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Maj CW Pierce
Comp Sub Dis Demopolis
B.R.F. & AL.

Dear Sir
Your favors of the 20th and 23rd inst have been duly received. Again I am called upon to deny a foul misrepresentation.. You say complaint has been made General Swayne that I charge 10 prct in the settlement of contracts.
I have been called on to settle very few contracts and have no regular charges. In some cases I charge nothing, in others entirely according to duties performed but never, never the half of ten per cent. I have settled contracts at this office amounting to over two thousand dollars for a fee of $2.50 while there are many other cases in which I have had no trouble and at no expense myself and charged nothing. While in other cases I have charged more according to circumstances but never as much as the same amount of labor is worth in any other direction. I received the appointment to this agency too late to be of much service in settling contracts of last year but all that I have settled the Freedman can bear the best evidence. I read your former letter 12th inst to a prominent Freedman yesterday he said he would be one of fifty (and I could raise that number at a word) to go to your office to tell you that these complaints are from the enemies of the Black man's liberty.