Of the sum directed to be paid to him in the bill under consideration, $850 is allowed him on account of this service, he having been paid for the period stated at the rate of $1,200 per annum.  The contractor claims that this full service was performed after the reduction by the Post-Office Department because he had received an intimation from the Postmaster-General that if the full service was continued after such reduction there was no doubt that the Congress would at its next session make provision for the payment of the sum deducted.

Of course no legal claim in favor of the contractor can be predicated upon the facts which he alleges; and if he did continue full service under the circumstances stated, it must be conceded that his conduct was hardly in accordance with the rules which regulate transactions of this kind.

But a thorough search of the correspondence and records in the Post-Office Department fails to disclose any letter, document, or record giving the least support to the allegation that any such intimation or assurance as is claimed was given; nor is there the least evidence in the Department that the full service was actually performed.  There is, however, on the files of the Department a letter from the claimant, dated August 25, 1860, containing the following statement: 

When I received official information of the curtailing service, the reasons why, I wrote to the Department that I would, if allowed, continue service three times a week and take certificates, if I could be allowed to connect with La Crosse at pro rata rates.  That letter was never answered and I continued service three times a week till 3d of September following, then run twice a week.

Thus it appears that this contractor, who in August, 1860, claimed that he continued full service upon the invitation of his own unanswered letter for less than four months, insists twenty-seven years after the date of the alleged service that he performed such service for seventeen months, and up to October, 1860.  Not only has he himself in this manner almost conclusively shown that the claim now made and allowed is exorbitant, but the evidence gives rise to a strong presumption that it is entirely fictitious.

The remainder of the amount allowed to the claimant in this bill is based upon an alleged performance by the contractor of the same mail service which has been referred to from October 1, 1860, to February 14, 1861, a period of four months and fourteen days.

Prior to October 1, 1860, the claimant’s contract was annulled and a new or more extended route established, entirely covering that upon which he had carried the mails.  Thereupon a month’s extra pay was allowed to him, and new contractors undertook the service and were paid therefor by the Government for the period covered by the claimant’s alleged service.  From the 14th day of February, 1861, Mr. Belding’s contract with the Government was reinstated; but if he performed the service alleged during the period of four months and fourteen days immediately prior to that date, it is quite clear that he did so under an arrangement with the new contractors, and not under circumstances creating any legal or equitable claim against the Government.