to reply to the different questions which have been
stated to me in as explicit a manner as I am able. To such information
as I can give the Honorable Court is fully entitled; and where that
shall prove defective, I will point out the easy means by which it may
be rendered more complete.

First, I believe I can affirm with certainty, that the several sums
mentioned in the account transmitted with my letter above mentioned were
received at or within a very few days of the dates which are prefixed to
them in the account; but as this contains only the gross sums, and each
of these was received in different payments, though at no great distance
of time, I cannot therefore assign a greater degree of accuracy to the
account. Perhaps the Honorable Court will judge this sufficient for any
purpose to which their inquiry was directed; but if it should not be so,
I will beg leave to refer for a more minute information, and for the
means of making any investigation which they may think it proper to
direct, respecting the particulars of this transaction, to Mr. Larkins,
your Accountant-General, who was privy to every process of it, and
possesses, as I believe, the original paper, which contained the only
account that I ever kept of it. In this each receipt was, as I
recollect, specifically inserted, with the name of the person by whom it
was made; and I shall write to him to desire that he will furnish you
with the paper itself, if it is still in being and in his hands, or with
whatever he can distinctly recollect concerning it.

For my motives for withholding the several receipts from the knowledge
of the Council, or of the Court of Directors, and for taking bonds for
part of these sums, and paying others into the treasury as deposits on
my own account, I have generally accounted in my letter to the Honorable
the Court of Directors of the 22d May, 1782: namely, that "I either
chose to conceal the first receipts from public curiosity by receiving
bonds for the amount, or possibly acted without any studied design which
my memory at that distance of time could verify; and that I did not
think it worth my care to observe the same means with the rest." It will
not be expected that I should be able to give a more correct explanation
of my intentions after a lapse of three years, having declared at the
time that many particulars had escaped my remembrance; neither shall I
attempt to add more than the clearer affirmation of the facts impl