In view of these facts, provided Great Britain was willing, Cuffe asked permission to take a ship to Sierra Leone to "transport such persons and families ... also some articles of provision, together with implements of husbandry, and machinery for some mechanic arts, and to bring back such of the native productions of that country as may be wanted." The trifling commerce, he hoped, would lighten the expense of the voyage. Congressman Laban Wheaton of Massachusetts presented this memorial to the House of Representatives on January 7, 1814. Four days later the _National Intelligencer_ at the request of subscribers published it. The memorial was referred to the Committee on Commerce and Manufacturing by the Speaker of the House. Interest in Cuffe's request now shifts to the Senate where a measure was passed authorizing the President of the United States to permit Paul Cuffe to depart from the United States with a vessel and cargo for Africa and similarly to return. The House was informed of this action on the twenty-seventh of January and four days later read the Senate bill twice and referred it to the Committee on Commerce and Manufacturing. This committee reported that since the government had been compelled to prohibit the coasting trade, it would be impolitic to relax the provisions on the "application of an individual, for a purpose, which, how benevolently soever conceived, cannot be considered in any other light than as speculative--the efforts heretofore made and directed by the zeal and intelligence of the Sierra Leone Company having failed to accomplish the object designed by its institution."[36] This report was referred to the Committee of the Whole House and debated on the nineteenth of March. The representatives who wished to grant Cuffe's request agreed that the Senate bill would be an invitation to free blacks to emigrate to Africa. This part of the population they said could well be spared. The opponents of Cuffe's request doubted the expediency of permitting to go out a cargo which must necessarily sail under British license. Such a license would be granted, they argued, only if advantageous to the enemy. The House by a vote of 72 to 65 rejected the Senate measure and Cuffe's request was denied.