Mr. Clay clearly pointed out the vicious plan of the convention, whereby the commissioners were required to cast lots for an arbitrator in each case of difference; a plan likely to result in confused and contradictory decisions as well as in delay.'

British Reply.

The British Government did not receive Mr. Clay's propositions with favor. On the contrary, Mr. Vaughan, the British envoy at Washington, in a note to Mr. Clay of April 12, 1826, summed up the result of the correspondence on the subject between Messrs. King and Canning at London, by saying that His Majesty's government regretted to find themselves "under the absolute impossibility of accepting the terms of compromise offered by the envoy from the United States in London." Mr. Vaughan furthermore declared that His Majesty's government could not admit that the question of interest should be referred to arbitration-that the demand for interest was unwarranted by the convention, and was declared to be unfounded by the law officers of the Crown. Mr. Clay, expressing surprise at these declarations, pointed out that the question of interest was not the only one which the British commissioner had refused to refer, and that if his refusal to cooperate in the choice of an arbitrator should be upheld it would virtually be making him the final judge of every question of difference that arose in the joint commission. Mr. Vaughan in reply maintained that each commissioner must judge for himself as to the course he would take, and observed that while the British commissioner had refused to refer certain questions, the American commissioner had done the like in respect of the question as to the inspection by claimants of the evidence in the possession of the British Government. Responding to this observation, Mr. Clay said that the proposal of the British commissioner to refer the question as to the inspection of the list of deported slaves was an abstract proposal, there being at the time no case under examination to which it attached itself, and that at a subsequent period of the proceedings the American commissioner offered to refer that and every other question on which he and his colleague might disagree to the arbitration prescribed by the

Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 339.

Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 746,

3 Mr. Clay to Mr. Vaughan, April 15, 1826. (Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 746.)

Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 749.

convention. There was also much discussion between Mr. Clay and Mr. Vaughan of the subject of interest and of the sovereignty of Dauphin Island in 1815. On the question of interest, Mr. Clay sought the opinion of Mr. Wirt, then AttorneyGeneral, who advised that interest was a necessary part of the indemnification awarded by the Emperor of Russia, and that the refusal of the British commissioner to refer the point to one of the arbitrators was not warranted by the convention.2

ment of Commissioners.

On the 8th of December 1825 the comContinued Disagree- missioners, pursuant to their adjournment, reconvened, but only to renew their disputes, which often assumed the character of personal controversy. By the refusal to refer questions to the arbitrators the provisions of the convention for the settlement of differences between the commissioners were rendered wholly nugatory. On one occasion Mr. Cheves proposed, as Mr.. Jackson maintained that interest was excluded by the convention, to refer the simple question whether it was so excluded to one of the arbitrators as a difference resulting from the "stipulations" of that instrument. This proposition also Mr. Jackson declined.

tions.

On the 10th of May 1826 Albert Gallatin Gallatin's Negotia- was commissioned as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States to Great Britain. On the 21st of June Mr. Clay delivered to him a copy of the journal of the commissioners, who had adjourned on the 10th of that month till the 6th of the following December. It showed that they had since their last preceding adjournment made not the "smallest advance" toward the completion of the business before them. Mr. Clay instructed Mr. Gallatin to consider the instructions addressed to Mr. King on the subject as still in force and applicable to his mission; but, if the British Government should still refuse either to compromise the claims or to instruct its commissioner to refer questions in dispute, to propose to submit the various points of difference to the Emperor of Russia. Mr. Gallatin had his first interview with Mr. Canning at the foreign office on the 1st of August 1826, when Mr. Canning inquired whether he was not authorized to settle the controversy as to the Treaty of Ghent

1 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 751.

* Id. VI. 950.

3 Id. VI. 345.

by compromise. Mr. Gallatin replied that he was, but that as Mr. Canning had simply rejected as inadmissible the proposal made by Mr. King any overtures on the subject must come from the British Government. Mr. Canning said that it appeared to His Majesty's government that the sum demanded by Mr. King was equal to the whole amount of the claims filed, including interest.1 Mr. Gallatin, however, adhered to his determination not to discuss the question of amount till overtures on the subject had been made by Great Britain. Ile discovered that while there was great reluctance to recede from the ground already taken in support of Mr. Jackson there was also a disposition to settle. On the 13th of September Mr. Gallatin reported that he had received private information that the British Government was disposed to offer £250,000, then equivalent to $1,188,000, a sum which, after making allowance for the two years' interest which had since accrued, was only a trifle below the amount named by Mr. Clay in his instructions to Mr. King. This sum Mr. Gallatin was authorized to accept. But before this authorization was received the British Government had made a formal offer of $1,200,000; and Mr. Gallatin, basing his estimates on the instructions then in his possession, had offered as an ultimatum to accept $1,204,960, and the British Government had agreed to pay it."

A convention to that effect was concluded New Convention. by Mr. Gallatin on the 13th of November 1826. It provided for the payment of $1,204,960, current money of the United States, in full satisfaction of all sums claimed or claimable from Great Britain under the award of the Emperor of Russia and the convention made to carry it into effect. It was provided that this sum should be paid at Washington in two equal installments, the first twenty days after the British minister in the United States should have been officially notified of the ratification of the convention by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and the second on August 1, 1827. The convention of 1822 was annulled, save as to the second article, relating to the average value of slaves, which had been carried into effect,

and as to so much of the third article as related to the definitive list, which had also been executed.1

Adjournment of
Board.

By Article V. of Mr. Gallatin's convention it was provided that from the day on which the ratifications should be exchanged the joint commission appointed under the convention of 1822 should be dissolved. The ratifications were exchanged at London on the 6th of February 1827, and the commissioners and arbitrators were duly notified of the fact by their respective governments. On the 26th of March Messrs. Jackson, Cheves, and McTavish met, and, having declared the joint commission to be dissolved in virtue of the article in question, adjourned sine die.

3. COMMISSION UNDER ACT OF MARCH 2, 1827.

On the 24 of March 18272 Congress passed an act to carry the convention of November 13, 1826, into effect. This act provided for the appointment by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, of three commissioners and one clerk, who should constitute a commission for the purpose of carrying the act into effect. The records of the old commission, so far as they were under the control of the United States, were to be delivered to the new commission. It was provided that the commissioners, or a majority of them, with their clerk, should meet in Washington on the 10th of the ensuing July, and proceed to the consideration of claims, allowing such further time for the production of evidence as they should think just. Compensation was provided for each commissioner at a rate of $3,000 a year, and for the clerk at the rate of $1,500, during the continuance of the commission, which was not, however, to last after the next session of Congress.

By section 9 it was provided that, as soon as any claim should be adjudged valid and the principal amount be ascertained, a sum equal to 75 per cent of the principal should be paid on it, and that when the labors of the commission were finished the balance of all sums adjudged to be due should be paid if the fund permitted it; and if it did not, that the remainder of the fund should be distributed in proportion to the sums awarded.

1 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 339. The protocol of the payment of the first installment is printed at page 372 of that volume.

4 Stats. at L. 219.

By section 12 it was provided that all claims deposited in the Department of State which were by mistake omitted from the definitive list delivered to the former commissioners should be added to it for adjustment with the claims previously entered.

Organization.

Under this act Langdon Cheves and Henry Seawell, who had served respectively as com missioner and arbitrator under the convention

of 1822, were appointed as commissioners, and with them was joined James Pleasants, of Virginia. Aaron Ogden was appointed as clerk. They all met in Washington July 10, 1827, the day fixed by the act, and severally took an oath of office before William E. Mack, a justice of the peace for the District of Columbia. On the 11th of July the commissioners promul gated rules to govern the transaction of business before them. On the 13th of July an assistant clerk was appointed at a salary of $600.

Procedure.

On the 12th of July some of the claimants represented that, from the shortness of the time since the transmission of the records and documents from the office of the Secretary of State, they could not be prepared on that day to announce whether or no they were in readiness for trial, and requested that the calling over of the definitive list might be postponed for the present. The calling of the list was then postponed until the 13th at 10 o'clock a. m. An order was also made that the clerk be permitted to furnish copies of any papers which were of record in his office, the applicant paying a reasonable compensation for such copies. An attorney for some of the claimants moved that any claimant should be permitted to put down for examination and decision such part or parts of his claim, from time to time as he might deem expedient, until his whole claim should be disposed of. On this motion the board ordered that claimants should be permitted to sever their claims, so far as to separate slaves from other property, but not so as to put down part of either.

1 Mr. Pleasants was born in Virginia in 1769, and was a first cousin of Thomas Jefferson. By profession a lawyer, he was successively a member of the legislature of Virginia, a Representative and then a Senator in the Congress of the United States, and governor of his native State, where he died in 1839.