V. Payments will be made to the parties entitled thereto through the Department of State, or in checks to their order, and will not be made to attorneys.
VI. Prior to any payment being made the party entitled thereto shall sign and duly acknowledge before some competent officer a receipt and release, stating that the sum so paid is received in full satisfaction of any claim or reclamations of any sort which may exist or which might be advanced against the Spanish Government by reason of the capture of the Virginius or the acts of the Spanish authorities connected therewith.
VII. Should any further order or direction be required, the same will hereafter be made as an addition hereto.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand, at the city of Washington, this 21st day of July, A.D. 1875, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundredth.
U.S. GRANT.
[From Letters and Messages of Rutherford B. Hayes, pp. 19-22.]
WASHINGTON, April 2, 1877.
The Honorables CHARLES B. LAWRENCE, JOSEPH R. HAWLEY, JOHN M. HARLAN, JOHN C. BROWN, AND WAYNE MACVEAGH, Commissioners.
GENTLEMEN: I am instructed by the President to lay before you some observations upon the occasion and objects which have led him to invite you as members of the commission about to visit the State of Louisiana to undertake this public service.
Upon assuming his office the President finds the situation of affairs in Louisiana such as to justly demand his prompt and solicitous attention, for this situation presents as one of its features the apparent intervention of the military power of the United States in the domestic controversies which unhappily divide the opinions and disturb the harmony of the people of that State. This intervention, arising during the term and by the authority of his predecessor, throws no present duty upon the President except to examine and determine the real extent and form and effect to which such intervention actually exists, and to decide as to the time, manner, and conditions which should be observed in putting an end to it. It is in aid of his intelligent and prompt discharge of this duty that the President has sought the service of this commission to supply by means of its examination, conducted in the State of Louisiana, some information that may be pertinent to the circumspection and security of any measure he may resolve upon.