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Washington Tuesday 1. March 1842.
1. VI. Tuesday.
- Mary E. E. Cutts
- Hawley Rev
d. William
Mr Gilbert
Livingston Thompson had called upon me yesterday, and
urgently requested me to bring before the Committee of foreign Affairs
the claims and complaints against the Commission of indemnities under
the convention of 1839 with Mexico.— The Commission expired last week
and left much of their business undone— I met the Committee of Foreign
Affairs at 10 this morning— All the members present—Adams, Cushing, Everett
Granger, E. D. White
Shepperd—Meriwether, Caruthers and Alexander H. H. Stuart.— There was
a Letter from the Secretary of
State, with an enclosure from David Porter, claiming extra-allowances, under another
name, for his son, which the 5th. auditor had rejected but
which the Secretary of State now acquiesces in— After some discussion
this claim was laid aside— The consideration of the report on Mrs
Meade’s claim was further postponed Dr
Baldwin’s memorial against the Mexican indemnity
commission, was then taken up, discussed, and postponed for future
consideration of what the Committee can do— I thought the chairman
should be directed to move in the house a call on the Department of
State for the proceedings of the Commission— But the Committee were for
not going so fast.— They thought it would be best to wait.— In the
house, Pendleton’s motion
to suspend the rules for his indignant resolution against dissolution
petitions, first came up and was lost for lack of a two thirds majority,
the vote being 104 to 65— Then followed attempts to introduce sundry
Resolutions, and after the remainder of the morning hour absorbed on the
retrenchment Committee’s report the house went into Committee of the
whole on the state of the Union, Briggs in the chair on the general appropriation Bill,
after two abortive attempts of Bidlack of Pennsylvania, to take up the apportionment
Bill. Garrett Davis with a
superabundant zeal for retrenchmen, grafted upon the Bill an amendment
to reduce the expense, and direct the mode of printing the Laws in
pamphlets and newspapers— The Chairman pronounced it not in order, as
surely it was not— But Davis appealed, and there was no quorum. The
Committee rose— A call of the house produced a Quorum. Briggs resumed
the Chair—debate followed till the Committee rose again and the house
adjourned— Miss Cutts was here this
evening—read 3 chapters of the Pickwick papers— Mr Hawley
here— Mr and Mrs Angier
went to the Drawing-room, which was splendid.— My wife is recovering.
