quarter this Bureau received $28,000,000, making less than $5,000,000 per month for the first half year. The appropriation for the next six months ending December 31, 1864, was not $100,000,000, but $19,000,000. The language of the appropriation act is unmistakable; "For the purchase of subsistence stores and commissary property, in addition to the unexpected balance of the last appropriation," $100,000,000. The balance undrawn on July 1 was $93,000,000.

The estimate for this Bureau was $177,000,000, and its actual expenses east of the Mississippi about $125,000,000, of which $90,000,000 was furnished, $67,000,000 in currency and $23,000,000 in certificates and bonds which the people are unwilling to receive, and a portion of which has not been disposed of, as the Treasury price of bonds is now 20 per cent. above market price, and there is no law to force the people to take these bonds, so that the Treasury has furnished the currency for le-thirds of the expenses of the Bureau. This Bureau has received about one-fourth of its amount in bonds, which is as much if not more than its fair proportion.

The appropriation asked for, for the present six months, is $120,000,000, or a per diem of $774,000 for the 155 working days, of which a per diem of $370,000 is paid-less than half. The Secretary of the Treasury has fallen into a singular error of making a per diem of $383,000 instead of the above $774,000 (caused probably by his mistaking the estimate for six months for one for twelve months.)

It having been demonstrated that even with the aid of some impressments (partially submitted to by the patriotic), funds adequate to make purchases and impressments could not be obtained, and that arrearages and indebtedness increased to such an extent that credit no longer availed, this Bureau was forced to the conviction that without this aid of impressment and with the unlimited exaltation of prices (the alternative of enforcing impressment) there could not be funds adequately furnished to procure essentials-bread and meat; therefore some curtailment was necessary and inevitable. The Secretary of the Treasury was called on by me last summer and I invited his attention to the alternataive of exaltation of prices without limit as the inevitable result of being forced to yield the aid of impressments, which had no power in law, and was being overthrown by the resistance of the people generally.

Shortly after the 5th of September I called and read him my circular of that date, a copy of which is herewith sent,* in which I discussed these matters and stated that the interest of his Department, of the currency, and the fate of the country, depended, I thought, on the principles of that circular being sustained, and that it should be made at once a subject of Government consideration. It certainly was a subject vital to his Department and my Bureau.

It affords this Bureau the highest satisfaction to be assured through the Honorable Secretary of the Treasury that on this point he has reason to hope that prompt measures of relief will be adopted.

I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

L. B. NORTHROP,

Commissary-General of Subsistence.

[First indorsement.]

JANUARY 19, 1865.

Respectfully referred to the Honorable Secretary of the Treasury inviting his attention to this letter of the Commissary-General,

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*See p. 622.

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