The circumstance of the complaints against the Chinese, which it was the purpose of the convention to adjust, having arisen in a peculiar region and among a singular people, probably suggested the appointment of Commissioners resident on the spot, who were familiar with the scene of their duties. It is understood, therefore, that, upon the recommendation of Mr. Reed, the Minister who concluded the convention, Mr. Charles W. Bradley, who was United States Consul at Ning-po, and Mr. Oliver E. Roberts, who had acted in a similar capacity elsewhere in China, and both of whom had long resided in that country, were appointed Commissioners. The business-like manner in which they discharged their trust is manifest from the records of the Commission. With regard to the disposition of the surplus in question, three methods suggest themselves. 1. The refunding of the whole amount to the Chinese. 2. Appropriating the whole or a part of it in payment of claims supposed to have been unjustly rejected by the Commissioners, and of others in which the amounts allowed may not have been satisfactory to the claimants. 3. Retaining the whole surplus in the Treasury of the United States, or causing it to be invested toward indemnifying citizens who may hereafter be injured by the Chinese authorities. I will abstain from any remarks on the first head. There is but one claim, that of Messrs. Nott & Co., disallowed by the Commissioners,--in which case application has been made for a part of the surplus referred to. The claimants allege that their agents in China were too far from Macao, the place where the Commissioners met, to allow them to appeal to the Minister in season. The Committee will be enabled to judge of the sufficiency of this reason for considering the claim in that case an open one. The award in the Caldera case is the only one complained of as having been inadequate. As all the facts and arguments in the case are embraced in the accompanying papers, the Committee can form their own opinion upon this point. The Minister who concluded the convention pursued a judicious course in requiring from the Chinese a sum in gross adequate to meet the sums claimed in the several cases. This, however, can hardly be allowed to imply, that, even in his opinion, the claimants in those cases ought to receive the amounts which severally they might expect. Congress made it the duty of the Commissioners, by an investigation judicial in its character, to ascertain the amounts justly due; and if the claimants should be dissatisfied with the decisions of the Commissioners, an appeal to the Minister was allowed, whose decision was expected to be final.