Your committee also discover, that the petitions have been presented and referred to select committees, at each of the two last sessions of Congress, and favorable reports made. They see no reason to change the relief suggested by those reports, (to which they beg leave to refer,) recommending that scrip be issued to the parties interested, for the amount that is due to them respectively, at the rate of two dollars per acre, that being the minimum price, in cash, of public lands, and that this scrip, so to be issued, shall be receivable for any lands to be sold in the state of Alabama; for which purposes, the committee report a bill. [ 4 ] REPORT Of the Committee of Claims on the petition of William M'Donald, administrator of James, accompanying "a bill for the relief of William M'Donald, administrator of James M Donald deceased," &c. DECEMBER 14, 1819. Read, and, with the Bill, committed to the committee of the whole, to-morrow. The Committee of Claims, to whom was referred the petition of William M'Donald, brother and administrator of the late captain James M.Donald, REPORT: That this case was before them at the last session, and they now beg leave to adopt their report, made at that time, in the following words: The petitioner states, that, in the settlement of the accounts of his late brother, with the proper accounting officers, for bounties and premiums paid, and the allowance due him, as an officer, for recruiting, and for contingencies sundry items, which he conceives to be justly chargeable to the United States, were disallowed for want of that strict legal evidence in their support, which the rules adopted by the accounting officers require. He also states, that capt. M'Donald died at Buffalo, in the state of New York, on the 11th day of November, 1814; that some considerable time after his death, his trunk was brought home to the petitioner, with the lock broken, and only secured by a strap, that some of his clothes were missing, and his papers not in well secured bundles, but loose, and mixt up amongst his clothes, as if they had been carelessly thrown in together, or jumbled up from the jostling of so long a journey, or disturbed by some intruder, which induces him to suppose that some, if not many, of his papers may have been lost, by which he is deprived of the means of furnishing to the accounting officers that conclusive and direct evidence in favor of the disallowed items, which their strict rules require; he, therefore, prays the interference of Congress in his behalf. The petitioner enters into a lengthy detail of facts and circumstances, in relation to the disallowed items, which the committee deem it unnecessary to repeat in their report, as they think it most proper to refer the petition and documents to the proper accounting officers, with directions, in the settlement of the accounts of the said late captain James M.Donald, to make such allowance for bounties and premiums paid, and for money due him as an officer, for recruiting and for contingencies, as may appear equitable and just; and for that purpose they report a bill. |