Under the cumbersome and complicated system in vogue in the various offices at the close of the eighteenth century, the very limited staff employed could not keep pace with the pressure of the war. At Woolwich, Sir William Congreve reported that in some branches of his department the accounts were three and four years in arrears, in one branch as many as seven years, and pleaded for an extra clerk, which request, after some correspondence, was granted. This pressure led to laxity of supervision, culminating in corruption even in high places, and at last in 1804 General De Lancey, the Barrack Master-General, the head of the department responsible for the buildings at Norman Cross and other depots, was dismissed for defalcations, and the report of a Commission appointed to investigate his accounts from 1792 to that date, affirms that he had “made the most extravagant bargains both for land and buildings, and actually entrusted the contract for the fittings of barracks to a single individual, upon the easiest and most insecure of agreements. . . . The Commissioners of Audit were ignored, and the authority of the Treasury set aside on the most ridiculous pretexts; and when inquiry was at last made in 1804, it was found that over nine million pounds of public money had been issued to the Barrack Master-General’s department, and that no accurate account could be produced either of the public or private expenditure of the same.” {0a} This Report led to an inquiry by an eminent firm of accountants as to the method of keeping the accounts, and the following extract from their long and detailed report may be of interest, as showing the confused nature of the materials through which we have had to search for facts throwing light on our subject: