and the omission to call for it would be inexcusable, but for the reason pleaded by the Secretary, that it was not required by law. The omission was the fault of the law, and not of the Secretary, and yet it would have been just and judicious if he had required it. There can be no honest reason for the banks to refuse it, and it would now be the best of all evidence to show what profit was derived by those banks from the deposites. We must, therefore, be content with an estimate; and a permanent deposite of twelve hundred thousand dollars for more than two years may be fairly estimated at ten per cent., or one hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year; and, as it is to be continued for nine, fifteen, and twenty-one months longer, the whole sum is in such deposite equivalent to a gratuity to the State of Alabama of four hundred thousand dollars, at the expense of her Northern sisters. Mr. ADAMS was proceeding to comment on this statement, when Mr. CAMBRELENG rose, and appealed to him to permit the question to be taken on the bill before the committee. He thought the gentleman was going to talk all night, (he said,) and it was late. Mr. ADAMS was sorry the gentleman from New York did not relish his remarks. Mr. CAMBRELENG assured the gentleman from Massachusetts that he had not listened to a single word he had said. Mr. AгAMS pursued his remarks. He argued from the facts he had been commenting on, that the accumulation of the public moneys in certain States had been permitted for political effect, and that this had been used as an argument with gentlemen from those States to induce them to sustain other measures of the administration; and was proceeding on this view of the subject, by adducing facts, when he was called to order by The CHAIRMAN, who intimated that he was wandering from the question immediately before the Committee of the Whole. [Oct. 14, 1837. plementary act of July 4, 1836, made it most emphatically his duty to do so. The specie circular, if it had any practical effect at all, by pouring specie largely into that bank, afforded every facility necessary for that operation. In his annual report of December, 1836, he recognises that duty, and enlarges with no equivocal self-complacency upon his vigorous assiduity in performing it. And what has he done? In the fourth quarter of 1836 there was in deposite of public funds in that bank, $1,060,246 30. The four instalments of the deposites payable to the State of Alabama, in the year 1837, amounted to $892,115 71. What had the Secretary of the Treasury to do but to require of that bank to credit the Treasurer of the United States with the four instalments due to the State of Alabama as they became payable, and there would have yet remained upwards of one hundred thousand dollars in that bank to be accounted for. That the Secretary himself understood this to be his duty is apparent from the fact which appears in his report of the 25th of September last to this House, that he did actually so pay off the first, second, and third instalments, amounting to $669,086 79. Who, then, could have imagined that, after all these payments, when Congress came together, on the 4th of last month, the debt of the Branch Bank of the State of Alabama, at Mobile, was still $1,020,856 26? That, from the fourth quarter of 1836, in eleven months, and after a set-off of nearly seven hundred thousand dollars, the debt of the bank had not been reduced so much as forty thousand dollars? It can possibly have happened only by the Secretary's permitting the funds of the nation, devoted to other objects, to flow into this bank as fast as they went out by the payment of the three instalments. I find in the reports of the Secretary of the Treasury no correspondence with the Branch Bank of the State of Alabama, at Mobile, concerning the payment of the instalments to the State, nor respecting the warrant for two hunMr. ADAMS observed that this was the first time any dred and thirteen thousand nine hundred and thirty-two gentleman had been called to order in Committee of the dollars and fifty-nine cents, entered in the column of not Whole by the chairman for not confining himself strictly yet paid, though payable. I have selected this Bank of to the question immediately before the committee. It would the State of Alabama, at Mobile, as one of those, the relabe impossible to enumerate the different subjects which had tions of the Treasury with which are marked with a wilbeen discussed under questions to which they had no rele- derness of confusion. The case of the Agricultural Bank vancy; and he gave as an instance, the brilliant speech of at Natchez is still more extraordinary. That bank got the the gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. LEGARE.] The start of all the rest in the suspension of payments, not mereamendment of a gentleman from Georgia had been under ly of specie, but of others. A Treasury draft upon it, which the consideration of the committee, when that gentleman the holder of it was willing to receive in decent rags, was had delivered a philosophical, historical, admirable dis- yet protested for non-payment on the 2d of May last. By course upon finance, to which the House had listened with the last return of the Treasurer's accounts, there was a great pleasure, but which did not, in the remotest manner, balance still due from that bank of upwards of eight hunrelate to the particular motion before the committee, and dred thousand dollars. Their correspondence with the had not been interrupted. The chairman of the Commit- Secretary of the Treasury, communicated with his report tee of Ways and Means himself had made a speech the of 25th September, is truly edifying. The whole corresnight before upon the same amendment of the gentleman pondence with the late deposite banks, in that document, from Georgia, which gave rise to a dialogue between him- is scarcely less instructive. The Secretaries of the Treasself and a colleague, [Mr. HOFFMAN,] and which induced ury, since the removal of the deposites from the Bank of a dispute which had, doubtless, been settled to the entire the United States and its branches, year after year, have satisfaction of both those gentlemen. It was a skirmish in- lectured Congress upon the transcendent wisdom of that stigated by the private personal enmities and passions of the measure, and the present Secretary, in his annual panechairman of the Committee of Ways and Means himself, gyric upon the deposite State banks, informed us, I think, and he was not restrained by the Chair from wandering that this measure was no longer an experiment. Its sucfrom the subject of debate; while he (Mr. ADAMS) had cess was unqualified. Its triumph was complete. In lookbeen pronounced out of order for connecting with the sub-ing over the Secretary's fiscal reports to Congress, and esject before the committee, such allusions to another bill as tended to show the influence that the manner in which that bill passed would have upon his vote. [Cries from the House, "Go on!" "go on!"] From the time of the passage of the deposite act of June, 1836, it was obviously the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to withdraw from the bank at Mobile all superfluous deposites necessary to pay the whole of the four instalments to which other States were entitled. The sup pecially the correspondence with the deposite banks, I could not but wish that this correspondence could be printed, in parallel columns, with the correspondence between the former Secretaries of the Treasury and the president of the Bank of the United States, from 1816 to 1833, particularly relating to the payment of large sums for the public, in short time, or on sudden emergencies. With the Bank of the United States, when the former Secretaries of the Treasury had large sums to pay, to transfer, or to bor row, they used no circumlocutions; made no timid inquiries when and how it would suit their convenience; offered no apologies for drawing upon them beyond their means; no promises that he would not for an indefinite time draw upon them again; nor did the president of that bank ever answer heavy drafts or warrants from the Treasury with excuses, and entreaties, and menaces, and discourses about the pressure of the times; the multitude of bankruptcies; the want of long notices before his drafts; and still less with inquiries whether he could not suspend them from March till the next January, or with proposals to borrow a million of dollars from an appropriation for an Indian treaty, and pay off the Indians with rags, because they preferred them. The result of all this, sir, has been the twin bills with which this session of Congress began, and is to close: one to postpone for fifteen months the payment of the fourth instalment of the deposite act of 23d June, 1836, to sixteen States of this Union, and the other to authorize the ten other States to retain in their banks, effectively, for the same term of time, not only the fourth instalment which they were themselves entitled to receive, but the portion of the sixteen others, which the Secretary of the Treasury has suffered to flow into their banks, and which their banks refuse to pay. As the immediate representative of a part of the people of one of the plundered States, I have felt it my duty to resist this system of measures in both its parts, and even in these last hours of the session to expose it in all its nakedness. If the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means will not hear me, I hope that his constituents and mine will. I have laid the whole system bare to the bone. The question of further postponement of the fourth instalment will come up again at the next or the succeeding session of this Congress. I am determined that whatever pretences may then be alleged for that postponement, or for the total repeal, which even now was intended and too thinly disguised, not a shadow of the pretence shall be left that the fourth instalment could not have been paid without a new tax upon the people. Every man, woman, and child, conversant with the four rules of arithmetic, who will look at this my tabular statement, will see that when this session of Congress commenced, there were in the deposite banks of the ten Southmost and Western States balances due to the Treasury sufficient not only to pay off the whole fourth instalment to the whole twenty-six States, but to leave still balances of millions for the lawful expenses of the nation; that even on the 1st of October, when the instalment should have been paid, and when, after the session commenced, more than two millions and a half had been extracted from those balances, there was still left of them an amount adequate to pay the whole fourth instalment, and to leave half a million of surplus for other exigencies of the Treasury. [H. OF R. came in were continually digested by some subordinate clerk of the Department, to keep the Secretary constantly advised of the aggregate amounts, and where they were to be found. This information was precisely what I wanted, and the House, at my motion, on the 30th of last month, adopted a resolution calling upon the Secretary of the Treasury for copies of these returns required by the specie circular. I hold in my hand the report of the Secretary in answer to the call. It is, that the returns and certificates will amount in the aggregate to near one thousand five hundred documents, and that it would not be in the power of the Department, without a great addition to its clerical force, to have them all copied in season to be submitted during the present session of Congress. The purpose of the call must have been perfectly obvious to the Secretary. It was a summary abstract of the amount of gold and silver received by virtue of the specie circular; the names of the officers by whom it had been received, and of the banks in which it had been deposited. If he had not, as I think he should have, such an abstract constantly before him, he surely has not in the Department a thousand dollar clerk, who could not have made it out from his fifteen hundred documents in two days. But he seems to have thought that this labor could be more easily performed by a deliberative assembly of two hundred and forty members in session, than by one of his clerks, for he adds that "if the information contained in them is wanted at an early day, the Department (clerks and all) would respectfully propose, at once, to lay the original returns and certificates of deposite before the House for examination, should that course meet with its approbation." Mr. Chairman, the Department might as respectfully have proposed to send up to this House the whole mass of its records and files, as these fifteen hundred original documents. It reminded me of a caricature which, in my youthful days, more than half a century ago, amused me in London. It was on the occasion of Charles Fox's famous India bill, which proposed to take from the East India Company the government of that country, and transfer it to Commissioners appointed by Parliament. It produced a prodigious excitement throughout the kingdom, and ended in the total overthrow of the coalition ministry of Fox and North. There was a large majority for it in the House of Commons, but it was detested by the King, and excessively odious as a violation of chartered rights to the people. I was then in London, and remember seeing, at the print shops, a caricature of Charles Fox, with the immense pile of buildings called the India House, in Leadenhall street, upon his back, staggering up with it to Saint Stephen's chapel. The respectful proposal of the Departinent reminds me of this caricature. Methinks I see the Secretary, with the Department on his back, upheaving its vastness to mount the Capitol, and break its way into this Hall. I should be sorry to give him the trouble, and prefer to lack the desired information. Mr. Chairman, when I first observed in the statement annexed to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury at the commencement of the session, the enormous dispropor- Mr. Chairman, I cannot vote for this bill in any shape; tion between the balances due from the Northern and those not that I am unwilling to afford relief to the people of the from the most Southern and Western banks, I attributed States where these delinquent banks are situated, or even this pernicious engorgement of the public funds, the prox- to grant every reasonable indulgence of time to the banks imate cause of the ostensible necessity for postponing the themselves. Rash and reckless as the directors of these payment of the fourth instalment, to the far-famed specie banks must have been to involve themselves and their incircular. By that document all the receivers of public stitutions in such an enormous mass of debt, upon the moneys were required to annex to their monthly returns credit of deposites of funds belonging to the nation, as to to the Treasury Department the amount of gold and silver be unable, without a letter of license, for years, to restore received by them respectively, and each deposite bank was the trust, as they had pledged themselves to do, on demand, required to annex to every certificate given upon a deposite I hold this Government, and especially the last adminisof money, the proportions of it actually paid in gold, in sil-tration, nor can I except the present, swamped in a far ver, and in bank notes. The object of this order could be deeper responsibility, for the delinquency of these banks, no other than to keep the Department at all times apprized than the banks themselves. "Lead us not into temptaof the aggregate amount of the gold and silver which had tion," is the daily prayer which the founder of our religion been received, and where it was all deposited. There was has taught frail and feeble man to address to his Makerno use in requiring the returns, unless the returns as they and it is founded upon the principle that, from the consti tution of our nature, the leader into temptation is responsible for the fall of him who is led. Under whatever form of government the human being is associated, the most sacred duty of the ruler is not to lead the subject of his rule into temptation. The administration which wilfully and wantonly took away the custody of the public moneys from the institution to which it had been committed by law, shivered the trust into tatters, and then intrusted it, in broken fragments, to irresponsible State banks, committed the double wrong of robbing the national institution of its right, and of leading its new trustees into temptation; and, as if that was not enough, it prompted, it philtered them into seduction. I caunot have the heart to visit with severe punishment the weakness of the victim, while the tempter is beyond the reach of my power, and still glories in his shame while the successor to his authority still clings to the leeks and onions of Egypt, and is not ashamed to tell this suffering nation that the people of Europe-the people of England-are afflicted at this time with the same calamity, and springing from the same causes, as themselves. I feel with deep sensibility the distresses of the people of Alabama, of Louisiana, of Mississippi, and of the whole debtor States, and can have no possible animosity against their banks; but my own immediate constituents are suffering still more intensely from the same heartless experiment; more intensely, because the Department, smooth as the down of thistle to the Southern and Western banks, has been sharp as the thistle itself to the banks of the North. The only reason, the only necessity, for withholding the fourth instalment from the fourteen creditor States is to postpone the payment of the balances due by the banks of the ten debtor States. To this I cannot con sent. Nor is my opposition to these two bills prompted by the mere consideration that they are unwise and unjust in themselves, but that they are the pioneers of a system of policy to pervade this commencing administration throughout its whole career-a system of sacrificing the rights and interests, as well as the feelings, of the North, to the overwhelming influence of Southern theories, Southern interests, and Southern dictation. This is but the first step of a long line of march; and the preposterous divorce of bank and State, so delicious to the taste, and so cheering to the hopes of nullification, is undoubtedly the second. This measure, too absurd for serious reasoning, too alarming for scornful derision, so absurd that it was impossible to believe it proposed with sincerity, so terrible to the futurity of this nation, if really sincere, after floating triumphantly, in its passage from the Department, through the Senate into this House, has this day, by a timid and almost despairing resistance, been deferred till the winter session, for the scary and the wavering to go home and feel the pulse of the democracy of numbers. With the winter session it will come back, and nullification, under the rankest exhalation of whose pestilential breath it poured forth its first fetid infusions into this Hall, will again make her harpy feast upon its offals. That it will ever receive the sanction of this House, may a merciful Heaven forbid! In the interval, at least, I will cherish the hope of better things, and catch every gleam of brighter prospects to illuminate the auspices of the coming year.* Mr. ADAMS concluded at about eight o'clock, when, On motion of Mr. CAMBRELENG, the bill was laid aside, and the bill "making additional appropriations for the year 1837, taken up in its stead. GENERAL APPROPRIATION BILL. Mr. CAMBRELENG, in a few words, explained the grounds of the bill, as arising from a deficiency in the receipts of the Treasury. Mr. WISE took the floor, and, after some general remarks of a congratulatory character on the defeat of the [Oct.. 14, 1837. administration in the rejection of the sub-Treasury bill, proceeded to comment with severity on the expendiure of the public money on the agency of Mr. Rush, at London, and argued to show that, including every thing, it was costing the United States about $14,000 a year. He called for the reading of Mr. Rush's letter on the expenses and delays of suits in the British Court of Chancery; and also that of the Secretary of the Treasury, proposing the appropriation in the bill. He concluded by moving to strike out from the bill the item of ten thousand dollars for further expenses of the mission to London concerning the Smithsonian legacy. After a brief reply from Mr. CAMBRELENG, in which he insisted that the Secretary was only carrying out the law which Mr. WISE himself, in company with Mr. ADAMS, had advocated, the question was taken on the motion to strike out, and negatived: Yeas 65, nays 74. Mr. W. COST JOHNSON then addressed the House for an hour in a discursive speech, in which he complained, in very strong terms, of the breach of faith of the Secretary of the Treasury, in his public promise to pay the members in gold, if they desired It. Members had applied to the Sergeant-at-arms for gold, and had been told that there was no more of it, but that they could have silver, or notes of State banks, or of the District banks. He adverted to a number of other topics, but this was the principal theme of remark. Mr. Mr. BYNUM said a very serious charge had been brought against the Secretary of the Treasury; for which, if guilty, he certainly deserved not only the censure of that House, but also of the whole people of the country. That gentleman had no seat upon that floor, and was thereby debarred from all opportunity of defending himself. B. did not rise at that time to defend the Secretary, but simply to ascertain the facts upon which this serious charge had been made against that distinguished individual. He would, then, premise that his honorable friend who had just taken his seat, would find that the Secretary of the Treasury had not imposed upon him or other members, but that others had. He begged permission to have read the letter of that officer to the Clerk of the House; which was done. The letter was as follows: "TREASURY DEPARTMENT, August 16, 1837. makes it proper for me to apprize you, in order that the "Sin: The near approach of the session of Congress tion of the members of the House of Representatives, that information may be used for the benefit and accommodathis Department will be prepared to furnish funds for their payment in notes of the city banks or specie, or to give drafts upon several of the collectors of the customs and receivers of the public money, or the former deposite banks, in suitable sums, as may be most convenient to any of them. "I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, "LEVI WOODBURY, Secretary of the Treasury. "W. S. FRANKLIN, Esq. Clerk of the House of Reps. of the U..S." Now, sir, (continued Mr. B.) the House would perceive that the honorable gentleman who had made this serious charge against the Secretary of the Treasury had presumed too much upon that kind of information which often led to error, and involved him who relied upon it, likewise, in error. It had been stated there that the Secretary of the Treasury had proposed to pay the members of that body in " gold alone." The House bas heard the letter of that officer, and it contained no such promise whatever. Mr. WISE. I would ask the gentleman if he referrred to me. Mr. WISE. [H. OF R. who would take forty or fifty pounds weight of silver, and that in fractions of a dollar, for they could not get it in I never made such a statement that he whole dollars. Was it convenient then for members to promised to pay in "gold alone." Mr. BYNUM. I care not who made the charge, but it must be in the recollection of the House that the assertion was made that he had given a promise to pay the members in gold; and I appeal to the House to say whether I do not state facts. Mr. B. would now ask the reading of a letter from the Sergeant-at-arms, in reply to one he had addressed to that officer, calling upon him to state the facts whether the specie was exhausted, and whether any members had been denied being paid therein, as set forth in the letter of the Secretary of the Treasury. The following was the letter addressed by Mr. B. to the Sergeant-at-arms, and his reply: "HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Oct. 13, 1837. "SIR: Will you be so good as to inform me if you have stopped paying the members of Congress in specie for their mileage and per diem of the present session, and whether you will not be able to pay the whole off in specie for the present session of Congress? Please answer this in writing. "Yours, respectfully, "J. A. BYNUM." "DEAR SIR: In reply to the above, I can only say that I have drawn from the bank coin (either gold or silver) for every member who has requested it, and have now about $2,000 in specie drawn for the checks of members, that is now ready to be paid to them; and I have been assured by the cashier of the bank that they were prepared to pay in specie all our checks. Respectfully, your obedient servant, "ROD'K DORSEY." Mr. W. C. JOHNSON said he was in the room of the Sergeant-at-arms, about an hour or so ago, and he saw a member from Virginia being paid in notes; he did not then see that member in his seat. Mr. J. thereupon asked Mr. Dorsey whether he was paying off members in gold and silver, and he replied that he was not. Mr. J. asked him if the specie was exhausted, and Mr. D. said that it was. This conversation took place in the presence of half a dozen members of the House. He repeated upon his own authority the Sergeant-at-arms told him so, and he saw him with his own eyes dealing out notes. Mr. RIVES said he was not the member from Virginia alluried to, but he thought if this matter were investigated, it would be found that that member preferred taking notes to specie; for Mr. R. had been otherwise informed, that that officer had a stock of specie on hand, and had not refused so to pay any member who desired it. Nay, more, that he had on several occasions, when members have applied to him for their pay, inquired how they would wish to have it. Some of them replied that they would prefer Treasury notes, contemplating their issue, and, in that event, concluded to wait till they were issued. Some hal preferred Virginia bank notes, others had preferred District paper, and others again gold and silver; perhaps none have preferred silver. There was no question that the promise contained in the Secretary's letter had been fully complied with, and every member, who desired it, had been paid in specie. Mr. WISE again called for the "emphatic" reading of Mr. Woodbury's letter, (as given above,) which he still insisted was an imposition. The letter having been read, Mr. W. cited from it the following passage: 'as may be most convenient to any of them." Now, said he, which was most convenient? Specie was the general term, embracing both gold and silver, but the letter was an imposition, for there was not a man there VOL. XIV.-107 take silver? No. Then they were reduced to Hobson's choice-paper or silver, having no gold, and therefore they were compelled to take paper, and therefore too Levi could not redeem his promise. Mr. W. stated, in confirmation of this fact, that Mr. HALSTED, of New Jersey, made application to the Sergeant-at-arms for gold, and could not get it. The Sergeant-at-arms refused it. Mr. JOHNSON interposed, and said that, in the remarks he had made on this subject, he, in no way, intended to impeach that officer, for a more faithful, diligent, and honorable one they had never had. Mr. WISE remarked that he did not design to impeach the conduct of the Sergeant-at-arms, and that officer would not so understand him, but there were a dozen members who could confirm what he had stated. Mr. Dorsey had to pay out what funds were in his possession, or he was supplied with, and gold, at present, formed no part of them. The CHAIR stated it was on the clause respecting the item for an agent in London to prosecute the Smithsonian bequest. Mr. BRIGGS expressed an carnest hope that the committee would take the question. There they were at 10 o'clock of a Saturday night, on the last night too of the session, with much important business to act upon, wasting about two hours on the contemptible question, whether the Sergeant-at-arms had gold or silver to pay the members! In the name of Heaven, he called upon the members of that House to continue this discussion no further, a discussion, together with the question involved in it, of no consequence to any human being on earth. While up, he must say, that the effort of his friend from Virginia [Mr. WISE] to fix any thing wrong upon the Secretary of the Treasury, from the reading of his letter, did not meet Mr. B's approbation. The Secretary told the Clerk of the House, that the members would be paid either in notes of the city banks, or specie, or drafts upon collectors or receivers, or deposite banks, in one or the other, as should suit their convenience. Now he would ask the gentleman if it was a fair construction, to say that this was a promise to pay in "gold ?" Mr. WHITTLESEY, of Ohio, called the gentleman to order, for irrelevancy. Mr. BRIGGS. I will come to order, sir; for I am too well aware of the utter irrelevancy of this whole discussion; and being so, I stand corrected. Mr. HAWKINS begged leave to state what he witnessed in relation to this matter, in the room of the Sergeant H. or R.] Suspension of Rules-Seminole War-New York Fire. kind of currency he intended to pay him. Mr. Dorsey observed that he could pay him in specie, and asked hin what kind of money he wanted. Mr. ROBERTSON stated that he wished Virginia paper. Mr. Dorsey said he had not got Virginia paper, but would try and get it for him. One of Mr. H's colleagues, standing by, said if Mr. Dorsey would give him specie for fifty dollars of United States Bank paper, perhaps these notes would suit Mr. R's convenience. Mr. ROBERTSON said he would not take the notes of the United States Bank, but would much prefer Virginia bank paper to them. The amendment was then disagreed to. Mr. WISE then moved to amend the clause by reducing the item for the expenses of the agency to London, to attend to the Smithsonian bequest, from 10,000 to $5,000. Mr. CAMBRELENG said he had not the least objection, because, if the larger sum was found to be requisite, it could be provided for next session. The amendment was accordingly agreed to. The committee then rose and reported, and the amendment having been concurred in, the bill was ordered to a third reading; it was then read a third time and passed. SUSPENSION OF RULES. A joint resolution of the Senate suspending the rules which prohibit the transmission of bills from one House to the other during the last three days of the session, and also the presenting of bills to the President within that time, was agreed to, after amending it so as to except the sub-Treasury bill from its operation. On motion of Mr. F. O. J. SMITH, the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union were discharged from the further consideration of the bill to settle with the deposite banks. SEMINOLE WAR. On motion of Mr. CAMBRELENG, the House then again went into Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, (Mr. BRIGGS in the chair,) on the bill making appropriations for the Seminole war. The bill having been read through, Mr. CAMBRELENG submitted a variety of statements, showing the necessity of a further call of $1,600,000, among which was the following letter from the Secretary of War: WAR DEPARTMENT, Sept. 14, 1837. SIR: The Seminole Indians having a second time failed to comply with their engagements, this Department has been compelled to make extensive preparations for a vigorous prosecution of the war in Florida. The success of the measures adopted by the Government, in pursuance of a humane policy towards the Indians, and our duty to protect the persons and property of the citizens of that Territory from outrage and violence, leave us no alternative other than the enforcement of the treaty; and an effort is being inade to enable the officers charged with its execution, effectually to accomplish this object. The nature of the country and of the climate has enabled the enemy to prolong this contest to an unexpected length; but the experience of the officers, who, with so much constancy and courage, have hitherto conducted the military operations there, the knowledge of the country they have acquired, and the means which will be placed at their disposal, all give reasonable hopes of bringing the war to a speedy and successful close. The disastrous consequences of an unsuccessful summer campaign involved the country in great expenses, which were much increased during the protracted negotiations which terminated so unfortunately by the Indians again violating their treaty obligations. During this period, vessels were kept in readiness at great cost, and other means provided to facilitate the emigration of the Indians, while [Oct. 14, 1837. the ordinary expenses of the war establishment were necessarily continued. These unavoidable expenses, with those incurred by the preparations now making to collect a sufficient force and ample supplies for the ensuing campaign, have exhausted the means placed at the disposition of this Department for the suppression of Indian hostilities, and will render further legislative provision necessary. There will be required for the suppression of Indian hostilities, under the following heads, the sum of $1,588,848 22, to wit: For forage, ineans of transportation, and various other objects of supply, to be procured by the Quartermaster's department, and to meet the contingent expenses of the service $800,000 00 With a view to an economical prosecution of the important work now in progress on the Red river-the removal of the raft-it is respectfully suggested that the sum of $25,000 be appropriated at the present time. This amount, Department to complete that object; whereas, if the works it is confidently believed, if applied now, will enable the making the annual appropriations, much precious time will be suspended for want of funds, until the usual period of be lost, and great additional expense incurred. Very respectfully, your most obedient servant. J. R. POINSETT. Hon. SILAS WRIGHT, Jr. Chairman Committee of Finance, Senate. Mr. EVERETT said that on a former occasion he had intimated an intention, when this bill should come up, to submit some remarks on the conduct of the Seminole war, but he had concluded to forbear at this time to go into the subject. He was induced to do this under the expectation, present would be the last campaign, and this the last approwhich he believed the whole country entertained, that the priation the House would be called on to make in support of that war. The bill was then laid aside, to be reported to the House. NEW YORK FIRE. Mr. CAMBRELENG moved that the committee take up the bill to remit the duties on certain goods destroyed by fire in the city of New York. Mr. WHITTLESEY, of Ohio, wished to inquire of the gentleman if he thought to pass that bill the present session? Mr. CAMBRELENG replied that he hoped so, and made an earnest appeal to the committee to give its approbation to the measure. The bill was then taken up, and having been read by the Clerk, Mr. UNDERWOOD, to test the sense of the committec, proposed that it be laid aside, and that the committee refuse at present to act upon it. Mr. CAMBRELENG hoped that motion would not prevail. Mr. HOFFMAN also joined in that wish, and the motion was disagreed to: Ayes 66, noes 67. Mr. CAMBRELENG concurred with the gentleman from Kentucky, that they had not time to discuss this bill then, but he did not consider it necessary, after the very long debate upon it last year, which had been spread before the nation, and he therefore trusted the committee would act upon it at once, and report it to the House. |