Livres, 6,204,723 6 6 ------------------- _Dr the Honorable Congress_ 1782, May 18, To balance due to me on the above account, 3,322,390 15 9 Closed the above account, as well debit as credit, of the sum of six millions two hundred and four thousand seven hundred and twentythree livres, six sols, and six deniers tournois; on which the Honorable Congress of the United States of America owe me as balance the sum of three millions three hundred and twentytwo thousand three hundred and ninety livres, fifteen sols, and nine deniers tournois. * * * * * _Dr, moreover, the Honorable Congress._ To amount of the drafts of General Lincoln, drawn at Charleston, in the month of March, 1780, on Samuel Huntington, President of Congress, to the order of M. de Francy, for the purchase of the cargo of the corvette the _Zephyr_, sold by Captain Mainville to the said General Lincoln, Commander of the Southern army of the United States, for the sum of two hundred and twentyfour thousand three hundred dollars, (this for _memorandum_,) for which two hundred and twentyfour thousand three hundred dollars I am yet to be credited, no return having been made to me. Errors and omissions excepted. CARON DE BEAUMARCHAIS. Paris, May 18th, 1782. * * * * * TO GEORGE WASHINGTON. Office of Finance, June 4th, 1782. Sir, I have received your Excellency's letters of the 17th and 25th of May, with the enclosure. I am much obliged by the attention paid in your circular letter to the situation of my department. I am very sorry to inform you that it is really deplorable. I with difficulty am enabled to perform my engagements, and am absolutely precluded from forming any new ones. I have therefore been under the very disagreeable necessity of suffering the public service to stand still in more lines than one. I have been driven to the greatest shifts, and am at this moment unable to provide for the civil list. I can easily suppose that military men should murmur to find the salaries of the civil list more punctually paid than their own. To enter into arguments on this occasion will be unnecessary, for I am persuaded that your Excellency must be of opinion with me, that unless the civil list is paid neither civil or military can exist at all.