Total amount of Claims presented, $11,850,578 Of these submitted too late to be examined, 3,336,837 8,513,741 Referred to Umpire, and undecided by him for want of time, ----..928,627 Amount of Claims adjudicated, 7,595,114 Rejected by Commissioners and Umpire, 5,668,975 Allowed do. do. $2,026,236 This statement in\'ites various remarks. The Federal Government had been for years espousing the cause of the Mexican claimants. Session after session had the Executive Messages brought before Congress, not the particulars but the subject of Mexican outrages. Com- mittees had reiterated the lamentations of the President over our accumulated wrongs. A minister had been with- drawn from Mexico, because redress had been withheld ; and war had virtually been recommended by General Jackson to obtain, by force of arms, that justice for our citizens which Mexico denied them. Finally, a solemn Treaty proposed to afford the long-desired but denied re- paration. A Court, composed of two American and two Mexican citizens, were to sit in judgment on these claims ;
and, where the Court could not agree, an impartial um- pire was to award the amount justly due. The Court commenced its session about ttvo years after its iSrst ap- pointment. Surely the claimants had abundant notice td J prepare and present their claims ; and they had also timely notice that the term of the Court was limited to eighteen months. For the convenience of the claimants, the Court assembled in Washington, contrary to the wishes and remonstrances of the Mexican Government. Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that, after the Court had been in session nine months, only one-half of the time to which it was limited, it had disposed of evert/ case that had been presented with proper vouchers. But at the termination of the next nine months, we find claims to the amount of $3,336,837, that were presented too late to be even examined ! The magnitude of these claims, and the astonishing delay in presenting them, after the unwearied solicitude of the Government to swell the demand against Mexico, clearly indicate their fraudulent and speculative character. We find,