The Committee on Pensions, to whom was referred the petition of Thomas B. Parsons, for arrears of Pension, beg leave to report:

That the petition of said Parsons and accompanying papers were before this committee at the 1st session of the 23d Congress, at which time the committee investigated the case, and coming to the conclusion that the prayer of the petitioner ought to be granted made a favorable report, accompanied by a bill providing for the payment of the arrears claimed. The bill passed the Senate, but failed to be reached in the House. The committee now adopt the report then made, and recommend the passage of the bill which accompanied it.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, AUGUST 17, 1852.

The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the claim of Thomas B. Parsons, for arrears of pension, or the difference between the half-pay of a seaman and a petty officer, in which capacity he was acting at the time he was disabled, have had the same under consideration, and report:

That under the act of 3d March, 1837, the claimant was paid at the rate of six dollars per month from the 1st of September, 1808, to the 1st June, 1835, having been placed on the pension roll as a seaman, there being no evidence of the capacity in which he served; and from 1st June, 1835, he has been paid under the act of 29th August, 1842, at the rate of nine dollars per month as a coxswain, in which capacity he was acting when he received the incurable disability.

The following interesting narrative of the circumstances under which the petitioner became disabled in the line of his duty in July, 1808, has been furnished by Commodore Jones:

"The circumstances alluded to in my letter of the 14th instant, to the Hon. Mr. Bradbury, which produced the serious injury under which Thomas B. Parsons, a citizen of the State of Maine, has long

labored, and for which he is in the receipt of a reduced navy pension, were of a character so praise-worthy and honorable to the man who nobly risked his own to save the life of others, that I cannot, in justice to the time-worn sailor and a benefactor, refrain from recording the facts as they occurred.

"In the summer of 1808 I was attached to one of the gun-boats employed about Barrataria, coast of Louisiana, to enforce the embargo, suppress piracy and prevent smuggling. The gun-boat was commanded by a sailing master by the name of Browne. I was a young midshipman and Thomas B. Parsons, of the Province of Maine, was a petty officer on board the same vessel; Parsons was then about twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, and was as noble a specimen of New England seamen as ever stepped the deck of ship; like many others of his calling he had been thrown out of the merchant service by the embargo, and with a strong prospect of war with England he had entered the naval service of his country.

"On the morning of July, 1808, Sailing Master Browne, in a small cutter manned with six seamen, a coxswain, Thomas B. Parsons, and Midshipman Thomas Ap Catesby Jones, set out on an expedition (from the gun-boat, then anchored in Lake Barrataria) for a series of islets and lagoons further west, where we had reason to believe there was a band of pirates and smugglers discharging a prize they had captured on the coast. The boat was small, and what with arms and two weeks' provisions for the party, was deeply laden. To reach our destination it was necessary to pass out to sea and coast along shore some thirty or forty miles. In the effort to get to sea through the passage at the west end of the island of Grand Terre, about eight o'clock in the morning, when near a mile from land, suddenly we found the bar, which up to that moment had been perfectly smooth, disturbed by heavy rollers setting in from sea, and in the next moment, a sea made a clear breach over our boat, filled her, and she instantly sunk to the bottom in ten or twelve feet of water. Of the eight persons in the boat but two could swim; they were Brown, the master, and Parsons, the coxswain or quartermaster; fortunately another roller capsized the boat, and washed everything weighty out of her, and she rose to the surface in time for the drowning crew, with the assistance of Browne and Parsons, to regain and cling to her bottom as the only remaining hope. Mr. Browne and Parsons supplied themselves each with an oar and struck out for the shore. The tide was ebb and strong against them; but for Parsons, who was an expert swimmer, the task seemed not unsurmountable; not so with Mr. Browne, who, although a good swimmer and had some distance the start of Parsons, was overtaken by Parsons some distance from land, nearly exhausted and incapable of further exertion. Parsons cheered up Browne, surrendered his own oar to Mr. Browne, which, with the one Browne had supplied himself near the boat, enabled the drowning man to keep his head above water till Parsons reached the shore and divested himself of his wet clothes and swam back to the relief of Parsons, whom he landed on the beach unable to stand.

"Parsons and Browne now on terra firma, their most anxious thoughts. were directed to those left clinging to the boat, which Parsons clearly perceived was rapidly drifting to seaward, under the action of strong

ebb tide. He was on an uninhabited island, without the means of communicating our situation to any one, and without the possibility of rendering that aid and assistance for which his noble heart so ardently throbbed; all that he could do was to pace the beach in anxious prayer for some providential aid to relieve his shipmates and companions in disaster from the terrors of death which surrounded them in the most appalling forms.

The condition of those in the boat may be inferred from the circumstances in which they were placed. The boat was rapidly increasing the distance from the shore, and whether the returning flood tide would take her back to any land, and if to land, whether it would be inhabited by friends or foes, was uncertain; moreover, for nearly an hour after the boat was swamped, (8 a. m.,) those clinging to her were frequently washed off by the breakers that dashed over them, and some of them with difficulty regained their hold, greatly exhausted. Not the least of our dark forebodings, while on the boat's bottom, was the likelihood of being devoured by the ravenous sharks which abounded on that coast; but what was even more to be dreaded than death from starvation, drowning or sharks, was the probability of falling into the hands of pirates, who had declared war to the knife against Commodore Porter and all of the navy on the New Orleans station.

"After about six hours passed in doubtful anxiety, calculating the chances of which of the unnatural deaths, above depicted, was to be our fate, a gleam of hope was inspired by the turning tide, and with the flood tide a light sea breeze, which wafted the wreck again towards the land. As we drew nearer and nearer to the shore, one tall, manly figure could be seen pacing the breach, in apparent anxiety. But there was only one; Brown was still unable to walk, and Parsons had left him under a temporary shelter, which he had made from sticks and grass to protect the half-drowned officer from the burning sun, and had then hied to be in place to meet and assist any that might need assistance in landing from the boat's bottom.

"“The flood tide sets to the eastward on that part of the coast, and, as the drift was obliquely with the line of the coast, it was near the centre of the island of Grand Terre that we were approaching. There shoals extend some distance from the beach, interrupted, however, by swashes or narrow channels of deeper water. As the wreck approached the outer limit of these alternate shoals and swashes, Parsons, by wading and swimming, advanced to our relief, and now by still greater exertions to hasten and make sure the release of the sufferers from the perilous situation in which they had then been from 8 a. m. to near sunset, without food or water, under a burning July sun on the southern, coast of Louisiana.

"Approaching the boat, while still in deep water, Parsons apparently reanimated for the effort by finding all he left on the boat still there, and I being the youngest and lightest of the party, he took me on his back, and by wading and swimming where we could not walk, landed me in safety on the beach. In like manner did he assist one of the boat's crew who was too much exhausted to help himself. But even here the noble efforts did not cease, for after a brief respite of a few minutes only, Parsons was again buffeting the waves, this time swim

ming and wading towards the shore with the boat in tow, and four men still clinging to her bottom.

"The crew all safely landed, the boat was righted and baled out, and a few of the oars and other articles drifted to the shore were recovered, and with the declining sun, wet and hungry, we retraced our course for the gunboat, about nine miles off, which we reached about midnight, in a very different plight from what we had left her in the morning. A few hours' repose restored all to their accustomed health and strength, except the noble Parsons, whose last grand effort in towing the boat to land produced a severe rupture, on account of which he was soon after discharged (incurable) from the navy, with an injury he had received, not only in the public service, but in the noble cause of humanity, whereby one officer at least was saved from a watery grave.

"From the time of Parson's discharge from the navy in 1808, I heard nothing of him until one evening in company with the Hon. John Read of Massachusetts, then chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, House of Representatives, I think about the year 1835. Mr. Read remarked that he was glad to see me, for that a man in New England had petitioned Congress for a pension for an injury he had received many years before in efforts to rescue, among others, myself from a boat swamped in the surf, but that his account was so marvellous the committee were inclined to treat the narrative as the production of some unsound mind, and requested me to examine the papers, then in Mr. Read's possession, which I did promptly and cheerfully; and, finding Mr. Parson's statement to be substantially correct, the committee reported favorably, and a pension of $6 per month from the date of his application was granted. By subsequent general and special acts of Congress Mr. Parson's pension was made retrospective from the date of his discharge from the navy at $6 per month, and it has also been increased to $9 per month from the date of his first application, (1835, I believe,) but there is still clearly due him, under the eighth section of the act of April 23d, 1800, relating to navy pensions, $3 per month for twenty-seven years, the difference between half-pay of seamen and a petty officer, in which capacity Parsons was acting when he received the incurable disability.

"There is another aspect in which this heroic old man's claims to justice, full and ungrudging justice, may be regarded. Section nine of the act of the 23d of April, 1800, providing a fund for the payment of navy pensions, declares that if the fund so provided should be more than sufficient for the payment of pensions and half-pay, &c., &c., &c., the surplus shall be applied to making further provision for the comfort of disabled officers, seamen and mariners, and for such as, though not disabled, may merit by their bravery or long and faithful services the gratitude of their country.

"I know some will answer that there is no surplus navy pension fund. Wherefore is there none now? Up to the passage of the act of March 3, 1837, the interest of the navy pension fund, the earnings of the sailor's life-blood, was not only more than sufficient to pay all pensions and half-pay to all who could claim under the act quoted, but also halfpay to officers' widows, to privateersmen, Dartmouth prisoners, and persons in the revenue service, none of whom had in any way con