The Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, to whom was referred the petition of George H. Giddings, mail contractor on route No. 12,900 report:

They have carefully examined the petition and evidence accompanying it.

The mail contract on route No. 12,900 was taken at the letting in March, 1854, by one David Wasson. The contract was for four years, commencing on the 1st day of July, 1854, to end the 30th day of June, 1858. The service required by the contract was the transportation of the mail in two-horse post coaches, monthly each way, between Santa Fé, New Mexico, and San Antonio, Texas. The compensation for this service was to be sixteen thousand seven hundred dollars per

annum.

Wasson commenced the execution of the contract chiefly on means borrowed from the petitioner, and being unable to execute it, the petitioner was compelled, for his own security, to take the contract off Wasson's hands, and he has since been recognized as contractor for the department. Since the petitioner assumed the execution of the contract he has faithfully performed his duty.

The evidence has satisfied your committee that a mail of the size and weight at present carried over this road cannot be carried in twohorse post coaches, and the increase of military posts and the business of the country forbid the expectation that the size and weight of the mail will be diminished. The petitioner is compelled to carry the mail in carriages drawn by four and often by six mules, and this must be done or a portion of the mail must be left. There is no prospect. that a smaller force will suffice to transport the mail during the continuance of this contract.

From the length and difficulties of the route, the hostile feelings of the Indians through part of whose country it passes, and the exposure to robberies, the contractor must always send with the mail a strong escort of well armed men, employed at high wages. There is no prospect that this expense can be discontinued during the existence of the

present contract, unless a military escort be allowed the mail, and such an escort will cost the government more than the entire sum proposed to be allowed the contractor.

The appropriation bill for the Post Office Deparment passed by the last Congress doubled the mail pay on this route, for one year from the 18th of August, 1854. This appropriation is not more than a fair indemnity to the contractor for the performance of the double service required of him and the necessary expense of escorts to insure the safety of the mail.

Your committee believe the necessity for this allowance still continues. They therefore report a bill extending that allowance one year, commencing with the eighteenth day of August, eighteen hundred and fifty-five.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the memorial of officers of the Japan expedition, asking the same extra pay as was given to the officers of the exploring expedition, have had the same under consideration and report:

The petitioners were officers of the naval force which visited Japan, under the command of Captain M. C. Perry, in the years 1853 and 1854, and they allege that it has been the generous policy of Congress for several years past to reward the officers and men of naval expeditions, out of the ordinary routine of regular service, with extra compensation; that this was granted in the cases of Wilkes' exploring expedition, the Arctic expeditions, and others.

And because the Japan expedition was, besides being a special diplomatic service, a surveying exploring expedition, for the great results of which your petitioners refer to the reports of their commander-in-chief, and because the services of the said commander-inchief have been deservedly rewarded by an appropriation of $20,000, your petitioners ask that the same extra compensation given to the officers and men of Wilkes' exploring expedition may also be given. to the officers and men of the Japan expedition."

The extra compensation granted by Congress in the cases referred to was based upon the ground that expenses exceeding those usually incurred by naval men in the discharge of their ordinary sea duties, and extraordinary in character, were incurred by those of the above named expeditions. The pay of the several grades of the navy is established to some extent with reference to the expenditures which their regular duties entail upon them, and without reference to other or extraordinary expenses accruing to them in other cases. Your committee can, therefore, understand and appreciate the ground upon. which extra compensation was granted in the cases referred to. No such ground appears in the present case, nor can any such be presumed.

Your committee do not recognize the propriety of granting extra compensation to officers merely because they have been employed upon surveying or exploring expeditions, or upon any other duty not immediately in the line of their duties as naval officers. They see nothing in the petition to sustain the prayer of the petitioners, and they recommend that the prayer be denied and the committee discharged.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

AUGUST 7, 1856.-Ordered to be printed.

Mr. MALLORY made the following

REPORT.

[To accompany Bill S. 435.]

The Committee on Public Lands, to whom was referred the petition. of Thomas T. Russell and Antonio J. Noda, have had the same under consideration, and they adopt the report made thereupon by the Senate Committee on Public Lands, and they report a bill in accordance therewith.

The Committee on Public Lands, to whom was referred the petition of the register and receiver of the land office at St. Augustine, Florida, praying compensation for making locations of lands under the Arredondo claim, respectfully report:

That the heirs of Fernando de la Maza Arredondo claimed, by virtue of a grant from the Spanish authorities before the cession of that territory, a tract of thirty-eight thousand acres of land in Florida. This claim became the subject of adjudication; and by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States at the January term, 1839, the grant was held good and valid, and an order made for its location in a specified manner. The location could not be made conformably with the direction of the court, but the grant having been confirmed by judicial decree, the confirmees claimed the right, by virtue of the 11th section of "An act enabling the claimants to lands within the limits of the State of Missouri and Territory of Arkansas to institute proceedings to try the validity of their claims,' approved May 26, 1824, and an act of May 23, 1828, extending the provisions of that law to claimants in Florida, to enter the like quantity of land elsewhere in that State, which had been once offered for sale. The question as to the right to make such location was also a subject of adjudication in court, and a final decree was entered, establishing the right as claimed. Entries of lands under these judicial decisions have been made at the St. Augustine land office, as is stated in the petition and returns, to the quantity of over twenty thousand acres. For their services in making these entries the officers at the land office receive no compensation. They now ask to be allowed the same amount or per centage on these entries as they receive on those made for cash.