Regulations for the government of the United States Navy (1865)

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ARTICLE XXXI.

Accounts.

1179 Disbursing Officers of the United States are required to keep their accounts with the United States separate and distinct under every bond given by them, respectively, and to state, in the caption of each quarterly account, the date of the bond under which it is rendered.

1180 Any Paymaster of the Navy, resident within the United States, who shall transmit to the Fourth Auditor, within ten days after the end of every month, a summary statement showing his balance at the commencement of the month, his receipts and disbursements, under each head of appropriation, during such month, and the balance at the end of the same, such statement being certified to be correct by the officer required to approve the accounts of such Paymaster, shall be authorized to render his accounts for settlement quarterly instead of monthly, provided that such accounts be duly transmitted within one month after the end of the quarter to which they refer.

1181 Paymasters of the Navy on foreign stations, or serving on board vessels actually performing blockading duty, must transmit the monthly summary statements required in the preceding paragraph, unless they furnish the Fourth Auditor with satisfactory evidence that the nature and exigencies of the service in which they were engaged at that time prevented the transmission of such statements. In such cases they will be authorized to transmit their accounts quarterly, agreeably to the provisions of the act of January 31, 1823. When a Paymaster renders his account he must transmit to the Fourth Auditor :

  1. A general pay-roll, embracing the individual accounts of the officers, men, and marines, with the columns added and the amount stated in ink, and a recapitulation of the several pages ; and it must be signed, in the receipt column, by officers, men, and marines, and each signature of the men and marines witnessed by an officer.
  2. A muster-roll, showing the dates of entry and detachment of officers, and the entry, discharge, transfer, and desertion of the men and marines, and the expiration of the term of enlistment of the men ; and showing, also, the vessel or station to which the officers, men, and marines may have been transferred. The rolls must be approved by the Commanding Officer of the vessel.
  3. Vouchers for all open purchases and other contingent bills, properly approved by the Commanding Officer and receipted.
  4. A complete statement of the small-store and clothing account, with the receipts of the Storekeepers and other disbursing officers ; also, a full statement of all moneys received for provisions.
  5. An account of the sales of bills of exchange, with the certificate of at least two merchants as to the rate of exchange at the time of negotiating every bill.
  6. All transfer accounts and rolls of officers or men, whether to or from the vessel. Transfer accounts of officers will be made out in triplicate, one part to be sent to the Fourth Auditor, and the other two parts to the Paymaster to whom the transfer is made, one of which is to be receipted by him and returned to the Paymaster by whom the transfer is made, to accompany his final account. The accounts of the men must not be transferred to the Fourth Auditor for payment at the end of a cruise unless specially requested by the Secretary of the Navy or Fourth Auditor. The discharge should not be given unless the man is present and receives the pay due him.
  7. All original letters, or copies thereof, from pay agents, Fourth Auditor's office, and the Department, and other official papers relating to his accounts ; copies of officers' orders to join the vessel, certified by themselves, also with their certificates as to the time of accepting their orders.
  8. An account current, showing all his receipts and expenditures, and the date of his bond.

1182 Paymasters on board receiving ships, or at shore stations, will be guided by these instructions in the rendering of their accounts, so far as they are applicable.

1183 In the rendition of the accounts, Paymasters of all grades are required to forward to the Fourth Auditor's office, besides the papers above specified, all their original books from which such accounts are compiled, such as ledgers, journals, receipt books, &c.

1184 All Disbursing Officers must prepay the expense of transportation of their accounts to the Fourth Auditor's office for settlement if they be sent by any other conveyance than the United States mail.

1185 A general witness to signatures on the pay-roll is not sufficient. The signature of the officer witnessing the receipt must be given in each case.

1186 Paymasters will make an immediate return to the Fourth Auditor's office of the accounts of deceased officers, seamen, or marines, and transmit their wills if they shall have left any. The balances which may have been due to them at the time of their death will be paid only after a statement of their accounts at the Fourth Auditor's office.

1187 Payment of balances due deceased seamen and marines will be made to administrators who are heirs, or appointed with the consent of a majority of the heirs.

1188 When the balance due does not exceed the sum of one hundred dollars, letters of administration will be dispensed with, and the prescribed affidavits substituted. The widow, if she be the applicant, should render a certified copy of her marriage certificate.

1189 Heirship may be established by the fact being inserted in the letters of administration, and additionally proven by the affidavits of two disinterested persons, taken before an officer duly empowered to administer oaths.

1190 If the heirs be minors, guardians should be appointed. Payment of arrearages, claimed under a will, will only be made after satisfactory proof of the will is adduced to the Accounting OtScers.

1191 Wills of persons in actual service must in all cases, when possible, be in writing, and attested by an officer. A nuncupative will must be reduced to writing immediately, and be attested by at least two officers. The executor will be required to produce the original will, or a copy duly authenticated. No payment will be made to a creditor until the balance due to the deceased person shall have remained in the treasury, uncalled for by an administrator as aforesaid, for six months after information of the death of such person shall have been received at the Department ; and where the balance exceeds the sum of twenty dollars, no claim of a creditor will be paid until an advertisement shall have been inserted, for three successive days, in the newspapers employed to publish the laws in the city of Washing- ton, and also in three successive numbers of a paper nearest where the deceased resided, calling upon other claimants to present their claims at the office of the Fourth Auditor within four months ; at the end of which term, if the balance shall not have been demanded by an administrator appointed as aforesaid, the claims which shall have been presented and proved before the Accounting Officers will be paid la equal proportion, the expense of the advertisement having been first defrayed out of the sum due to the deceased person at the time of his death.

1192 In accordance with the spirit and letter of the laws of the United States, the Accounting Officers have determined that the arrears found to be due shall be paid, in all cases, to the proper parties interested in preference to attorneys.

1193 Where supplies for the Navy are obtained without advertisement, the account must be accompanied by a certificate of the Commandant of the yard or station who has approved the requisition for the articles that the public exigencies required the immediate delivery of the articles mentioned in the bill, and that, there not being time to advertise for proposals, the articles were properly obtained by open purchase, and that the purchase is approved for the sum they cost. Where the purchase is made under contract growing out of an advertisement for proposals, the fact must be certified in like manner upon the voucher.

1194 All transfers of the accounts of officers of the Navy from one Paymaster to another will be made directly, and not through the office of the Fourth Auditor. The Paymaster by whom the transfer is made will give notice of it, and transmit a copy of the account to the Fourth Auditor's office. When an officer is granted leave of absence, placed on furlough, or directed to await orders, his account will be transferred to the Fourth Auditor's office, or to the Paymaster of the station nearest his intended residence, as he may prefer. When the officer desiring the transfer has allotted any portion of his pay, the Paymaster, upon transferring his account, will make a note thereon of the monthly sum allotted, and of the place of payment and date of expiration of the allotment.

1195 Before a Paymaster can receive credit at the Fourth Auditor's office for a payment made to an officer for any service, or for any amount of money checked on his books as having been advanced by a pay agent, he must produce the order under which the service has been performed, or the advance made, or a copy thereof, with all endorsements, certified by the officer to be such, together with a certificate, by the officer, of the time at which he left his domicile or station to enter upon such service. The Paymaster will always inspect the original order, and satisfy himself that all indorsements are embraced on the certified copy.

1196 Overpayments other than such as are produced by authorized advances will be invariably disallowed, whether made in money, clothing, or stores, excepting payments for the commutation of rations, or of the spirit part thereof, and excepting also such advances in clothing as may have been made by the previous order of the Commander of the vessel, upon the ground that they were necessary to the health and comfort of the men, which order, if in writing, must be produced ; and if verbal, there must be a certificate of the Commander that gave it. A general approval of the roll in which the advances are charged will not be considered sufficient.

1197 When the crew of a vessel shall have been paid off at the end of a cruise, the Paymaster will transmit to the Paymaster of the marine corps a pay-roll of all the marines who have been attached to the vessel during any portion of the cruise, approved by the Commander of the vessel and the Commanding Officer of the guard. As the utmost despatch is required in paying off crews, Paymasters are directed to forward to the Department, in the most expeditious manner, their requisitions for funds for that purpose.

1198 The second section of the "Joint resolution for the relief of Paymasters," &c., approved March 3, 1849, does not authorize an advance of public money by the Paymaster to the Commanding Officer, or to any other person, on his order. But the disbursement must be for some service rendered or article furnished. (See Circular of Second Comptroller of March 20, 1855.)

1199 Pay officers of the Navy will render their final accounts and returns to the Fourth Auditor of the Treasury, and the Chief of the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing, as soon as practicable after the expiration of their cruise, but not exceeding the following time after the crew shall have been paid off or transferred :
For vessels of the first rate sixty days.
For vessels of the second rate fifty days.
For vessels of the third rate forty days.
For vessels of all other rates thirty days.
Final accounts in all cases will be accompanied by the necessary vouchers for a complete settlement of such accounts.

Commanding Officers.

1200 An officer in command of a United States vessel may require the Line Officers of any grade under his command to make daily or frequent observations and calculations for determining the latitude and longitude, and the variation of the compass, and report the results to him ; he will be held responsible for the safe conducting and steering of his ship, and also whenever an accident shall occur to her from the want of due care or precaution.

1201 Commanding Officers are specially required to see that the Paymaster duly credits each person under their command with the amount of prize money due him, in accordance with the statement received from the Fourth Auditor of the Treasury.

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