Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/42

16 reprobated, when the author was found to be a member of Congress, prevented a relaxation as to the yeas and nays. Mr. HOWELL, therefore, as his name was necessarily to appear on the Journal, adhered to the motion which inserted his protest thereon. (See the Journal.) The indecency of this paper, and the pertinacity of Mr. Howell in adhering to his assertions with respect to the non-failure of any application for foreign loans, excited great and (excepting his colleagues, or rather Mr. Arnold) universal indignation and astonishment in Congress; and he was repeatedly premonished of the certain ruin in which he would thereby involve his character and consequence, and of the necessity which Congress would be laid under of vindicating themselves by some act which would expose and condemn him to all the world.

, December 19.

See Journals.

, December 20.

A motion was made by Mr. HAMILTON for revising the requisitions of the preceding and present years, in order to reduce them more within the faculties of the states. In support of the motion, it was urged that the exorbitancy of the demands produced a despair of fulfilling them, which benumbed the efforts for that purpose. On the other side, it was alleged that a relaxation of the demand would be followed by a relaxation of the efforts; that unless other resources were substituted, either the states would be deluded, by such a measure, into false expectations, or, in case the truth should be disclosed to prevent that effect, that the enemy would be encouraged to persevere in the war against us. The motion meeting with little patronage, it was withdrawn.

The report of the committee on the motion of Mr. Hamilton proposed that the secretary of Congress should transmit to the executive of Rhode Island the several acts of Congress, with a state of foreign loans. The object of the committee was, that, in case Rhode Island should abet, or not resent, the misconduct of their representative, as would most likely be the event. Congress should commit themselves as little as possible in the mode of referring it to that state. When the report came under consideration, it was observed that the president had always transmitted acts of Congress to the executives of the states, and that such a change, on the present occasion, might afford a pretext, if not excite a disposition, in Rhode Island not to vindicate the honor of Congress. The matter was compromised by substituting the "secretary of foreign affairs, who, ex officio, corresponds with the governors, &c., within whose department the facts to be transmitted, as to foreign loans, lay." No motion or vote opposed the report as it passed.$7$

, December 21.

The committee to confer with Mr. Livingston was appointed the preceding day, in consequence of the unwillingness of several states to elect either General Schuyler, Mr. Clymer, or Mr. Read, the gentlemen previously put into nomination, and of a hint that Mr. Livingston might be prevailed on to serve till the spring. The committee found him in this disposition, and their report was agreed to without opposition. See the Journal.

, December 23.

The motion to strike out the words "accruing to the United States" was grounded on a denial of the principle that a capture and possession, by the enemy, of movable property extinguished or affected the title of the owners. On the other side, this principle was asserted as laid down by the beat writers, and conformable to the practice of all nations; to which was added, that, if a contrary doctrine were established by Congress, innumerable claims would be brought forward by those whoso property had, on recapture, been applied to the public use. See Journal.

Letters were this day received from Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jay, and the Marquis de la Fayette. They were dated the 14th of October. That from the first enclosed a copy of the second commission to Mr. Oswald, with sundry preliminary articles, and distrusted the British court. That from the second expressed great jealousy of the French government, and referred to an intercepted letter from Mr. Marbois, opposing the claim of the United States to the fisheries. This despatch produced much indignation against the author of the intercepted letter, and visible emotions in some against France. It was remarked here that our ministers took no notice of the distinct commissions to Fitzherbert and Oswald; that although, on a supposed