Credit Side Annotation
Lines 8 and 11 - By the end of June 1784, GW received from Philadelphia merchant Clement Biddle both an invoice of items shipped to GW, as well as a bill for four mattresses which were to also be sent to GW. GW wrote Biddle on 30 June, advising him that he would "deposit for the use of Mr [Thomas] Richardson One hundred and fifty dollars" on Biddle's account. GW further directed Biddle to make payments to printer David C. Claypoole and to a German printer, while assuring Biddle that if the sums of those payments, "with the price of the Mattrasses," were to exceed "the deposit" to Richardson, GW would pay Biddle "upon demand". On 5 July 1784, GW wrote to Georgetown, Md., merchant Thomas Richardson, on the subject of the cost of the mattresses, and sent Richardson "one hundred & twenty dollars more, in Bank notes for the use of Colo. Biddle". See Thomas Richardson to GW, 27 June 1784 [Rotunda | Founders Online | Print (Confederation Series, Volume 1, page 469)]; GW to Clement Biddle, 30 June 1784 [Rotunda | Founders Online | Print (Confederation Series, Volume 1, pages 473-75)]; and GW to Richardson, 5 July 1784 [Rotunda | Founders Online | Print (Confederation Series, Volume 1, pages 485-86)].
Line 17 - Hodijah Baylies (1756-1842), GW's former extra aide-de-camp, and Benjamin Lincoln's son-in-law and former aide-de-camp, traveled to Virginia in July 1784 to look into the purchase of wheat for the mill Lincoln was erecting on his land near Hingham, Mass., and was charged with both carrying Lincoln's letter to GW of 15 July 1784, and with submitting to GW a "printers account". It is unclear as to what the printer's account referred, but it is possible GW had asked Lincoln to have one of his recent advertisements concerning the lease of his western lands printed in Massachusetts newspapers. GW had recently made a similar request to various acquaintances, including Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., Rufus Putnam, and Thomas Richardson, to have the ads circulated in their respective states, and just a few days earlier, on 16 July, a payment was made to George Richards, the publisher of the Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser, for "Printing Advertisemts &c." (Ledger B, 180). It is therefore plausible that GW had submitted a similar request to Lincoln, and that he was remitting money to Baylies for the cost of the printer. See Benjamin Lincoln to GW, 15 July 1784 [Rotunda | Founders Online | Print (Confederation Series, Volume 1, pages 528-29)]; see also Advertisement: Ohio Lands, c.10 March 1784, printed as an enclosure to GW to John Witherspoon, 10 March 1784 [Rotunda | Founders Online | Print (Confederation Series, Volume 1, pages 201-4)]; GW to Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., 4 April 1784 [Rotunda | Founders Online | Print (Confederation Series, Volume 1, pages 260-61)]; and GW to Thomas Richardson, 5 July 1784 [Rotunda | Founders Online | Print (Confederation Series, Volume 1, pages 485-86)]. If the "printers account" does refer to GW's land advertisements, Lincoln may have had one inserted in The Continental Journal, and Weekly Advertiser (Boston), published by John Gill, since one of GW's ads appeared in that paper's issues of 29 April and 6 May 1784.