and they, in the opinion of your Secretary, represent it in a point of view so unfavorable as to promise no success to such an application. Many of their officers might be deeply affected by the loss of that indemnity which they now hold on the faith of Government; and it is not likely that they will open their Treasury and compensate the sufferers in question out of it, when so many refugees, for whom they are bound to provide, are daily importuning them for money.

For these and a variety of reasons your Secretary thinks it not probable that such an application would be successful; and he also thinks that Congress should never demand or ask for even justice, while they have great reason to apprehend a refusal, unless in cases where they may be able and determined to compel a compliance by force or retaliation.

If a period should arrive when both countries shall be disposed to do away whatever may be mutually offensive or disagreeable, it is not improbable that in the moment of that good humor they might do something for the sufferers under consideration; but that period has not yet arrived.

Upon the whole matter, your Secretary is of opinion that copies of these papers should be transmitted to Mr. Adams; that he be instructed to sound the British Minister on the subject, but not to bring forward any formal demand or representation on the subject, unless from preceding circumstances he shall be induced to think that it would have a favorable issue, it being the intention of Congress to refer the time and manner of doing it to his prudence

and discretion.

All which is submitted to the wisdom of Congress.

JOHN JAY.

Papers on which the aforegoing Report was made, viz:

[No. 1.]

From the Governor of Massachusetts to the Delegates of that State

Gentlemen,

in Congress.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts,

Council 1785.

The memorials presented to the Legislature of this Commonwealth, copies of which you have enclosed, with the papers that tend to

support the facts stated in them, will suggest to your consideration a subject interesting to many individuals of this State. As this subject must be considered and adjusted on national principles, and may properly come under the consideration of Congress, you will give it that attention it deserves, and conduct it in such manner as shall appear to you most for the interest of the public, and the individuals concerned. It appears that not only the property of the persons described in the enclosed papers, but that the property of several other individuals, citizens of this State, was, during the late war, taken from them under similar circumstances, by virtue of the orders of the British Commanders-in-Chief in America, not as the property of enemies forfeited to the captors by the laws of war; but as the property of persons under their protection, which was taken under the idea that the former ownership continued, and a great part of which was expressly engaged to be restored by those commanders. Whence a just debt of a private nature, a just right and claim, accrued to each of these individuals to demand and have an equivalent. And though the operations of law, and the means of recovering those debts were suspended during the war as a consequence of it, yet the British Government ought not, by a legislative act, to have created, or now to continue legal impediments to the recovery of them; or at least it is, according to the modern laws and usages of nations, right and just that the Legislature of that kingdom. should now remove those impediments by repealing the latter clause in the act of Parliament, a copy of which is enclosed, or make other provision for doing justice in this case. Considering the peculiar circumstances of this subject, the spirit and real intention of that clause, the times and general purposes that produced it, the Legislature of this Commonwealth is induced to believe, that if Congress should instruct their Minister at the Court of London to move this subject properly digested to that Court, the Government of that nation will so far reconsider their former doings on it as to remove those impediments, or make some other provision whereby right and justice shall be done to the parties and individuals more immediately concerned.

In behalf of the Legislature, who prepared the foregoing letter, I have the honor to be, very respectfully, &c.,

JAMES BOWDOIN.

[No. 2.]

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.

To the Honorable Senate and Honorable House of Representatives in General Court assembled at Boston, October, A. D. 1785.

The memorial and petition of Thomas Bulfinch, of Boston, Physician, humbly shews

That on the 19th of April, 1775, when hostilities were commenced between the troops of the King of Great Britain and the people of this country, your petitioner was, as he from his birth had been, an inhabitant of the town of Boston, and being at that time visited with sickness in his family, and having a number of patients laboring under a variety of maladies, whose health, if not lives, depended on his constant and critical care and attention, he was constrained from principles of humanity to remain within the town, under the solemn engagement entered into by the Commander-in-Chief of the British troops to the inhabitants, that the persons and property of such as continued within the garrison should be safe and secure. That your petitioner at this time was the proprietor of a shop and stores under the care of Mr. Peter Roberts, Apothecary, stocked with a large and valuable assortment of all kinds of drugs, medicines, and other merchandizes, to the amount of 3,4217. 2s. 6d. sterling, according to the best and most accurate calculation that he is now able to make, to which he has subjoined a demand for lawful interest on that sum; that on the 14th day of December, A. D. 1775, your petitioner's said shop and stores were forcibly broken open by the provost of the garrison, assisted by certain British officers to your petitioner unknown, by virtue of orders given them by General Sir William Howe, then commander-in-chief, and all his property to the aforesaid amount taken and carried away for the use of the British hospital, against the repeated remonstrances of your petitioner, who was denied the privilege even of taking an account of the articles, and was refused a receipt or acknowledgment of the same, which he afterwards solicited. All which will appear by the deposition and other papers herewith exhibited.

That your petitioner flattered himself that, as no declaration of independence had then been made, and the inhabitants of both

countries acknowledged the King of Britain as their common sovereign, the common law of England as practised in either country would construe the injury done him, into a civil trespass, for which he might one day be compensated in damages by a suit at law against Sir William Howe, and accordingly at the conclusion of the war, finding the treaty of peace had left open to the individuals of both countries their legal remedies for just demands, your petitioner sent his evidence aforesaid to Great Britain, with directions to his friend there to institute a suit against Sir William Howe for the recovery of damages for the injury he had sustained; but he now finds that the Parliament of Great Britain have passed a solemn act of indemnity in favor of Sir William Howe, and all others who acted under his command while in America, against all supposed wrongs by him or them committed during the war, and have thereby not only prevented your petitioner from his individual remedy at law, but have adopted the doings of Sir William Howe, and made the nation answerable for his conduct. The American Minister at that Court has been accordingly applied to in this view of it, but he declines entering upon the subject until he is empowered and directed by Congress specially on the subject; though (as your petitioner has been informed) he has been pleased to acknowledge the justice and propriety of the measure.

As, therefore, your petitioner's property was forcibly taken from him while under the power and control of the British army, and by order of the Governor of their garrison, and was appropriated to the use and benefit of the British Government; and as the Supreme Legislature of that kingdom have deprived your petitioner of his legal remedy by a public national act, contrary (as he humbly conceives) to the spirit and meaning of the 4th article of the treaty of peace, he has no other mode of redress but by imploring the interposition of the Government to which he owes and pays allegiance upon national principles; and which, by the original social compact, which each individual has entered into with society, and society with each individual, they are bound to afford. He, therefore, prays this honorable court would take his case into their consideration, and grant him relief by requesting the United States in Congress assembled to instruct their Minister at the Court of London to demand of that nation an equivalent for the property taken as aforesaid, and that your Honors would also pass an act that no suit should be sustained against your petitioner for any moneys due from him to

any of the subjects of the King of Great Britain (to some of whom he stands partly indebted for the goods taken as aforesaid) until such equivalent is granted, or the act of indemnity aforesaid of the said British Parliament in favor of said Sir William Howe is repealed, or that this honorable Court would otherwise interpose their supreme authority for the relief of your petitioner in the premises, as to them shall seem right and fit; and, as in duty bound, he shall ever pray. THOMAS BULFINCH.

Boston, October 24, 1785.

[No. 3.]

To the Honorable the Senate and the Honorable House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General Court assembled, on the 22d day of October, 1785.

The memorial of John Rowe, Samuel Austin, Samuel Partridge, and Samuel Dashwood, humbly shews

That, when in the year 1775, the town of Boston was made a garrison by the army of the King of Great Britain, they were respectively possessed of a very great quantity of merchandize, which was in their stores and shops within the town; that there being at the time, or before the 17th day of March, 1776, the day when the said garrison was withdrawn, no declaration of the independence of the United States of America, all the people within as well as without the town were confessedly the subjects of the King of Great Britain, and those who necessarily remained with their property under the control, were also under the protection of the British army, and according to either the municipal laws of England and this country, or the laws by which nations at war at all times govern themselves, had a right to expect the complete protection of their persons and property from the army then within the town. The want of health which the said Rowe then labored under rendered it necessary that he should remove himself to some place where he could have enjoyed more tranquillity and a better air; but his removal was expressly prohibited by the commander-in-chief, as was that also of the said Samuel Dashwood. The said Samuel Austin was, during the time aforesaid, employed as a Selectman of the town, and the said Samuel Partridge as an overseer of the poor. Their presence in their offices was no less necessary to the comfort and relief of their fellow