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GUSTAVUS B. HORNER-LEGAL REPRESENTATIVES OF. [To accompany bill H. R. No. 469.]

DECEMBER 20, 1854.-On motion of Mr. WILLIAM SMITH, ordered to be printed.

Mr. JOHN M. ELLIOTT, from the Committee on Revolutionary Claims, made the following

REPORT.

The Committee on Revolutionary Claims, to whom was referred the petition of the legal representatives of Gustavus B. Horner, deceased, report:

That the petitioners are the legal representatives of Dr. Gustavus B. Horner, and represent that the said Gustavus B. Horner was a surgeon's mate in the revolutionary army, and that he served till the end of the war, and they claim commutation of five years' full pay in lieu of half-pay for life, as justly due to them for his service as surgeon's mate; and they rest their claim on the promise made by Congress on the 21st of October, 1780, the 17th of January, 1781, and by the act of March, 1783.

It is clearly proved that Dr. Horner was a surgeon's mate of the general hospital of the middle district by commission from the Continental Congress, dated in 1778; that he was in actual service for about four years, and until the autumn of 1782, and after the French forces had returned to the north from the surrender of the enemy at York in Virginia. It is probable that he was not again engaged in active service during the few remaining months of the war which elapsed after that period; but it appears from the evidence filed with the petition, that he did not, after the aforementioned actual service, resign his commission, but only retired as a supernumerary, ready for service whenever he should be required; for, in addition to the other parol evidence, it appears that he held his commission till the end of the war; and the commission itself, left by him among his papers, is now produced by the petitioners. And as evidence of the view in which the legislature of Maryland, of which State he was a citizen, and in whose line he served, regarded his services, they also file a copy of a resolution of the General Assembly of that State, allowing to his widow a pension for her life equal to the half-pay of a surgeon's mate, in consideration of the revolutionary services of her husband in the line of that State.

The committee are of the opinion that no presumption could reasonably be entertained, under the circumstances, that the officer, when the heat and burden of the day were over, when the conflagration of the battle was past, and no signs of it were visible, save here and

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