1. On Saturday, 8 July, a committee was appointed in the House of Representatives to “prepare and report articles of impeachment against William Blount,” a senator from Tennessee, for high crimes and misdemeanors. The committee, composed of Samuel Sitgreaves, Abraham Baldwin, John Dawson, Samuel W. Dana, and Robert Goodloe Harper, was authorized to “send for persons, papers, and records, … sit during the recess of Congress,” and investigate “the whole nature and extent of the offence whereof the said William Blount stands impeached, and who are the parties and associates therein.” Blount, who had been involved in a conspiracy to aid a joint Indian and British attack on Spanish possessions in North America, was expelled from the Senate on 8 July 1797 (Annals of Congress description begins Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States … (42 vols.; Washington, 1834–56). description ends , 5th Cong., 1st sess., 43–44, 463–66; Masterson, William Blount, pp. 301–23).