Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Missouri the following circular:

"DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

"Washington, 22 March, 1821. "SIR:-The question of the construction of that part of the first article of the Treaty of Ghent, which stipulated that slaves should not be carried away from the United States, by British officers after the conclusion of the Peace, having been submitted by the American and British Governments to the decision of the Emperor of Russia, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has demanded that, in the event of a decision in favour of the Construction insisted upon by the United States, the full extent of the demand upon Great Britain for restitution or indemnity for slaves carried away should be made known as speedily as possible. I am directed by the President to suggest that notice should be given to the sufferers, to transmit without delay to this Department, authenticated proof of the number of slaves carried away, and of their value by the current prices at which they might have been sold at the time when the loss was sustained, specifying the name, age, sex, and value of each individual slave lost. "I have the honor to be with great respect, Sir, "Your humble and obedt. Servt."

Omitted Claims.

On the 13th of December Mr. Adams transmitted to the commissioners certain documents pertaining to the claims submitted to their consideration, and pointed out that some of the documents related to cases which were to be added to the list transmitted on the 8th of December, but which had been by inevitable accident omitted at that time. The American commissioner expressed the opinion that the cases which had been so omitted from the definitive list should be added to it. The British commissioner, conceiving that the terms of Article III. of the convention left no discretion in the matter, dissented from that opinion. By a similar division of opinion several other applications to add claims not contained in the definitive list. failed of approval.

On the 14th of December the commissioners Rules of Procedure. resolved that they would, on each morning of their meeting, sit with open doors for the purpose of receiving proofs, motions, and other communications from the claimants and their agents; that all motions should be in writing, and if supported by arguments that such arguments should also be in writing; that on a day thereafter to

be appointed and announced the definitive list would be called over in the presence of the claimants and their agents for the purpose of ascertaining what persons were ready to submit their cases for examination and decision; and that the claimants respectively, or their agents upon producing a special authority to that effect from their principals, should be permitted from time to time to take out of the office of the commissioners their original documents and papers for the purposes of investigation and examination, giving to the secretary an engagement for their safe and punctual return within one. month. This last resolution was subsequently modified by striking out the words "for the purposes of investigation and examination" and "one month," and adding at the end the words "reasonable time, or whenever the board may specially direct."

Documentary Evidence.

In regard to the authentication of evidence the commissioners differed, though they agreed on a rule which, while not expressly excluding anything, prescribed a mode of authentication the observance of which entitled depositions to admission. To this rule, however, Mr. Cheves assented with reluctance. It was at first decided on motion of Mr. Neale, an agent for numerous claimants, that depositions should be deemed duly authenticated which should be taken before a notary public, judge, or justice of the peace, provided they were accompanied either with a certificate of the clerk of the county or district court within which such officer resided, under the seal of the court and signature of the clerk, certifying the signature of such notary public, judge, or justice of the peace, and that he was bona fide the character he represented himself to be, or by a certificate to the same effect under the signature and seal of a consul, vice-consul, or other British functionary. It was agreed that all other depositions should be decided upon, on the special circumstances of each, whenever they should come under consideration. Mr. Jackson however subsequently insisted, either as an interpretation or as a modification of the rule, that when the officer who took the deposition had no official seal, as is the case with justices of the peace, the certifying official should certify that the signature of such officer was genuine. Mr. Cheves opposed this requirement on the ground that as it necessitated on the part of the certifying official personal knowledge of the signature or handwriting of the justice, it

would in many cases be impossible to comply with it. But he at length concurred in the modification, holding that it did not bind him to exclude depositions otherwise authenticated.

It was decided that any claimant might refer to and use as evidence in his case, so far as it might be available, any written documents or matter of proof which might have been filed by any other claimant in the same or any other case.

Further Proof.

The commissioners also determined, in a particular case, to afford an opportunity for further proof on certain points. Mr. Cheves expressed the opinion that further proof ought to be admitted in all cases where it would promote justice without danger of unreasonable delay. Mr. Jackson, while acceding to the request in the particular case, said he must protest against it on general principles, in the hope that similar applications might be precluded in the future.

On the 6th of January 1825 a question arose Powers of Attorney. as to whether it was necessary for attorneys for claimants to have a power of attorney. The commissioners answered that the convention required the claims to be submitted through the definitive list "by the owners of slaves or other property, or by their lawful attorneys or representatives," and that they had been unable to agree on any means by which the requirement of a power of attorney might be dispensed with.

Disagreements of
Commissioners.

Though the commissioners succeeded in agreeing on some points, they soon began to fall into difficulties which precluded any advancement of the purposes for which they were appointed. Their first pronouced disagreement occurred Omitted Claims. early in 1825 in regard to placing certain omitted claims on the definitive list under peculiar circumstances. The papers in which the claims in question were set forth accompanied the definitive list, but through the inad vertence or misunderstanding of the person who prepared it were not entered upon it. As the commissioners were unable to agree on the question of entering these claims, Mr. Cheves moved that they proceed by lot to name one of the two arbitrators, in order that the difference might be decided in conformity with the provisions of Article V. of the convention. Mr. Jackson declined to assent to this on the ground that under that article the commissioners were authorized to call in an

arbitrator only in the event of their "not agreeing in any par ticular case under examination, or of their disagreement upon any question which may result from the stipulations of this convention," and that the subject of the present disagreement neither arose in a particular case under examination nor resulted from the stipulations of the convention. The demand was, he said, not only not based on any stipulation of the convention, but was opposed to its express provisions.

A similar disagreement occurred in regard British Evidence. to evidence in the possession of the British Government. As has been seen, Article III. of the convention provided: "And His Britannic Majesty hereby engages to cause to be produced before the commission, as material towards ascertaining facts, all the evidence of which His Majesty's Government may be in possession, by returns from His Majesty's officers or otherwise, of the number of slaves carried away."

Early in the proceedings of the commission one of the attorneys for claimants asked that such evidence be produced. The commission answered that the evidence in question was not in its possession or power. Subsequently the British commissioner received from his government a mass of papers, consisting of extracts from the log books of the vessels which had carried slaves away, and other documentary evidence, but not being authorized by his government to present the papers to the commission in such manner that the claimants might have access to them, he refused to deliver them to the commission, except on condition that claimants should be denied inspection of them until the testimony in their respective cases should be closed. Mr. Cheves, on the other hand, maintained that one of the principal objects of the stipulation in question was to supply all the evidence in the possession of the British Government respecting the facts which were to be proved, and which, as in the case of carrying away slaves, it might be difficult to prove otherwise; and that the claimants were clearly entitled, in making up their cases, to the inspection of such evidence.

terest.

Another disagreement occurred in regard Allowance of In- to the allowance of interest on claims. The formal discussion on this subject began February 25, 1825, when Mr. Cheves submitted an opinion on the claim of John Cowper, of Georgia, embracing (1) slaves carried

away from St. Simon's Island; (2) consequent loss of crops from 1815 to 1824; (3) interest at 8 per cent, the legal rate in Georgia, on those items. Mr. Cheves held that the first item was established. The second item he rejected as on its face inadmissible. As to interest on the value of the slaves carried away, he held that reasonable damages for the withholdment of a right were necessary to compensate the sufferer for the injury so sustained, and that such damages were measured in the present case by interest at the legal rate in the State of Georgia, where the slaves were taken. "A just indemnification," said Mr. Cheves, "is the reestablishment of the thing taken away, with an equivalent for the use of it during the period of detention." This was also the general rule adopted by claims commissions. In this relation he referred to the proceedings under the sixth and seventh articles of the Jay Treaty of 1794.

On the 16th of March Mr. Jackson replied. Adverting to the fact that the question was not what slaves were carried away from the territories or waters of the United States by His Majesty's forces during the war, but whether the slaves claimed in each particular case were so carried away after the exchange of the ratifications of the Treaty of Ghent, he said that he considered the evidence on this point unsatisfactory. But he wouid meet the American commissioner on the question of damages on the grounds the latter had taken. These Mr. Jackson classed as follows: (1) Principles of justice and equity; (2) the authority of precedent; and (3) a reasonable and necessary construction of the convention. The last ground Mr. Jackson discussed first. After quoting the language of the fifth article of the convention of October 20, 20, 1818, he said that on this article was founded the convention of St. Petersburg of 1822; and he contended that under these conventions the value of the slaves was the compensation to be made. This view was, he said, enforced by the provision that the board should ascertain the average value of the slaves. This being fixed, the only duty of the commissioners, and their only power or authority, after procuring the list of slaves provided for in the third article of the convention of St. Petersburg, was to examine persons or receive depositions touching the real number of slaves. If the convention intended that the commissioners should allow damages as well as the value of the slaves, it was inconceivable that the power