*

probable, as it appears that Champe did promise them ample recompense, (Lee's Memoirs, 183) where Major Lee told Champe, by letter, "that the rewards which he had promised to his associates would certainly be paid on the delivery of Arnold, and in the meantime small sums of money would be furnished * That five guineas were sent now, and more would follow when absolutely necessary; that it was improper that he should appear with much money." And, again: when Sergeant Champe returned to the American army, General Washington is said to have munificently anticipated every desire. Nothing is here said about any reward. Again: when General Washington was called by President Adams to the command of the army proposed to defend the country from French hostility, he sent Major Lee to inquire for Champe, being determined to bring him into the field, at the head of a company of infantry. Nothing is here again said about any reward. The committee do not then see how they can grant relief in this form. In another view of the case: Is Sergeant Major Champe entitled to commutation for five years' full pay in lieu of half pay for life? He did not serve to the end of the war, but was discharged by General Washington; not because his term of service had expired, nor because he was desirous of quitting the service; but (Lee's Memoirs, 187,) "General Washington 3 where, if recognised, he would be sure to die on a gibbet." But 2 might, in the vicissitudes of war, fall in to the enemy's hands, / presented him with his discharge from further service, lest he he was not a commissioned officer.

At the time he was singled out for this noble enterprise, Major Lee, (Memoirs, vol. 2, 162,) in his description of him to General Washington, said he was "about twenty-three or four years of age; that he enlisted in 1776; rather above common size, full bone and muscle, with a saturnine countenance, grave, thoughtful, and taciturn, of tried courage and inflexible perseverance, and as likely to reject an overture coupled with ignominy as any officer in the corps; a commission being the goal of his long and anxious exertions, and sure on the first vacancy." Again, at page 165, same work, we find the sergeant himself hesitating in entering into the enterprise, chiefly because the ignominy of desertion would place

an insuperable barrier in the way of his promotion. General Washington's language was, "that he must take it; and that going to the enemy by the instigation and at the request of his officer was not desertion, though it appeared so to be." He did take it. Sergeant Champe threw aside all considerations of a personal nature, and without further hesitation made the sacrifice at once of all his future prospects, and of life itself, on the altar of disinterested patriotism, and entered on the noble enterprise. Is it not certain that, but for this enterprise, Sergeant Champe would have been a commissioned officer and served to the end of the war, if he had not been killed or died in the service? And it happens he did survive to the end of the war; for, when inquired after by Major Lee, he was found to have removed to Kentucky after the peace. By the time Sergeant Champe returned to the American army, Major Lee was himself promoted to lieutenant colonel; and is it not almost certain he would have been promoted had he continued in the American army? The committee have no doubt but that he would have been promoted had he remained in the army; yet this does not bring him within the provisions of the resolutions of 1778 and 1783, granting commutation, as not having actually served to the end of the war, nor actually commissioned, if he had. Under this view of the case, the committee are not able to grant commutation pay; but, induced by a sense of justice and propriety in rewarding services of such high merit, and believing that the case has not a parallel in the whole of the revolutionary war, protesting at the same time that this shall not be a precedent for future grants of any value or character whatever, they report a bill allowing to the legal representatives of Sergeant Major John Champe a sum equal to the commutation pay of an ensign.

29th Congress,

1st Session.

48

Rep. No. 380.

Ho. of Reps.

COLONEL FRANCIS TAYLOR.*
(To accompany bill H. R. No. 288)

March 5, 1846.

Mr. Grider, from the Committee on Revolutionary Claims, made the following

REPORT

The Committee on Revolutionary Claims, to whom was referred the memorial of Edmund H. Taylor, the administrator with the will annexed of the estate of Colonel Francis Taylor, deceased, asking an allowance of the commutation of five years' full pay, with interest, in lieu of half pay for life, having examined the same and the evidence, which is of the most satisfactory character, in support thereof, now report:

That Colonel Taylor entered the service of the United States as a captain the last of 1775, in the Virginia continental line, and continued in actual service until a consolidation of the Virginia regiments took place in 1778, when he retired as a supernumerary major, and so continued awaiting the order of the Congress until about the first of January, 1779, when he again was called into actual service by the Congress in a resolution passed the 9th of January, 1779, which required that a battalion of 600

*For Col. Francis Taylor and his Descendants, see Hayden, Va. Genealogies, 680, 681.

men be forthwith raised in Virginia on continental establishment, and the officers to be appointed out of those of the Virginia line who had been left out of the late arrangement of the continental army. (See the printed journals of the Continental Congress, by Way & Gideon, vol. 3d, page 179.) Col. Taylor was appointed lieutenant colonel of the said battalion, and, upon the death of Colonel Charles Lee, was promoted to the rank of colonel, and commanded the regiment which was raised to guard the convention prisoners (as they were termed) until the same was disbanded in June, 1781. The regiment he commanded was disbanded upon the removal of the prisoners from Winchester, Virginia, where they had been kept; and by the discharge of the troops, Colonel Taylor became supernumerary, and so remained until the close of the war.

Your committee are entirely satisfied that the regiment he commanded was a continental regiment, as it was taken upon continental establishment by Congress, in the passage of the resolution of the 9th January, 1779, aforesaid, and ordered thereby to be officered by those officers who had been left out of the late arrangement, and were then supernumeraries. In the army registers of Virginia, this regiment has been always classed among the continental corps, and which fact, says the auditor of that commonwealth, is satisfactory proof that such officers were continental officers. (See a report No. 457, from the Committee on Public Lands, at the first session of the 28th Congress, page 193.) Mr. Jefferson, while governor of Virginia, in a letter to the commander-in-chief of the American army, under date the 28th November, 1779, expressly mentions Colonel Taylor's regiment of guards to the convention troops as being of the continental line. (See Jefferson's Works, vol. 1st, page 170.) The settled decisions of both the War and Treasury Departments of this government are that the regiment was a continental regiment. The executive of Virginia so decides. Besides, both Houses of Congress as well as various committees have repeatedly decided that this regiment was a continental regiment. Congress so decided in the passage of the act of the 25th May, 1832, allowing Major John Roberts, an officer of this regiment, his commutation pay with interest; also in

the passage of the act of the second of March, 1833, allowing Captain John Thomas, another officer of this regiment, his commutation pay with interest; also in the passage of the act of the 30th of June, 1834, allowing the heirs of Lieutenant John Taylor, another officer of this regiment, his commutation pay. The Committee on Revolutionary Claims decided that this regiment was a continental regiment in their report conceding the commutation pay with interest to the heirs of Captain Garland Bumley, another officer of this regiment, at the second session of the 25th Congress. The committee so decided in their report at the second session of the 25th Congress, in conceding the commutation pay to the heirs of Captain James Burton, another officer of said regiment; likewise so decided in their report at the second session of the 24th Congress, conceding commutation pay to the legal representatives of James Purvis; so decided again at the third session of the 25th Congress, in conceding commutation pay to the heirs of Samuel O. Pettus, another officer of said regiment. Besides, the Committee on Revolutionary Claims, of which the Hon. Judge Underwood, from Kentucky, was chairman, did, at several sessions of Congress, make favorable reports in the case of Colonel Taylor, allowing commutation pay, one of which was acted on in the House and passed, but, owing to the lateness of the session, did not reach the Senate in time to be considered. The Committee on Public Lands, at the first session of the 28th Congress, investigated all the laws and facts touching the claims of this regiment, and showed, as appears to your committee beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this regiment of Colonel Taylor's was a continental regiment. (See report No. 457, 1st session 28th Congress, from page 115 to 123 inclusive.)

Your committee are satisfied that a more meritorious claim could not be presented to the consideration of Congress, nor one more clearly embraced by the resolutions of Congress of the 21st October, 1780, and 22d March, 1783; and therefore report a bill granting the relief prayed in the memorial.