Private Law 16–CCLXXXIV

That the Solicitor of the Treasury be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to settle and adjust the claims of

Claims for extra services as mail contractors to be settled.

William B. Stokes and Richard C. Stockton, of Maryland, and Lucius W. Stockton and Daniel Moore, of Pennsylvania, for extra services performed by them as contractors for carrying the mail under and by virtue of certain contracts therefor by them alleged to have been made and entered into with them by William T. Barry, late Postmaster General of the United States, and for this purpose, to inquire into and determine the equity of the claims of them or any of them for or on account of any contract or additional contract with the said Postmaster General on which their pay may have been suspended by the present Postmaster General, and to make them such allowances therefor as, upon a full examination of all the evidence, may seem right, according to the principles of equity; and that the Postmaster General be, and he is hereby, directed to credit such mail contractors with whatever sum or sums of money, if any, the said Solicitor shall so decide to be due to them for and on account of any such service or contract; and the Solicitor is hereby authorized to take testimony, if he shall judge it to be necessary to do so; and that he report to Congress at its next session, the law and the facts upon which his decision has been founded: Provided, The said Solicitor is not authorized to make any allowance,

Proviso.

for any suspension, or withholding of money by the present Postmaster General, for allowances, or overpayments, made by his predecessor, on route number thirteen hundred and seventy-one, from Philadelphia to Baltimore, for carrying the mail in steamboats, when it was not so TWENTY-FOURTH CONGRESS. Sess. I. Ch. 285, 286, 287, 288. 1836.carried by said Stockton and Stokes, but by the steamboat company. Nor for any suspension or withholding of money as aforesaid, for allowances or overpayments made as aforesaid, for carrying an express mail from Baltimore to York, or Lancaster. Nor for any suspension or withholding of money, as aforesaid, for allowances or overpayments made as aforesaid, on route number thirteen hundred and ninety-one, from Westminster to McConnellstown as described in the improved bid. Nor for any suspension or withholding of money as aforesaid for allowances or overpayments made as aforesaid on the route from Baltimore to Wheeling for running a certain daily line between Hagerstown and Wheeling, from the first of September, eighteen hundred and thirty-two, to the first of April, eighteen hundred and thirty-three, when the line referred to only run tri-weekly. Nor for any suspension or withholding of money as aforesaid for allowances or overpayments made, as aforesaid, on the route from Baltimore to Washington, under the con-tract of eighteen hundred and twenty-seven: but nothing in this proviso shall prejudice any application they may make hereafter in reference to these routes, if they shall think it proper to make such application. (a)(a) See Kendall v. The United States, 12 Peters, 544; Kendall against Stokes and others, 3 Howard, 87.