Gazette Of The United States And Daily Evening Advertiser

CONGRESS.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Thursday, January 29.

Mr. New, from the committee of enrolments, reported the following bills.

An act in addition to the act entitled an act to regulate the pay of the non commissioned officers, musicians and privates of the militia of the United States, when called into actual service, and for other purposes.

An act further extending the time for receiving on loan the domestic debt of the United States.

An act to authorize the settlement of the claim of Samuel Prioleau.

An act making further provision in cases of drawbacks.

An act for the relief of Epaphras Jones and others.

An act supplementary to the several acts imposing duties on goods, wares and merchandize imported into the United States.

An act for reviving certain suits and processes, which have been discontinued in the district court of Pennsylvania.

An act for the remission of the tonnage duties on certain French vessels.

An act to establish an uniform system of naturalization, and to repeal the act heretofore passed on that subject.

Aaron Kitchell, member from the state of New Jersey, in room of the late Mr. Abraham Clark, was qualified and took his seat.

Mr. Coffin moved that the petition of Tristram Coffin, which was referred to the Secretary of the Treasury, in the last session of Congress, and which hath since been returned to the House without any report thereon, should be referred to the committee of claims.

Agreed.

The bill to repeal a part, and continue in force another part, of the act for encouraging the importation of arms and ammunition into the United States, was read and passed.

The House then resolved itself into a committee of the whole, Mr. Cobb in the chair, to resume the consideration of the claims of Thomas Person and others to certain lands lying on the frontier of the state of South-Carolina, and ceded by the commissioners of the United States to the Indians.

Mr. Gillespie said that North Carolina had not behaved in any way more exceptionable than other States of the Union. If the Indians had a right to all their lands, which, as far as he understood, nobody contested, then Henderson and others had a right to purchase, and the persons who purchased from him ought to be protected in the eye of the law. Mr. Gillespie explained at some length what reciprocal duties are owing by citizens to government, and by government to citizens.

It was moved that the committee should rise.

Mr. Nicholas was satisfied that the purchasers of the lands had a claim either against the United States or the state of North-Carolina. Much had been said about the Indian right; but the Indians never had been set to occupy these lands. It could never have been the design of Nature that these people should be termed the possessors of land which they were incapable to enjoy. He was upon the whole upon the side of the claimants, though he enumerated some of the difficulties that would attend an attempt to please all parties.

Mr. W. Smith had found much difficulty in forming his opinion upon this question. He had at first been somewhat disposed against the claimants; but at last, after full deliberation, he was convinced of the justice of giving them redress. He requested the particular attention and candour of the House. The United States were in this case made a judge in their own cause, and therefore it became more their duty to examine every part of the subject with the more accuracy. Mr. Smith then began a distinct detail of the circumstances in the present dispute.

Previous to the year 1776, North-Carolina was a British colony, and the British crown considered itself as entitled to bestow grants of territory. In that year North-Carolina became a sovereign state, and consequently he conceived herself as succeeding to the right of the British crown, and as having a right to bestow grants in the same way as the kings of Britain had done. This claim was asserted in her general declaration of rights, and it was incorporated into her constitution. When North-Carolina entered into the Union, all the legislative rights of the state were preserved, and by a necessary inference her title to the lands comprehended in her original charter. In 1783, the state opened an office to sell the absolute right of such lands as had not been disposed of.