”There is a claim due me” states William Knott of Devon in a 6 May 1818 Discharge certificate issued at Antigua,”of one pounds three shillings nine pence half penny from the Defalcation of Paymaster R.C. Graham.”

“Defalcation” is a somewhat old-fashioned way of saying Paymaster Graham was pocketing money he should have been paying the soldiers as wages. We don't know how long he had been doing this. He had been the regimental paymaster since 5 August 1813, or almost five years before William Knott wrote out his complaint.

When soldiers were discharged from the Army they were provided with the discharge certificate to sign, which usually included the phrase “I do hereby acknowledge that I have received all my Pay and Arrears of Pay … and all just Demands whatsoever….”

At least five modified this wording to say they were still owed money as a result of Graham’s fraud.

There appears to have been no dispute that Paymaster Graham was guilty. Making this claim in the Discharge certificates were those whose conduct was “extremely bad”, such as Knott, a deserter from East India Company service, and those whose conduct was "very good" such as "civil culprit" Samuel Jenkins of London. Each of these certificates was signed by an officer such as the Lieutenant Colonel, and the soldier's signature was witnessed by an Ensign.

Were any of the unpaid wages ever restored to the soldiers? We may never know.

We don't know if any of the 62 Rangers who settled in the upper St. John River valley were defrauded by Paymaster Graham. Colour Sergeant William Everitt’s discharge certificate (shown here) makes no mention of it. None of the other 61 soldier-settlers from the regiment had a discharge certificate preserved in the RWIR "Soldier's Documents" in LDS microfilm 861,851.