During the last year of the Revolution and for several years after its close, one of the principal administrative tasks of the government was the settling of the outstanding accounts of the several executive departments. This was a work fraught with extraordinary difficulties. The administration of a government founded and conducted amid the distractions of war was necessarily marked by irregularities in official procedure, the lack of system in accounting, and in general by haphazard ways of business. On February 27, 1782, Congress acting on the recommendation of Morris authorized him to appoint five commissioners with full power and authority to liquidate and finally settle the Revolutionary accounts. Each commissioner was paid $1,500 a year; he was permitted to employ a clerk. The states were recommended to empower the commissioners to examine witnesses under oath. Each commissioner was given charge of a certain class of accounts; to one of the five men fell the settling of the accounts of the Naval Department. Owing to Morris’s caution in making appointments, and to the obstacles that stood in the way of a wise choice, the “commissioner for settling the accounts of the marine department” was not selected until June 19, 1783, when Joseph Pennell, the paymaster of the Marine Office, was named for the place.[303] By the fall of 1783 Pennell was settled in his work, and was complaining of its arduousness. He soon found himself involved in a dispute with the members of the old Naval Committee. He said that they had received money from Congress for which they had not accounted; and that, according to the vouchers, they had paid one debt twice. He found that the members of the Marine Committee were individually charged with the moneys they had received; and that when they left the Committee, they made no settlement. In many instances vouchers were lacking. Statements from members of the Navy Boards and from the naval agents could be obtained only with great difficulty, as these men were now discharged, and they were often scattered. He discovered that the prize agents made no uniform charge for their services; some exacted five, and others two and a half per cent on the receipts from the sale of prizes. Offices for settling the naval accounts were opened in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. On the retirement of Morris, Pennell became responsible to the new Board of Treasury.[304]