CHAP. XX.- An Act giving pensions to the orphans and widows of persons slain in the public or private armed vessels of the United States. (a)
| Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That if any officer, seaman or marine serving on board of any private armed ship or vessel bearing a commission of letter of marque, shall die, or shall have died since the eighteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twelve, by reason of a wound received in the line of his duty, leaving a widow, or if no widow, a child or children under sixteen years of age, such widow, or if no widow, such child or children shall be placed on the pension list by the Secretary of the Navy, who shall allow to such widow, child or children, half the monthly pension to which the rank of the deceased would have entitled him for the highest rate of disability, under “An act regulating pensions to persons on board private armed ships;” which allowance shall continue for the term of five years; but in case of the death or intermarriage of such widow before the expiration of the term of five years, the half-pay for the remainder of the term shall go to the child or children of the deceased: Provided, That the half-pay shall cease on the death of such child or children. And the several pensions hereby directed shall be paid by direction of the Secretary of the Navy out of the fund provided by the seventeenth section of an act, entitled “An act concerning letters of marque, prizes and prize goods,” and from no other.
SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That if any seaman or marine belonging to the navy of the United States shall die, or if any officer, seaman or marine belonging to the navy of the United States, shall have died, since the eighteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twelve, by reason of a wound received in the line of his duty, leaving a widow, or if no widow, a child or children under sixteen years of age, such widow, or if no widow, such child or children shall be entitled to receive half the monthly pay to which the deceased was entitled at the time of his death, which allowance shall continue for the term of five years; but in case of the death or intermarriage of such widow before the expiration of the said term of five years, the half-pay for the remainder of the term shall go to the child or children of the deceased: Provided, That such half-pay shall cease on the death of such child or children. And the money required for this purpose shall be paid out of the navy pension fund under the direction of the commissioners of that fund. APPROVED, March 4, 1814. |