same session, and also in February, 1828, Mr. Burgess, of the House, made reports in favor of these claims.

In addition to this accumulation of opinions in their favor, may be added the fact that a large number of private acts allowing half-pay to certain officers of the class embraced in the bill have been passed by Congress at different periods since the Revolution.

But your committee beg leave to call the special attention of the House to the action of Congress in relation to claims for half-pay of certain officers of the Virginia State troops and navy and of the line of that State.

By the act of Congress of 5th July, 1832, the accounting officers of the Treasury are required to liquidate and pay the accounts of the Commonwealth of Virginia against the United States, for payment to the officers commanding in the Virginia line in the war of the Revolution, on account of half-pay for life promised the officers aforesaid by that Commonwealth, &c.

And the Secretary of the Treasury is required by the same act "to pay to the State of Virginia the amount of the judgments which have been rendered against the said State for and on account of the promises contained in an act passed by the legislature of that State in the month of May, 1779, in favor of the officers or representatives of the officers of the regiments and corps in said act of Congress mentioned, being officers belonging to the State troops or navy of Virginia."

Your committee refer to the act of 5th July, 1832, at large, for further particulars, with the remark that since Congress has provided for and paid the half-pay claimed not only by officers of the line of Virginia, but of the State troops and navy of that State, founded upon promises made by the State, it seems to be unnecessary to cite any other or stronger precedent in favor of the claims provided for by the bill reported by your committee, founded on similar promises made by the Congress of the United States, It may be proper for your committee to submit some remarks upon the probable amount of the draught which may be made on the Treasury by the bill, if it becomes a law.

In reply to anticipated objections and exaggerated statements on this subject, your committee would respectfully refer to the estimates made by Senator Evans, in his speech in the Senate, upon a similar bill reported by him to that body.

That speech was reported in the "Congressional Globe" of 19th April last, (1854.) The honorable Senator states that "the highest amount at which the officers of the Revolution have ever been estimated was two thousand four hundred and eighty; but it does not appear from the books of the Treasury Department that more than two thousand two hundred and fifty-six have ever received commutation or half-pay."

He goes into a calculation to show that the average of the half-pay of all the officers would be two thousand four hundred dollars, after deducting, as the bill proposes, the commutation which has been received by each; and that "the largest amount, supposing that the descendants of all of whom we have any record come in and receive under the bill, will be five million five hundred and twenty thousand dollars.

He then goes into another calculation to show the number of officers whose widows or descendants may probably claim under the bill, and arrives at the conclusion that their number will not exceed seventeen hundred and twenty-five; and that if the descendants of every one of that number should apply, their claims upon the Treasury would not exceed four million one hundred and forty thousand dollars.

He also makes an estimate founded on the number of pensioners under the act of 15th May, 1828, "that the descendants of not more than twelve hundred and forty-four officers can now make any claim under this bill, and that the total amount necessary to be appropriated for the entire extinguishment of all the claims likely to come in under the bill, is two million nine hundred and sixty thousand six hundred dollars'-a little less than three millions.”

Your committee have not tested the accuracy of the estimate made by Senator Evans by any calculation of their own; but, relying with great confidence upon his opinions and judgment in the matter, respectfully refer the results above stated to the consideration of the House.

If it be admitted, however, that the demands of bona fide claimants under the bill should exceed even the highest estimate above made of the total amount, your committee apprehend that it would not be a sufficient reason for refusing to pay them.

With a full Treasury and an annual revenue of about seventy millions of dollars, there ought not to be any hesitation to pay a debt, the justice of which has been often acknowledged and never denied, and which has been repeatedly, within the last fifty years, asked for in vain until the present time.

Another consideration which may have some weight, in a financial point of view, in favor of the bill, is the rapid decrease in the number of revolutionary officers and soldiers, whose pensions, to a large amount, have been a charge upon the Treasury in years past.

The following facts on that subject, derived in part from the last report of the Com missioner of Pensions, is respectfully submitted:

The whole number of persons who have been pensioned under the act of 18th March, 1818, is about twenty thousand.

They are now reduced by death to only one hundred and seventy-five. The whole number pensioned under the act of 15th May, 1828, is believed to be about fifteen hundred. There are now only eighteen on the list under that act.

The whole number pensioned under the act of 7th June, 1832, is about thirty-four thousand, of whom only eight hundred and seventy-six remain on the list.

These are the only general laws under which the officers and soldiers of the Revolution have been pensioned; and according to the report of the Commissioner of Pensions there are only one thousand and seventy-five now living, to receive the bounty of their country, not one of whom can be less than ninety years of age. The total amount paid during the year ending September 20, 1854, according to the table B of the Commissioner's report, to these three classes of pensioners, was only $75,445, instead of the millions annually appropriated and paid to them in former years. And your committee would remark, in connection with these facts, that the claims under the bill will not be an annual charge upon the Treasury, but, when once paid, are finally and forever dis- . posed of.

In concluding this report, your committee abstain from making any appeal to the patriotic feelings or natural sympathies of the House; justice rather than sympathy is what the claimants expect, and what they have a right to demand in regard to these long-neglected claims.

But instead of any such appeal, your committee prefer to quote the language of the illustrious Washington, in relation to these very claims. In a letter dated at Newburgh, June 18, 1783, he thus expresses himself:

"That provision [alluding to the half-pay resolution] should be viewed as it really was, a reasonable compensation offered by Congress, at a time when they had nothing else to give to the officers of the Army for services then to be performed. It was the only means to prevent a total dereliction of the service; it was a part of their hire; I may be allowed to say it was the price of their blood and of your independence. It is, therefore, more than a common debt; it is a debt of honor; it can never be considered as a pension or gratuity, nor canceled until it is fairly discharged." All of which is respectfully submitted.

MARCH, 1855.

The Committee on Revolutionary Claims agreed to the substance of the within report, but it was not made to the House at the last session, for the sole reason of a lack of opportunity to do so, after such agreement. In my judgment, the amount appropriated by the bill will be less than supposed by Senator Evans.

R. W. PECKHAM,

Chairman Committee Revolutionary Claims, last House of Representatives.

ALBANY, October 15, 1855.

Copy of the resolutions referred to in the first section of the bill.

RESOLUTION OF OCTOBER 21, 1780.

Resolved, That those officers who shall continue in service to the end of the war shall be entitled to half-pay for life, to commence from the time of their reduction.

RESOLUTION OF JANUARY 17, 1781.

Resolved, That all officers in the hospital department and medical staff hereinafter mentioned, who shall continue in service to the end of the war, or be reduced before that time, shall be entitled to and receive during life, in lieu of half-pay, the following allowance, viz: The director of the hospital equal to the half-pay of a lieutenantcolonel; chief physician and surgeon to the Army, and hospital physician and surgeon, purveyor, apothecary, and regimental surgeons, each equal to the half-pay of a captain.

RESOLUTION OF MAY 8, 1781.

Resolved, &c., That every chaplain deemed and certified to the board of war to be a supernumerary be no longer continued in service, and be entitled to have their depreciation made good, and to the half-pay of captain for life.

RESOLUTION OF MARCH 8, 1785.

Resolved, That officers who retired under the resolve of 31st December, 1781, are equally entitled to half-pay or commutation with those officers who retired under the resolves of 3d and 21st October, 1780.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

JANUARY 23, 1871.-Ordered to be printed.

Mr. WILLEY made the following

REPORT.

[To accompany bill H. R. No. 2357.]

The Committee on Patents, to whom was referred bill H. R. No. 2357, for the relief of Jacob J. Anderson, having considered the same, beg leave to submit the following report:

It appears from the facts as set forth in the petition accompanying the bill that Jacob J. Anderson, of Rochester, Pennsylvania, obtained letters-patent from the United States, dated March 7, 1855, for an "improved cooking stove," and that owing to his poverty and other unfavorable circumstances beyond his control he failed to derive any considerable remuneration from his patent during the first term of its. issue.

He accordingly made application, in manner prescribed by law, for an extension of said patent for an additional term of seven years. The evidence from the Patent Office, filed in the case, shows that the application for extension received a favorable report from the examiner in charge, both as to the novelty and usefulness of the invention, and also as to the inadequate remuneration of the patentee. But it appears that the Commissioner of Patents dissented from the report of the examiner as to the novelty of the invention, and the extension of the patent for the further term of seven years was accordingly refused. The only grounds alleged by the patentee in his petition for this adverse decision were the "peculiar notions about his powers and duties in extension cases," entertained by the Commissioner. There is no charge made of corruption. or fraud, or of even improper motives, as to the Commissioner in overruling the report of the examiner, and the consequent rejection of the application for extension of the patent; yet Congress is asked to interfere and grant to the patentee a rehearing in the matter of his application for extension before the present Commissioner of Patents. The committee have heretofore expressed the opinion, on similar occasions,. as to the impropriety of making Congress an appellate tribunal for reviewing the decisions of the Commissioner of Patents unless there is sufficient evidence of fraud or official misconduct as to such decisions. They have failed to perceive any special reasons as presented by this case for departing from this general policy.

They therefore report back the bill and recommend that it be indefinitely postponed.