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which were accepted, in the terms of Mr. Campbell's letter of that date, at eighty-eight dollars in money for each hundred dollars in stock, with a specified condition. (See document B b.) These persons have carried their proposals into complete effect, and they are entitled to the benefit of the terms of the letter.

On the 25th of July, 1814, another notice was published by the late Secretary of the Treasury, inviting proposals to a loan of six millions, another part of the loan of twenty-five millions. (See document C.)

On the 31st of August, 1814, proposals were presented and accepted, under this second notice, upon the terms mentioned in Mr. Campbell's letter dated that day, at eighty dollars in money for one hundred dollars in stock.

There remains a considerable sum of the twenty-five millions of dollars authorized to be loaned, for which proposals have not yet been invited, but they probably will be invited soon.

First question. Does the specific condition in Mr. Campbell's letter of the 2d of May, 1814, admit the first lenders to the benefit of the terms of the second loan for the whole amount of their subscriptions, or only in proportion to the amount of the second loan, which still leaves a considerable part of the twenty-five millions unloaned?

Second. Was the condition absolute, and executed on making the second loan; or does it remain open, subject to all the possible variations of the price of the subsequent loans, and until the whole twentyfive millions have been loaned?

Third. To whom is the stock, for the difference between the price of the first and second loans, to be issued-to the contractors, the assignees, or the pledgers of the stock issued on the first loan?

Fourth. If the condition remains open until the whole sum of the twenty-five millions has been loaned, ought there to be successive issues of stock for the difference, or ought there to be only one issue of stock, to be made at the final execution of the authority to borrow the twenty-five millions of dollars?

Answer.

First. I think that, looking to Mr. Campbell's letter of the 2d of May, 1814, with a view to its fair construction on behalf of the public creditors, the first lenders are entitled to the benefit of the terms of the second loan to the whole amount of their subscriptions. Its language could scarcely fail to have awakened in them that expectation. Second. I think that the condition stated in the Secretary's letter attached as soon as the second loan was made. That, on the happening of that event, it no longer remained open and executory, subject to all the possible variations in price which might mark subsequent loans, until the whole twenty-five millions should be exhausted.

Third. I think that the owners of the previous stock, at the time the second loan was made, were the persons entitled to the additional stock for the difference between the price of the first and second loans.

Fourth. The answer to this question is embraced in the answer to the second question. The arguments from inconvenience are too

strong to have it supposed that it could have been the intention of the government to authorize successive and indefinite emissions of supplemental stock, until the entire loan, divided, perhaps, into several distinct portions, even after the second, should be completed. This view of the subject may serve to corroborate the propriety of the second answer, which treats the condition held out to the first lenders as having become absolute the moment the second loan was made. RICHARD RUSH,

WASHINGTON, October 22, 1814.

Attorney General.

Mr. Dallas takes the liberty of asking the Attorney General, in answer to the third question, to state to whom the supplemental stock must be issued at this time, as the Attorney General only states who were entitled to it on the 31st of August, when the second contract was formed.

OCTOBER 25, 1814.

Explanatory answer.

In answer to the third question, I have stated that the owners of the previous stock, at the time the second loan was made, were the persons entitled to the additional or supplemental stock for the difference between the price of the loans.

It must, therefore, be issued to them if they are still the owners of the first stock; but if they have passed it away, I think that the supplemental stock should be issued in favor of the present owners of the first stock, whoever they may be, to whom the beneficial condition has also passed by transfer. It is to be presumed that the market price of the first stock was affected by the second loan to the amount of the difference; and that each new transferee has taken the former under the expectation that such difference would ultimately be made good in his hands. This construction appears to me most congenial with the spirit of the contract, and most conducive to its convenient and practicable exccution. R. RUSH.

OCTOBER 25, 1814.

NOVEMBER 17, 1814.

The Secretary of the Treasury having further asked from what periods the supplemental stock should bear interest, I answer that I think interest ought to commence upon it from the dates respectively at which interest began to accrue upon the primary stock, to which the supplemental is the increase.

R. RUSH, Attorney General.

Circular to certain Commissioners of Loans.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT,

Comptroller's Office, November 30, 1814.

SIR: I enclose, for your information and government, a copy of a notification, bearing date this day, issued by the Secretary of the

Treasury, respecting additional stock to be issued to the subscribers, or those claiming under them, to the loan of ten millions of dollars of the 2d May, 1814.

The additional stock in question is to be issued to the persons holding, at the time of application for the additional stock, scrip certificates, or funded certificates of stock of the aforesaid loan of ten millions of dollars, and not to those who may have held the said certificates on the 31st of August last, the day on which a part of the loan for six millions of dollars was taken, unless they shall also hold them at the time of application for the additional stock.

The loan of 2d May, 1814, having been effected at the rate of one hundred dollars in stock for eighty-eight dollars in money, and the loan of August, 1814, having been made at the rate of one hundred dollars in stock for eighty dollars in money, the amount of additional stock which the holders of the stock of May, 1814, are entitled to receive is ten dollars on every hundred dollars of the stock they may now hold. The additional stock thus to be issued is, in conformity with the opinion of the Attorney General of the United States, to bear interest from the same day as the original stock to which it is an appendage. This fact will be ascertained from the face of the original certificate, in all cases where no dividend and transfer on it have been made and declared; and in cases where a dividend and transfer have been made and declared, by having recourse to the books of the treasury, or to those of the commissioner of loans where the dividend was declared. You will be pleased to take care that no mistakes be made in regard to the commencement of interest on the supplemental stock. Where the dividends have been declared on books other than those of your office, you will of course obtain a certificate of the fact, as to the time from which the stock originally bore interest, from the commissioner of loans on whose books the dividend may have been declared, or, if declared at the treasury, from the Register of the Treasury.

Persons possessing a general and regular power of attorney to transfer stock in the ten-million loan, and holding the stock, are to be considered as entitled to the additional stock; and where a power is produced, authorizing a transfer to a particular person, that person is to be considered as entitled to the additional stock. In every case where the supplemental stock may be applied for, and before it can be delivered, the original certificate in the hands of the party at the time of such application is to be surrendered to you and cancelled; and, in lieu of it, you will issue a new certificate for the same amount, entitled "funded six per cent. stock of 1814; loan of ten millions of dollars of the 2d May, 1814, on which the supplemental stock has issued," together with a separate certificate for the amount of the supplemental stock, entitled "supplemental funded six per cent. stock of 1814; loan of ten millions of dollars of 2d May, 1814."

On the original certificate, thus surrendered, there must be an assignment by the proprietor, or his attorney, agreeably to the forms herewith, marked B. You will perceive that the accounts of the old stock are to be closed on your books, and new accounts opened, corresponding with the alteration in the funded certificates hereafter to

be issued, a supply of which will be transmitted to you by the Register of the Treasury.

You will make out duplicate abstracts of the certificates of supplemental stock issued by you agreeably to the enclosed form, marked C; one of which abstracts you will forward to this office quarteryearly, and file the other in your office.

The separation which is to be made of the original and supplemental stock is done for the accommodation of the holders, to enable them, if they choose, to establish hereafter the identity of the latter, and its connexion with the ten-million loan.

Although it is intended that different accounts of the ten-million loan are to be opened, yet the whole amount on your books may be included in one dividend.

For such scrip certificates of the loan of ten millions of dollars as may remain to be funded, you will, on application being made to fund them, issue a certificate of "funded six per cent. stock of 1814, loan of ten millions of dollars of 2d May, 1814, on which the supplemental stock has issued," at the rate of between eighty and eighty-eight, or ten per cent. on the amount of the original certificate.

It is proper to apprize you that the Attorney General has given an opinion to the Secretary of the Treasury, setting forth, among other things, that the condition in the letter of the Secretary of the Treasury, of the 2d May, 1814, to the subscribers for the ten-million loan, "attached as soon as the second loan was made, (the loan of August 1814;) that, on the happening of that event, it (the contract) no longer remained open and executory, subject to all the variations in price which might mark subsequent loans, until the whole twentyfive millions should be exhausted." This opinion has been adopted at the treasury, and the supplemental stock, now authorized to be issued, is deemed to be in full of all demands upon the government for further issues of stocks in the ten-million loan, under the contract above mentioned. It is not thought necessary, however, to take any release to this effect from the stockholders, on delivering them the supplemental stock. I am, very respectfully, &c.

NATHAN LUFFBOROUGH. TO WILLIAM GARDNER, BENJAMIN AUSTIN, CHS. ELLERY, JONA. Ball, WM. FEW, EDWARD HALL, THOS. NELSON, THOS. LEH'RE, SHERWOOD HAYWOOD, WM. WHITE.

NOTE. The words "scrip certificate or" in the second paragraph, and the whole of the paragraph commencing with the words "for such scrip certificates," were omitted in the letters to the commissioners of loans in Virginia and North Carolina.

[Extract.]

NEW YORK, February 27, 1820. RESPECTED FRIENDS: I am this day in receipt of the report of the Secretary of the Treasury on my petition, which Mr. Sanford was so kind as to forward me. On looking over the report I discover nothing

bearing in the least on the claim I have set forth for an erroneous construction of the loan contract, except the following sentence: "Without determining that the construction given by the Attorney General to the terms of the loan of the 2d May, 1814, was correct, it was an act of justice to the community to make it known as soon as it was formed. So long as the expectation should be entertained that a loan might be negotiated more unfavorable to the government than those which had been previously obtained, the price of the stock, to which the contingency was attached, would be affected by the possibility of its occurring. The effect complained of, in stripping the stock of the further benefit of the condition, is here fully admitted, which simplifies the question on that branch of my petition down to this single point-had the government a right to deprive the stock of the benefit of the condition? If not, it follows, of course, that the parties injured are entitled to indemnity. This claim is clearly founded in reason and justice, yet it was the only point contended for that I doubted my capacity to explain to the entire conviction and satisfaction of Congress; because the fact that no portion of the loan was taken on more favorable terms, left the matter without any precise standard to measure the damages; therefore, persons unacquainted with loan transactions might dispute the fact of there having been damages sustained, which, I think, will not now be the case, since the secretary states that the bare possibility of more favorable terms being allowed would affect the value of the stock to which the contingency was attached; therefore, as an act of justice to the community, that they might not pay me too much for my stock, it became the duty of government, after they had determined to strip it of the condition, to promulgate such determination.

The Secretary is entirely silent on the subject of depreciated paper and the giving supplemental stock to those not entitled to it; therefore it only remains to inquire whether the conclusions drawn by meare warranted by the facts I have stated. Since writing the preceding, I discover that, in the copy of the Secretary's report sent me by Mr. Sanford, the treasury advertisement of April 4, 1814, has been substituted for the loan contract, or as the document containing the conditions on which the ten-million loan was made, omitting the treasury letter of the 2d of May, 1814, which alone contains the conditions on which that loan was made. I have, therefore, to solicit of you the favor to introduce a resolution into the Senate, calling on the Secretary of the Treasury for a copy of the treasury letter of the 2d of May, 1814, to the persons who contracted for the ten-million loan, and, when the same be received, that it be referred to the committee having the care of my petition. This letter, as I have before stated, contains the conditions on which that loan was made. Everything prior to that was mere proposition, and no further binding than was recognised by that letter, except equitable obligations growing out of verbal assurances; by casting your eyes on the documents annexed to the report, you will perceive that reference has often been made to a contract of 2d of May, 1814. Mr. Secretary Dallas, in stating the case of the Attorney General, declares that the terms of the contract were contained in Mr. Campbell's letter of that date. The Attorney Rep. 140-2

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