That part of the brief never got before Congress, nor has Congress ever yet had a hint of forgery existing among the Fisher papers. Nevertheless, on the basis of the double prices (and totally ignoring the clerk's assertion that the figures were manifestly and unquestionably a recent forgery), Mr. Floyd remarks in his new report that "the testimony, particularly in regard to the corn crops, DEMANDS A MUCH HIGHER ALLOWANCE than any heretofore made by the Auditor or myself." So he estimates the crop at sixty bushels to the acre (double what Florida acres produce), and then virtuously allows pay for only half the crop, but allows two dollars and a half a bushel for that half, when there are rusty old books and documents in the Congressional library to show just what the Fisher testimony showed before the forgery--viz., that in the fall of 1813 corn was only worth from $1.25 to $1.50 a bushel. Having accomplished this, what does Mr. Floyd do next? Mr. Floyd ("with an earnest desire to execute truly the legislative will," as he piously remarks) goes to work and makes out an entirely new bill of Fisher damages, and in this new bill he placidly ignores the Indians altogether puts no particle of the destruction of the Fisher property upon them, but, even repenting him of charging them with burning the cabins and drinking the whisky and breaking the crockery, lays the entire damage at the door of the imbecile United States troops down to the very last item! And not only that, but uses the forgery to double the loss of corn at "Bassett's Creek," and uses it again to absolutely treble the loss of corn on the "Alabama River." This new and ably conceived and executed bill of Mr. Floyd's figures up as follows (I copy again from the printed United States Senate document):
The United States in account with the legal representatives of George Fisher, deceased. DOL.C 1813.--To 550 head of cattle, at 10 dollars, ............. 5,500.00 To 86 head of drove hogs, ......................... 1,204.00 To 350 head of stock hogs, ........................ 1,750.00 To 100 ACRES OF CORN ON BASSETT'S CREEK, .......... 6,000.00 To 8 barrels of whisky, ........................... 350.00 To 2 barrels of brandy, ........................... 280.00 To 1 barrel of rum, ............................... 70.00 To dry-goods and merchandise in store, ............ 1,100.00 To 35 acres of wheat, ............................. 350.00 To 2,000 hides, ................................... 4,000.00 To furs and hats in store, ........................ 600.00 To crockery ware in store, ........................ 100.00 To smith's and carpenter's tools, ................. 250.00 To houses burned and destroyed, ................... 600.00 To 4 dozen bottles of wine, ....................... 48.00 1814.--To 120 acres of corn on Alabama River, ............ 9,500.00 To crops of peas, fodder, etc. .................... 3,250.00
Total, ..........................34,952.00
To interest on $22,202, from July 1813 to November 1860, 47 years and 4 months, .......63,053.68 To interest on $12,750, from September 1814 to November 1860, 46 years and 2 months, ..35,317.50
Total, ........................ 133,323.18
He puts everything in this time. He does not even allow that the Indians destroyed the crockery or drank the four dozen bottles of (currant) wine. When it came to supernatural comprehensiveness in "gobbling," John B. Floyd was without his equal, in his own or any other generation. Subtracting from the above total the $67,000 already paid to George Fisher's implacable heirs, Mr. Floyd announced that the government was still indebted to them in the sum of sixty-six thousand five hundred and nineteen dollars and eighty-five cents, "which," Mr.