The amount of debentures out- Consisting of six per cents. $6,444,556 the $2,000,000 subscrip- Three per cents. 12,792,000 The payments made on account of the public debt during 1830, were for interest $1,912,415, towards the reduction of the principal $11,354,630,-leaving the total debt of the United States on the first of January, 1831, $39,123,192. bill was reported to the House, and upon its coming under consideration the next day, a debate arose on the amendment, proposed in the committee, increasing the appropriation for the survey of the public lands to $130,000, and $8,000 for surveying private land claims. Mr McCoy opposed the amendment. He said the surveys pro Four and one half per cents. 15,994,064 posed were not necessary. There 13,296,250 were lands already surveyed, and 42,536 not sold, to the amount of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred millions of acres, and there was no good reason, why one hundred millions of acres more should be surveyed and thrown into the market. Some of the public lands, he said, were not worth surveying. He was in favor of surveying as fast as the lands would sell, and was disposed to authorise the surveying of the good lands as fast as purchasers could be found for them. Mr M'C. alluded to the great extent of lands surveyed, and said that a considerable portion of them would have to be resurveyedsuch, for instance, as the prairie lands, in which fires very often took place, and burnt up the marks which had been placed there by the surveyors. Under his present impressions he moved to strike from the amendment $130,000, and insert $60,000. The bills providing for the different departments of the government having been reported from the Committee of Ways and Means, that making provision for the revolutionary and invalid pensioners was taken up in the House on the eleventh of January, and having received the assent of both Houses, became a law. By this act $1,011,100 were appropriated for the revolutionary, and $276,720 for the invalid pensioners, and $5000 for the widows and orphans of those, who had fallen in the public service. The bill making appropriations for the support of the Government for the year 1831, was brought forward in the committee of the whole House, on the eleventh of January. After making and proposing various amendments, the 8 Mr Test said he generally had a great respect for the opinions of the gentleman from Virginia, who had addressed the House; but, he considered his motion to lessen the sum proposed for surveys, to say the least of it, inexpedient. He spoke of the pub lic lands as an increasing source of revenue, and remarked that lands to the amount of half a million of dollars had been sold in the State of Indiana. Mr Clay, of Alabama, said the effects of withdrawing the appropriation which was proposed, would obviously be twofold-first, to check the tide of emigration to the West; and-secondly, to cut down and materially lessen this branch of the public revenue. If the public lands were not surveyed they could not be sold, and individuals would not be disposed to remove to this new region, and devote their time, labor, and money to improving and preparing lands for cultivation, of which they could entertain no hope of becoming proprietors, at least within any reasonable time. Mr C. said, the public lands, too, had been an important source of revenue. The receipts from that source had been gradually increasing, until they had grown to an amount of no small importance. The amount paid by purchasers during the year ending on the thirtieth September, 1830, was almost two millions of dollars, -exceeding, by about half a million, he believed, the amount received in any former year. Mr C. asked if gentlemen were disposed to change the present land system, and cut off this important branch of revenue? The gentleman from Virginia (Mr McCoy) speaks of the large quantity of land already surveyed and remaining unsold. Mr C. said, if the gentleman would examine a document laid before Congress two or three years ago, he would find that a large portion of that quantity, perhaps thirty millions of acres, was sterile and worthless, and about eightythree millions too inferior in quality to cominand the minimum price.In the State from which he came, said Mr C., good land, or that which was fit for cultivation, seldom remained long unsold, after it had been surveyed and put in market; and he presumed that was very much the case in the other new States. No danger, he conceived, was to be apprehended that good land would, anywhere, remain long in market for want of purchasers. Again, Mr C. asked, if it were desirable in point of policy, that the public lands should he long settled and improved before they were offered for sale? This would certainly be the case if the surveys were suspended; and Congress might again, and would properly be, appealed to, and importuned by petitions, for the right of pre-emption. Those gentlemen who were opposed to the pre-emption principle ought certainly, in Mr C's judgment, to oppose a suspension of surveys. The lands would be settled as fast as they were acquired. It had been long the practice to permit such settlement, and, when occupied and improved, the right of pre-emption had been, and Mr C. hoped always would be, accorded. Looking, either to the settlement of new tracts of country, or the interest of the Government, Mr C. saw no good reason for withholding the appropriation. There had been none made last year; in consequence of which we were in arrears; for the discharge of which, as well as the expenses of the present year, the sum proposed by the committee was intended; which does not exceed the average amount appropriated for the same purpose for some years past. Mr Strong said surveys might be necessary in Michigan, Florida, Indiana, and perhaps some other State; but why ask for an appropriation of $130,000? In 1828, but 45,000 dollars was appropriated; in 1829, 51,000 dollars. In 1830, there was no appropriation-the commissioner of the General Land Office having informed the House that there was a balance of 84,000 dollars on hand. He desired to know what rendered the proposed appropriation necessary, and he would also like to be informed of the necessity of bringing into market so great an amount of lands, as the sum proposed to be appropriated would survey, in addition to those lands already surveyed. The commissioner of the General Land Office had designated certain sections of the public domain, which it was expedient to have surveyed the present year; but this survey would not require the sum proposed to be appropriated. Why then grant so much, unless we have abandoned all notions of economy? If any substantial reasons could be shown why the proposed appropriation was necessary, he hoped they would be given. Mr Verplanck said, that since he had been a member of the committee of Ways and Means, he had often noticed the singular contrast in which he was placed when here and when in the committee room. There were numerous demands before the committee, and their object was to reduce appropriations proposed to as small an amount as possible; while here in this House, that committee was accused of extravagance. Such, in part, was the imputation cast upon them by the motion now before the House. The requisition made upon the General Land Office by the surveyors, for the present year, had been 200,000 dollars; the commissioner of that office considering the sum too great, had reducea it to 150,000 dollars; the committee of Ways and Means, in the fulfilment of what they considered their duty, had asked for an appropriation of only 130,000 dollars. The proposed amount would pay the arrearages of the last year, and leave for the surveys of the present year a sum averaging the amount appropriated for surveys for the last eight or nine years-perhaps it would fall below that average-the allowance, after paying arrearages, would leave about eighty or ninety thousand dollars. If gentlemen would examine, they would find that to be about the average sum appropriated for the survey of the public lands since the year 1821. Mr V. then alluded to the valuable lands in Louisiana, the survey and settlement of which had long been retarded by claims of individuals having grants from the former governments possessing that country, and spoke of the great desire of this Government to bring those lands into market. He said, if the proposed amend- ket. In what manner, sir, have ment now under consideration the surveys in Arkansas been prevailed, it would reduce the appropriation for surveys to about $30,000-a sum altogether inadequate. He hoped this encroachment on the usual course of the Government would not be made. The committee of Ways and Means had done their duty in proposing the appropriation, and it was for the House to decide whether the appropriation should be made or not. Mr Sevier, of Arkansas, said that the surveys of the public lands in Arkansas had not been equal to the present demandthat there were many counties containing thousands of inhabitants, in which not one foot of the public lands had ever been surveyed that the surveys of the very lands bordering upon the capital of Arkansas were still incomplete. His constituents conceive that their interest in this particular had been grossly neglected; and for this neglect they had complained of the commissioner of our Land Office and our Surveyor General. By examining the report of the commissioner we shall discover that a smaller quantity of the public land has been sold in Arkansas than in any other section of the western country; that, including all the public sales from 1822 to 1830, there have not been sixty thousand dollars paid to the Government. Why has such an insignificant sum been received from the sales of the public land in that country? It is because there has been but little good land surveyed and in mar conducted? The Government has given us no Surveyor General to reside among us. He resides in St Louis, four hundred miles from our capital. He knows nothing of the situation of our country; and is governed entirely in letting out his contracts by the representations of deputy surveyors. These deputies know their own interest. Their engagements to survey are generally in the prairies, and in the poor and barren sections of the country. Sir, I do not blame them. They could not afford to survey the rich lands of Arkansas, covered with cane, and almost impenetrable forests, for three dollars a mile. To provide against this evil, at the last session of Congress, an act was passed authorising the Surveyor General to allow his deputies for survey-. ing the good lands in Arkansas, four dollars a mile. When such lands as these are surveyed,lands to which our settlements are almost entirely confined, you will perceive a very great increase in the income to the Government from the sales of the public lands. At the last session of Congress an act was passed, granting, for a limited period, the right of preemption to settlers upon the public lands. That act is about expiring, and but few of the citizens of Arkansas have availed themselves of its provisions. And why? because the lands upon which they live have not been surveyed. They petition Congress at this present session to continue the act in force for a longer period of time, because the land upon which they live has the supply and the demand can not been surveyed. be maintained. The Land Office commenced its operations under the present system in 1801.For the first fifteen years, and up to the close of the war, the quantity of land surveyed, making due allowances for bad land, did not go materially beyond the demand. The honorable gentleman seems to fear that the corners made by the surveyors in the prairies would be destroyed by fire, and that the land would have to be surveyed again. If that gentleman had been in prairies as often as I have, he would have known that these corners are made of other materials than wood; he would have known that at each corner mounds were made, which fire can never destroy. There is no instance within my knowledge when the public lands have ever been twice surveyed, for this or any other cause. Mr Vinton said he was glad that the gentleman from Virginia had submitted his motion, and hoped it would prevail. He was one of those who believed the operations of the surveying department, for some years past, had gone to great excess, producing highly injurious effects throughout the whole western country, and seriously deranging the Land Office Department. It was time to bring back the land system to a healthy action; such as it possessed prior to the late The survey of land was a step preparatory to its being exposed to sale; and when surveyed it would be forced into market, whether the quantity on hand would justify its introduction or not. It will hence be obvious that the surveying department really regulates the proportion between the demand for land, and the quantity in market; and it is only by a skilful and judicious management of that department, that any just proportion between war. That was the period of the greatest prosperity in the Western country. The value of both public and private property was sustained; a circumstance that gave activity to the sales and confidence to the purchaser. Shortly after the war, this salutary policy was lost sight of. Immense districts of country were surveyed and suddenly thrown into market, so that at the close of 1825, there had been surveyed in all, one hundred and thirty eight millions of acres; and forthe five last years, great quantities have also been surveyed, probably amounting to some forty or fifty millions more; the exact amount not known. Of these one hundred and thirtyeight millions then surveyed, between twentythree and twentyfour millions had not been brought into market. At that time, the entire quantity sold since the year 1800, was less than twenty millionsbetween 1825 and the present time, the sales have amounted to about one million of acres per annum. We have not been informed what is the quantity of surveyed land now on hand, that has not yet been brought into market. It is to be presumed that it has not been diminished since that time. The result of these facts is, that at the close of 1825, |