The Sun.
London, England, 1852-10-07 00:00:00

7 MERCHANT SEAMEN PE.NSIONERS;
The following circular has lately been issued from
the War-office, addressed to the staff officers of pen-
sioners :
" In order to insure uniformity in the applications
made to this office by persons who arc anxious to com-
mute their pensions from the Merchant Seamen's
Fund for the purpose of emigrating, I am directed to
annex a form, according to which all such applica-
tions are in future to be made, and to request that
you will satisfy yourself as to the correctness of the
several points there referred to before forwarding the
application to this office.
" No payment is, however, to be made on account
of such commutation till you ascertain that it has
been sanctioned, and that the parties applying for it
have engaged their passage. When the transaction
has been completed, the form containing the receipt
is to be annexed as a voucher to your pay list.-
" You. will refer all applicants for pension, or in-
crease of pension, to the trustees or receiver of the
port on which they conceive they have a claim, as' this
isa matter quite beyond your province to interfere
with.

" If any seaman or master whose pension has beets
suspended in consequence of his going to sea should
apply for payment on his return, you will call upon
him for a certificate from the owner or captain of the
vessel in which he has been serving, specifying the
dates of his entry and discharge, and the nature of
his employment on board ; also a certificate from
a medical practitioner, showing the present state
of his health. This, together with a statement
of his age, and any observations you may
have to offer on the case, particularly as to
his apparent capacity to earn a livelihood, you will
forwar&l .
o this office, in order that may be sub-
mitted to the Board of Trade for their decision, and
till that decision has been communicated to you, you
will of course make no payment.
" To prevent complexity of accounting, the Com-
missioners of the Board of Trade have authorised
that, in all cases in which pensions from the Merchant
Seamen's Fund terminate, by widows re-marrying, or
children attaining the age of 14, or by commutation,
they may, as in the case of deatb, be paid for the whole
quarter, without reference to the exact period of the
quarter in which such contingency took place.
" Should you have any reason to suppose that the
pensions of the children are included with that of
their mothers, it will be necessary for you to apply to
this office for information to separate them. But
such applications are not to be forwarded after the
Ist of January next, by which time the whole of the
pensioners will be under the control of this depart-
ment.

"If, though the pensions be stated separately, the
ages of the children be not given, or you have from
their appearance reason to believe that they have stated
incorrectly, no pension is to be issued till a certificate
of birth has been obtained ; and the usual charge for
such certificate will be admitted in your contingent
account.

" After the children have been seen by you at the
first identification, it will be unnecessary for you to
see them oftener than once a year, provided their
mothers attend to receive payments for them ; but
they must be cautioned that any false statement as
to these children being in existence will certainly
involve the loss of their own pensions, besides the
ordinary penalty of such a fraud ; and the certified
period of each child's death is always to be compared
with the latest date up to which the pension is drawn,
in order to check any fraud of this description.
" In case of the death of any pensioner it will be un-
necessary for you to put the public to the expense of re-
gistrar's or burial certificates. The certificate of any
two respectable parties who knew the deceased, and
can vouch for the fact, will be sufficient ; but when-
ever the death is alleged to have taken place within
a week of the commencement of the quarter, a regis-
trar's or burial certficate must lae obtained, to estab-
lish beyond a doubt that the pensioner survived till
the commencement of the quarter. The cost of such
certificate may be charged in your contingent ac-
count.

" If any information be required on minor points
connected with the indentification or first payment of
the pensioners, you may apply direct to the secretary,
to the trustees, or the receiver of the fund at the port
where the pensioners have hitherto been paid ; but,
thereafter, all communications must be sent to the
War-office, together with the pensioner's name,
number, rate of pension, and port from which pen-
sioned, without which information they cannot be
traced in the books of this department."