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have been provided with funds for the settlement of these claims but no arrangement of that kind having been made, and that fact being now generally known to the creditors of the Agents suits are threatened against them and I have no doubt will be instituted in numerous cases. A larger amount of the claims are now hypothecated at 5 per cent per month, which if there is much longer delay will absorb the largest portion of them, and many honest Citizens will be utterly ruined. The creditors of the Department are mostly laborers and men of small means, and the disastrous effect this delay is having upon them cannot be adequately described.

It is probable that the course intended to be pursued is to await the filing of the official bond of Mr. McDuffie and then require of him an estimate of the amount of funds required. But it is uncertain when Mr. McDuffie will be ready to file his bond, and after that it would be necessary for him to wait for reports from the Agents before his estimates