Mr. SAWYER said he was, as he always had been, willing to contribute his mite to the relief of the sufferers; but he did not wish to see them remunerated from the public treasury. Mr. LYON.--I have for some time been in suspense whether I ought, or ought not to make any observations on the subject before the House; delicacy on the one hand bids me be silent, while a duty I owe to myself, to my family, and to the nation, requires (that since my particular case has been alluded to) the members of this House and the public should be made acquainted with many of the circumstances of that case, which have either never come to their knowledge, or have long been buried up among the consumed heap of political occurrences, disputations and publications of these days. Besides, sir, I have it in my power to throw much light on the subject of the inquiry wished for, by the gentleman from North Carolina, (Mr. SAWYER,) who has proposed the amendment under consideration, and I will assure the gentleman that I shall not be backward in doing so. It is true, sir, that I was unjustly condemned to pay a fine of one thousand dollars and to suffer an ignominious imprisonment of four months in a loathsome dungeon--the common receptacle of felons, runaway negroes, or the vilest malefactors--and this when I was the Representative of the people of Vermont in this House of Congress. It cannot be said there was no other room in the prison, there were rooms enough; yes, sir, one of my judges during my imprisonment, found another room in the same jail to be imprisoned for debt in, until he gave bonds for the liberty of the yard. To heighten the picture exhibited by official tyranny, and to add to the cruel vexation of this transaction, I was carried out of the county in which I lived, fifty miles from my family, kept six weeks without fire in the months of October and November, nearly the whole of which time the northwest wind had free admittance into the dungeon, through the same aperture that admitted the light of heaven into that dreary cell. And let it be asked, in these days of the mild reign of republicanism, for what crime was all this extraordinary, this ignominious punishment inflicted?