n your deliberations and upon all the
counsels and acts of the Government, to the end that, with common zeal
and common efforts, we may, in humble submission to the divine will,
cooperate for the promotion of the supreme good of these United States.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

WASHINGTON, _December 5, 1854_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to approval,
a compact between the United States and the royal Government of Lew
Chew, entered into at Napa on the 11th day of July last, for securing
certain privileges to vessels of the United States resorting to the Lew
Chew Islands.

A copy of the instructions of the Secretary of State upon the subject is
also herewith transmitted.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

WASHINGTON, _December 5, 1894_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to
ratification, a convention for regulating the right of inheriting and
acquiring property, concluded in this city on the 21st day of August
last between the United States and His Highness the Duke of Brunswick
and Luneburg.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

WASHINGTON, _December 11, 1854_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

An act for the relief of the legal representatives of Samuel Prioleau,
deceased, which provided for the payment of the sum of $6,928.60 to the
legal representatives of said Prioleau by the proper accounting officer
of the Treasury, was approved by me July 27, 1854. It having been
ascertained that the identical claim provided for in this act was
liquidated and paid under the provisions of the general act of August 4,
1790, and of the special act of January 24, 1795, the First Comptroller
of the Treasury declined to give effect to the law first above referred
to without communicating the facts for my consideration. This refusal
I regard as fully justified by the facts upon which it was predicated.

In view of the destruction of valuable papers by fire in the building
occupied by the Treasury Department in 1814 and again in 1833, it is not
surprising that cases like this should, more than seventy years after
the transaction with which they were connected, be involved in much
doubt. The report of the Comptroller, however, shows conclusively by
record evidence still preserved in the Department and elsewhere that the
sum of $6,122.44, with $3,918.36 interest thereon from the date