implication, to pay interest in this case. Among the equitable reasons for its payment, it is stated that Mr. Nourse and his wife were compelled to suffer many privations and wants to which they would not have been sujected if this judgment had been paid when rendered. In this District, as well as throughout the United States, interest is payable on the judgments of our courts, and a settlement would not be considered by the courts as complete without such an allowance of interest. If the United States could have been sued on this judgment, interest would have been computed and included in the new judgment. While the United States does not and should not allow interest generally upon claims, on contracts, on accounts, and many other cases, yet, in a case where the debt has been ascertained by judicial inquiry and established by law, no power nor prerogative of government should discharge it from a rule of law which it enforces against others.

But without relying on other strong reasons now urged by the legal representatives of Mr. Nourse for the payment of this claim, nor charging on Congress "an unreasonable" or "injurious delay," the committee feel constrained to allow the interest claimed in this case, and accordingly report the accompanying bill.

33d CONGRESS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 2d Session.

JOHN MEAD-HEIRS OF.

FEBRUARY 2, 1855.

Mr. SHOWER, from the Committee on Revolutionary Claims, made the

following REPORT.

The Committee on Revolutionary Claims, to whom the petition of the heirs of Col. John Mead, deceased, was referred, report:

That the petitioners represent, that John Mead was an officer in the war of the Revolution, under Gen. Putnam, and that "in consequence of the ravages of the war he was bereft of all his property, consisting of between two and three hundred acres of land, besides his personal property." They ask for compensation, by pension or otherwise, for the services of their ancestor, and indemnity for the loss of his property.

It is proven by extracts from the books of the Comptroller of Connecticut, that he was a lieutenant colonel of the militia of that State, and that he was in actual service. This is also proven by the affidavits of Thaddeus Bell, Levi Hanford, and Aaron Abbott, all of whom served under his command.

By the certificate of Samuel Close, town clerk of Greenwich, Connecticut, it is made to appear that the said Mead owned one hundred and ninety acres of land in said town, besides several other tracts.

The only attempt to prove the loss of property is the certificate of the clerk of the probate court of Stamford, that on the 14th day of April, 1789, the executors of Col. Mead came into court and made oath that the estate was insolvent.

As it is not in the province of this committee to allow relief by pension; as there is no proof that Col. Mead served in the continental line, which service only would entitle him to commutation pay; and as there is no proof of the manner in which he lost his property, no claim for said loss is established. The committee would therefore report adversely.

WILLIS WILSON AND WM. W. WILSON.

FEBRUARY 2, 1855.--Laid upon the table, and ordered to be printed.

Mr. SHOWER, from the Committee on Revolutionary Claims, made the following

REPORT.

The Committee on Revolutionary Claims, to whom was referrel the petition of Willis Wilson and William W. Wilson, grandsons of Lieut. Willis Wilson, deceased, make the following report:

The application made to the Congress of the United States by Lieut. Willis Wilson, and subsequently by his heirs, for commutation pay for his services in the war of the Revolution, has been of long standing, and, if age and perseverance can be regarded in such cases, this is certainly a case of the highest merit.

It made its first appearance in the House of Representatives in the year 1818, in the proper person of Lieut. Wilson, and was referred to the Committee on Revolutionary Claims. On the 4th day of February of that year, the committee made an adverse report; but for what reasons it does not now appear, as no report of that date, either printed or written, can be found. In 1820 he renewed his application, and again failed obtaining relief. There is no evidence of any action having been had on the case at that time.

On the 4th day of February, 1839, his heirs presented to the Senate their additional petition, representing that the original petitioner died in the year 1822; that his deeds were most valorous and his sufferings from the wounds received in battle most intense, scarcely endurable by any other human being except by himself. They assert "that he received twenty-two wounds, all in front; three of them sabre wounds through the skull, and one of them a bayonet wound through the body." These wounds, if equally distributed among the members of this committee, would have destroyed every man of them.

The Committee on Revolutionary Claims of that body to whom the petition was then referred, passed it by without notice. On the 4th day of January, 1840, it was again submitted to that committee, and met with a similar fate.

Its reference to that committee was renewed on the 29th of December, 1846. On the 25th March ensuing, the committee made the report contained in the printed paper marked "Senate Report," which this committee would adopt as part of their report.

It again turned up in the Committee on Revolutionary Claims of the House of Representatives, on the 16th February, 1848, and, without any additional facts having been produced since the report was made by the Senate, it reappeared before that committee on the 24th of February, 1852. On each occasion it met with a cold reception and elicited no action by the committee.

Not at all discouraged by these repeated discomfitures, with a commendable perseverance, the petitioners for the last time appeared before this committee on the 12th January, 1854, and, on the 23d June following, a bill was reported by it granting the relief sought. Untortunately for the claimants, on the following day it was discovered that the report was made in error, and consequently, on the 27th day of the same month, the bill was recommitted.

Highly as this committee appreciates the services of Lieut. Wilson, deeply as it sympathizes with the petitioners on account of the painful feelings with which their bosoms must be filled whenever they contemplate the sufferings of their ancestor, profoundly as it holds in reverence the antiquity of this case, and much as it admires the zeal with which it was prosecuted, the arguments in the accompanying report of the Senate are so conclusive that the prayer of the petitioners ought not to be granted, that it cannot arrive at any other determination, and would therefore report the following resolution:

Resolved, That the prayers of the petitioner be denied.

IN SENATE March 25, 1846.

The Committee on Revolutionary Claims, to whom was referred the petition of Willis Wilson and William W. Wilson, grandsons of Willis Wilson, deceased, make the following report:

The petitioners state that Willis Wilson, deceased, in the year 1775, enlisted as a soldier, and that he served about three years as a sergeant; that, in the year 1779, he was appointed a lieutenant; and that, in the year 1780, he was ordered to the south, under Col. Buford, where, in the battle of the Waxhaws, better known as Buford's defeat, he received twenty-two wounds, "all in front," and some of them being very serious, so much so that seven years elapsed before his wounds were all closed, and he was enabled to do anything for his support. They further state that their grandfather received a certificate of commutation at the termination of the war; that Congress being unable at that time to pay him the money due on the certificate, he applied for a pension as an invalid, and that the pension was refused him unless he would surrender his certificate of commutation, and that he agreed to accept the pension on this condition, and surrendered his certificate. He continued thereafter to receive his pension until his death, in 1822.

The petitioners now ask that the commutation, with interest, may be paid to them as the grandsons and heirs-at-law of Willis Wilson.