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Departments, to the auditors respectively charged with the examination of those accounts, and that certificates signed by them, shall be of the same effect as that directed to be signed by the register.

. And be it further enacted, That the auditors of the public accounts shall be empowered to administer oaths or affirmations to witnesses in any case in which they may deem it necessary for the due examination of the accounts with which they shall be charged.

. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to cause all accounts of the expenditure of public money to be settled within the year, except where the distance of the places where such expenditure occurs may be such as to make further time necessary; and, in respect to expenditures at such places, the Secretary of the Treasury, with the assent of the President, shall establish fixed periods at which a settlement shall be required. And it shall be the duty of the first comptroller to lay before Congress annually, during the first week of their session, a list of such officers as shall have failed in that year to make the settlement required by law.

. And be it further enacted, That in the annual statement of all accounts on which balances appear to have been due more than three years, which the comptroller is now required by law to make, he shall hereafter distinguish those accounts, the balances appearing on which shall, in his opinion, be owing to difficulties of form, which he may think it equitable shall be removed by an act of Congress; and where the debtors, by whom such balances shall have been due more than three years, shall be insolvent, and have been reported to Congress for three successive years as insolvent, the comptroller shall not be required in such case to continue to include such balances in the statement above mentioned.

. And be it further enacted, That the salary of the comptroller, appointed by virtue of this act, shall be three thousand dollars per annum, and that of the auditors, each, three thousand dollars per annum.

. And be it further enacted, That all letters and packages to and from the comptroller, and auditors, herein before mentioned, be conveyed free of postage, under the same regulations that are provided by law for other officers of government; and the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to assign the several sums appropriated for clerk hire in the offices of the accountant, additional accountant, superintendent general of military supplies, and accountant of the navy, to the officers hereby created, to which their respective duties shall be assigned.

March 3, 1817.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, from and after the last day of March instant, there shall be allowed and paid, annually, in addition to the sum now allowed by law to the collector of the customs for Edgartown, in the state of Massachusetts, the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars; and to the collector of the customs for Plymouth, in the state of North Carolina, there shall also be paid annually the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars, in addition to the fees and other emoluments of office.

. And be it further enacted, That, from and after the last day of March instant, there shall be allowed to the collector of the customs for Middletown, in Connecticut, and to the collector of the customs in Newburyport, in the state of Massachusetts, three per centum on all moneys