April 26, 1830.

Report on memorial of certain citizens of Ohio on the case of Capt. Benjamin Jones Shain, etc.

That the petitioners represent, that on the 25th day of November, 1821, there was committed on the property and person of Benjamin Jones Shain, master of the schooner Ajax, while in the port of Habana, an outrage of the most flagrant, atrocious, and unprovoked character by certain Spanish officers, soldiers, and others at that place. That the circumstances attending this transaction were stated to the Senate in a petition presented to that body in the year 1822, which petition was then referred to the Secretary of State. But that no report in relation to it has yet been made by that officer. They therefore pray in behalf of the said Shain that Congress may take such efficient measures and proceedings as they shall deem most proper to procure redress for the said outrage.

The representations of the petitioners that no report has ever been made by the Secretary of State upon the case referred to him is not correct. On the 5th day of February, 1823, the Secretary of State did make a report upon the case of Captain Shain, which had been referred to him. In this report he states that on the 16th day of January, 1822, a resolution was adopted by the House of Representatives requesting of the President information with regard to outrages and abuses committed upon the persons of the officers and crew of American vessels at the Havanas. That in pursuance of this resolution a message of the President, communicated to the House on the 30th of January, 1822, the statement of Captain Shain, together with the depositions presented to support the same. That these documents were referred by the House of Representatives to their Committee on Foreign Affairs, who on the 12th of February, 1822, reported to the House their opinion that there had not been a case presented to them in the statement and documents above mentioned, which required the interference of the Goverment. They therefore submitted a resolution which was agreed upon by the House that the committee be discharged from the further consideration of the subject.

As no new evidence accompanies the present petition, the committee see no reason why they should recommend to the Senate the adoption of any other step in relation to this case than that which has already received the sanction of the House of Representatives and of the Executive of the United States. They therefore propose to the Senate to adopt the following resolution:

Resolved, That the Committee on Foreign Affairs be discharged from the further consideration of this petition.

(Leg. Jour., p. 269.)

[See Claims against Spain, Gen. Index.]

TWENTY-THIRD CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION.

June 30, 1834.

[Senate Report No. 506.]

Mr. Wilkins made the following report:

The Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom was referred the memorial of Somerville Pinckney, administrator of James Williams, deceased, praying indemnity, under the Florida treaty, for certain spoliations, report:

That the facts set forth in the memorial are true, and, in the opinion of the committee, entitle the claim to the favorable consideration of Congress.

There is still a balance of the fund appropriated to the payment of these claims in the hands of the Government, which it holds as trustee for the benefit of those entitled, and which Congress certainly can not dispose of in any other mode. The facts in this case having been established, and the later decisions of the commissioners having established also the legality of the claim, the failure to have it allowed having resulted from the accidental omission of the administrator, by whom it was presented, to make further inquiry after the first decision, and the allowance now being in no respect calculated to injure the persons having claims upon the fund, or to prejudice them in any respect more than if it had been allowed by the commissioners during their session, the committee recommend the passage of a bill authorizing the payment of a dividend to the amount paid on other claims, provided the same shall not exceed the balance of the fund still remaining. The lateness of the session of Congress, however, induce the committee to decline reporting such a bill now, and to advise the postponement of the subject until the next session.

[See preceding report.]

TWENTY-THIRD CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION.

January 22, 1835.

[Senate Report No. —-.]

On petition of Somerville Pinckney, administrator of James Williams, Mr. King, of Georgia, made the following report:

That it appears from the documents accompanying the memorial that James Williams, in his lifetime, in the month of December, 1799, shipped on board a schooner, called the Brothers, a cargo of merchandise destined to Habana.

That, in the same month and year, the said schooner Brothers was captured by an armed privateer under French colors, called the Maria, and carried into the port called Nalargas, in Cuba, where, by the connivance of the Spanish authorities, the vessel and cargo were converted by the captors to their own use.

That application was made by the commander of the schooner to the commandant of the port at Matanzas, but no satisfaction was received, and the vessel and cargo were thereupon abandoned to the Spanish Government, and a representation of the loss shortly afterwards was made to the Government of the United States.

The committee also learn from the evidence that the vessel was worth $3,000, and the cargo, at invoice prices, was worth $5,843.63, which, with 8 per cent premium of insurance and the customary 2 per cent, gave to the owners an insurable interest in the cargo of $6,529.19; that the vessel was without insurance, and the cargo partially insured for $4,000 by the Baltimore Insurance Company, which was paid to the insured.

It appears further to the committee that in April, 1822, the then representatives of the estate of James Williams filed their memorial before the commissioners, appointed and acting under the Florida treaty, praying indemnity for the loss of the said vessel and the part of the cargo uninsured, the claim of the Baltimore Insurance Company for the portion of the loss on the same adventure having been previously filed in the month of February in the same year. The committee find also, from the documents submitted to them, that the board of commissioners, at an early period of its sessions, adopted a rule," that all claims on the same vessel, voyage, and captain will be decided together;" that the claims of the underwriters and the claim in question were, in pursuance of the above rule, examined together on the 20th of November, 1823, and rejected; that the Baltimore Insurance Company petitioned for and obtained a rehearing of their claim, which, on the 24th of April, 1824, was allowed.

No petition for a rehearing of the claim in question having been filed before the commissioners, the first decision of the board by which the claim was rejected remained in full operation, and the estate which the memorialist represents has been denied any benefits from the fund provided for the indemnity of citizens of the United States under the Florida treaty.

Under the foregoing view of the facts, the committee have considered the claims of the memorialist to relief. They have not thought it important to examine the correctness of the ultimate decision of the board by which the claims of the underwriters were allowed. The acquiescence of the Spanish authorities at Matanzas may or may not have justified the board in the decision that the loss of the schooner and cargo was a loss to be remunerated by the provisions of the treaty. Such was the decision by the only tribunal having authority to decide, and hence it appears that by the application of an adjudicated principle, the estate of James Williams was clearly entitled to indemnity with the other claimants admitted by the board to indemnity under the treaty in question. But although the committee are disposed to admit the original rights of the estate of James Williams to participate in the fund provided by the treaty they are not prepared to indemnify the claimant at the expense of the nation. The memorialist excuses the omission to apply for a reconsideration by stating the belief of the representatives of the estate that the claim would be considered in a final adjudication together with the claim of the Baltimore Insurance Company. The excuse is reasonable and the statement most probably true. But the claims were presented in separate memorials by different parties in interest, were never consolidated on the record of the commissioners, and were only considered together by a time-saving rule of the board when both cases were properly before it. The committee can not, therefore, consider the United States liable for an omission on the part of the commissioners occasioned by a want of strict attention by the party in interest, which was usual with other claim

ants, however, he may have been disappointed in his reasonable expectations.

This objection as well as the force of it seems to have been anticipated by the memorialist and he represents in his memorial that there is a balance of the stipulated indemnity remaining unclaimed in the Treasury to which he asserts a superior claim, and the committee find on inquiry that there are dividends awarded by the commission and unclaimed by those entitled to them to the amount of $8,867.03.

The commissioners, however, have not thought proper to recommend a change at present in the disposition of this fund. It is already appropriated and belongs to those to whom it has been awarded by the commissioners, and the committee do not consider the delay in applying for it as an abandonment of right. It is certainly true, as stated in behalf of the memorialist, that, "in reference to the sum appropriated by the treaty of Florida to the payment of the debts of Spain, the United States is a trustee.” But this the committee conceive only renders the delay the less inconsistent with the rights of those entitled to the subject of the trust, it being a rule of equity, founded on reasons equally applicable in political and private relations, that no limitations run in favor of the trustee against the claim of those entitled to the beneficiary interest.

The committee would suggest that an act of limitations to operate on this surplus fund, imposing reasonable conditions on the claimants, may be worthy the consideration of Congress, but for the present ask the adoption of the following resolution:

Resolved, That the committee be discharged from the further consideration of the subject.

[See pp. 3, 5, 186, Vol. I.]

TWENTY-FOURTH CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION.

March 11, 1836.

[Senate Report No. 236.]

Mr. Porter made the following report:

The Committee on Foreign Affairs, to whom was referred the petition of Margaret Meade, widow and executrix of Richard W. Meade, have had the same under consideration, and report:

This case has been frequently before committees of the House of Representatives, by whom the prayer of the petition has been favorably considered and bills presented for her relief. The reports, accompanying these bills, state all the material facts on which the claim rests; and the committee have taken, as evidence of these facts, the documents accompanying a report made by the Committee on Foreign Relations in the House of Representatives, on the 14th January, 1834; both are hereunto annexed.

The application for relief in this instance grows out of a rejection, by the commissioners under the Florida treaty of a claim of the husband of the petitioner against Spain. By the stipulations of that treaty the United States undertook to pay to certain of its citizens demands which they held upon the Spanish Government.

The article of the treaty on which Meade presented his case to the commissioners is in these words: "The renunciation of the United States will extend to all claims on the Spanish Government, statements of which, soliciting the interposition of the Government of the United

States, have been presented to the Department of State or to the minister of the United States, since the date of the convention of 1802, and until the signature of the treaty."

Meade's demand on Spain embraced not merely claims for damages arising from torts committed by the officers of that Government, it extended, also, to money due on contracts for provisions furnished by him during the war of the Peninsula, and it also comprehended a right to compensation for the damages sustained on protested bills of exchange given to him in payment of the debt.

The committee are saved the necessity of examining whether a claim of the character just stated is included within the provisions of a treaty which, by a generic term, provides for all claims. Soon after the organization of the board a doubt appears to have arisen in the minds of the commissioners whether money due by the Government of Spain on contract, fell within the renunciation made by the United States, and they requested information from the Executive whether cases of this kind had been intentionally excluded. To this inquiry an answer was returned by the then Secretary of State, that as there was no limitation in the words of the renunciation with regard to the nature of the transactions in which the claim originated, whether by contract or by tort, so none was intended." The commissioners acted on this interpretation, or rather explanation, and Meade's claim was received for adjudication.

They, however, refused to confirm it. It is not the intention of the committee, for it is not necessary, to pass in review that rejection, nor to examine whether the conclusions reached by the board, or the reasons on which those conclusions were founded so far as they now can be ascertained, are such as the committee could adopt. The principal evidence offered in support of the claim was the decree of a special tribunal created by the King of Spain to examine and liquidate the demands of Meade against that monarchy. The commissioners were of opinion that their decision was neither conclusive or prima facie evidence of the debt it professed to recognize and establish. Admitting this opinion to be sound, still the committee feel that, on coming to a conclusion on the case now under consideration the Senate are not necessarily limited to the truth which may reach them through evidence which is legal according to the rules of this or that system of jurisprudence. That the board might properly establish the opposite principle need not be gainsaid. Such a standard may have been correct while conflicting claimants disputed for a fund which was to be divided among them; but on an appeal to the justice of the republic, moral evidence is all that is necessary. It is of far less importance how the conviction is attained, than that reparation should not speedilyinstantly-follow a knowledge of the wrong.

The case is one of a very peculiar character, and though its justice is manifest a fatality seems to have attended every effort of the claimant, and defeated his attempts to obtain satisfaction for the injuries he has sustained. Nor can the disappointment be attributed to a want of great industry and exertion on his part-it would rather appear that the failure to successfully enforce his rights proceeded in some measure from the vast pains he took to secure them.

The obligations of Spain arose in the first instance, from extensive supplies of provisions furnished by him to its Government during the war between the Emperor Napoleon and that country. Before the conclusion of hostilities we find him engaged in an active controversy