Doc. No. 36.
19
HENRY DAVIES'S CLAIM. H O U S E OF R E P R E S E N T A T I V E S , April
2,
1830.
D E A R SIR : I beg leave to enclose you a petition, which has been considered by the Committee on foreign Affairs as coming within the s p h e r e of your operations. I confess that I do not distinctly see how the Government of the United States can enter into direct communication -with that of Hayti ; but the petitioner, I understand, means to address you upon the subject. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, B E N J A M I N C. H O W A R D . Hon.
MARTIN VAN BUREN.
T o the honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled: T h e memorial of H e n r y Davies, a citizen of the United States, respect fully showeth: T h a t on the fifth day of February, 1806, your memorialist shipped, from Baltimore, on board the schooner Mary A n n , a vessel of the United States, whereof John H a y n e s was master and your memorialist o w n e r , among other merchandise, seven hundred barrels of gunpowder, weigh ing eighteen thousand seventy-eight and half pounds, the property of your memorialist, consigned to John B . Sayre, supercargo, and destined for St. Jago de Cuba and a market, to be sold on account of your memo rialist ; that the said vessel departed from Baltimore with the said cargo, and in the prosecution of her voyage arrived at Cape François, in the island of St. Domingo, on the 13th day of March, 1806; that, shortly afterwards, Gen eral Henry Christophe, without other pretence for his conduct than the ne cessities of the Haytian Government, forcibly took possession of the said powder against the remonstrances of the supercago, and appropriated it to the purposes of the Government, as can be made to appear by the r e ceipt of General T i p h a n o e , and the acknowledgment of the said General Christophe, dated May 3d, 1806, and now in the possession of your m e morialist ; that the said powder was then worth two dollars per pound, equal to the sum of thirty-six thousand one hundred and fifty-seven dollars; that your memorialist has since continued to urge his claim for remunera tion on the Haytian Government, through different private agencies, but with out effect, though the justice of his claim cannot be controverted; that, after having failed in reiterated appeals to the justice of the Haytian Government, your memorialist availed himself of an opportunity to attach certain effects of General Christophe in Baltimore, against which he obtained judgment on the 8th of April, 1813, by which he recovered the sum of five thousand three hundred and fifty-two dollars and thirty-nine cents, after paying costs of su it applicable to the payment of his claim, but has not at any other time r e covered any further part thereof; that this loss has proved ruinous to the prospects of your memorialist, and has reduced him and a large family to much suffering. Your memorialist is aware that he is not the only victim, among his countrymen, of the arbitrary conduct of General Chris tophe, and has learned that, during his absence from the country, other