be appointed and announced the definitive list would be called over in the presence of the claimants and their agents for the purpose of ascertaining what persons were ready to submit their cases for examination and decision; and that the claimants respectively, or their agents upon producing a special authority to that effect from their principals, should be permitted from time to time to take out of the office of the commissioners their original documents and papers for the purposes of investigation and examination, giving to the secretary an engagement for their safe and punctual return within one month. This last resolution was subsequently modified by striking out the words "for the purposes of investigation and examination" and "one month," and adding at the end the words "reasonable time, or whenever the board may specially direct."

Documentary Evidence.

In regard to the authentication of evidence the commissioners differed, though they agreed on a rule which, while not expressly excluding anything, prescribed a mode of authentication the observance of which entitled depositions to admission. To this rule, however, Mr. Cheves assented with reluctance. It was at first decided on motion of Mr. Neale, an agent for numerous claimants, that depositions should be deemed duly authenticated which should be taken before a notary public, judge, or justice. of the peace, provided they were accompanied either with a certificate of the clerk of the county or district court within which such officer resided, under the seal of the court and signature of the clerk, certifying the signature of such notary public, judge, or justice of the peace, and that he was bona fide the character he represented himself to be, or by a certificate to the same effect under the signature and seal of a consul, vice-consul, or other British functionary. It was agreed that all other depositions should be decided upon, on the special circumstances of each, whenever they should come under consideration. Mr. Jackson however subsequently insisted, either as an interpretation or as a modification of the rule, that when the officer who took the deposition had no official seal, as is the case with justices of the peace, the certifying official should certify that the signature of such officer was genuine. Mr. Cheves opposed this requirement on the ground that as it necessitated on the part of the certifying official personal knowledge of the signature or handwriting of the justice, it

would in many cases be impossible to comply with it. But he at length concurred in the modification, holding that it did not bind him to exclude depositions otherwise authenticated.

It was decided that any claimant might refer to and use as evidence in his case, so far as it might be available, any written documents or matter of proof which might have been filed by any other claimant in the same or any other case.

Further Proof.

The commissioners also determined, in a particular case, to afford an opportunity for further proof on certain points. Mr. Cheves expressed the opinion that further proof ought to be admitted in all cases where it would promote justice without danger of unreasonable delay. Mr. Jackson, while acceding to the request in the particular case, said he must protest against it on general principles, in the hope that similar applications might be precluded in the future.

On the 6th of January 1825 a question arose Powers of Attorney. as to whether it was necessary for attorneys for claimants to have a power of attorney. The commissioners answered that the convention required the claims to be submitted through the definitive list "by the owners of slaves or other property, or by their lawful attorneys or representatives," and that they had been unable to agree on any means by which the requirement of a power of attorney might be dispensed with.

Disagreements of
Commissioners.

Though the commissioners succeeded in agreeing on some points, they soon began to fall into difficulties which precluded any advancement of the purposes for which they were appointed. Their first pronouced disagreement occurred Omitted Claims. early in 1825 in regard to placing certain omitted claims on the definitive list under peculiar circumstances. The papers in which the claims in question were set forth accompanied the definitive list, but through the inadvertence or misunderstanding of the person who prepared it were not entered upon it. As the commissioners were unable to agree on the question of entering these claims, Mr. Cheves moved that they proceed by lot to name one of the two arbitrators, in order that the difference might be decided in conformity with the provisions of Article V. of the convention. Mr. Jackson declined to assent to this on the ground that under that article the commissioners were authorized to call in an

arbitrator only in the event of their "not agreeing in any par ticular case under examination, or of their disagreement upon any question which may result from the stipulations of this convention," and that the subject of the present disagreement neither arose in a particular case under examination nor resulted from the stipulations of the convention. The demand was, he said, not only not based on any stipulation of the convention, but was opposed to its express provisions.

A similar disagreement occurred in regard British Evidence. to evidence in the possession of the British Government. As has been seen, Article III. of the convention provided: "And His Britannic Majesty hereby engages to cause to be produced before the commission, as material towards ascertaining facts, all the evidence of which His Majesty's Government may be in possession, by returns from His Majesty's officers or otherwise, of the number of slaves carried away."

Early in the proceedings of the commission one of the attorneys for claimants asked that such evidence be produced. The commission answered that the evidence in question was not in its possession or power. Subsequently the British commissioner received from his government a mass of papers, consisting of extracts from the log books of the vessels which had carried slaves away, and other documentary evidence, but not being authorized by his government to present the papers to the commission in such manner that the claimants might have access to them, he refused to deliver them to the commission, except on condition that claimants should be denied inspection of them until the testimony in their respective cases should be closed. Mr. Cheves, on the other hand, maintained that one of the principal objects of the stipulation in question was to supply all the evidence in the possession of the British Government respecting the facts which were to be proved, and which, as in the case of carrying away slaves, it might be difficult to prove otherwise; and that the claimants were clearly entitled, in making up their cases, to the inspection of such evidence.

Allowance of In

terest.

Another disagreement occurred in regard to the allowance of interest on claims. The formal discussion on this subject began February 25, 1825, when Mr. Cheves submitted an opinion on the claim of John Cowper, of Georgia, embracing (1) slaves carried

away from St. Simon's Island; (2) consequent loss of crops from 1815 to 1824; (3) interest at 8 per cent, the legal rate in Georgia, on those items. Mr. Cheves held that the first item was established. The second item he rejected as on its face inadmissible. As to interest on the value of the slaves carried away, he held that reasonable damages for the withholdment of a right were necessary to compensate the sufferer for the injury so sustained, and that such damages were measured in the present case by interest at the legal rate in the State of Georgia, where the slaves were taken. "A just indemnification," said Mr. Cheves, "is the reestablishment of the thing taken away, with an equivalent for the use of it during the period of detention." This was also the general rule adopted by claims commissions. In this relation he referred to the proceedings under the sixth and seventh articles of the Jay Treaty of 1794.

On the 16th of March Mr. Jackson replied. Adverting to the fact that the question was not what slaves were carried away from the territories or waters of the United States by His Majesty's forces during the war, but whether the slaves claimed in each particular case were so carried away after the exchange of the ratifications of the Treaty of Ghent, he said that he considered the evidence on this point unsatisfactory. But he wouid meet the American commissioner on the question of damages on the grounds the latter had taken. These Mr. Jackson classed as follows: (1) Principles of justice and equity; (2) the authority of precedent; and (3) a reasonable and necessary construction of the convention. The last ground Mr. Jackson discussed first. After quoting the language of the fifth article of the convention of October 20, 20, 1818, he said that on this article was founded the convention of St. Petersburg of 1822; and he contended that under these conventions the value of the slaves was the compensation to be made. This view was, he said, enforced by the provision that the board should ascertain the average value of the slaves. This being fixed, the only duty of the commissioners, and their only power or authority, after procuring the list of slaves provided for in the third article of the convention of St. Petersburg, was to examine persons or receive depositions touching the real number of slaves. If the convention intended that the commissioners should allow damages as well as the value of the slaves, it was inconceivable that the power

should not have been given to the commissioners to ascertain by evidence the amount of such damages; and if it was intended that interest should be arbitrarily fixed upon as the standard of damages it was equally inconceivable that the convention should have been silent upon the subject.

Referring to precedents, Mr. Jackson adverted to a letter of Mr. Jefferson, as Secretary of State, to Mr. Hammond, the British minister, dated at Philadelphia May 29, 1792, in which Mr. Jefferson, referring to claims growing out of impediments to the recovery of debts under the treaty of peace of 1783, argued that interest, not being part of the debt, was not allowable. Mr. Jackson admitted that under Article VI. of the treaty of 1794 interest was allowed; but interest might, he said, be considered ordinarily to attach to a debt as an incident, as in cases under that article. The twenty-third article of the convention between the United States and France of September 30, 1800, contained an express provision for interest. A similar stipulation was contained in a subsequent treaty between the same parties of April 30, 1803. On the strength of these stipu lations, Mr. Jackson said he was justified in contending that whenever in a treaty the United Stated meant to stipulate for interest they took care to include an express provision to that effect. In regard to the proceedings of the commission under the seventh article of the treaty of 1794, Mr. Jackson argued that they could not be considered as a precedent, because that article provided for full and adequate compensation not only for losses but also for the damages sustained. Under these stipulations, as he construed them, the value of the property captured and condemned constituted the loss, and interest was allowed as compensation for the damages sustained in consequence of that loss.

Referring to the grounds of justice and equity, Mr. Jackson said that he could not treat the case, as the American commissioners had done, as one between individuals. It did not originate in any wrong conceded by Great Britain to have been committed by her toward the United States, but simply in a reference of a claim to the decision of the Emperor of Russia for the purpose of cementing a good understanding. The slaves came lawfully into the possession of His Majesty's forces, flagrante bello. In such possession they were considered and treated as free, and no use or profit was made of them. The protection promised them when they took refuge with the British forces forbade their being delivered up.