DANIEL WHITNEY. MAY 4, 1858. Mr. HARLAN, from the Committee on Private Land Claims, made the following REPORT. The Committee on Private Land Claims, to whom was referred the bill of the Senate, No. 72, for the relief of Daniel Whitney, have considered the same, and now report: That Francis Savonture presented a claim to the commissioners appointed under the act of 1823, for the settlement of land claims in Green Bay settlement. Savonture claimed 640 acres, by reason of having occupied and cultivated the land, and that he had complied with the provisions of said act, and the act which it revived and continued in force. It is true that the commissioners reported in favor of allowing this claim of Savonture. The proof presented in the report of the commissioners, 4th volume American State Papers, 713, shows that the commissioners were not authorized to confirm the claim of Savonture, as the proof does not show that Savonture ever did in fact either occupy or cultivate the land, or any part of it. No proof that Savonture ever lived on the land or any part of it; or that in fact, and in any just sense, ever did cultivate any part of it. The evidence is that he "cultivated the land as a meadow." No evidence that there ever was an acre of the land enclosed with a fence, or cultivated in any way, unless indeed the mowing or pasturing of an open prairie, upon which neither house nor home was established, constituted a cultivation. 2d. There is no evidence that the petitioner, Daniel Whitney, has any claim or interest in the land, either legal or equitable. 3d. If there ever was a claim in fact, under any law, in favor of Savonture, that claim can now be made under that law before the Commissioner of the General Land Office, and if the claim is a legal one there is no necessity of further legislation on the case. CONGRESS, CONGRESS, MARINE HOSPITAL-BOSTON AND CHARLESTOWN. [To accompany Bill H. R. No. 427.] MAY 4, 1858. Mr. WINSLOW, from the Committee on Naval Affairs, made the fol lowing REPORT. The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred "A bill authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to ascertain and pay the balance due on a tract of land heretofore ceded for the purpose of a marine hospital for the district of Boston and Charlestown, to the credit of the naval hospital fund," have had the same under consideration and thereupon report: It will be seen from the letter of the chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, transmitted through the Secretary of the Navy, and from extracts from the annexed report of the late Secretary of the Navy, that the hospital estates at Chelsea, Massachusetts, were purchased with the proceeds of the naval hospital fund, which fund was constituted from a tax of twenty cents per month deducted out of the pay of the officers, seamen, and marines of the service. The treasury of the United States has never contributed a dime to this fund. By a clause attached to the general appropriation bill, March 3, 1855, Congress alienated from the estate at Chelsea ten acres of land, and donated the same to the marine hospital of Boston and Charlestown, Massachusetts. The present bill authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to ascertain the value of the land thus alienated, and to pass the sum to the credit of the hospital fund. The committee recommend its passage, with an amendment, which they herewith report. [From Secretary Dobbin's Annual Report.] "I invite your attention also to the recommendations of my last report, that some measure should be adopted to secure for the hospital fund the value of the ten acres of land alienated from the hospital estate at Chelsea, Massachusetts, and applied to the purposes of a marine hospital for the district of Boston and Charlestown, by act of Congress approved March 3, 1855. This property was purchased by authority of the Secretary of the Navy in the year 1823, and paid for out of the hospital fund. This fund was established by act of Congress of March 2, 1799, which directed the Secretary of the Navy to deduct twenty cents per month from the pay of every officer, seaman, and marine, and to pay the same quarter annually to the Secretary of the Treasury; and again, on the 26th of February, 1811, Congress enacts that the money collected in virtue of the former law shall be paid to the Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary of War, who are appointed a board of commissioners, by the name and style of commissioners of navy hospitals, and shall constitute a fund for navy hospitals; the commissioners are also required to procure, at suitable places, proper sites for navy hospitals.' "By an act approved July 10, 1832, Congress directed the commissioners of the hospital fund to close their accounts as trustees of that fund, and to transfer all balances of cash, or other property belonging to the fund, to the Treasurer of the United States, for the use of the Secretary of the Navy, for expenditures on account of navy hospitals, &c. It then constituted the Secretary of the Navy trustee of the hospital fund, making it his duty to direct and control the expenditures out of the navy hospital fund.' "It was therefore out of a fund created by a tax upon the pay of the navy that the Chelsea estate was purchased, and not with any appropriation by Congress from the treasury, as the phraseology of the 6th section of an act making appropriations for the civil and diplomatic expenses of the government, approved March 3, 1855, would imply, when it refers to the land heretofore 'purchased by the United States," for the purposes of a naval hospital. The United States bought the land through agents appointed under the act of February, 1811, to take charge of a fund which had been already created for certain definite purposes; and the deeds of conveyance are made out in the names of the persons specified in the act, by direction of the then Secretary of the Navy, as commissioner of the naval hospital fund. "It will thus be seen that the United States had no other connexion with the purchase of the Chelsea estate than to authorize a trusteeship, with certain expressed powers, of a fund raised by a deduction or tax upon the pay of the navy, to be applied to specific purposes, as 'the purchase of sites for naval hospitals, or other means of relief for sick or disabled seamen of the navy.' "I repeat the suggestion, that application be made to Congress to reimburse the hospital fund for this diversion of its means, or for authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to transfer the ascertained value of the land to the hospital fund, out of any non-appropriated money in the treasury. The value of the land can be ascertained in such way as the department may deem most advisable." The law to which the Secretary refers is in the following words: "SEC. 6. That a tract of ten acres of land heretofore purchased by the United States for the purposes of naval hospital at Chelsea, Massachusetts, be selected and set apart, under the direction of the President |