the subject before Congress themselves, and if allowed sufficient increased pay they will continue the arrangement; and if not, they will return to the old schedule."

The attention of the committee is respectfully invited to the letter of Mr. Law of the 21st July, 1851, as follows:

"UNITED STATES MAIL STEAMSHIP COMPANY,

"New York, July 21, 1851.

"SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 1st instant.

"It is the intention of this company at an early day, if it shall meet with the approbation of the department, to arrange the running of its steamers, each month, as follows, viz: Twice between New York and Chagres direct; twice between New York and New Orleans, via Havana; and twice between New Orleans and Chagres, direct, making three distinct routes, and six passages per month to and from the respective points of destination. Provision will be made for carrying the mails by each steamer, and to insure the arrival of the California mails at the city of New York and at New Orleans at the earliest day that their arrival at Chagres will enable them to be brought forward. We propose to make trial of this arrangement, and if it proves satisfactory, to continue it. So long as it is in operation the direct connexion between Havana and Chagres may be dispensed with, as the Charleston and Savannah mails may be sent via New Orleans.

"In expressing in my letter of the 28th ultimo the readiness of this company to instruct the commanders of their steamers, direct as well as by the way of Havana, to convey the California mails, if desired by the department, it was not my intention to preclude a claim for reasonable additional compensation for such service, although we desire to meet fully the requirements of the department. It is not expected, I presume, that the mails can be carried, outward and homeward, six times per month, with the necessary additional clerks or agents, for the same sum for which we contract to carry them twice monthly. Still, desirous of promoting to the utmost the interest and convenience of the public, we are entirely willing to perform the additional service, in the confident expectation that a sense of justice will induce Congress to make such further provision as may be considered a suitable compensation for it.

"I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, "GEORGE LAW,

"Hon. N. K. HALL,

Postmaster General."

President.

The attention of the committee is invited to this letter, not only because it presents in the outset a position assumed and uniformly maintained by the company in relation to this question of additional compensation, but because the manner in which it is referred to by Postmaster General Campbell must leave the impression that it is at least palpably misapprehended by him. This remark is applicable to the

scope and even the tenor of the language of material parts of the letter. Take a single sentence as an illustration. The Postmaster General says: "He (Mr. Law) also stated that it was not his intention to preclude the company from making a claim for reasonable additional compensation for such service,' and intimated that such claim (if any) would be made solely on account of the additional clerks or agents' which it would be necessary to employ in carrying the mails outward and homeward by the extra steamers." Mr. Law's language was as follows: "It is not expected, I presume, that the mails can be carried, outward and homeward, six times per month, with the necessary additional agents or clerks, for the same sum for which we contract to carry them twice monthly." The conveyance of the mail six times per month, instead of twice, was the material difference, the matter of additional clerks or agents being merely incidental. That it is anywhere intimated or stated by Mr. Law that the latter was the sole ground of the claim for reasonable compensation for this enlarged service, cannot be conceived for a moment by any one who will read the correspondence without prejudice, or understand the subject. If the Postmaster General could have supposed himself liable to fall into the error of conceiving that the multiplication and running of steamships and the transportation of mails are non-essential features in the case, and the merely incidental employment of agents or clerks the sole source of additional expense, he could have put his hands at once upon a corrective, in the letter of Mr. Law of the 15th June, 1852, then beforehim, in which he says: "By the terms of the contract for running between New York and New Orleans, Havana and Chagres, twice a month, we stipulated to employ five steamships in the performance of the mail service, two of them being spare ships. The proposed service will require six steamers in constant service, and three spare · ships." It is obvious that it was solely on account of the employment of nine instead of five steamships, and the cost of their running, that the claim for additional compensation was based, and certainly not. upon the matter of a few additional clerks or agents. Although the carrying of the mails, and a natural belief that reasonable compensation might be obtained for it, was not the only consideration for the establishment of the direct line between New Orleans and Chagres, yet it entered, of course, into the inducement to make a hazardous experiment to afford enlarged and valuable facilities for the transmission of the California mails direct to and from the western portion of the Atlantic States.

While the particular attention of the committee is invited by Postmaster General Campbell to Mr. Law's letter to the department of the 25th June, 1851, not a single allusion is made to any other letter of the company, and particularly to those in 1851 and 1852, which refer to their determination to submit the whole matter of additional compensation to the justice of Congress; nor is the fact mentioned by the Postmaster General that such was, from the beginning, the basis of their position in relation to compensation for additional mail service. And the committee will look in vain for any acknowledgment in the Postmaster General's letter that that material position and determination, so prominently placed before the department by the

company, and on which the performance of the additional service hinged, was ever thought of or alluded to by the company. For some reason, the fact seems to be kept studiously out of sight. It is a curious and significant fact that in the enumeration of the "more important parts of the correspondence," to which the Postmaster General directs the attention of the committee, the material letter from the department to Mr. Aspinwall of the 14th June, 1852, on which the company consented to receive the mails on board the ships, after having declined them on the previous 8th of that month, is altogether omitted.

III.-The intermediate or weekly line between New York and California and New Orleans and California.

Early in 1853, the calls for increased communication between the Atlantic and Pacific portions of the Union became so frequent and urgent, especially from business men in California, that the two companies performing the California mail service resolved to make the experiment of running an intermediate semi-monthly through line direct between New York and San Francisco, and also between New Orleans and San Francisco. It was a hazardous experiment at the time. Considerations connected with the ordinary business of the ships in freight and passengers did not warrant the undertaking; and even with a liberal allowance for thus doubling the mail service, (carrying the mail weekly to and from California,) it was by no means certain that it could be sustained. It was commenced, however, and the mails, after much correspondence between the department, the postmaster at New York, and the company, preceding each voyage, were received on board. But the conditions imposed by Postmaster General Campbell, directly from the department and through the postmaster at New York, were so restrictive and unfavorable that the mails were taken at each voyage under a sort of protest, and with an intention on the part of the company of having a definite arrangement to carry them, as in the instance of the direct mail between New York and Aspinwall, and with an understanding that the question of compensation should be submitted to the decision of Congress, the department meanwhile assuming no liability, nor being expected to co-operate in any application to Congress, or if such an understanding should be found impracticable, to decline to carry the mails by that line. But it soon became apparent that the intermediate or weekly line could not be sustained, even with the utmost that could be expected as compensation for the additional mail service, and that the line must soon be withdrawn. Accordingly the mails were carried on the conditions imposed by the department so long as the line was continued, as a convenience to the business interests, to which it proved highly advantageous, but to the company a serious loss; and notice of its withdrawal was given the Postmaster General by Mr. Roberts on the 4th June, 1853, having been in operation about one quarter. Under these circumstances, the company make no claim upon the department or upon Congress for the additional mail service

thus performed. It is proper to add that a large proportion of the correspondence, exceeding one-third of the mass accompanying the letter of Postmaster General Campbell, relates exclusively to this branch of service, the consideration of which by the committee, and so much of the Postmaster General's letter as belongs to it, is rendered unnecessary.

The letter of Postmaster General Campbell opens with his view of the permission given the contractors to run their steamers direct between New York and Havana, "by which they were relieved from the necessity of stopping at the intermediate ports of Charleston and Savannah, without requiring from them any compensatory benefit in increased service on other portions of their route.' All the first part of the correspondence accompanying the Postmaster General's letter, consists of letters on this subject between the department and the postmasters, and others at Charleston and Savannah; and it will be seen that the latter recommend the change. Besides, the Postmaster General says it "was granted with a view to afford greater despatch to the through mails, and has served a good public purpose in expediting those mails." These would seem to be good reasons for making the change, without supposing that "compensatory" service would also be expected from the contractors.

Points.

It will be seen from all the facts in relation to this claim for reasonable compensation for additional mail service

1. That the additional service was commenced on the direct line frow New York to Chagres and back, in the summer of 1851, and that the mails were received on board on the ground distinctly stated in Mr. Law's letter to the department of the 21st July, 1851, viz: that the company would perform the additional service, "in the confident expectation that a sense of justice would induce Congress to make such further provision as might be considered a suitable compensation for it.”

2. That in 1852, when the direct line was run between New Orleans and Chagres, these positions were renewed by the company, and when the department assumed an attitude that was at first understood to preclude the company from seeking compensation for the additional service from the justice of Congress, they declined the arrangement to carry the mails; but subsequently, under the explanatory letter from the department to Mr. Aspinwall, of the 14th June, 1852, which was understood to admit as a part of the arrangement the position of the company to submit the matter of additional compensation "entirely to the decision of Congress," without "any intention to hold the department liable, directly or indirectly," and without expecting it to join in" any application to Congress for such compensation, the mails were received on board, and the arrangement continued until the line was withdrawn.

3. That for the intermediate, or weekly service, began in March, 1853, and terminated in June of the same year, to which the greater portion of the letter of the Postmaster General and the correspond

ence accompanying it refer, no additional compensation is claimed by the company.

4. That all the additional mail service for which compensation is claimed has been actually performed, and has been so performed with the distinct understanding on the part of the company that the whole question of compensation therefor should be submitted to the judgment and justice of Congress.

For the trustees under the contract, and for United States Mail Steamship Company,

EDWIN CROSWELL.

Correspondence not specially referred to.

POST OFFICE, New York, April 14, 1852.

SIR: The enclosed advertisement is the first that has appeared in three months, in relation to the steamers for Chagres direct.

Am I to consider the instructions to make up mails for the steamers of the 11th and 26th still in force?

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

Hon. N. K. HALL,

WILLIAM V. BRADY,

Postmaster.

Postmaster General, Washington, D. C.

Suggestion of new schedule, made by M. O. Roberts to the Postmaster General, April 14, 1852.

DIRECT.-To sail from New York on the 5th and 20th, and return direct to New York.

VIA HAVANA. To sail from New York (as at present) on the 9th and 24th, except when those dates happen to be Sunday, and then to sail on the day following or preceding, as may be agreed.

POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT, April 15, 1852.

SIR: In answer to your letter of the 14th instant, I have to say, that if the contractors resume their running on the 11th and 26th of the month for Chagres and San Francisco, you will make up and send mails by the direct steamers on said days, as heretofore under the original order.

We have a memorandum from the company, handed in yesterday by Mr. Croswell, proposing the 5th, 9th, 20th and 24th of each month as the future days of sailing from New York; these ships to connect with the way and direct steamers on the other side, regularly for San Francisco. Will this be a good arrangement ?

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

WM. V. BRADY, Esq.,

Postmaster, New York, N. Y.

N. K. HALL.