1 March 1842
adams-john10 Neal Millikan
64 Washington Tuesday 1. March 1842.

1. VI. Tuesday.

Mary E. E. Cutts Hawley Revd. William

Mr Gilbert Livingston Thompson had called upon me yesterday, and urgently requested me to bring before the Committee of foreign Affairs the claims and complaints against the Commission of indemnities under the convention of 1839 with Mexico.— The Commission expired last week and left much of their business undone— I met the Committee of Foreign Affairs at 10 this morning— All the members present—Adams, Cushing, Everett Granger, E. D. White ShepperdMeriwether, Caruthers and Alexander H. H. Stuart.— There was a Letter from the Secretary of State, with an enclosure from David Porter, claiming extra-allowances, under another name, for his son, which the 5th. auditor had rejected but which the Secretary of State now acquiesces in— After some discussion this claim was laid aside— The consideration of the report on Mrs Meade’s claim was further postponed Dr Baldwin’s memorial against the Mexican indemnity commission, was then taken up, discussed, and postponed for future consideration of what the Committee can do— I thought the chairman should be directed to move in the house a call on the Department of State for the proceedings of the Commission— But the Committee were for not going so fast.— They thought it would be best to wait.— In the house, Pendleton’s motion to suspend the rules for his indignant resolution against dissolution petitions, first came up and was lost for lack of a two thirds majority, the vote being 104 to 65— Then followed attempts to introduce sundry Resolutions, and after the remainder of the morning hour absorbed on the retrenchment Committee’s report the house went into Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Briggs in the chair on the general appropriation Bill, after two abortive attempts of Bidlack of Pennsylvania, to take up the apportionment Bill. Garrett Davis with a superabundant zeal for retrenchmen, grafted upon the Bill an amendment to reduce the expense, and direct the mode of printing the Laws in pamphlets and newspapers— The Chairman pronounced it not in order, as surely it was not— But Davis appealed, and there was no quorum. The Committee rose— A call of the house produced a Quorum. Briggs resumed the Chair—debate followed till the Committee rose again and the house adjourned— Miss Cutts was here this evening—read 3 chapters of the Pickwick papers— Mr Hawley here— Mr and Mrs Angier went to the Drawing-room, which was splendid.— My wife is recovering.

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