and as to so much of the third article as related to the definitive list, which had also been executed.1 Adjournment of By Article V. of Mr. Gallatin's convention it was provided that from the day on which the ratifications should be exchanged the joint. commission appointed under the convention of 1822 should be dissolved. The ratifications were exchanged at London on the 6th of February 1827, and the commissioners and arbitrators were duly notified of the fact by their respective governments. On the 26th of March Messrs. Jackson, Cheves, and McTavish met, and, having declared the joint commission to be dissolved in virtue of the article in question, adjourned sine die. 3. COMMISSION UNDER ACT OF MARCH 2, 1827. On the 2d of March 18272 Congress passed an act to carry the convention of November 13, 1826, into effect. This act provided for the appointment by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, of three commissioners and one clerk, who should constitute a commission for the purpose of carrying the act into effect. The records of the old commission, so far as they were under the control of the United States, were to be delivered to the new commission. It was provided that the commissioners, or a majority of them, with their clerk, should meet in Washington on the 10th of the ensuing July, and proceed to the consideration of claims, allowing such further time for the production of evidence as they should think just. Compensation was provided for each commissioner at a rate of $3,000 a year, and for the clerk at the rate of $1,500, during the continuance of the commission, which was not, however, to last after the next session of Congress. By section 9 it was provided that, as soon as any claim should be adjudged valid and the principal amount be ascertained, a sum equal to 75 per cent of the principal should be paid on it, and that when the labors of the commission were finished the balance of all sums adjudged to be due should be paid if the fund permitted it; and if it did not, that the remainder of the fund should be distributed in proportion to the sums awarded. 1Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 339. The protocol of the payment of the first installment is printed at page 372 of that volume. 24 Stats. at L. 219. By section 12 it was provided that all claims deposited in the Department of State which were by mistake omitted from the definitive list delivered to the former commissioners should be added to it for adjustment with the claims previously entered. Organization. Under this act Langdon Cheves and Henry Seawell, who had served respectively as commissioner and arbitrator under the convention of 1822, were appointed as commissioners, and with them was joined James Pleasants, of Virginia. Aaron Ogden was ap pointed as clerk. They all met in Washington July 10, 1827, the day fixed by the act, and severally took an oath of office before William E. Mack, a justice of the peace for the District of Columbia. On the 11th of July the commissioners promul gated rules to govern the transaction of business before them. On the 13th of July an assistant clerk was appointed at a salary of $600. Procedure. On the 12th of July some of the claimants represented that, from the shortness of the time since the transmission of the records and documents from the office of the Secretary of State, they could not be prepared on that day to announce whether or no they were in readiness for trial, and requested that the calling over of the definitive list might be postponed for the present. The calling of the list was then postponed until the 13th at 10 o'clock a. m. An order was also made that the clerk be permitted to furnish copies of any papers which were of record in his office, the applicant paying a reasonable compensation for such copies. An attorney for some of the claimants moved that any claimant should be permitted to put down for examination and decision such part or parts of his claim, from time to time as he might deem expedient, until his whole claim should be disposed of. On this motion the board ordered that claimants should be permitted to sever their claims, so far as to separate slaves from other property, but not so as to put down part of either. Mr. Pleasants was born in Virginia in 1769, and was a first cousin of Thomas Jefferson. By profession a lawyer, he was successively a member of the legislature of Virginia, a Representative and then a Senator in the Congress of the United States, and governor of his native State, where he died in 1839. Various claims accidentally omitted from Omitted Claims. the definitive list were, under the provisions of the act, placed on it, but the commission refused to add any claim that was not so omitted. In consequence certain claimants, whose papers were not filed in the Department of State in time to be entered on the list, appealed to Congress to direct that their claims be entered. These petitions were adversely reported on the ground that the act was intended merely to correct a clerical error in the Department of State, and that it never was the intention of Congress to sanction the insertion of claims which did not reach that department till after the definitive list had been closed and transmitted to the board under the convention of 1822.1 Conflicting Interests of Claimants. The commission proceeded with the business before it with diligence, but not without devel. oping some differences of opinion among the commissioners as well as some differences of interest among the claimants. It was decided that Dauphin Island was in 1815 within the limits of the United States, and no differences of opinion appear to have arisen in respect of the places from which slaves were taken. But in respect of the time at which they were carried away there was much difficulty in reaching a conclusion. This difficulty especially affected what were known as the Chesapeake claims, for slaves carried away from those parts of Maryland and Virginia that border on the Chesa peake Bay. The length and circumstances of the British occupation in those parts, and the fact that some of the slaves that were taken there were sent away before the peace, served to invest the subject with much uncertainty, for the dissipation of which it was necessary to rely chiefly on British evidence. By Article V. of the Gallatin convention it was provided that the British commissioner should, on the dissolution of the joint commission under the convention of 1822, make over to the United States all the documents or papers (or authenticated copies where the originals could not conveniently be made over) which he had received from his government for the use of the commission, conformably to the stipulations of the third article of that convention. These documents and papers were, however, found to be in many respects inconclusive and unsatisfactory, nor did they embrace records which were sup 1 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 821, 858. posed to exist in some of the British colonies in America showing what slaves were carried away before the exchange of the ratifications of the Treaty of Ghent, especially from the Chesapeake. In this condition of things many Southern claims, amounting to about $600,000, were allowed, and the claimants received their 75 per cent., while the Maryland and Virginia claims were held in suspense.' This circumstance gave rise to a clash of interests among the claimants. As the principal of the claims before the commission promised, in spite of Mr. Clay's computation, to consume almost the whole of the fund, leaving little or nothing for interest, those whose claims had been allowed sought to have the time of the commission extended, in order that evidence in opposition to the Chesapeake claims might be obtained from abroad; and for this purpose they applied to Congress. The Chesapeake claimants maintained that when they had shown that their slaves were taken by the British forces during the war they raised, in connection with such other testimony as they had been able to present, a presumption that the slaves remained in the United States till the ratification of the treaty of peace, and that unless countervailing testimony was produced their claims should be allowed without further delay. On the other hand, certain agents for Georgia and Louisiana claimants, in a memorial to the House of Representatives, alleged that important testimony had been obtained to show that the negroes captured in the Chesapeake had, except such as were enlisted in the black corps, and a few others, been sent away during the war by every opportunity, and consequently were not carried away after peace was restored. This testimony, though taken in conformity with certain rules of the commission, had, they said, by a majority of its members been suppressed, on the ground that it was not returned under seal according to the alleged practice of all judicial tribunals. They contended that the time should be extended to enable them to retake this testimony as well as to obtain testimony from abroad. As an additional reason for such an extension they said that a majority of the commissioners had exposed the fund by deciding to admit hearsay testimony and even the depositions of slaves in support of the claims of their masters. By the opinions of the commissioners it appears that Mr. Cheves opposed the admission of hearsay testimony as well as the testimony of slaves, while Messrs. Seawell and Pleasants voted for the admission of both, as in many cases the only evidence of certain facts that could be obtained. As to what were called the suppressed depositions, Mr. Cheves was in favor of admitting them, while Messrs. Seawell and Pleasants opposed it.' Views of Commismissioners. In view of the conflicting positions of the claimants, some desiring and other antagon izing an extension of the existence of the commission, Mr. Wickliffe, chairman of the Committee of the Judiciary of the House of Representatives, before whom the matter was pending, sought to learn the wishes of the commissioners. On the 19th of March 1828 Mr. Pleasants answered, with the concurrence of Mr. Seawell, that as to the necessity of an extension of the term of the commission the commissioners had suggested nothing; that he supposed the design in extending the term was to enable a certain class of claimants, whose cases had been decided and who had under the act of Congress received 75 per cent of their principal, to procure testimony, chiefly from abroad, to prevent claimants from Maryland and Virginia, commonly called the Chesapeake claimants, from establishing their claims, the immediate effect of which would be to stay the proceedings in many cases which were sub judice and ready for hearing. The commission had, however, left it to the claimants to consider the question of extension. The fund would nearly or quite pay the principal amounts due for all the slaves if, as was believed to be the fact, it should be found that the other property for which claims were made was destroyed before the peace and therefore did not come within the provisions of the treaty. In the 75 per cent that had been paid out no interest was included, the question of interest having in all cases been reserved until it should be known whether the fund would more than suffice to pay the whole of the principal. The ground on which the 75 per cent had been adjudged to the claimants who had received it was "the evidence produced by the claimants, positive or presumptive, to satisfy the commissioners or a majority of them," that their claims came within the provisions of the conventions. The claims on the definitive list numbered, said Mr. Pleasants, between 1,000 and 1,100. Nearly 700 had been examined; of these a number had been Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 882-892. |