and gave directions, to the register and receiver at Plattsburg, Missouri, to locate the warrants on the lands designated in the list of application. He also inclosed to the register and receiver a receipt of Adams & Co.'s express company for $477 gold, to be delivered to the register and receiver as fees for the entry of these lands. The register acknowledges the receipt of the warrants and directions of the Commissioner on the 7th of March. On that day all the lands applied for were vacant, and there can be no doubt that it was the right of Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix to have their entries perfected. The register was bound to admit them, because they had done all that the law required of them. But subsequent to the 7th of March, that is, from 13th to 31st March, the register and receiver permitted other parties to enter the identical lands applied for by Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix. For proof of this, I inclose an abstract of the returns of the locations made at Plattsburg in the month of March, and the singular fact is most striking, that by far the larger portion of the entries was made in the name of James H. Birch, jr., the son of the register; a badge of fraud which it will be most difficult to

remove.

On the 8th of April, 1857, Hon. J. Glancy Jones came before the Commissioner and presented the affidavit of McLaughlin, Felix, and others, which sets forth that, on the 26th of November, 1856, Messrs. Felix and O'Reilly personally applied "at the land office at Plattsburgh to enter lands and were denied the right, (the register being present,) and were informed that the office had closed on 15th of November, and they could not state when it would be opened again." He insisted that the matter be rectified at once; he charged fraud on the face of the transaction. This charge was strengthened by the fact that the abstract of locations returned to the office showed that locations were made in the Plattsburg office on the 18th, 19th, 21st, 24th, 25th, and 29th of November. The information given to Messrs. Felix and O'Reilly was therefore false.

April 11th, three days after Mr. Jones appeared at the land office, the Commissioner directed the register and receiver at Plattsburg to set a day and hour for investigating the whole transaction, in order that justice might be done to these citizens of Pennsylvania. The object of this investigation was to ascertain the number of times, and upon what plea, the office had been closed without authority since 8th. of October last, the precise date or dates upon which the office was so closed, and the date or dates when again opened for business.

After the receipt of the official abstract or return by the register and receiver of the locations for the month of March, it appearing to the satisfaction of the Commissioner that the lands sought to be entered in February in the General Land Office were vacant on the 7th of March, when their application was received at Plattsburg, no further investigation was deemed necessary; and, on the 10th of July, positive directions were given the register and receiver that, upon being furnished by Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix, or their attorney, with a descriptive list of the tracts applied for by them on the 26th of November, 1856, they should be permitted to locate the 152 warrants above mentioned thereon, provided that, upon furnishing such a list,

they appeared, either in person or by attorney, fully prepared to consummate such locations.

It does not clearly appear that Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix did tender any lists of lands or any money or land warrants to the register on the 26th of November. Yet such an impression was made upon the officers of the General Land Office. But the instructions were so guarded that they were required to show that fact to the satisfaction of the register and receiver. Yet it does not follow that if they show that on the 26th of November they had tendered to the register a list of their lands and the land warrants or money necessary to enter the same, they were bound, six or nine months afterwards, to bring the same land warrants or the identical money which they originally tendered. The fact stated by Mr. Birch, that the warrants with which the locations were made in July, 1857, were assigned, or even issued, subsequent to the 26th of November, is not inconsistent with the statement that application was made for certain lands, and tender was made of the warrants, at that time necessary to locate the same. But in order to justify the cancellation, which is the real grievance, there is no necessity whatever to refer to the 26th of November. The Commissioner has not strengthened his case by referring to an immaterial fact, and attaching so much importance to an application which, if made in due legal form, gave them at most only an equitable right of entry. But the lands were vacant on the 7th of March. McLaughlin and Felix had then made a legal application and filed their warrants, and they are entitled to the lands, and every entry made subsequent to that date was permitted by the register and receiver in fraud of their legal rights.

I have the honor, to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, J. THOMPSON,

Secretary.

To the PRESIDENT.

No. 24.

WASHINGTON CITY, September 7, 1857.

DEAR SIR: I transmit you the report made to me by the Secretary of the Interior on the complaint contained in your letter of the 4th ultimo against the conduct of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, which, after examination, has received my approbation.

Yours, very respectfully,

JAMES H. BIRCH, Esq.

No. 25.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

LAND OFFICE, PLATTSBURG, Mo.,

September 8, 1857.

SIR: By the last mail we replied to your telegraphic despatch of the 31st ultimo. On more mature reflection, we are of opinion we

should have sent the affi lavits therein mentioned of James H. Birch and M. Jeff. Thompson, and therefore we herewith transmit them. Very respectfully, your obedient servants,

WINSLOW TURNER, Register.
H. WHITTINGTON, Receiver.

COMMISSIONER OF GENERAL LAND OFFICE.

Being called upon by parties in interest to state whether Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix applied, on the 26th day of November, 1856, to enter or locate the lands embraced in their subsequent application of the 6th of February, 1857, I answer unhesitatingly that they did not; that I never saw either of the parties, to my knowledge, although I doubt not that one of them may have been in my office, and held conversation with some one else, as stated in the affidavit now on file in the register's office; and that the first knowledge I had even of their intention to apply for the lands in question, or lands in the same section of country, was from M. Jeff. Thompson, esq., who, I understood, showed them the country covered by these lands, after they had been to my office, (as alleged in their affidavit,) and subsequently furnished them with a map, from which they could make, and did make, the selections applied for, through the Commissioner of the General Land Office, on the 6th day of February last.

JAMES H. BIRCH.

Being called upon by certain parties in interest in the case now pending before the officers of Plattsburg, Missouri land office, wherein Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix, of Pennsylvania, are also parties, in reference to certain lands, I state that, about the last of November, 1856, after Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix had been at the land office, I went with them to examine and select lands for location, in this district. We selected certain lands in Nodaway county, Missouri. They then employed me as their agent to enter said lands, and started home. Shortly after they reached home, they sent me about seventeen thousand acres of land warrants, with which to purchase said lands. At my subsequent suggestion, they requested me to return the warrants to them, which I did in the month of January, 1857. I was at the office on the 2d of March, 1857, and in conversation with the register stated that these gentlemen desired to enter certain lands in Nodaway county, Missouri, and I had received a letter from them, to the effect that they had arranged the matter through the General Land Office. It was not until January, 1857, that I received any warrants from these gentlemen, and these I returned as already stated. I am satisfied that they could not have made application to enter the identical lands they now desire to on the 26th

of November, 1856, as it was after that date that they examined and selected them, and obtained plats of them from me. It may have been as early as the last of December, 1856, that I received these warrants, as they wrote to me that they had purchased them in Philadelphia on their way home.

Sworn to and subscribed before me, Moses Shoemaker, clerk of the circuit court within and for the county aforesaid, this 5th day of August, A. D. 1857.

In testimony whereof, I hereto affix my name and seal of said court [L. S.] the day and year aforesaid.

MOSES SHOEMAKER,

Clerk. The interlineations in the foregoing affidavit were made before the said affidavit was signed.

MOSES SHOEMAKER,

Clerk.

No. 26.

PLATTSBURG, MISSOURI,
August 31, 1857.

SIR Returning home from a continued absence I find that Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix, of Pennsylvania, have been permitted to enter certain lands in Nodaway county, Missouri, in this district, under authority from Commissioner Hendricks, of July 10, 1857.

Having purchased and paid for a large quantity of this land for myself and clients, I have partially investigated the case, and find to my mind so palpable a usurpation of power on the part of the Commissioner that I am constrained to ask your interposition to at least have my rights properly adjudicated.

Mr. Hendricks bases his action on the following fact, as he asserts: That Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix were at this office "on the 26th day of November, 1856, with these warrants then in their possession, and applied for these lands, and tendered the fees in gold.'

That these men were here on the 26th day of November last, like thousands of others, I do not deny; that they had "these warrants then in their possession," I utterly deny, and, in proof of the facts, refer you to the affidavit of their own agent, M. Jeff. Thompson, (a copy of which, I understand, has been filed in your office by Judge Birch.) I also refer you to the warrants themselves, from which you will see that 2,340 acres of them were actually issued from the Pension Office after November 26, 1856; 5,320 acres of them were actually assigned after the 26th day of November, 1856, and 4,720 acres were

assigned between the 1st of November and the 26th of November, 1856, thereby precluding the possibility that even the last mentioned could have been in their possession on the 26th day of November, 1856. That they made application for "these" lands, or any other lands, on the 26th of November, 1856, I deny, and in proof, I refer you to the affidavits of Judge Birch, (the then register,) and M. Jeff. Thompson, their agent, and also their own affidavit; they have not the hardihood to swear to a fact that Mr. Hendricks asserts to be true. Therefore,

if they did not apply for the lands, and did not have the warrants with them, as a matter of course they did not "tender the fees in gold," which the register and receiver both deny.

The consummation of these entries was fraudulent. The Commissioner's order was, that they should be permitted to enter, "provided they filed a descriptive list of the lands they applied for on the 26th of November, 1856." They filed a list-that is, they obtained the list from the office here that was sent by Mr. Hendricks in February last, and filed it as the list. Now, I deny that they ever applied for the lands, embraced in that list, in November last; and I hereby charge that Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix, in filing that list as a copy of the lands applied for in November last by them, committed an act that was false and fraudulent, and upon this issue I am willing to risk the whole controversy. Suppose it were true, is 20,000 acres of land to be taken away from "bona fide" purchasers, and to be given to two men merely upon their say so; and that not even backed by their affidavit; and that, too, in the teeth of the affidavit of the late register and their own agent? Why, sir, former commissioners would'nt dare to take away a forty acres from a man without giving him a chance to be heard. Does the present administration claim for itself despotic power? If so, I wish to know it, so that in the future I may, if I choose, resort to the same means to have my claims put through that. Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix did to have theirs.

Mr. Hendricks attempts to cast a stigma upon Judge Birch, the late register, and then upon this case, by showing how much land his sons C. C. and J. H. Birch, jr. had entered, insinuating that they obtained more favors than any one else; if that is his insinuation, I pro-nounce it to be false.. I have been connected with the office as an agent for more than two years, and Judge Birch's sons never, to my knowledge, received a single official favor that was not accorded to the balance of the agents. And, sir, it will be seen that in the same: length of time that I have entered more lands than Charles C. Birch, and nearly as many, if not quite, as J. H. Birch, jr. The only fault that we agents had to find with the late register was that he was too strict, and, as we frequently thought, overstepped his powers in trying to prevent one man from gaining an advantage over another. I stand in no other relation to Judge Birch than that of one gentleman to another, and the attempt to mix him up with this transaction by any collusion with any of the parties is the grossest injustice to him.

As a reason why this case should be an exception to the general rule, Mr. Hendricks says it will be of great advantage to the country, State, and federal, alluding to the colony that is to be settled upon this land. Now, sir, we have no evidence that this is to be colonized, Rep. No. 289-8