They will report also to this office all cases of unnecessary competition brought about by any officer or agent of either of the bureaus referred to.

Ninth. No officer of this department will send an agent to a foreign country, nor will they visit or send to a sea-port town of this Confederacy to buy supplies imported from abroad. The latter purchases will be made always by the post quartermasters on instructions received from this office or from the principal purchasing officer of the district. When such supplies are removed for speculation, after being rejected by the post quartermaster on account of prices, they will not be purchased elsewhere.

Tenth. No purchasing officer will ever go into another district to buy supplies, but will procure the same when it may be necessary through the local officers therein.

Eleventh. Any officer of this department who holds an executory contract for army supplies in another purchasing district than that in which he is stationed shall transfer the same on the receipt of this circular to the principal purchasing officer of the district where such contract is to be executed. Field quartermasters, regardless of their location, will make a similar transfer of all contracts, except such as come within section Numbers 6 of these instructions.

Twelfth. The foregoing rules will not be taken to interfere with the operations of Major F. W. dullard as heretofore charged with the receipt of hides from the Commissary Department and the manufacture of shoes therefrom. He will continue to have the exclusive control thereof in the States of Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina, and all quartermasters within those States will dispose of hides received from commissaries as he may direct. Nor will they interfere with those of Major Charles S. Carrington, who will act independently as heretofore in providing forage for the armies of Virginia and North Carolina.

Thirteenth. Purchasing officers will employ agents only under authorities, general or specific, derived from this office. The authorities heretofore given must be renewed immediately,and in submitting applications for the retention of old agents, their names, the date of the authority under which they were employed, and the rate of their compensation will be stated. When authority is asked and granted to employ new agents, whose names have not been furnished in advance, a report thereof shall be made promptly, stating who are so engaged, and at what compensation. In every case such facts will be set forth as go to show the necessity for the proposed services, and the application will be forwarded through the principal officer of the district for his approval or remarks. All officers will furnish their agents with written evidence of their agency, showing the object and extent there of; and when such agency is discontinued the evidence mentioned will be taken in and the facts reported to this office. Every officer will be careful to settle up the transactions of his own agents. The observance of the foregoing is important in restraining abuses, decreasing the number of employes from civil life, and leading to the detection of impostors speculating in the name of the Government.

Fourteenth. All quartermasters will be held to strict accountability for any departure from these instructions, and department commanders and other subordinate officers are prohibited from employing field quartermasters, or agents in making purchases, in violation of the same.