WASHINGTON, _December 11, 1854_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
An act for the relief of the legal representatives of Samuel Prioleau,
deceased, which provided for the payment of the sum of $6,928.60 to the
legal representatives of said Prioleau by the proper accounting officer
of the Treasury, was approved by me July 27, 1854. It having been
ascertained that the identical claim provided for in this act was
liquidated and paid under the provisions of the general act of August 4,
1790, and of the special act of January 24, 1795, the First Comptroller
of the Treasury declined to give effect to the law first above referred
to without communicating the facts for my consideration. This refusal
I regard as fully justified by the facts upon which it was predicated.
In view of the destruction of valuable papers by fire in the building
occupied by the Treasury Department in 1814 and again in 1833, it is not
surprising that cases like this should, more than seventy years after
the transaction with which they were connected, be involved in much
doubt. The report of the Comptroller, however, shows conclusively by
record evidence still preserved in the Department and elsewhere that the
sum of $6,122.44, with $3,918.36 interest thereon from the date of the
destruction of the property, making the sum of $10,040.80, was allowed
to Samuel Prioleau under the act for his relief passed in 1795.
That amount was reported by the Auditor to the Comptroller on the
4th day of February, 1795, to be funded as follows, to wit.
Two thirds of $6,122.44 called 6 per cent stock $4,081.63
One third called deferred stock 2,040.81
Interest on the principal, called 3 per cent stock 3,918.36