appeared that a competent court had decided Joseph de la Francia to be the sole distributee entitled to the amount from the administrators, the Secretary was advised to take a receipt from him or his attorney also. It was also held that under a power of attorney executed by Joseph de la Francia to James Bowie, the latter had authority to substitute Isaac Thomas in his stead; but that Thomas could not legally substitute William Cost Johnson in his stead. Johnson, At. Gen., 1849, 5 Op. 135, 137. It was further held that the receipt and acquittance in blank, purporting to have been signed by Isaac Thomas, if authentic, gives authority so to fill it up as to make it a full discharge and acquittance of all title to the sum awarded to said Joseph de la Francia by the Secretary of State. (Ibid.) Where money is due from the Government to the heirs of one deceased, and there is a dispute as to the legal descent, such dispute should be decided by the court rather than by the executive officers. Crittenden, At. Gen., 1853, 5 Op. 670. The provision in the statutes of the United States (10 Stat. 170), declaring that “all transfers and assignments hereafter made of any claim upon the United States. . . . shall be absolutely null and void," does not apply to a claim against the Chinese indemnity fund under the control of the Department of State. Hubbell v. United States, 15 Ct. Cl. 546. The Government can not be held liable as a trustee for money received from a foreign power, in pursuance of a treaty for the satisfaction of claims of American citizens, unless the trust be declared by treaty or statute. Great Western Ins. Co. v. United States, 19 Ct. Cl. 206. By a clause in the diplomatic and consular appropriation act of February 26, 1896 (29 Stat. 32), "all moneys received by the Secretary of State from foreign governments and other sources, in trust for citizens of the United States or others, shall be deposited and covered into the Treasury." The Secretary of State is also to determine the amounts due to claimants from each of said trust funds, and to certify the same to the Secretary of the Treasury, who shall, upon the presentation of the certificate of the Secretary of State, pay the amount so found to be due. The Secretary of State has held that this statutory provision makes the funds in question trust funds, which he is in law bound to distribute to claimants according to their legal or equitable rights, as shown at the time of distribution. Mr. Rockhill, Assist. Sec. of State, to Mr. Shands, Oct. 26, 1896, 213 MS. As to the exemption of the Secretary of State from the control of the See, also, Hoar, At. Gen. (1869), 13 Op. 19. With reference to the case of Annie W. Frazer v. James E. Dexter et al., No. 16774, equity, then pending in the supreme court of the District of Columbia, Mr. Olney, in a letter to the Attorney-General, expressed the opinion that the case should be dismissed, so far as the Secretary of State and the United States were concerned. "My view," said Mr. Olney, "is that it can be dismissed, because the Mora money is held by the United States as sovereign and not as trustee or stakeholder for any person or persons; that the suit, though formally against the Secretary of State, is really against the United States, and that the disposition to be made of the money is a political question, to be decided by the political department of the Government and not by the judicial. At all events the judicial department can have no cognizance of that question until the political department shall have decisively acted. In support of this view, permit me to call your attention to the case of the United States . The La Abra Mining Company et al., reported in the 29th volume of the Court of Claims, page 432. On page 459 you will find a citation by the counsel of the United States of some pertinent cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States." Mr. Olney, Sec. of State, to the Attorney-General, Oct. 2, 1895, 205 MS. XVIII. NONPECUNIARY REDRESS. 1. CESSION OF TERRITORY. § 1061. As a rule cessions of territory, by way of indemnity, have been made at the close of a war as part of the arrangement by which peace. was secured. Such was the case with cessions of territory made by Mexico to the United States in 1848 and by Spain to the United States in 1898. An example of the cession of territory in time of peace by way of satisfaction of claims may be found in the territorial transfers made to the United States by Spain in 1819, under the socalled Florida treaty. 2. APOLOGY. § 1062. In the case of the outrage by the Leopard on the Chesapeake, President Jefferson, as has been seen, issued a proclamation excluding British ships of war from the ports of the United States, and forbidding persons to visit them from the shore. As this made it necessary for them to resort to Halifax for water, provisions, and other conveniences, the British Government treated it as a grievance and refused to negotiate as to reparation until the proclamation was withdrawn. Mr. Rose, special envoy sent by Great Britain to the United States in 1807, argued that "if, when a wrong is committed, retaliation is immediately resorted to by the injured party, the door to pacific adjustment is closed, and the means of conciliation are precluded." Mr. Madison subsequently agreed that if reparation should be "tendered spontaneously" by Great Britain, the President would, on receipt of this act of reparation, revoke the proclamation. The negotiations were continued in 1809 by Mr. F. J. Jackson, the new British minister in the United States, but, owing to Mr. Jackson's conduct, Mr. Madison asked for his recall and afterwards dismissed him. Mr. Foster, Mr. Jackson's successor, on November 1, 1811, informed Mr. Monroe (1) that he was instructed "to repeat to the American Government the prompt disavowal by His Majesty (and recited in Mr. Erskine's note of April 17, 1809, to Mr. Smith) on being apprized of the unauthorized act of the officer in command of his naval forces on the coast of America, whose recall from a highly important and honorable command immediately ensued, as a mark of His Majesty's disapprobation; " (2) that he was "authorized to offer, in addition to that disavowal on the part of His Royal Highness, the immediate restoration, as far as circumstances will admit, of the men who, in consequence of Admiral Berkeley's orders, were forcibly taken out of the Chesapeake to the vessel from which they were taken; or, if that ship should be no longer in commission, to such seaport of the United States as the American Government may name for the purpose;" and (3) that he was also authorized to offer to the American Government a suitable pecuniary provision for the sufferers in consequence of the attack upon the Chesapeake, including the families of those seamen who unfortunately fell in action, and the wounded survivors." Mr. Monroe, replying to Mr. Foster, on the 12th of November, said: "It is much to be regretted that the reparation due for such an aggression as that committed on the United States' frigate the Chesapeake should have been so long delayed; nor could the translation of the offending officer from one command to another be regarded as constituting a part of a reparation otherwise satisfactory. Considering, however, the existing circumstances of the case, and the early and amicable attention paid to it by His Royal Highness the Prince Regent the President accedes to the proposition contained in your letter, and, in so doing, your Government will, I am persuaded, see a proof of the conciliatory disposition by which the President has been actuated. The officer commanding the Chesapeake, now lying in the harbor of Boston, will be instructed to receive the men who are to be restored to that ship." See Mr. Rose, Brit. min., to Mr. Madison, Sec. of State, March 17, 1808, In November, 1851, the city authorities of Greytown made a demand upon the captain of the steamer Prometheus, then in the service of the American Atlantic & Pacific Ship Canal Company, an American corporation, for $123 in payment of port charges. As the jurisdiction of the authorities was disputed by the company, the captain declined to comply with the demand, and a police officer was sent on board the vessel and levied an attachment upon her. The captain, however, refused to obey the writ, and was about to leave the harbor when the commander of the British man-of-war Express fired one or two blank cartridges, and then a round shot across the steamer's bows and another across her stern. It was stated that one of the shots passed very near to persons on the steamer. The Prometheus then returned to her anchorage, and the charges were paid. It appeared that the commander of the Express acted on the requisition of the British consul. When a report of the incident was received at Washington, Mr. Webster, who was then Secretary of State, on December 3, 1851, instructed Mr. Abbott Lawrence, American minister in London, to lay the facts before the British Government, and to say that if the firing was done by authority of that government it was a violation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, which precluded either government from exercising dominion over the Mosquito coast. Nor could the United States, said Mr. Webster, consent to the collection of port charges at Greytown by British men-of-war. Mr. Webster added that the occurrence had created equal surprise and regret, and had caused the President to give immediate orders for the dispatch of an armed vessel to Greytown. On January 10, 1852, Lord Granville, replying to Mr. Lawrence's representations, entirely disavowed the act of violence committed by the commander of the Express, and said: "Under these circumstances Her Majesty's Government have no hesitation in offering an ample apology for that which they consider to have been an infraction of treaty engagements; and Her Majesty's Government do so without loss of time, and immediately upon the receipt of the official intelligence , inasmuch as, in their opinion, it would be unworthy of the government of a great nation to hesitate about making due reparation, when the acts of their subordinate authorities had been such as not to admit of justification.” S. Ex. Docs. 6 and 30, 32 Cong. 1 sess.; 41 Br. & For. State Papers, 757, 767. As to the case of the Trent, see infra, § 1265. 3. SALUTE TO THE FLAG. § 1063. In the case of the Virginius, the reparation demanded by the United States embraced a salute to the flag. Such a salute was conceded by Spain, in case it should be found that the Virginius was at the time of her seizure entitled to fly the flag of the United States. Subsequently, on its having been found by the Attorney-General of the United States that the papers of the Virginius were obtained on a false affidavit of the United States ownership, the demand for the salute was dropped. For the case of the Virginius, see supra, § 309. As to the salute of the flag in the case of the French consul at San Francisco, see supra, § 714. As to the salute to the Brazilian flag in the case of the seizure of the In the case of the attack by a mob on the Spanish consulate at New |