RESOLUTIONS.
No. 7. Joint Resolution to authorize the commission appointed to prepare rules and regulations for the naval service to appoint a clerk.
Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,Employment of a temporary clerk authorized. That the Secretary of the Navy be, and he is hereby, authorized, agreeably to his request, to employ a temporary clerk for the purpose of aiding the Attorney General and himself in carrying into effect the resolution of the twenty-fourth May, eighteen hundred and forty-two, which requires of them the preparation of rules and regulations for the Navy.
Approved, August 11, 1842.
No. 8. A Resolution declarative of the pension act of July seventh, eighteen hundred and thirty-eight.
Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,Benefits of the act not to be withheld from certain widows.
1838, ch. 189. That the benefits of the act entitled “An act granting half pay and pensions to certain widows,” approved the seventh day of July, eighteen hundred and thirty-eight, shall not be withheld from any widow whose husband died after the passage of the act of the seventh of June, eighteen hundred and thirty-two, and before the act of the seventh July, eighteen hundred and thirty-eight, if otherwise entitled to the same.
Approved, August 16, 1842.
No. 10. Joint Resolution to institute proceedings to ascertain the title to Rush Island, ceded in the Caddo Treaty.
Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,U. S. Attorney for the Western district of Louisiana directed to institute proceedings. That the District Attorney of the United States for the Western District of Louisiana be, and is hereby directed to institute such legal proceedings in the proper court as may be necessary to vindicate the right of the United States to Rush Island, which is alleged to have been improperly included in the limited of the lands ceded by the Caddo Indians to the United States, by the treaty of the first July, eighteen hundred and thirty-five, and reserved by said treaty in favour of certain persons by the name of Grappe.
Approved, August 30, 1842.
No. 12. Joint Resolution authorizing experiments to be made for the purpose of testing Samuel Colt’s submarine battery, and for other purposes.
Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,Secretary of the Navy to render facilities to Mr. Colt to test his submarine battery, and report to Congress. That the Secretary of the Navy be, and he is hereby, instructed to render Mr. Samuel Colt facilities to test his submarine battery to an extent which will settle the questions whether these or any other plan can, with ease and safety, successfully be employed as a power sufficient to destroy the largest class of ships of war, when in motion passing in or out of harbor, without the necessity of approach within reach of shot from guns of the largest caliber; and whether continued operations of the destruction of one or more vessels can be effected with renewing the means under exposure of an advancing squadron; and whether the same can be used for the defence of a harbor without endangering the passage in or out of other than hostile vessels. And that he report at the next session of Congress, the expense and result of these experiments:Proviso. Provided, That the amount so expended does not exceed the sum of fifteen thousand dollars, to be taken from the fund appropriated by the act of eleventh of September, eighteen hundred and forty-one, for experiments connected with the naval service of the United States.
