Mr. MORRIS, in behalf of the committee on the bill for allowing a
compensation to the President and Vice President of the United States,
reported an amendment, to wit:
To expunge, in the provision for the Vice President, "five
thousand dollars," and insert "six thousand dollars."
On motion to reduce the provision for the President of the United
States, from "twenty-five thousand" to "twenty thousand dollars:"
Passed in the negative.
On motion to make the provision for the Vice President eight thousand
dollars, instead of five thousand dollars:
Passed in the negative.
The Senate entered on executive business.
The following message from the President was laid before them:
_Gentlemen of the Senate:_
My nomination of Benjamin Fishbourn for the place of naval
officer of the port of Savannah not having met with your
concurrence, I now nominate Lachlan McIntosh for that
office.[7]
Whatever may have been the reasons which induced your
dissent, I am persuaded they were such as you deemed
sufficient. Permit me to submit to your consideration
whether, on occasions where the propriety of nominations
appears questionable to you, it would not be expedient to
communicate that circumstance to me, and thereby avail
yourselves of the information which led me to make them,
and which I would with pleasure lay before you. Probably my
reasons for nominating Mr. Fishbourn may tend to show that
such a mode of proceeding, in such cases, might be useful.
I will, therefore, detail them.
First. While Colonel Fishbourn was an officer, in actual
service, and chiefly under my own eye, his conduct appeared
to me irreproachable; nor did I ever hear any thing
injurious to his reputation as an officer or a gentleman.
At the storming of Stony Point, his behavior was
represented to have been active and brave, and he was
charged by his General to bring the account of that
success to the head quarters of the army.
Secondly. Since his residence in Georgia, he has been
repeatedly elected to the Assembly as a representative of
the county of Chatham, in which the port of Savannah is
situated, and sometimes of the counties of Glynn and
Camden; he has been chosen a member of the executive
council of the State, and has lately been president of the
same; he has been elected by the officers of the militia,
in the county of Chatham, lieutenant-colonel of the militia
in that district; and, on a very recent occasion, to wit,
in the month of May last, he has been appointed by the
council (on the suspension of the late collector) to an
office in the port of Savannah, nearly similar to that for
which I nominated him; which office he actually holds at
this time. To these reasons for nominating Mr. Fishbourn, I
might add that I received private letters of
recommendation, and oral testimonials in his favor, from
some of the most respectable characters in that State; but
as they were secondary considerations with me, I do not
think it necessary to communicate them to you.
It appeared, therefore, to me, that Mr. Fishbourn must have
enjoyed the _confidence_ of the militia officers, in order
to have been elected to a military rank; the _confidence_
of the freemen, to have been elected to the Assembly; the
_confidence_ of the Assembly, to have been selected for the
council; and the _confidence_ of the council, to have been
appointed collector of the port of Savannah.