sixteen hundred dollars which was reported as being due to the contractors for the quarter, ending on the 31st of March last, no part of the amount which may be claimed and said to be due to those, whose contracts for routs Numbered i. 11. and 12 had commenced on, and been in operation from the first of that month, was included; which, being added to that sum and their pay for the next ensuing quarter, will increase their claims against the Government, to four thousand one hundred seventy seven dollars fifty cents; and for the purpose of showing what has been the entire cost of the mail establishment lo the Government, since the second of November 1835, I will acid four hundred and eleven dollars, as being the amount received on individual subscriptions and a balance due me for advances made to this department, as will appear by the account current (exhibit No 4) making a sum total of four thousand five hundred and eighty eight dollars and fifty cents, exclusive of the salary for the officer al the head of the department.From the best estimate which it has been possill le to make, it is believed that between ten and eleven hundred dollars may be received for postages, which is certainly less than il would have been, had the mail arrangements not been interrupted by the war. By this calculation it will appear, that the Post Office department will be for the present year a tax to the government; but it will be recollected, that the same department in the United States, when il commenced its operations was, and has been, even of late year, a charge to that government. Among that portion of our citizens who had remained with their families, and whose precipitate flight before a retreating army was attended with such disasterous consequences, were included all the Post Masters; owing to which circumstance, it has not, as yet, been in the power of all to render their accounts to this department : for moneys which they have received, either for postages or collec~ed on the 30th day of October 1835, by the General Council of Texas, was authorized to receive-"which sums of money so obtained by him were to be refunded to the subscribers, as soon as the receipts of the Post Office Department would enable him so to do." The amount and names of the persons from whom money has been received by me upon these subscription papers, and the use to which it has been applied, will be found in the account current sent herewith.
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