19th CONGRESS, 1st SESSION. [4] PETITION OF REVOLUTIONARY OFFICERS. PETITION OF Delegates from Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. IN BEHALF OF THE Officers of the Revolutionary Army. DECEMBER 9, 1825. Referred to a Select Committee. WASHINGTON: PRINTED BY GALES & SEATON. PETITION. To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled― The Memorial of the subscribers, delegates in behalf of the surviving officers of the Revolutionary Army, MOST RESPECTFULLY SHEWETH: That, authorized by the unrivalled prosperity of their free and happy country, and urged by every consideration of duty to themselves, and of justice to the national character, they submit a renewal of their claim for the compensation which was stipulated as the reward of those services and sacrifices, which, without a boast, they may be allowed to say, contributed to secure the peace, happiness, and sovereignty, of the United States. Your memorialists will not trespass on the delicacy of your honorable Houses. by suggesting any specific settlement of their claim, assured, as they are, by the general sentiments of their fellow citizens, that the liberality and justice of Government will be conformed to the ample means which it possesses, to fulfil the stipulations heretofore made. They will only take the liberty of referring to the acts of Congress, which record those stipulations, and which, correctly construed, will satisfy the most accurate calculation, that, up to the present time, the promised reward has not been realized by the surviving officers of the Revolutionary Army. The plain and irrefutable illustration of this fact is found in the depreciation of their pay, the paper of which was ultimately redeemed at one hundred for one; it is found in the commutation of the stipulated half pay for life. for five years full pay, the certificates of which. owing to the non-provision for the payment of interest, were depreciated to eight for one; it is found, in funding the interest due on their certificates, at three per cent., absorbing one-half the value of the principal; and, it is found, in deferring the payment of one-third of the principal for ten years without interest. Under this statement of facts, the correctness of which cannot be contradicted, your memorialists confide in the liberal, just, and prompt decision of Government, for which they prefer the present application in behalf of themselves and their brother officers. The lapse of near half a century having greatly reduced the number of the officers of the Revolutionary Army, and the youngest of the survivors now approaching his seventieth year, your memorialists cannot doubt the disposition of your honorable Houses to smooth the passage to the grave of the remaining few, who, but for the urgent necessity which compels this application, would have continued in their secluded situations, to contemplate the unexampled prosperity of their favored country. And your memorialists will ever pray. JOHN L. DEXTER, Delegates from Rhode Island. NICH. FISH, ROBT. TROUP, Delegates from New York. AARON OGDEN, J. W. SCOTT, Delegates from New Jersey. W. JACKSON, A. SHAW, GEORGE STEVENSON, Delegates from Pennsylvania. JOHN MARKLAND, W. G. SHUBRICK, E. R. SHUBRICK, Delegates from South Carolina. |