War Department 15^th April 1800 Sir, I have received your letter, dated the 29^th March [undecipherable] as Chairman of a Committee appointed by the House of Representatives to enquire into the expediency of passing a law, to regulate the manner of entering Cancets, requesting my opinion on the expediency of passing a law to authorise the Secretary of War, to issue Warrants for Military Bounty Lands, to those whose Warrants have been obtained by fraud or collusion, lost or destroyed. And if it is proper to pass such a law, by what provisions, it could be best guarded, so as to prevent further imposition on the United States? and also relative to the best means of defeating the Warrants, that have already been obtained by fraud? Every device of dishonest and cunning having been practised, to obtain from the Public Offices, the hard earned dues of Officers and Soldiers, it would not reasonably be expected, they would [strikethrough: undecipherable] always be un—successful. The fact is that many Land Warrants have been fraudulently obtained through the medium of forgeries, by persons not entitled to them — and that no law existed, enabling the issuing a second Warrant to issue, in the same rights, even to the rightful persons who were satisfactorily shewn to be the rightful Claimants. It was however a practice existing in the War Office, at the time I came into the Department, and since continued, to allow rightful Claimants, in whose apparent & right Warrants had already been issued to file Cancets — and there were directed to be transmitted with the papers of the wrongful [undecipherable], or called [undecipherable] of the Warrants. Such Cancets it was understood might avail in preventing Patents from issuing at the Treasury, upon Warrants wrongfully obtained at the War Office, and tend to restore to the Person rightfully equitably entitled, or his lawful representative — the identical property. A proceeding indeed seems to have been contemplated, analogous to that had before the Board of Property in the State of Pennsylvania, in cases of disputed original rights to Land. But no authority having been vested either in the Secretary of the Treasury, or any other Person, or Persons whatsoever — it was not supposed that the Cancets which related to the Warrants, upon which the late issue of Patents was made, could be acted upon, or that the Warrants could be refused — particularly as The Act passed the 1^st [undecipherable] of June 1796 — regulating the Grants of Land for military services — appeared to be more mandatory upon the Secretary of the Treasury, for the space of nine months, after public notice in the several States and territories, to register warrants for military services, to the amount of any one or more tracts, for any person or persons holding the same — and immediately after the expiration of the said time, process to determine by lot, to be drawn in the presence of the Secretaries of State and of War, the priority of location of the said registered Warrants" to and give a right, to the person or persons holding the same (registered Warrants) severally, to make their location after the lots shall be proclaimed. — Proceeding upon this construction of the Act cited, Warrants against which there were cancets, were admitted to registry, to make up the amount of tracts for the person or persons holding the same — and lots were cast, and locations made, and Patents issued for tracts in the amount of which such cancelled warrants were included. It will readily be conceived, that the construction given to the Act cited, perhaps the express forces of the Act itself — left no check to the fraudulently obtaining of Public Lands, except in the caution that might be observed in issuing the original [undecipherable] the Warrants in the first instance — at the War Office. [undecipherable] immediately by enjoining this, on the Gentlemen entrusted to issue Warrants — and required them strictly to apply the rules adopted by the Department, respecting applications for Military Lands. My injunctions have been complied, with few deviations directed by myself, but which will be in future declined; now the whole business is with a Committee of Congress — excepted [undecipherable] and [undecipherable] difficulties and instructions to the obtaining of Warrants have been made in pursuance [undecipherable] the War Office — it will however be observed, that the rules directed to be applied — have all been published in the newspapers throughout the Union — and that no other grounds for individual rights to military [undecipherable] the public, exists but in the strictness and caution observed at the War Office — further that even this must often be ineffectual, from the great diversity of the arts practised to deceive. The Questions presented by your letter are most properly of a legal complexion — and perhaps the law officers of the Government had better be consulted. If the [undecipherable] and the Professional Gentlemen on the Committee are most competent to investigate them in all their relations. For myself I should suppose it expedient to admit of cancets, and to confer authority, to some board, to determine upon disputed rights to military Lands, and direct to whom Patents should issue. This would give an opportunity to investigate [strikethrough: undecipherable] contested Claims, before the [undecipherable] needed to [undecipherable] will — and it [undecipherable] to [undecipherable] such title with more deliberate attention to right — and the person in whose right it appears most strongly to center — ought not to be him, who[se] [undecipherable] turned [undecipherable] to seek it in a court of justice — he ought to stand upon the footing of defendant, with all the circumstances denied to that Character by the obligation on the other party to make out his own right (as is understood to be the legal principle) completely — But this would not in any manner apply, to defeat Warrants, against which there were Cancets — but which have been notwithstanding already admitted to make parts of tracts — located and Patented. Legal men may perceive, but I cannot, how such Warrants as the law [undecipherable] if it can be proven they were improperly obtained — or not rightfully [undecipherable] to the [undecipherable] or holder who presented them at the Treasury can now be defeated — The Land they call for, has entered into the mass of a larger tract located and Patented generally — and there are whose Warrants wrongfully obtained but already Patented — it is not perceived can be now reached — nor that the Individual whose right was imposed [undecipherable], can obtain [undecipherable] satisfaction in Lands, obtained with the Warrant [undecipherable] he ought to have had — But Let the original Papers — and the wrongfully obtained Warrants — with the proofs to be produced of a right never diverted — or rightfully derived and never presented, and the wrongful Warrant issued — be referred to the same board — and the rights of the Claimants — and after [undecipherable] notice conclusively determined.