Wednesday, December 18.
Indiana Territory—Slaves—Salt Springs—State Government.
Ordered, that the report of a select committee, made the 17th of February, 1804, on a letter of William H. Harrison, President of a Convention held at Vincennes, in the Indiana Territory, declaring the consent of the people of the said Territory to a suspension of the sixth article of compact between the United States and the said people; also, on a memorial and petition of the inhabitants of the said Territory; be referred to Mr. Garnett, Mr. Morrow of Ohio, Mr. Parke, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Smith of South Carolina, Mr. Walton, and Mr. Van Cortlandt.
A petition of the Legislative Council and House of Representatives of the Indiana Territory was presented to the House and read, praying that the introduction of slaves into the said Territory may be permitted by Congress; that the right of suffrage therein may be enlarged; that the salt licks and springs in the said Territory may be ceded to them on certain conditions; that a certain description of claimants to land, in the said Territory, may be permitted to make entry thereof in the mode therein stated; that no division of the said Territory may take place; and that the citizens thereof may be permitted to form a State government as soon as their population will permit the measure.
Also, a petition of sundry purchasers of land settled, and intending to settle, on that part of the Indiana Territory west of Ohio, and east of the boundary line running from the mouth of Kentucky River, praying that the said tract of country may be added to and made part of the State of Ohio.
Ordered, that the said petitions be severally referred to the committee last appointed; that they do examine the matter thereof, and report the same, with their opinion thereupon, to the House.
Mr. Varnum, from the committee appointed on the sixth instant, presented a bill establishing rules and articles for the government of the armies of the United States; which was read twice and committed to a Committee of the Whole on Friday next.
General Moses Hazen.
On motion of Mr. Thomas the House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the bill “supplementary to the act entitled an act regulating the grants of land appropriated for the refugees from the British Provinces of Canada and Nova Scotia.”
This bill directs the following locations of land and patents to be granted:
“To Charlotte Hazen, widow of Moses Hazen, sixteen hundred acres; Elijah Ayre, senior, one thousand acres; Elijah Ayre, jun., three hundred and twenty acres; and Anthony Burk, two hundred and fifty acres.”
Mr. Thomas explained the grounds on which this bill is predicated, in virtue of inexecuted resolutions of the old Congress; when the committee rose and reported it without amendment: in which report the House immediately concurred, and ordered the bill to a third reading to-morrow.