Note 31 — NINTH CONGRESS.—FIRST SESSION. (continued 2)

This expunging was so complete that no vestige of the expunged matter appears in the Journal; but it is otherwise well known what it was. The two named persons had presented memorials, which had been received and read, stating that they were under a criminal prosecution, now depending in the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of New York, for an alleged offence against the laws of the United States, in which, if guilty, they have been led into error by the conduct of officers of the Executive Government, who now intend to bring upon the memorialists the penalties of the laws, to sacrifice their characters, fortunes, and liberty, in expiation of their own errors, or to deprecate the vengeance of foreign Governments, by offering the memorialists as victims to their resentment: that they have also experienced great oppression and injustice in the manner of conducting the said prosecution; and praying such relief therein as the wisdom of Congress may think proper to grant.

The prosecution was for an alleged breach of the neutrality laws, in fitting out a vessel from New York against a Power with whom the United States were at peace, to wit, the King of Spain. The vessel was the Leander, and built for General Miranda, then engaged in his South American expedition. The implications of the Executive Government which the memorials charged, were voted, by the House of Representatives, to be unsupported and reprehensible, and ordered to be returned to the parties from whom they came. The following was the resolve, adopted nearly unanimously, on the motion of Mr. Early:

Resolved, That the charges contained in the memorials of S. G. Ogden and William Smith are, in the opinion of this House, unsupported by any evidence which, in the least degree, criminates the Executive Government of this country; that the said memorials appear to have been presented at a time and under circumstances insidiously calculated to excite unjust suspicions in the minds of the good people of this nation against the existing Administration of the General Government, and that it would be highly improper in this House to take any step which might influence or prejudice a cause now pending in a legal tribunal of the United States. Therefore, Resolved, That the said memorials be by the Clerk of this House returned to those from whom they came.