THATthe Secretary of War be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to audit and adjust the claim of Gilbert Stalker and N. B. Hill, for a steamboat called the “James Boatwright,” which was sunk in Indian river, in Florida, in the month of April, eighteen hundred and thirty-eight, while in the service of the United States, by reason of her bottom being eaten through by the worms which infest those waters, and which was prevented from being repaired, after she had been ascertained to have been seriously injured, and application had been made for her relief to the officer under whose command she was, in consequence of the exigency of the public service; and that the said Secretary pay to the said Stalker and Hill whatever balance may be found due to them, out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated: Provided, That, in settling and claim, the said Stalker and Hill shall be credited by said steamboat at the price of fifteen thousand dollars, the sum at which she was valued when taken into the employment of the government at Charleston, South Carolina; and also all the expenses

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of manning and provisioning said boat, and supplying her with fuel until she sunk, and with the cost of transporting such portions of her engine as were saved from loss back again to Charleston; and they shall be charged with all sums paid for the hire of said steamboat by the United States, according to the charter party under which she was received into the public service, and with the sums realized from the sale of said engine, or what it was worth upon its return to Charleston.