duty to protect, and the severest punishment was threatened in case they were detected in committing any outrage. Three of my men were detected and were immediately placed in close confinement; their persons were searched and stripped of the articles they had taken from your store;" ⚫ "nothing of value was found upon them except a gold watch, which, with every other article recovered, was delivered over to the Spanish consul, Mr. Sastré. Having a carpenter with me, I attended personally to the fastening of the doors of the store, which had been forced open, and placed a sentinel to avoid further depredation." "The men belonging to this vessel (the brig Vesuvius) were not the only ones engaged in it. The apart ments occupied by the men from the United States sloop-of-war John Adams led to your back yard and store; and a portion of these men were also detected in the pillage of your effects. Had I known that you had a store adjoining your house, much if not all the mischief might have been prevented, but the injury had been done before I was aware of it. You cannot be ignorant of the difficulty of restraining men who have succeed. ed in carrying the defences of an enemy, and capturing a town; plunder is considered by them as lawful and proper, and all the vigilance of the officers in any service has heretofore been insufficient wholly to prevent it."

It appears that during the occupation of the dwelling-house of the memorialist, which continued several days, his furniture was much injured; his wardrobes broken open and their contents removed; and that many articles of merchandise from the store, and of value from the house, were carried away or left in a damaged condition.

Subsequently, in consequence of a rumor which prevailed, that the memorialist had a large amount of specie buried in his cellar, his dwellinghouse was again broken open, and excavations made by order of Commander Van Brunt, who had been left by Commodore Perry in command. Two thousand two hundred dollars in silver and twenty doubloons were reported to Commander Van Brunt to have been found, and were placed on board of the steamer under his command, and afterwards delivered with some other articles to the memorialist. He claims, however, that a much larger amount in specie was taken from his cellar, viz: $2,500 in silver, and 120 doubloons, and that he sustained damage in all by reason of the depredations committed on his property by the forces of the United States while in the occupation of the same, to the amount of $4,779 over and above the amount which has been restored to him.

For the amount of the damage thus sustained the memorialist asks indemnity from the government.

While it is a well established principle in the law of nations that the domicil of a citizen in a foreign country, at war with his owu, impresses with a hostile character his property connected with his residence in the enemy's country, so as to render it lawfuk prize if liable to capture by the ordinary usages of war, the committee are of opinion that in regard to property under the peculiar circumstances of the memorialist, a different rule should prevail. If it had been in fact the property of an enemy, it would not, in accordance with the modern usages of war, have been subject to pillage after the capture of the city. An alien enemy, it is true, might not be able to obtain redress for such an injury by reason of his own hostile character, but that reason is inapplicable to the case of a countryman of the captors, who at the time of the capture is treated as an enemy by the government where he resides, and denied, on that account,

the benefit of his domicil and the means or opportunity of protecting his property. From the moment of his banishment to the interior as an American citizen, claiming exemption as such from the contributions demanded of him for the war, it appears to the committee that the hostile character which might otherwise have attached to the memorialist as a voluntary resident at Tabasco ceased; and that while suffering, in the enemy's territory, the disabilities of an American citizen, he had a right to expect for his property the protection of his countrymen. If under such circumstances his property, left under the charge of the representative of a neutral government, instead of being protected by the captors of the city, is appropriated by them to the public use, or injured while in their forcible occupation-especially when it has been continued, as in this case, after notice of the circumstances entitling it to protection-it is an injury for which the memorialist, in the opinion of the committee, has an equitable claim on the government for idemnity.

In regard to the specie which is alleged to have been lost, the claim of the memorialist is not, in the opinion of the committee, satisfactorily established; nor is the evidence sufficient to enable them to ascertain with precision the amount of the injury sustained by him in other particulars.

They therefore recommend the passage of the accompanying bill for his relief.

1st Session.

No. 147.

IN SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

MAY 29, 1850.

Submitted, and ordered to be printed.

Mr. UNDERWOOD made the following

REPORT:

The Committee of Claims, to whom was referred the petition of the presi dent and directors of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad Company, in the State of Virginia, with the documents which accompany it, have, according to order, had the same under consideration, and submit the following report:

The prayer of the petition is for the payment to the company of the sum of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, with such interest thercon as may be properly due, in return of that sum of money advanced by the State of Virginia to the use of the United States, under authority of an act of assembly, passed in that commonwealth the 27th day of December, 1790. To maintain the right of this company to the said claim, the president and directors have exhibited an authenticated copy of a joint resolution of the two houses of the legislature of Virginia, adopted the 15th of March, 1850. By the terms of this act of the said legislature, the claim of that commonwealth against the government of the United States for the sum of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, advanced to the United States by an act of assembly of the 27th of December, 1790, is transferred to the Orange and Alexandria Railroad Company, with power to demand and receive the same, and the interest thereon; and the same joint resolution unites to this transfer an obligation on the said company to issue stock for the amount thereof to the use of the primary schools of Virginia.

The validity of this assignment by Virginia depends on the right of that State to demand the payment of this claim; and whatever respect may be due to the assertion of such a right in one of the States of this Union, the committee felt it to be their duty to investigate the claim thus asserted by Virginia, and to lay before the Senate the result of such investigation.

It is shown by an act of assembly, passed in Virginia the 3d day of December, 1789, (see 13 vol. Henning, page 33,) that the establishment of a "situation for the seat of the general government, central and convenient to the citizens of the United States at large, having due regard to population, extent of territory, and a free navigation to the Atlantic ocean through the Chesapeake bay, as well as ready communication with our fellow-citizens in the western frontier," engaged the attention of the said general assembly. And following this preamble, (which pointed to the

practicability of embracing within the seat of the general government portions of the territory of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia,) it was enacted "that a tract of country not exceeding ten miles square, or any lesser quantity, to be located within the limits of that State, at the pleasure of Congress, be, and the same is hereby, forever ceded and relinquished to the Congress and government of the United States, in full and absolute right and exclusive jurisdiction, &c., pursuant to the eighth section of the first article of the constitution."

And on the 10th day of December, 1789, it was

"Resolved by the General Assembly of Virginia, That a copy of the foregoing act of the 3d of December, 1789, be transmitted to the General Assembly of Maryland without delay; and that it be proposed to the said assembly to unite with this legislature in an application to Congress, that in case Congress shall deem it expedient to establish the permanent seat of government of the United States on the banks of the Potomac, so as to include the cession of either State, or a part of the cession of both States, this assembly will pass an act for advancing a sum of money not exceed ing $120,000 to the use of the general government, to be applied in such manner as Congress shall direct towards erecting public buildings, the said assembly of Maryland on their part advancing a sum not less than two-fifths of the sum advanced by this State for the like purpose."-(See journal of the house of delegates, page 115.)

A further resolution was then adopted to procure and forward to Congress information of the navigation of the Potomac river above and below tide-water, and the practicability of communicating with the western waters, &c.-(See same journal and page.)

It does not appear that these propositions were acted upon by Congress, or referred to in the debates of the House of Representatives on the passage of the law of July 16, 1790, " for establishing the temporary and per. manent seat of the government of the United States," (which act may be found in 1st vol. Laws United States, page 130.) That law located the permanent seat of the government within the State of Maryland, and comprised within the District of Columbia no part of the territory of Virginia. Its 4th section enacts, "that for defraying the expense of such purchase, and building, the President of the United States be authorized and requested to accept grants of money."

The journals of the house of delegates for the State of Virginia show, that on the 24th day of December, 1790, (see page 155,) a bill was introduced "for granting to the President of the United States the sum of $120,000 for erecting public buildings on the Potomac river, agreeably to a resolution of the last assembly." That this bill, with this title, passed the usual parliamentary forms of proceeding; that on the 27th of Decem ber, 1790, (see page 161,) it passed, and that its title on its passage was amended by substituting for the words quoted above the following: "An act concerning an advance of money to the government of the United States for public buildings. And in a report of the committee of the legislature of Virginia on this subject, at its last session, and with which the transfer of this claim to the Orange and Alexandria railroad is identified, it is declared that "it is not allowed us to doubt the intention of this change, when the legislature thus refused to make the $120,000 a grant, and adhered to the promise that it should be an advance."

The same report further declares, that the location of the permanent