I am instructed by the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads to ask your opinion on the following points. to Viz “Whether the Congress of the US. or the Post Master General can discontinue a Mail Route before the Contract has expired without incurring damages to the Government or to the head of the Post office Department individually and if damages can be recovered what is the rule of damages” and particularly your opinion “in regard to discontinuing the contract now existing between this City (Washington) via Baltimore the Chesapeake Bay to Petersburg and the overland route for local mail to Richmond”

The Committee hope you

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will find it convenient to make a response to their inquiry by to-morrow morning so as to enable them to act promptly on the subject before them to which they refer.