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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 --WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1784.
Congress assembled: Present as yesterday.
Congress proceeded to the election of three commissioners to constitute the Board of Treasury, but not agreeing in a choice,
Ordered, That the election be postponed till Friday next.
The Committee of the Week [Mr. Egbert Benson, Mr. Samuel Dick and Mr. George Partridge] report that the petition of Captain Paschke a deputy quartermaster praying for the grant of 300 dollars to enable him to return to his native country be referred to the consideration of a committee.2
[Note 2: 2 This report, in the writing of George Partridge, is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 41, VIII, folio 198. Paschke's petition, dated October 30, was read this day and is on folio 194. It was referred January 24, 1785, to Mr. [David] Howell, Mr. [Jacob] Read and Mr. [James] McHenry, as the indorsement states.
On this day, according to the indorsement, a letter of December 19, from Joseph Carleton was referred to Mr. [Jacob] Read, Mr. [Samuel] Holten and Mr. [James] Monroe. Committee Book, No. 186, states that the committee was renewed March 14, 1785.
Also, a letter of December 21 from Joseph Carleton was referred to the same committee.]
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The Committee consisting of [Mr Hugh Williamson, Mr William Ellery, Mr William Gibbons] to whom was referred a letter from Edward Fox, Commissioner of accounts enclosing a letter from John Brown Cutting, late Apothecary General, with sundry depositions requesting that his accounts may be settled according to his own statement without any vouchers and that a balance may be paid him, beg leave to report,
That Mr Cutting as appears from his letter compared with sundry affidavits began about six months ago at Easton on the Delaware to prepare his accounts for examination. For this purpose he numbered his vouchers and took them out of the books in which they had been formerly secured and laid those detached pieces into a box in bulk to be taken to Philadelphia. That he caused the box to be carried from his lodgings to a small ferry boat on the river. That as he was crossing the river the box fell into the water by the boat accidentally heeling. That the box was pursued and taken up and within a few minutes was carried back to Mr Cutting's lodging where it was opened in the presence of several persons who affirm that the papers it contained were illegible, tender and soaked to pieces so that nothing could be made out of them. Though two of the witnesses have declared that the box when opened seemed to contain receipts and accounts of medicine and though it is alledged by Mr Cutting that most of the parcels were generally composed of old thin paper yet your Committee have no proof that all the requisite vouchers had ever been put into that box nor can they possibly conceive how papers put into a box in good order should in a few minutes without external violence be soaked to pieces so that they could not be of use in substantiating the different charges brought against the U. S.
Your Committee are therefore of opinion that the proposed mode of settling accounts would deprive the U. S. of any kind of security against impositions.1
[Note 1: 1 This report, in the writing of Hugh Williamson, is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 19, I, folio 623. The indorsement shows that it was read on this day and passed February 7, 1785.]
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