3. Retaining the whole surplus in the Treasury of the United States, or causing it to be invested toward indemnifying citizens who may hereafter be injured by the Chinese authorities.
I will abstain from any remarks on the first head.
There is but one claim, that of Messrs. Nott & Co., disallowed by the Commissioners,—in which case application has been made for a part of the surplus referred to. The claimants allege that their agents in China were too far from Macao, the place where the Commissioners met, to allow them to appeal to the Minister in season. The Committee will be enabled to judge of the sufficiency of this reason for considering the claim in that case an open one.
The award in the Caldera case is the only one complained of as having been inadequate. As all the facts and arguments in the case are embraced in the accompanying papers, the Committee can form their own opinion upon this point.
The Minister who concluded the convention pursued a judicious course in requiring from the Chinese a sum in gross adequate to meet the sums claimed in the several cases. This, however, can hardly be allowed to imply, that, even in his opinion, the claimants in those cases ought to receive the amounts which severally they might expect.
Congress made it the duty of the Commissioners, by an investigation judicial in its character, to ascertain the amounts justly due; and if the claimants should be dissatisfied with the decisions of the Commissioners, an appeal to the Minister was allowed, whose decision was expected to be final.
The expediency of sanctioning a review of decisions of the Commissioners or arbiter may be deemed questionable. They were all of high character, peculiarly qualified for the trust conferred upon them. It is for Congress to consider the conveniences and inconveniences of such a precedent, when the Government, in all its branches, may be considered to have already fulfilled its duty to the claimants, collectively and individually.
The whole subject is one of a purely legislative character, affecting a fund which, although it came into the Treasury in a peculiar manner, seems to me to belong to the United States. This Department has no authority to inquire whether there are equities existing on the part of any of our citizens which Congress ought to consult in directing the disposition of the fund. If Congress should impose any inquiry of that nature upon the Department, it would undertake the performance of it cheerfully and with a purpose only to consult justice and the public advantage. But the Department sees no ground for recommending such a measure in the present case.
I have the honor to be, Sir, your very obedient servant,
William H. Seward.