Number. in suing long to bide," while a part of the debt for national independence has been cast upon their shoulders, and the whole country has enjoyed priceless benefits at their expense! Well may these disappointed suitors, hurt by unfeeling indifference to their extensive losses, and worn with infinite delay, cry out in bitterness of heart, "Give us back our vessels." But this cannot be done. It only remains that Congress should pay for them. APPENDIX A. List of reports of committees. Where By whom reported. reported. Committee. Date. Bills and reports, Mr. Cushing (d). April 17, 1844.. Mr. Choate (e) Foreign Affairs. May 24, 1828 Foreign Affairs. Minority adverse Adverse, No. 94. statement Favorable, bill 45 Favorable statement. March 3, 1818. Adverse, No. 124 R. Adverse, No. 32. R. R. Feb. 8, 1827 R. May 21, 1828 R. نم نم نم نم نم : R. R. R. R. R. Favorable. 121 R. R. R. (a) Favorable statement of facts without coming to any conclusion. (e) This bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time February 10, 1845, by yeas 26, nays 15, but not reached. (f) This bill was voted by the Senate on June 9, 1846; yeas 27, nays 23. (g) This bill (being Mr. Clayton's bill as voted by the Senate) was voted by the House by yeas 94, nays 87. It thus passed both houses, and was vetoed by President Polk as a Senate bill; and on the veto the Senate voted yeas 27, nays 15-not two-thirds. (h) This bill was voted by the Senate, yeas 30, nays 26. (i) This bill was voted by the House, yeas 111, nays 77; and was voted by the Senate, February 6, 1855, yeas 28, nays 17, and was vetoed by President Pierce as a House bill; and the House vote on the veto was yeas 113, nays 86-not two-thirds-so the bill was lost. (j) This bill (Mr. Crittenden's, No. 45) was voted by the Senate on January 10, 1859, yeas 26, nays 20. Detailed reports. List of memorials to the Senate and House of Representatives claiming indemnity for French spoliations, under the convention of July 31, 1801. The convention was promulgated by the President's proclamation of December 21, 1801; and at the first session of Congress then succeeding, being the first session of the seventh Congress, the following memorials were laid before the Senate and House of Representatives, viz: 1802. Feb. FIRST SESSION, SEVENTH CONGRESS. 5. Sundry merchants of Baltimore. 24. Sundry merchants of the city and State of New York. March 2. Sundry merchants of Hartford, Connecticut. April 2. Sundry merchants of Washington, North Carolina. 22. Sundry merchants of Norwich, Connecticut. 22. Sundry merchants of New Haven, Connecticut. 27. Sundry merchants of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 1. Sundry merchants of Nantucket. 2. Sundry merchants of Portland, Maine. 2. Sundry merchants of Newburyport. 23. Robert Beverly, of Essex county, Virginia. Nearly all the above-mentioned memorials were destroyed by fire, with the Capitol, by the British army in 1814, and no record having been kept of the signers, the following list is so far imperfect. It is further imperfect by reason of many memorials of subsequent date being misplaced or otherwise lost. The list is, however, entitled to confidence, except as before mentioned, being carefully compiled from the best data extant. [Then follows a list of memorials, occupying one hundred pages, which is omitted.] IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. MARCH 27, 1867.-Ordered to be printed, and recommitted, with bill, (S. 116,) to the Committee on Finance. Mr. HENDERSON made the following REPORT. (To accompany bill S. 116.) The Committee on Finance, having considered the memorial of the Louisiana legislature and other memorials and papers submitted to them, praying aid for the construction and repair of the levees on the Mississippi river and its tributaries in that State, have instructed me to bring in the bill now reported. They request me to say that the very limited time they have been able to give to this subject, owing to other engagements that could not be neglected in the closing days of the session, renders it impossible to examine and state at length the reasons inducing them to favor the measure now offered. It is, perhaps, enough to say, on the part of the committee, that they are satisfied not only of the constitutional power of Congress in the premises, but equally satisfied of the expediency and good policy of adopting it. They do not propose action on the bill at this session, but will call it up at an early day during the next session, and press it to a vote. In the mean time, I am instructed by the committee to collect such topographical information of the region of country to be affected, and such statistical facts connected with the population, productions, and resources thereof, as may be available, and that I cause the same to be reported to the committee for action at a subsequent time. They hope then to be able to present the several reasons of a political, financial, economical, and benevolent character which have influenced their present report. Preliminary thereto, I am authorized to say the bill which I submit provides for guaranteeing the payment of three million dollars of bonds, to be issued by the State of Louisiana, for the purpose of constructing and repairing her levees. The bonds are to be payable in not less than ten nor more than thirty years. They cannot be sold at a price less than their par value. The proceeds are to pass into the hands of levee commissioners, to be duly appointed under the laws of the State. The expenditures are to be made under the direction of competent and practical engineers employed by the State, but subject to the general supervisory control of the War Department, through its able and efficient engineer corps. Should the Secretary of War, during the progress of the work, believe that the money is being fraudulently or improvidently used, his intimation of that fact to the Secretary of the Treasury will prevent any further indorsement of bonds, until action shall be taken by Congress. Not exceeding $500,000 of bonds are to be indorsed and delivered at any one time, and no further indorsement is to be made till a full report of the progress and character of the work, showing the items of expenditure, shall be laid before the Secretary of the Treasury; and these reports, from time to time, are to be placed before Congress. The bonds themselves are to be issued not by the present provisional gov ernment of the States, about the validity of which Congress and the country entertain doubts, but by such government as may be recognized by all departments of the federal government. No provision, therefore, can be made for the issue of the bonds by the State until its representatives shall have been recognized and admitted into Congress. This is regarded as necessary to remove all possible apprehensions as to the validity of the bonds themselves and the perfect obligation of the State to pay them. It will be observed that the State of Louisiana is primarily bound to pay both principal and interest. The contract of the United States is strictly that of a guarantor. The liability is secondary. The credit of the State is prostrate, and until her levees are rebuilt it cannot be restored. This measure proposes a mere loan of the national credit, not likely in the end to cost the government a dollar, but certain to develop at once the resources of a great State, restore it to its former enviable position in the financial and commercial world, and save its citizens from the effects of poverty and destitution, of which they are now suffering. If these great objects can be accomplished without actual expenditure or outlay by the government, no one should question the policy, at least, that leads to their accomplishment. Such beneficial results might be considered from a national point of view, and might be supposed to authorize the work to be commenced and carried on as a national work. The beneficial influences anticipated will not be confined to the limits of a single State. But, as the benefits are more immediately to be felt and realized by the people of Louisiana, it is thought best that they shall bear the burden of the improvement. The excess of benefit enjoyed by them, over that enjoyed by other sections, will enable them to pay its cost, and become large gainers by the operation. The State is now insolvent. All it wants is credit. The nation can give that credit, without possible loss to itself. The State can make the nation perfectly secure, and, with that view, it is provided in the bill that the act of the legislature under which these bonds may be issued shall make ample provision for their ultimate redemption. A tax on all the lands of the State, or at least on such as may lie in the inundated districts, must be provided for, commencing in the year 1872, and to be annually levied and collected thereafter, which shall constitute a fund sacredly pledged to their payment. This tax must appear to be sufficient for the purposes contemplated, before the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to indorse the guarantee. In addition to this, we are advised that the State of Louisiana owns not less than five million acres of rich alluvial lands, known as swamp lands, such as produce sugar cane, cotton, and rice in their greatest perfection, nearly all of which will be reclaimed by the proposed work. These lande, in their present condition, it is true, are almost worthless, except for their valuable timber, but when protected from annual overflow, they suddenly assume a value commensurate with the quantity and price of their productions. It is required that they shall be conveyed to the United States to indemnify us against loss or damage by reason of the liability assumed, and in case of default by the State the government may proceed to sell them on its own terms, or, by subsequent regulations, permit the State to sell them and appropriate the proceeds to the discharge of the bonds. If it be said that this latter security is trifling, worthless, or unavailable, I reply that after the grant of the swamp lands to the State by Congress, in 1849, for the improvement of its levees, the annual average proceeds of their sales, up to the commencement of the war, under the excellent system of diking and draining adopted by the State, and known in this country as the "levee system," amounted to about $700,000. These alluvial lands possess a value beyond estimate. In them the people of the United States have riches not generally understood-riches not inferior to those existing in the iron and lead deposits of Missouri, the coal and oil of Penn sylvania and West Virginia, or the gold and silver mines of California and Montana. The price of cotton and sugar during the late war, when the' products of these wonderful lands failed for want of tillage, or were shut out from the world, go to demonstrate their inestimable value and the very great importance of bringing them into immediate use and subjecting them to the highest state of cultivation. Other lands in the southern States might answer all purposes for growing cotton, but nowhere in the United States, and scarcely anywhere in the world, can the sugar cane be so profitably and abundantly grown as on the alluvial lands of the State of Louisiana. Indeed the only sugar lands of this country may be said to lie within the region proposed to be protected by this bill. When they were partially cultivated sugar was produced for a long series of years at a cost to the consumer of from three to five cents per pound. When reclaimed, as they may be, we shall witness the return of those days so unwisely closed, for a time, by rebellion, and the country, instead of sending abroad many millions of money annually to purchase sugar at exorbitant prices, will again become an exporter of the article, and thus create abroad credits founded on labor, the true and only basis of wealth, thereby augmenting individual prosperity and adding solidity and strength to our national finances. Such is the bill now offered, and such are the securities provided for the national guarantee. It can scarcely be doubted that, at a period comparatively recent, the wide belts of alluvial lands on the Mississippi, between Cairo and the present entrance of the river into the Gulf, were entirely covered by water. The large quantity of sediment annually carried down by the turbid waters of that stream has been gradually deposited where the current was less rapid and violent, until the surface of the land has been raised above low-water mark. The annual rises of the river, however, overflow this entire country, leaving after each freshet a new deposit, richer if possible than those made upon the famous delta of the Nile. But in the case of the Mississippi, flowing as it does from north to south, the freshets come so late in the season as to prevent the production of crops in this region after the water subsides. This renders the levee or dike absolutely essential. Works of this character in Louisiana were first commenced at New Orleans, about the beginning of the present century, and up to the year 1860 about 1,600 miles of levees had been built, and not less than sixty million dollars had been expended in their construction. The wealth of Louisiana consists in these alluvial lands, and their use and cultivation are wholly dependent upon the levee. A partial system is attended with but little advantage. It avails nothing to confine the waters for ten, twenty, or even fifty miles, unless it be confined at every point from which it may inundate the lands. A knowledge of this fact enabled General Grant, in 1863, by cutting the levees at Lake Providence to inundate the entire alluvial region for 350 miles below, by which crops were destroyed, live stock drowned, and many of the inhabitants driven out. During the war all work on these levees was suspended, and they would necessarily during that period have become greatly injured by natural wear and abrasion. But to add to the injury, they were cut in divers places by the military authorities on both sides to facilitate their operations, and high freshets coming before any repairs had been made, the waters rushed through the crevasses and breaks, sweeping off the embankments for many miles in length. To make these works what they were previous to the war, with the present prices of labor, will require large expenditures. Without these expenditures the population of the State can scarcely support themselves; and to this fact is attributable much of the suffering and want now prevailing in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Since the war closed the State authorities have endeavored to make repairs, and with that view have expended several million dollars. The people, how |