it would be well to adopt them.
The adoption of the system is otherwise eligible, as it will facilitate business, by bringing into one view all the allowances of forage, waggons, and bat horses which have been granted by the several resolves of Congress, to which reference must be had if the proposed system should not be passed.1
[Note 1: 1 This report is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 149, II, folio 319. According to the indorsement it was read on this day and entered.]
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