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ment perfect, but a safe and rapid intercommunication between the heart and the extremities. In proportion to the distance of a State or Territory from the federal government is the necessity of protection, especially when the wealth and resources of those States and Territories are apt to invite the cupidity of strangers. Our Pacific seacoast is as yet entirely unguarded, and must necessarily remain so for a number years, though a vast amount of government property may, in the meanwhile, be accumulating in the sea-ports. There are wharves and docks, government stores, custom-houses, assay offices, barracks—in short, property amounting to millions, intrusted to officers with whom the government must be in correspondence at all times, but who might require double the care and attention in time of war. Our California gold fleets might require convoys, and the commanders of our men-ofwar in the Pacific fresh instructions from the government, which could not be conveyed in season except by telegraph. Troops may be ordered to march, or be conveyed from one point on the coast to another, reinforcements may be demanded or announced-in short, the action of the government invoked in a thousand ways, when success may depend on promptness of execution. In all these cases the telegraph would be an instrument of power, either for offensive or defensive

measures.

On the score of economy, it would save the government the employment of expresses, and the multiplication of government officials in the civil and military service. It would cause the business of the government to be done almost as soon as the orders may be issued from the respective departments in Washington, and thus prevent the waste of means consequent on delay. It would add strength and efficiency to every executive act, and preserve that faith and reliance on our federal government, in citizens separated from us by snow-capped mountains and vast deserts, which would animate their hopes and sustain their courage in times of trial.

But there are yet other advantages to be derived from the use of a line of telegraph from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We have a fleet of some six hundred whalers in the Pacific ocean, the captains and crews of which are ever anxious to be put in communication with their friends at home and the merchants in our eastern cities. They are naturally desirons to bring the product of their daring industry to the best markets, whether American or European, and the telegraph is the best means of imparting to them the information needed for that purpose. In addition to this, our carrying trade in the Pacific has quadrupled since the discovery of the precious metals in California and Australia, amounting now to some 300,000 tons, and employing a capital of more than a hundred millions of dollars; while the revolution in China, and the prospect of opening the ports of Japan, promise a field of enterprise to our merchants and navigators, which must make San Francisco and New York the emporiums of the world's commerce, and the Atlantic and Pacific telegraph the great source of commercial information to all trading nations. When our Pacific steamers shall carry the mails from San Francisco to Shanghai and Canton, intelligence will be conveyed from India to China, and thence through the United States to Rep. No. 5-2

Europe, in less time, and with more safety, than by the overland route. The India mail, by the overland route, requires, on an average, sixtyeight days to reach England, and twelve days more to reach New York and Boston-in all, eighty days. When the Atlantic and Pacific telegraph shall be built, and a line of steamers run from San Francisco to Shanghai, news from China will be received in New York in seventeen days, fifteen of which will be required in the transmission of the mails from China to San Francisco, and one or two days, at furthest, from San Francisco by telegraph to New York. Add to this distance of seventeen days, twelve days for the transmission of the mails from New York to Liverpool or London, and the eastern news, via the United States, will reach England in less than half the time now required for its transit by the overland route.

The news from India, the Sandwich Islands, the Dutch East Indies, Australia, and New Zealand, will all be conveyed by the United States until, when the Pacific railroad shall be built, commerce itself will follow in the train of commercial intelligence.

That the Atlantic and Pacific telegraph would be the source of infinite satisfaction to thousands of our hardy western pioneers who, through it, would be enabled to communicate with their wives and children, friends and relatives at home, need scarcely be mentioned. Many a heart would be gladdened, many an expense saved, and many a comfort added to scanty means, by early tidings of the emigrant's new favorable location and success. In whatever light the subject may be considered, whether in reference to the interests of the government, the prosperity of our merchants and navigators, or the happiness and comfort of the citizens at large, the enterprise is eminently calculated to promote the power, wealth, and general prosperity of the country.

As regards the feasibility of the enterprise, the experience of the memorialists, tested by successful undertakings of a similar nature in other parts of the country, as well as the fact that they ask no aid from the government till their line is completed and in working order, furnish the strongest presumptive evidence in its favor. The wires, which they propose to lay down under ground, to protect them against storms, wild animals, or Indians, are covered by an imperishable insulating substance, impervious to moisture, and unaffected by any other decomposing influences of the earth. They propose to lay them deep enough to prevent their being disturbed; and they have discovered a process of carrying them across the beds of rivers, and through masses of rocks. Experiments of the same kind have been made in Europe and proved successful. Besides, the memorialists propose to have testing-tubes every five miles, and operating stations every hundred miles, on the entire length of the line. Their confidence in their plan of construction, and the entire success of its execution, is so great that they propose to complete the line within two years from the passage of this bill, or to forfeit all the rights and privileges acquired under it. Such confidence can only be imparted by science, which subjects matter to the immutable laws of nature, and predicts with unerring certainty the result of their application. The government is not asked to aid in making experiments; it is not called upon to appropriate a dollar, or donate an acre of the public domain, until the enterprise is crowned with success,

and that success manifest, by the actual use the government is invited to make of it.

It remains to be shown that the expense of the undertaking is commensurate with its advantages in practice.

All the memorialists ask, after the line is completed and in working order, is a donation of two millions of acres of land along the line, or in some other territories of the United States not interfering with the grants that may have been made, or may hereafter be made, for railroad purposes. This is a small donation, compared with the liberal grants which have been made for railroads and other improvements of a less general character, and less likely to affect the wealth and progress of the whole country. Neither is it asked that the lands granted shall be in a continuous line, only benefiting the grantees. The improvements on the line will enhance the value of the adjacent lands, cause their settlement, and thus bring them, at an early period, into market. The telegraph will be the forerunner of civilization and power, and increase the revenue of the government from customs and divers other sources.

But there is yet another most important consideration. The memorialists do not ask that the government shall grant them lands without receiving an equivalent. They bind themselves, in perpetuity, to transmit monthly, free of charge, and prior to all other business, eight thousand words for the sole use of the government, and agree to work the line, day and night, without interruption. This the committee consider the most valuable feature in the whole proposition. At the rate of charges proposed by the memorialists for so large a distance, and worked at so great an outlay of labor and capital, it would be equal to the payment of $100,000 per annum; but the actual saving to government in expresses, messengers, &c., would amount to much more, and far exceed the interest on the value of the donated lands. Viewed in this light, the grant of lands from the government would, in fact, be nothing else but a perpetual lease of them, at a yearly rent of $100,000 and upwards; and not in the nature of a gift, but of a profitable investment. Considering, then, that the memorialists assume the whole risk and responsibility of the enterprise, and that the government is only called upon, at its successful completion, to make a moderate grant of land for the use of it, in all time to come, in the nature of rent, their proposition appears eminently just and reasonable on the face of it, and perfectly safe to the government.

Your committee beg leave to report the accompanying bill.

2d Session.

No. 6.

THOS. PARK, DECEASED-HEIRS OF.

[To accompany bill H. R. No. 363.]

DECEMBER 27, 1854.-On motion of Mr. JOHN J. TAYLOR, ordered to be printed.

Mr. CORWIN, from the Committee on Revolutionary Claims, made the following REPORT.

The Committee on Revolutionary Claims, to whom was referred the petition of the heirs of Thomas Park, deceased, beg leave to report:

That they have examined all the papers in the case, and find the report heretofore made in this case to be correct, and sustained by proper testimony, and which your committee adopt and herewith again report, together with a bill for relief.

In the case of the heirs of Thomas Park, it appears that said Thomas Park, during the war of the Revolution, was an inhabitant of Groton, in the State of Connecticut, and was captain of a privateer called "The Prudence," commissioned by Governor Trumbull, of that State.

That in the month of February, 1782, while cruising off the coast of Connecticut, he found floating and took up a quantity of sails and rigging belonging to the British vessel-of-war "Bedford," and which had been thrown overboard in a gale.

That, in the month of April thereafter he sold the sails and rigging to Captain Harding, then commanding the continental vessel "Confederacy;" that they were sold to him as agent for the government, and for the national benefit, for the sum of $800; that Captain Harding gave a receipt for the property, and promised to procure the money from the United States government and pay it over.

That subsequently a party of tories made an incursion into Groton, broke open Captain Park's house in the night, plundered it of everything valuable, and, among the rest, of his papers, including the said receipt.

The petitioner negatives ever having had any pay, and assigns reasons why he did not apply earlier.

The petition was verified by the oath of the petitioner March 14,

1826.

The petition is sustained in all its material facts by the affidavit of Hugh E. Fiddis, who was powder-boy on the "Prudence" when the

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