Edgar, Fox, and others left to-day for a trip on the Santiago de Cuba, to Havana, Charleston,
etc., etc. They were to return by the 15th prox., but will hardly get back before the 17th.
The President being absent on a visit to the army near Richmond, there was to-day no Cabinet-meeting.
Comptroller Taylor declines to pass requisitions, and refuses to obey the Secretary of the Treasury; will act on the order of the President. I see not the distinction. If illegal, the order of the President does not legalize it.
The strict letter of the law is doubtless with the Comptroller in this matter of drawing money before the commencement of the fiscal year. But, unfortunately for him, he has acted otherwise and the usage of himself and predecessor, Comptroller Whittlesey, under Mr. Secretary, now Chief Justice, Chase, have been wholly different. Mr. Taylor said yesterday that he did not pass requisitions last year, that the appropriation bill did not pass until after the commencement of the fiscal year. But he is mistaken. The appropriation was covered into the Treasury in May, and we had drawn, and he had passed, over four millions before the 1st of July. He has this year paid over one million before he accidentally discovered that his action conflicted with the law. The Secretary of the Treasury sent to notify me that a draft for ten thousand dollars on “Pay of the Navy” was presented by Riggs & Co., and desired to know if I would not pay from some other appropriation. I declined to do the illegal act and complicate and embarrass accounts.
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