APPENDIX.
(A). Page 121.
LETTER OF MR. SEWARD TO MR. SUMNER.
Department of State, Washington, June 21, 1862.
Sir,—I duly received your letter of the 3d instant, accompanied by a copy of the resolution of the Senate of the 2d instant, referring to the consideration of the Committee on Foreign Relations of that part of the President’s Annual Message to Congress, of December last, which adverts to the difference between the amount stipulated to be paid by China in satisfaction of claims of United States citizens and the gross amount of the awards of the Commissioners appointed pursuant to the Act of Congress of the 3d of March, 1859.
In compliance with your request for information and suggestion upon the subject, I have the honor to communicate a copy of the Convention, a copy of the Act to carry it into effect, a copy of all the correspondence on record or on file in the Department touching the matter, and all the original papers relating to the proceedings of the Commissioners. It is desirable that great care should be taken of these last, and that they should be returned to the Department as soon as the subject shall have been disposed of.
The circumstance of the complaints against the Chinese, which it was the purpose of the convention to adjust, having arisen in a peculiar region and among a singular people, probably suggested the appointment of Commissioners resident on the spot, who were familiar with the scene of their duties. It is understood, therefore, that, upon the recommendation of Mr. Reed, the Minister who concluded the convention, Mr. Charles W. Bradley, who was United States Consul at Ning-po, and Mr. Oliver E. Roberts, who had acted in a similar capacity elsewhere in China, and both of whom had long resided in that country, were appointed Commissioners. The business-like manner in which they discharged their trust is manifest from the records of the Commission.
With regard to the disposition of the surplus in question, three methods suggest themselves.
1. The refunding of the whole amount to the Chinese.
2. Appropriating the whole or a part of it in payment of claims supposed to have been unjustly rejected by the Commissioners, and of others in which the amounts allowed may not have been satisfactory to the claimants.