The historian William K. Boyd commented that the accounting of public funds in those days was deficient in three respects: "First, the comptroller did not have oversight of the actual money in the treasury; the auditing by the comptroller did not include all state funds; and the method of bonding the treasurer was not adequate." In 1784 a law had been enacted requiring the Treasurer to post a bond in the amount of "one hundred thousand pounds," but an 1801 statute reduced the amount of the required bond to a sum equal to the balance of existing treasury funds, plus estimated annual revenue for the following year. It stipulated moreover that no penalty would be imposed for failure to comply with the requirement.