(a copy where of is sent with and forms a part of the present.)-showing the numbers of the routs under contract, between what places the mails were carried, how often, what distance, the names of the conlTactors, and their compensation. To pay a part of the sixteen hundred dollars, which was represented as being then and is still due to those who have been employed in the transportation of the mails, I had suggested to the President the necessity of having a thousand dollars appropriated for this department for the purpose of being distributed among them, which it was believed would have been satisfactory, & sufficient to have enabled them to discharge the debts which they had contracted, for expenses actually and necessarily incurred. It must be apparent to all that this business cannonl be carried on without considerable expenditures for horses, travelling charges &c. &c, and it may not be improper to say, that some of the contractors could not, without serious injury to themselves, continue in their vocation, unless their pay or a portion of it was received. Had the public funds of the country been more abundant than they are, thee President feeling as he must the great necessity and want of mail conveyances, would, there is no doubt, have taken pleasure in making the appropriation, and the money would have been paid to the rightful owners, and perhaps, with the exception of the mail-rout between San Felipe and Mina, owing to the burning of both and the indian hostilities until very recently in the neighhorhoocl of the latter, the mails would, soon after the battle of San Jacinto, have been carried on all the established routs in the country. This, however, not being done, the well-known scarcity and high prices of horses in the country, owing to the great number required for and in the army and many of the contractors being, since the memorable 21st of April of the present year in the army, has rendered, until now, a renewal of this business impracticable. Exertions are agin making to have the mails in operation, certainly by the tenth of the present month, if not soomer; to do which, however, I have promised some payments from my own funds, if none can be had elsewhere. The present debt clue to the contractors, if they resume their duties as such, on all the routs, to the expiration of the present quarter, will be increased to the sum of three thousand nine hundred forty four dollars sixteen & two cents. It will be proper lo remark, that in the
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