Friday, January 5.
Count de Grasse.
Mr. Livingston called for the order of the day on the bill for granting an annuity to the daughters of the late Count de Grasse; which being agreed to, the House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the subject, Mr. Dent in the chair; and, after a number of desultory observations, the blanks were filled up, viz: the time for which the annuities should continue was fixed at five years, and the sum per annum to be allowed at $500 each. The first question was determined by a considerable majority, there being 57 votes in favor of it; the latter was carried—46 to 38.
The committee then rose and reported the amendments. They were all agreed to without a division, except the sum to be allowed per annum. When that question was put,
Mr. J. Williams hoped it would not be agreed to. When the subject was before under discussion, the question on $500 and $400 had been negatived. $500 a year for the four daughters for five years, he said, would be $10,000. He thought this a very serious sum. He again adverted to the situation of many of our own citizens, and called for the yeas and nays upon the question.
Mr. Harper asked whether, if, when the Count de Grasse was solicited to remain with the fleet under his command in the Chesapeake, at his own risk and responsibility, he had asked as a condition that on some future day $10,000 should be granted to his daughters, would it not have been complied with, if it had been ten times that sum? And ought his descendants to be more hardly dealt with because their father had the generosity and magnanimity not to make the demand? He trusted not.[28]
After some observations in favor of concurring with the Committee of the Whole in their vote, by Messrs. Thatcher, Brooks, Livingston, and Gordon; and against it by Messrs. Varnum, McDowell, and Macon—the former of whom said that the clergy, in his part of the country, had not more than three hundred and thirty dollars a year; and the latter gentleman produced three cases of our own citizens who had lost their lives in the service of the United States, whose families had been much more hardly dealt with, viz: the family of a Lieutenant Colonel, who had four hundred and fifty dollars a year granted them; that of a Major, three hundred dollars a year; and that of the Marshal of Georgia, whose family had a grant of two thousand dollars. The yeas and nays were taken—40 to 43.
The question for allowing five hundred dollars a year being negatived, four hundred was proposed and carried—46 to 34.
The question being on the bill being engrossed for a third reading, Mr. Blount called for the yeas and nays upon it. It was carried—55 to 25.