Contemporary manuscript copy of a letter from Henry Knox to the widow McNeill by Knox, Henry - 1788

New York, 1788. 2pp. plus integral address leaf. 4to. In a secretarial hand. Folio. Address leaf laid into a frame of later paper. Old fold lines. Loss from wax seal on address leaf, neatly repaired with later paper. Minor soiling. Very good. 2pp. plus integral address leaf. 4to. Retained copy, entirely in a secretarial hand, of a letter from Secretary of War Henry Knox to Mary McNeill, the widow of a former soldier.  Hector McNeill (1728-1785) was raised to the rank of captain in the Continental Navy in 1776.  His command of the frigate Boston was relieved in 1778, however, as he had difficulty in getting along with his fellow officers and his superior, Captain John Manley.  He and Manley were both court-martialed in 1778, but while Manley was acquitted, McNeill was dismissed from the service.  Later he was involved with several Massachusetts privateers and was lost at sea in 1785.  A considerable correspondence exists between Henry Knox and the Widow McNeill, who was left without resources after her husband's death.  Mrs. McNeill had prepared a report on sums due to her husband, but Knox had determined that Captain McNeill had overcharged the Treasury and credited to himself more than he ought, a total of $2091.54.  "Accordingly yesterday I took out the certificate for the above sum...which bears an interest annually of better than 120 dollars, for 10 years past which is upwards of 1200 dollars interest."  Not finding anyone to carry this certificate personally to her, he enclosed it "in a letter of this tenor and date to my friend General Henry Jackson who will wait upon you with it, and receive from you duplicate receipts for the sum.  I most sincerely with that its present value was equal to the sum expressed, or that I could point out any mode to enhance its worth - but alas! it is not.  Hope says it will be better in future - but no precise time can be affixed when it will be so."