U.S.  GRANT.

[Footnote 42:  Correspondence from the United States legation at Constantinople relative to restrictions on the passage of the straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus by the ships of other nations.]

WASHINGTON, March 3, 1871.

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of February 1, 1871, a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents.[43]

U.S.  GRANT.

[Footnote 43:  Dispatches, etc., from the United States minister to the Court of Brazil relative to the Paraguayan war, the culture of cotton in Brazil, trade with Brazil, etc.]

VETO MESSAGES.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 4, 1871.

To the House of Representatives:

I herewith return without my approval House bill No. 1395, entitled “An act for the relief of Charles Cooper, Goshorn A. Jones, Jerome Rowley, William Hannegan, and John Hannegan,” for the following reasons: 

The act directs the discontinuance of an action at law said to be now pending in the United States district court for the northern district of Ohio for the enforcement of the bond executed by said parties to the United States, whereas in fact no such suit is pending in the district court, but such a suit is now pending in the circuit court of the United States for the sixth circuit and northern district of Ohio.

Neither the body of said act nor the proviso requires the obligors in said bond, who are released from all liability to the United States on account thereof, to abandon or release their pretended claim against the Government.

Since these parties have gone to Congress to ask relief from liability for a large sum of money on account of the failure of the principals in the bond to execute their contract, it is but just and proper that they at the same time should abandon the claim heretofore asserted by them against the Government growing out of the same transaction.

U.S.  GRANT.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 7, 1871.

To the Senate of the United States:

I hereby return without my approval Senate resolution No. 92, entitled “A resolution for the relief of certain contractors for the construction of vessels of war and steam machinery,” for the following reasons: 

The act of March 2, 1867 (14 U.S.  Statutes at Large, p. 424), directs the Secretary of the Navy—­

to investigate the claims of all contractors for building vessels of war and steam machinery for the same under contracts made after the 1st day of May, 1861, and prior to the 1st day of January, 1864; and said investigation to be made upon the following basis:  He shall ascertain the additional cost which was necessarily incurred by each contractor in the completion of his work by reason of any changes