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Maryland State Archives Baltimore's claims for expenses incurred during the War of 1812 msa_s931_3-0009 Enlarge and print image (617K) |
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Maryland State Archives Baltimore's claims for expenses incurred during the War of 1812 msa_s931_3-0009 Enlarge and print image (617K) |
| [Doc. No. 39.JJ 5 To the Senate and Bouse of Representatives of the United States .- The memorial of the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, Respectfully represents : That, some years ago, your memorialists preferred a claim against the United St'.ites for a large sum of money expended by them in the defence of their country, in tlie late war with Great Brirain. and they exhibited various documents, which are now filed in tlie office of the Third Auditor, showing that they were compelled to borrow, for that purpose, and did borrow and pay the regular bank interest until 1818, when the debt was funded in city six per cent, stock, the sum of seventy-five thousand dollars. (S ~5,0O0,) which they expended, oveir and above the voluntary contributions of the citizens of Baltimore, amounting to more than twenty-five thousand dollars, (S 25,000.)3 that part of their claim was paid, and the balance of (S 15,159 09,) fifteen thousand one hundred and fifty-nine dollars and nine cents, was rejected by the Secretary of War, not because the same was not admitted by him to have been necessarily expended in the defence of the city of Baltimore, but because a part of it was not sustained by vouchers in strict accordance with the rules of the Department, as established under the existing laws ; and because a part consisted of charges which that office deemed not proper to be made against the United States. Your memorialists state that they did not at that time trouble your honorable body upon the subject, but accepted the amount which the Secretary of War conceived himself authorized to admit tinder the provisions of the laws as they existed, and did not submit the question as to their rejected claims to the consideration of Congress. Tour memorialists further state, that, when they received payment for their admitted claims, interest upon the same was refused upon tlie ground of tlie estatilislicd usage that Goveniment never paid interest; but, at a subsequent period, your honorable body thought fit to disavow this usage, and passed a law granting interest to the State of Virginia upon the amount advanced by her, during the late war, towards the defence of tlie country ; and, at the last session of Congress, this principle was again recognized in the case of your memorialists, who received, under your authority, interest upon the whole of their admitted claim. Your memorialists are now induced to apply to your honorable body for a consideration of their claim, as originally submitted to the Secretary of War, in the hope that, when the circumstances under which the debt was contracted are fully investigated, it will be found no more than just to pay to your memorialist a large part of the rejected amount of S 15,159 09, if not the whole, together with interest on such part, or the whole, as may peem fit, |