Special Message

To the Senate:

I nominate William P. Zantzinger, of Pennsylvania, to be a purser in the Navy of the United States.

In submitting the above nomination it is deemed proper to give some detail of the peculiar circumstances of the case. Mr. Zantzinger was formerly a purser, and after a trial by a court-martial in January, 1830, was dismissed from the naval service. The record is inclosed, marked A. In July, 1830, verbally, afterwards in writing early in 1831, he applied for restoration to his former situation and date on the assumed ground that the proceedings in his trial were illegal and void, and he fortified himself by the many numerous certificates and opinions herewith forwarded, marked B.

These have been carefully examined, and though failing to convince me of the correctness of his position in respect to the nullity of those proceedings, I am satisfied that under all the circumstances of the case a mitigation of his sentence can be justified on both public and personal grounds.

With the loss of his former date and of his pay since his dismission, I have therefore submitted his nomination to take effect like an original entry into the service, only from its confirmation by the Senate. There is now one vacancy in the corps of pursers.

ANDREW JACKSON