Mr. WASHIBURNE, of Illinois. If the gentleman had permitted me to ask a question it would have obviated the necessity. saying what I propose to say. I did not desire to interrupt the gentleman's argument, but to suggest to him at the point upon which he was then speaking, that it must be treated as if there was no removal at all. The President having put this officer back where he was before, it was in substance no removal: and the question I desired to ask the gentleman was, why was it necessary to come here and ask Congress to pass this bill to pay him if he really was in the Navy and entitled to pay? Why could not the proper accounting officers of the Government pay him his salary? There seems to be something wrong in regard to it. His reasoning seems to fail entirely, because if his reasoning were correct there would be no necessity for an application to pay him for services which it is not contended that he ever rendered the Government. Now, sir, as I remember this case, this man was dismissed from the Navy by the SecyNavy on grounds which he deemed sufficient, and which I believe the country concurred in at the time, and he was out of the service. But the usual pressure was brought to bear on our good and lamented Chief Magis trate and he finally restored him; and now, after having been out of the service for 6 months, he is not satisfied with being restored to the service and taking his pay from the time of his reappointment, and he cones here and asks us to pay him for the time that he was out of the service. Now, I think this is drawing it rather steep, and I think the House will never consent to the adoption of this principle. Where will it stop? i. there a member of Congress here who does not know cases in the military rvice where men have been dismissed the service and afterward restored? But has there been a single case in which the Government has paid the officer dismissed for the time that he was out of the service? I do not know of a single case, and I do not think the Gentfrom Connecticut can show me a case where the Government has paid money under these circumstances. I think, sir, that we should be establishing a most dangerous precedent, and I trust the House will ponder over the question before they establish it.