1. McFarland, a member of the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, had been wounded at Bunker Hill in June, 1775, and in March, 1779, had been transferred to the Invalid Regiment. In 1782 he had been acquitted in a court-martial proceedings resulting from his disobedience of orders to rejoin his regiment.

2. “An Act authorizing and directing the Secretary of War, to place certain persons, therein named, on the pension-list” reads in part as follows: “Be it enacted, &c., That the Secretary for the Department of War be, and he is hereby directed, to place upon the list of invalid pensioners of the United States, the persons hereinafter named, who have been returned, as such, by the judges of the several districts, pursuant to the act of Congress, passed the twenty-eighth day of February, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three, entitled, ‘An Act to regulate the claims to invalid pensions [1 Stat. description begins The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America (Boston, 1845). description ends , 324–25],’ at the rates and proportions annexed to the names of the said persons, respectively, that is to say … Moses M’Farland, a captain, one-third of a pension” (6 Stat. description begins The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America [Private Statutes] (Boston, 1856). description ends [April 20, 1796], 23–27).