Chapter 18

Thomas Jefferson

MARTHA JEFFERSON RANDOLPH, the elder of the President's two daughters, presided at the White House whenever possible during her father's administrations, his wife having died nineteen years before his election. The White House, however, during his terms was practically without a mistress, although at times Mrs. Madison acted also in that capacity. Mrs. Randolph was eminently fitted for such a sphere, but was able to assume its duties only twice. Having received the advantages of foreign education and travel, and of the continual association with men of letters, she was a most brilliant woman, and had her tastes been less domestic she would have shone in society. She gave her father unremitting care when, after his retirement from public life, he settled at his estate, Monticello, where two years after his death her husband also passed away. Monticello was then sold, and the remaining eight years of her life were spent among her children.

JEFFERSON

Thomas Jefferson still lives. The honors heaped upon him by the people were but their gifts to their benefactor, the insignia of his labors, his burdens and his cares. How paltry seems that long catalogue of official designations compared with what he was himself    a man God-gifted and God-armed for the battle of right against wrong    compared to what he did for the people, his, gifts to them. There is not a heart that loves humanity and thrills with noble rage for right and truth and justice; there is not a people on earth who are weary and heavy laden under the burden of oppression; there is not a chancellor who loves equity; there is not a devotee who bows his head in free worship to his Maker; there is not an ingenuous student by the midnight lamp; there is not a toiler by land or sea; yea, there is not an astronomer who reads the stars, nor an humble farmer in his cabin, nor a freeman anywhere who treads the earth with the spirit of the free who does not bless God that Thomas Jefferson lived, and that his life goes marching on!

What did Jefferson do for the people? Rather, what did he not do? He was one of them. He loved them, trusted them, guided them; he cheered them, he comforted them, he led them. So much for generalities.

It is true, as said by the Cicero of Massachusetts, Edward Everett, that there rests on Thomas Jefferson the imperishable renown of having framed the Declaration of Independence. But had he never penned a syllable of it he would be immortal. It is true he raised his hand against the Established Church, threw himself against the great landed proprietors and powerful party leaders and brought forth the first statute of religious freedom that adorned the history of the world. Imperishable renown with that, but without it he would have been immortal.

It is true he negotiated the purchase of Louisiana from Napoleon, gaining a kingdom for a song, securing the free navigation of the Mississippi to the countless multitudes who now throng its bank and adding the Great West and Southwest to the Union    the greatest territory ever won by man without a drop of blood. But without all this he would have been immortal. He will be remembered as the most accomplished man America has ever produced.

Jefferson's mind was practical and of the kind which turns things to account. He loved the mathematics, and no superstition could ever lead him from the rock-bed notion that two and two make four, world without end. He was as precise in detail as he was broad and accurate in generalization. His mind was like an elephant's trunk in that it could pick up a pin or knock down a lion. When he was President he went regularly to market, and in his journal he kept a record of the date of the appearance of spring fruits and vegetables. The stately dome of the University of Virginia and the classic lines of the mansion at Monticello bespeak the classic mind that reproduced them.

He founded the Patent Office of the United States, but do you know that he was himself an inventor? While in France, as minister, he wrote his admirable notes on Virginia, and with the Revolution fermenting about him, he invented a hillside plow which won him a medal from the "Royal Agricultural Society" of the Seine. He was also the inventor of the modern revolving office chair. The rice grown in the Southern States to-day is from grain which Jefferson hid in his pockets while in Italy, and distributed ten grains at a time to the farmers on his return. His influence is felt to-day when any important questions are up for discussion.

He was a child of nature, this glorious Jefferson, and with all his wisdom and all his culture he was on the people's side of all questions. An honest son of Mother Earth; a man with a man's faults, but no Pharisee. He had fewer faults and lesser faults than most, and noble and God-like virtues.

He was strong in all courage; yea, in civic courage, the rarest of all forms of bravery. This Jefferson had the quiet, patient, daring superb courage that looks public opinion in the eye, and dares confront and affront it and not flinch the encounter. When he stood for Independence they said "Rebel." When he stood for justice they said "Communist." When he stood for religious freedom they cried "Infidel.' When he aroused the people against monarchy and concentrated power they said "Demagogue." But the common people heard him gladly. They knew their ears, and with one accord they said, "All Hail, Our Friend."

Dying without a penny, his very books, his land, his home were sold away from his inheritors, and fighting successfully every battle but his own, he crowned the people as victor in every battle that he won. If it is right that a man sues for, and if he does not believe that one man is born bridled and saddled, and the other booted and spurred    let him pluck a flower from this good man's life and wear it in his soul forever.

THE  AFRICAN  SLAVE TRADE

One of the considerations which induced all sections to ratify the Constitution was that under it the slave trade would cease in 1808. The trade continued, however, though men caught at it were subject to the penalties for piracy. In 1858 the crew of a vessel which, when captured, had more than 300 Africans aboard, were indicted but acquitted. The laws of the United States could not be enforced against the slave power in South Carolina. In Georgia the captain and crew of a vessel which had landed and distributed 300 Africans, were indicted, prosecuted and acquitted. Again the laws of the United States were powerless. Tiring of the inconvenience of evading the law, lax as its enforcement was, the South at last demanded the reopening of the slave trade, although it imported more slaves during each year that the trade was illegal than during any year when it was allowed. The Federal Government could enforce the Fugitive Slave Law against the sentiment of the North, because in the North Federal officers were loyal to the United States. It could not force its law hi any particular upon the South, because there its agents were loyal to their States, first, last and always.

The daguerreotype shows a portion of a captured slaver's cargo, emaciated by hunger and dysentery, and beneath the toil for which they were required.

For a discussion of this subject, see the articles entitled " African Slave Trade " and " Slavery," hi the Encyclopedic Index, and turn to the pages thereafter indicated in which occur presidential references to the matter.
 
JOHN PAUL JONES CAPTURES THE "SERAPIS."

The naval exploits of John Paul Jones, commonly known as Paul Jones, the first man to raise the Stars and Stripes on an American battleship, are among the noblest exploits of the War of Independence. In 1778, he captured the English man-of-war, "Drake," in a naval engagement off the coast of Ireland, and Congress rewarded him in 1779 by making him commander of a fleet of five vessels, of which the flagship was the redoubtable "Bonhomme Richard." On September 23, 1779, Jones encountered near the mouth of the Humber a merchant fleet of about forty English vessels, convoyed by the "Serapis," a 44-gun ship, and another English man-of-war. Night fell upon the scene while the "Bonhomme Richard" and the "Serapis" were maneuvering for position, and it was not until seven o'clock in the evening that the darkness was dissipated by the streaks of flame belching forth from the cannon. The two vessels finally lay so close together that their riggings became entangled, and the intrepid American tried to board his enemy, only to be repulsed. Nothing daunted, he redoubled his efforts, until both vessels were riddled with shot and on fire; and the British captain, Pearson, had to capitulate when his mainmast was shot away, and his ship was no longer manageable. Neither ship was able to keep afloat after the battle. Jones was rewarded by a vote of gratitude and a gold medal from Congress, and by a gold sword presented by the French nation. In 1905, the body of the first American commodore was removed from its Paris resting-place to a magnificent crypt in the grounds of the Naval Academy at Annapolis.

WAR WITH  THE  BARBARY PIRATES.

Few facts in recent history are more astounding than the shameful tributes which even the greatest nations of the world yielded to the pirates of the Mediterranean at the end of the eighteenth century. In 1785, these freebooters from the shores of northern Africa captured two American vessels, and in 1793, added eleven more to their list    really leading to the construction of the first American men-of-war built since the War of Independence. The United States followed the example of European countries in granting tributes of some several millions of dollars to the sea-lords of the Mediterranean; but even an annual tribute of $83,000 was not sufficient for the Pacha of Tripoli, who formally declared war against the United States in 1801. It was not until 1803, however, that the American navy meted out severe punishment to the pirates, who were glad to conclude a treaty of peace in 1804. (See Tripolitan War in Encyclopedic Index.)

March 4, 1801, to March 4, 1809

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was born at Shadwell, Albemarle County, Va., on April
2 (old style), 1743. He was the oldest son of Peter Jefferson, who died
in 1757. After attending private schools, he entered William and Mary
College in 1760. In 1767 began the practice of the law. In 1769 was
chosen to represent his county in the Virginia house of burgesses, a
station he continued to fill up to the period of the Revolution. He
married Mrs. Martha Skelton in 1772, she being a daughter of John
Wayles, an eminent lawyer of Virginia. On March 12, 1773, was chosen
a member of the first committee of correspondence established by the
Colonial legislature. Was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress
in 1775; was placed on the Committee of Five to prepare the Declaration
of Independence, and at the request of that committee he drafted the
Declaration, which, with slight amendments, was adopted July 4, 1776.
Resigned his seat in Congress and occupied one in the Virginia
legislature in October, 1776. Was elected governor of Virginia by the
legislature on June 1, 1779, to succeed Patrick Henry. Retired to
private life at the end of his term as governor, but was the same year
elected again to the legislature. Was appointed commissioner with others
to negotiate treaties with France in 1776, but declined. In 1782 he was
appointed by Congress minister plenipotentiary to act with others in
Europe in negotiating a treaty of peace with Great Britain. Was again
elected a Delegate to Congress in 1783, and as a member of that body
he advocated and had adopted the dollar as the unit and the present
system of coins and decimals. In May, 1784, was appointed minister
plenipotentiary to Europe to assist John Adams and Benjamin Franklin
in negotiating treaties of commerce. In March, 1785, was appointed by
Congress minister at the French Court to succeed Dr. Franklin, and
remained in France until September, 1789. On his arrival at Norfolk,
November 23, 1789, received a letter from Washington offering him the
appointment of Secretary of State in his Cabinet. Accepted and became
the first Secretary of State under the Constitution. December 31, 1793,
resigned his place in the Cabinet and retired to private life at his
home. In 1796 was brought forward by his friends as a candidate for
President, but Mr. Adams, receiving the highest number of votes, was
elected President, and Jefferson became Vice-President for four years
from March 4, 1797. In 1800 was again voted for by his party for
President. He and Mr. Burr received an equal number of electoral votes,
and under the Constitution the House of Representatives was called upon
to elect. Mr. Jefferson was chosen on the thirty-sixth ballot. Was
reelected in 1804, and retired finally from public life March 4, 1809.
He died on the 4th day of July, 1826, and was buried at Monticello, Va.

NOTIFICATION OF ELECTION.

Mr. Pinckney, from the committee instructed on the 18th instant to wait
on the President elect to notify him of his election, reported that the
committee had, according to order, performed that service, and addressed
the President elect in the following words, to wit:

The committee beg leave to express their wishes for the prosperity of
your Administration and their sincere desire that it may promote your
own happiness and the welfare of our country.

To which the President elect was pleased to make the following reply:

I receive, gentlemen, with profound thankfulness this testimony of
confidence from the great representative council of our nation. It fills
up the measure of that grateful satisfaction which had already been
derived from the suffrages of my fellow-citizens themselves, designating
me as one of those to whom they were willing to commit this charge, the
most important of all others to them. In deciding between the candidates
whom their equal vote presented to your choice, I am sensible that age
has been respected rather than more active and useful qualifications.

I know the difficulties of the station to which I am called, and feel
and acknowledge my incompetence to them. But whatsoever of
understanding, whatsoever of diligence, whatsoever of justice or of
affectionate concern for the happiness of man, it has pleased Providence
to place within the compass of my faculties shall be called forth for
the discharge of the duties confided to me, and for procuring to my
fellow-citizens all the benefits which our Constitution has placed under
the guardianship of the General Government.

Guided by the wisdom and patriotism of those to whom it belongs to
express the legislative will of the nation, I will give to that will
a faithful execution.

I pray you, gentlemen, to convey to the honorable body from which you
are deputed the homage of my humble acknowledgments and the sentiments
of zeal and fidelity by which I shall endeavor to merit these proofs of
confidence from the nation and its Representatives; and accept
yourselves my particular thanks for the obliging terms in which you have
been pleased to communicate their will.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 20, 1801.

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT ELECT.

The President laid before the Senate a letter from the President elect
of the United States, which was read, as follows:

WASHINGTON,  March 2, 1801 .

The PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE OF THE SENATE.

SIR: I beg leave through you to inform the honorable the Senate of the
United States that I propose to take the oath which the Constitution
prescribes to the President of the United States before he enters on the
execution of his office on Wednesday, the 4th instant, at 12 o'clock, in
the Senate Chamber.

I have the honor to be, with the greatest respect, sir, your most
obedient and most humble servant,

TH. JEFFERSON.

(The same letter was sent to the House of Representatives.)

FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

AT WASHINGTON, D.C.

 Friends and Fellow-Citizens .

Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our
country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my
fellow-citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks
for the favor with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to
declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and
that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the
greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire.
A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all
the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in
commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly
to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye  when I contemplate these
transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of
this beloved country committed to the issue and the auspices of this
day, I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the
magnitude of the undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should I despair did not
the presence of many whom I here see remind me that in the other high
authorities provided by our Constitution I shall find resources of
wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under all difficulties.
To you, then, gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign functions of
legislation, and to those associated with you, I look with encouragement
for that guidance and support which may enable us to steer with safety
the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the conflicting elements
of a troubled world.

During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation
of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might
impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write
what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation,
announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of
course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in
common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this
sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases
to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the
minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and
to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite
with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that
harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but
dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land
that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and
suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political
intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody
persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world,
during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and
slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation
of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that
this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and
should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of
opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different
names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all
Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this
Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as
monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated
where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest
men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this
Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the
full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so
far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this
Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to
preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the
strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only one where every
man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and
would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern.
Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of
himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have
we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer
this question.

Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and
Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative
government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the
exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to
endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with
room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth
generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of
our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and
confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from
our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion,
professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them
inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man;
acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its
dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and
his greater happiness hereafter  with all these blessings, what more is
necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing
more, fellow-citizens  a wise and frugal Government, which shall
restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free
to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall
not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the
sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our
felicities.

About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which
comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should
understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and
consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will
compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the
general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice
to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political;
peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling
alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their
rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns
and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the
preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional
vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a
jealous care of the right of election by the people  a mild and safe
corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where
peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the
decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which
is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of
despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and
for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; the
supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the
public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment
of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement
of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of
information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public
reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person
under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries
impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation
which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of
revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our
heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed
of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by
which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from
them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps
and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.

I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you have assigned me. With
experience enough in subordinate offices to have seen the difficulties
of this the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect that it will rarely
fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the
reputation and the favor which bring him into it. Without pretensions to
that high confidence you reposed in our first and greatest revolutionary
character, whose preeminent services had entitled him to the first place
in his country's love and destined for him the fairest page in the
volume of faithful history, I ask so much confidence only as may give
firmness and effect to the legal administration of your affairs. I shall
often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be
thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the
whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never
be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may
condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts. The approbation
implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me for the past, and
my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those who
have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing them
all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and
freedom of all.

Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with
obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become
sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make. And may
that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our
councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace
and prosperity.

MARCH 4, 1801.

PROCLAMATION.

 (From the National Intelligencer, March 13, 1801.)

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Whereas by the first article of the terms and conditions declared by the
President of the United States on the iyth day of October, 1791, for
regulating the materials and manner of buildings and improvements on the
lots in the city of Washington, it is provided "that the outer and party
walls of all houses in the said city shall be built of brick or stone;"
and by the third article of the same terms and conditions it is declared
"that the wall of no house shall be higher than 40 feet to the roof in
any part of the city, nor shall any be lower than 35 feet in any of the
avenues;" and

Whereas the above-recited articles were found to impede the settlement
in the city of mechanics and others whose circumstances did not admit of
erecting houses authorized by the said regulations, for which cause the
President of the United States, by a writing under his hand, bearing
date the 25th day of June, 1796, suspended the operation of the said
articles until the first Monday of December, 1800, and the beneficial
effects arising from such suspension having been experienced, it is
deemed proper to revive the same:

Wherefore I, Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, do
declare that the operation of the first and third articles above recited
shall be, and the same is hereby, suspended until the ist day of
January, 1802, and that all the houses which shall be erected in the
said city of Washington previous to the said 1st day of January, 1802,
conformable in other respects to the regulations aforesaid, shall be
considered as lawfully erected, except that no wooden house shall be
erected within 24 feet of any brick or stone house.

Given under my hand this 11th day of March, 1801.

TH. JEFFERSON.

In communicating his first message to Congress, President Jefferson
addressed the following letter to the presiding officer of each branch
of the National Legislature:

DECEMBER 8, 1801.

The Honorable the PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE.

SIR: The circumstances under which we find ourselves at this place
rendering inconvenient the mode heretofore practiced of making by
personal address the first communications between the legislative and
executive branches, I have adopted that by message, as used on all
subsequent occasions through the session. In doing this I have had
principal regard to the convenience of the Legislature, to the economy
of their time, to their relief from the embarrassment of immediate
answers on subjects not yet fully before them, and to the benefits
thence resulting to the public affairs. Trusting that a procedure
founded in these motives will meet their approbation, I beg leave
through you, sir, to communicate the inclosed message, with the
documents accompanying it, to the honorable the Senate, and pray you
to accept for yourself and them the homage of my high respect and
consideration.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE.

DECEMBER 8, 1801.

 Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives :

It is a circumstance of sincere gratification to me that on meeting the
great council of our nation I am able to announce to them on grounds of
reasonable certainty that the wars and troubles which have for so many
years afflicted our sister nations have at length come to an end, and
that the communications of peace and commerce are once more opening
among them. Whilst we devoutly return thanks to the beneficent Being who
has been pleased to breathe into them the spirit of conciliation and
forgiveness, we are bound with peculiar gratitude to be thankful to Him
that our own peace has been preserved through so perilous a season, and
ourselves permitted quietly to cultivate the earth and to practice and
improve those arts which tend to increase our comforts. The assurances,
indeed, of friendly disposition received from all the powers with whom
we have principal relations had inspired a confidence that our peace
with them would not have been disturbed. But a cessation of
irregularities which had affected the commerce of neutral nations and of
the irritations and injuries produced by them can not but add to this
confidence, and strengthens at the same time the hope that wrongs
committed on unoffending friends under a pressure of circumstances will
now be reviewed with candor, and will be considered as founding just
claims of retribution for the past and new assurance for the future.

Among our Indian neighbors also a spirit of peace and friendship
generally prevails, and I am happy to inform yon that the continued
efforts to introduce among them the implements and the practice of
husbandry and of the household arts have not been without success; that
they are becoming more and more sensible of the superiority of this
dependence for clothing and subsistence over the precarious resources of
hunting and fishing, and already we are able to announce that instead of
that constant diminution of their numbers produced by their wars and
their wants, some of them begin to experience an increase of population.

To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only
exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States,
had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact,
and had permitted itself to denounce war on our failure to comply before
a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a
small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean, with assurances to
that power of our sincere desire to remain in peace, but with orders to
protect our commerce against the threatened attack. The measure was
seasonable and salutary. The Bey had already declared war. His cruisers
were out. Two had arrived at Gibraltar.

Our commerce in the Mediterranean was blockaded and that of the Atlantic
in peril. The arrival of our squadron dispelled the danger. One of the
Tripolitan cruisers having fallen in with and engaged the small schooner
 Enterprise , commanded by Lieutenant Sterret, which had gone as a
tender to our larger vessels, was captured, after a heavy slaughter of
her men, without the loss of a single one on our part. The bravery
exhibited by our citizens on that element will, I trust, be a testimony
to the world that it is not the want of that virtue which makes us seek
their peace, but a conscientious desire to direct the energies of our
nation to the multiplication of the human race, and not to its
destruction. Unauthorized by the Constitution, without the sanction of
Congress, to go beyond the line of defense, the vessel, being disabled
from committing further hostilities, was liberated with its crew. The
Legislature will doubtless consider whether, by authorizing measures of
offense also, they will place our force on an equal footing with that of
its adversaries. I communicate all material information on this subject,
that in the exercise of this important function confided by the
Constitution to the Legislature exclusively their judgment may form
itself on a knowledge and consideration of every circumstance of weight.

I wish I could say that our situation with all the other Barbary States
was entirely satisfactory. Discovering that some delays had taken place
in the performance of certain articles stipulated by us, I thought it my
duty, by immediate measures for fulfilling them, to vindicate to
ourselves the right of considering the effect of departure from
stipulation on their side. From the papers which will be laid before you
you will be enabled to judge whether our treaties are regarded by them
as fixing at all the measure of their demands or as guarding from the
exercise of force our vessels within their power, and to consider how
far it will be safe and expedient to leave our affairs with them in
their present posture.

I lay before you the result of the census lately taken of our
inhabitants, to a conformity with which we are now to reduce the ensuing
ratio of representation and taxation. You will perceive that the
increase of numbers during the last ten years, proceeding in geometrical
ratio, promises a duplication in little more than twenty-two years. We
contemplate this rapid growth and the prospect it holds up to us, not
with a view to the injuries it may enable us to do others in some future
day, but to the settlement of the extensive country still remaining
vacant within our limits to the multiplication of men susceptible of
happiness, educated in the love of order, habituated to self-government,
and valuing its blessings above all price.

Other circumstances, combined with the increase of numbers, have
produced an augmentation of revenue arising from consumption in a ratio
far beyond that of population alone; and though the changes in foreign
relations now taking place so desirably for the whole world may for a
season affect this branch of revenue, yet weighing all probabilities of
expense as well as of income, there is reasonable ground of confidence
that we may now safely dispense with all the internal taxes,
comprehending excise, stamps, auctions, licenses, carriages, and refined
sugars, to which the postage on newspapers may be added to facilitate
the progress of information, and that the remaining sources of revenue
will be sufficient to provide for the support of Government, to pay the
interest of the public debts, and to discharge the principals within
shorter periods than the laws or the general expectation had
contemplated. War, indeed, and untoward events may change this prospect
of things and call for expenses which the imposts could not meet; but
sound principles will not justify our taxing the industry of our
fellow-citizens to accumulate treasure for wars to happen we know not
when, and which might not, perhaps, happen but from the temptations
offered by that treasure.

These views, however, of reducing our burthens are formed on the
expectation that a sensible and at the same time a salutary reduction
may take place in our habitual expenditures. For this purpose those of
the civil Government, the Army, and Navy will need revisal.

When we consider that this Government is charged with the external, and
mutual relations only of these States; that the States themselves have
principal care of our persons, our property, and our reputation,
constituting the great field of human concerns, we may well doubt
whether our organization is not too complicated, too expensive; whether
offices and officers have not been multiplied unnecessarily and
sometimes injuriously to the service they were meant to promote. I will
cause to be laid before you an essay toward a statement of those who,
under public employment of various kinds, draw money from the Treasury
or from our citizens. Time has not permitted a perfect enumeration, the
ramifications of office being too multiplied and remote to be completely
traced in a first trial. Among those who are dependent on Executive
discretion I have begun the reduction of what was deemed unnecessary.
The expenses of diplomatic agency have been considerably diminished. The
inspectors of internal revenue who were found to obstruct the
accountability of the institution have been discontinued. Several
agencies created by Executive authority, on salaries fixed by that also,
have been suppressed, and should suggest the expediency of regulating
that power by law, so as to subject its exercises to legislative
inspection and sanction. Other reformations of the same kind will be
pursued with that caution which is requisite in removing useless things,
not to injure what is retained. But the great mass of public offices is
established by law, and therefore by law alone can be abolished. Should
the Legislature think it expedient to pass this roll in review and try
all its parts by the test of public utility, they may be assured of
every aid and light which Executive information can yield. Considering
the general tendency to multiply offices and dependencies and to
increase expense to the ultimate term of burthen which the citizen can
bear, it behooves us to avail ourselves of every occasion which presents
itself for taking off the surcharge, that it never may be seen here that
after leaving to labor the smallest portion of its earnings on which it
can subsist, Government shall itself consume the whole residue of what
it was instituted to guard.

In our care, too, of the public contributions intrusted to our direction
it would be prudent to multiply barriers against their dissipation by
appropriating specific sums to every specific purpose susceptible of
definition; by disallowing all applications of money varying from the
appropriation in object or transcending it in amount; by reducing the
undefined field of contingencies and thereby circumscribing
discretionary powers over money, and by bringing back to a single
department all accountabilities for money, where the examinations may be
prompt, efficacious, and uniform.

An account of the receipts and expenditures of the last year, as
prepared by the Secretary of the Treasury, will, as usual, be laid
before you. The success which has attended the late sales of the public
lands shews that with attention they may be made an important source of
receipt. Among the payments those made in discharge of the principal and
interest of the national debt will shew that the public faith has been
exactly maintained. To these will be added an estimate of appropriations
necessary for the ensuing year. This last will, of course, be affected
by such modifications of the system of expense as you shall think proper
to adopt.

A statement has been formed by the Secretary of War, on mature
consideration, of all the posts and stations where garrisons will be
expedient and of the number of men requisite for each garrison. The
whole amount is considerably short of the present military
establishment. For the surplus no particular use can be pointed out. For
defense against invasion their number is as nothing, nor is it conceived
needful or safe that a standing army should be kept up in time of peace
for that purpose. Uncertain as we must ever be of the particular point
in our circumference where an enemy may choose to invade us, the only
force which can be ready at every point and competent to oppose them is
the body of neighboring citizens as formed into a militia. On these,
collected from the parts most convenient in numbers proportioned to the
invading force, it is best to rely not only to meet the first attack,
but if it threatens to be permanent to maintain the defense until
regulars may be engaged to relieve them. These considerations render it
important that we should at every session continue to amend the defects
which from time to time shew themselves in the laws for regulating the
militia until they are sufficiently perfect. Nor should we now or at any
time separate until we can say we have done everything for the militia
which we could do were an enemy at our door.

The provision of military stores on hand will be laid before you, that
you may judge of the additions still requisite.

With respect to the extent to which our naval preparations should be
carried some difference of opinion may be expected to appear, but just
attention to the circumstances of every part of the Union will doubtless
reconcile all. A small force will probably continue to be wanted for
actual service in the Mediterranean. Whatever annual sum beyond that you
may think proper to appropriate to naval preparations would perhaps be
better employed in providing those articles which may be kept without
waste or consumption, and be in readiness when any exigence calls them
into use. Progress has been made, as will appear by papers now
communicated, in providing materials for 74-gun ships as directed by
law.

How far the authority given by the Legislature for procuring and
establishing sites for naval purposes has been perfectly understood and
pursued in the execution admits of some doubt. A statement of the
expenses already incurred on that subject is now laid before you. I have
in certain cases suspended or slackened these expenditures, that the
Legislature might determine whether so many yards are necessary as have
been contemplated. The works at this place are among those permitted to
go on, and five of the seven frigates directed to be laid up have been
brought and laid up here, where, besides the safety of their position,
they are under the eye of the Executive Administration, as well as of
its agents, and where yourselves also will be guided by your own view in
the legislative provisions respecting them which may from time to time
be necessary. They are preserved in such condition, as well the vessels
as whatever belongs to them, as to be at all times ready for sea on a
short warning. Two others are yet to be laid up so soon as they shall
have received the repairs requisite to put them also into sound
condition. As a superintending officer will be necessary at each yard,
his duties and emoluments, hitherto fixed by the Executive, will be a
more proper subject for legislation. A communication will also be made
of our progress in the execution of the law respecting the vessels
directed to be sold.

The fortifications of our harbors, more or less advanced, present
considerations of great difficulty. While some of them are on a scale
sufficiently proportioned to the advantages of their position, to the
efficacy of their protection, and the importance of the points within
it, others are so extensive, will cost so much in their first erection,
so much in their maintenance, and require such a force to garrison them
as to make it questionable what is best now to be done. A statement of
those commenced or projected, of the expenses already incurred, and
estimates of their future cost, as far as can be foreseen, shall be laid
before you, that you may be enabled to judge whether any alteration is
necessary in the laws respecting this subject.

Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of
our prosperity, are then most thriving when left most free to individual
enterprise. Protection from casual embarrassments, however, may
sometimes be seasonably interposed. If in the course of your
observations or inquiries they should appear to need any aid within the
limits of our constitutional powers, your sense of their importance is a
sufficient assurance they will occupy your attention. We can not,
indeed, but all feel an anxious solicitude for the difficulties under
which our carrying trade will soon be placed. How far it can be
relieved, otherwise than by time, is a subject of important
consideration.

The judiciary system of the United States, and especially that portion
of it recently erected, will of course present itself to the
contemplation of Congress, and, that they may be able to judge of the
proportion which the institution bears to the business it has to
perform, I have caused to be procured from the several States and now
lay before Congress an exact statement of all the causes decided since
the first establishment of the courts, and of those which were depending
when additional courts and judges were brought in to their aid.

And while on the judiciary organization it will be worthy your
consideration whether the protection of the inestimable institution of
juries has been extended to all the cases involving the security of our
persons and property. Their impartial selection also being essential to
their value, we ought further to consider whether that is sufficiently
secured in those States where they are named by a marshal depending on
Executive will or designated by the court or by officers dependent on
them.

I can not omit recommending a revisal of the laws on the subject of
naturalization. Considering the ordinary chances of human life, a denial
of citizenship under a residence of fourteen years is a denial to a
great proportion of those who ask it, and controls a policy pursued from
their first settlement by many of these States, and still believed of
consequence to their prosperity; and shall we refuse to the unhappy
fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the
wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall
oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe? The Constitution indeed
has wisely provided that for admission to certain offices of important
trust a residence shall be required sufficient to develop character and
design. But might not the general character and capabilities of a
citizen be safely communicated to everyone manifesting a bona fide
purpose of embarking his life and fortunes permanently with us, with
restrictions, perhaps, to guard against the fraudulent usurpation of our
flag, an abuse which brings so much embarrassment and loss on the
genuine citizen and so much danger to the nation of being involved in
war that no endeavor should be spared to detect and suppress it?

These, fellow-citizens, are the matters respecting the state of the
nation which I have thought of importance to be submitted to your
consideration at this time. Some others of less moment or not yet ready
for communication will be the subject of separate messages. I am happy
in this opportunity of committing the arduous affairs of our Government
to the collected wisdom of the Union. Nothing shall be wanting on my
part to inform as far as in my power the legislative judgment, nor to
carry that judgment into faithful execution. The prudence and temperance
of your discussions will promote within your own walls that conciliation
which so much befriends rational conclusion, and by its example will
encourage among our constituents that progress of opinion which is
tending to unite them in object and in will. That all should be
satisfied with any one order of things is not to be expected; but I
indulge the pleasing persuasion that the great body of our citizens will
cordially concur in honest and disinterested efforts which have for
their object to preserve the General and State Governments in their
constitutional form and equilibrium; to maintain peace abroad, and order
and obedience to the laws at home; to establish principles and practices
of administration favorable to the security of liberty and property, and
to reduce expenses to what is necessary for the useful purposes of
Government.

TH. JEFFERSON.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

DECEMBER 11, 1801.

 Gentlemen of the Senate :

Early in the last month I received the ratification by the First Consul
of France of the convention between the United States and that nation.
His ratification not being pure and simple in the ordinary form, I have
thought it my duty, in order to avoid all misconception, to ask a second
advice and consent of the Senate before I give it the last sanction by
proclaiming it to be a law of the land.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 22, 1801.

 Gentlemen of the Senate :

The States of Georgia and Tennessee being peculiarly interested in our
carrying into execution the two acts passed by Congress on the 19th of
February, 1799 (chapter 115), and 13th May, 1800 (chapter 62),
commissioners were appointed early in summer and other measures taken
for the purpose. The objects of these laws requiring meetings with the
Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks, the inclosed instructions
were prepared for the proceedings with the three first nations. Our
applications to the Cherokees failed altogether. Those to the Chickasaws
produced the treaty now laid before you for your advice and consent,
whereby we obtained permission to open a road of communication with the
Mississippi Territory. The commissioners are probably at this time in
conference with the Choctaws. Further information having been wanting
when these instructions were, formed to enable us to prepare those
respecting the Creeks, the commissioners were directed to proceed with
the others. We have now reason to believe the conferences with the
Creeks can not take place till the spring.

The journals and letters of the commissioners relating to the subject of
the treaty now inclosed accompany it.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 22, 1801.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

I now inclose sundry documents supplementary to those communicated to
you with my message at the commencement of the session. Two others of
considerable importance  the one relating to our transactions with the
Barbary Powers, the other presenting a view of the offices of the
Government  shall be communicated as soon as they can be completed.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 23, 1801.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

Another return of the census of the State of Maryland is just received
from the marshal of that State, which he desires may be substituted as
more correct than the one first returned by him and communicated by me
to Congress. This new return, with his letter, is now laid before you.

TH. JEFFERSON.

Chapter 19

JANUARY 11, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives .

I now communicate to you a memorial of the commissioners of the city of
Washington, together with a letter of later date, which, with their
memorial of January 28, 1801, will possess the Legislature fully of the
state of the public interests and of those of the city of Washington
confided to them. The moneys now due, and soon to become due, to the
State of Maryland on the loan guaranteed by the United States call for
an early attention. The lots in the city which are chargeable with the
payment of these moneys are deemed not only equal to the indemnification
of the public, but to insure a considerable surplus to the city to be
employed for its improvement, provided they are offered for sale only in
sufficient numbers to meet the existing demand. But the act of 1796
requires that they shall be positively sold in such numbers as shall be
necessary for the punctual payment of the loans. Nine thousand dollars
of interest are lately become due, $3,000 quarter yearly will continue
to become due, and $50,000, an additional loan, are reimbursable on the
1st day of November next. These sums would require sales so far beyond
the actual demand of the market that it is apprehended that the whole
property may be thereby sacrificed, the public security destroyed, and
the residuary interest of the city entirely lost. Under these
circumstances I have thought it my duty before I proceed to direct a
rigorous execution of the law to submit the subject to the consideration
of the Legislature. Whether the public interest will be better secured
in the end and that of the city saved by offering sales commensurate
only to the demand at market, and advancing from the Treasury in the
first instance what these may prove deficient, to be replaced by
subsequent sales, rests for the determination of the Legislature. If
indulgence for the funds can be admitted, they will probably form a
resource of great and permanent value; and their embarrassments have
been produced only by overstrained exertions to provide accommodations
for the Government of the Union

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 12, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate :

I now communicate to you a letter from the Secretary of State inclosing
an estimate of the expenses which appear at present necessary for
carrying into effect the convention between the United States of America
and the French Republic, which has been prepared at the request of the
House of Representatives.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 27, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

I lay before you the accounts of our Indian trading houses, as rendered
up to the 1st day of January, 1801, with a report of the Secretary of
War thereon, explaining the effects and the situation of that commerce
and the reasons in favor of its further extension. But it is believed
that the act authorizing this trade expired so long ago as the 3d of
March, 1799. Its revival, therefore, as well as its extension, is
submitted to the consideration of the Legislature.

The act regulating trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes will
also expire on the 3d day of March next. While on the subject of its
continuance it will be worthy the consideration of the Legislature
whether the provisions of the law inflicting on Indians, in certain
cases, the punishment of death by hanging might not permit its
commutation into death by military execution, the form of the punishment
in the former way being peculiarly repugnant to their ideas and
increasing the obstacles to the surrender of the criminal.

These people are becoming very sensible of the baneful effects produced
on their morals, their health, and existence by the abuse of ardent
spirits, and some of them earnestly desire a prohibition of that article
from being carried among them. The Legislature will consider whether the
effectuating that desire would not be in the spirit of benevolence and
liberality which they have hitherto practiced toward these our
neighbors, and which has had so happy an effect toward conciliating
their friendship. It has been found, too, in experience that the same
abuse gives frequent rise to incidents tending much to commit our peace
with the Indians.

It is now become necessary to run and mark the boundaries between them
and us in various parts. The law last mentioned has authorized this to
be done, but no existing appropriation meets the expense.

Certain papers explanatory of the grounds of this communication are
herewith inclosed.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 2, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

I now lay before you  

1. A return of ordnance, arms, and military stores the property of the
United States.

2. Returns of muskets and bayonets fabricated at the armories of the
United States at Springfield and Harpers Ferry, and of the expenditures
at those places; and

3. An estimate of expenditures which may be necessary for fortifications
and barracks for the present year.

Besides the permanent magazines established at Springfield, West Point,
and Harpers Ferry, it is thought one should be established in some point
convenient for the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia. Such a point will probably be found near the border of the
Carolinas, and some small provision by the Legislature preparatory to
the establishment will be necessary for the present year.

We find the United States in possession of certain iron mines and works
in the county of Berkeley and State of Virginia, purchased, as is
presumable, on the idea of establishing works for the fabrication of
cannon and other military articles by the public. Whether this method of
supplying what may be wanted will be most advisable or that of
purchasing at market where competition brings everything to its proper
level of price and quality is for the Legislature to decide, and if the
latter alternative be preferred, it will rest for their further
consideration in what way the subjects of this purchase may be best
employed or disposed of. The Attorney-General's opinion on the subject
of the title accompanies this.

There are in various parts of the United States small parcels of land
which have been purchased at different times for cantonments and other
military purposes. Several of them are in situations not likely to be
accommodated to future purposes. The loss of the records prevents a
detailed statement of these until they can be supplied by inquiry. In
the meantime, one of them, containing 88 acres, in the county of Essex,
in New Jersey, purchased in 1799 and sold the following year to
Cornelius Vermule and Andrew Codmas, though its price has been received,
can not be conveyed without authority from the Legislature.

I inclose herewith a letter from the Secretary of War on the subject of
the islands in the lakes and rivers of our northern boundary, and of
certain lands in the neighborhood of some of our military posts, on
which it may be expedient for the Legislature to make some provisions.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 16, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

I now transmit a statement of the expenses incurred by the United States
in their transactions with the Barbary Powers, and a roll of the persons
having office or employment under the United States, as was proposed in
my messages of December 7 and 22. Neither is as perfect as could have
been wished, and the latter not so much so as further time and inquiry
may enable us to make it.

The great volume of these communications and the delay it would produce
to make out a second copy will, I trust, be deemed a sufficient reason
for sending one of them to the one House, and the other to the other,
with a request that they may be interchanged for mutual information
rather than to subject both to further delay.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 18, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

In a message of the 2d instant I inclosed a letter from the Secretary of
War on the subject of certain lands in the neighborhood of our military
posts on which it might be expedient for the Legislature to make some
provisions. A letter recently received from the governor of Indiana
presents some further views of the extent to which such provision may be
needed, I therefore now transmit it for the information of Congress.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 24, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

I communicate to both Houses of Congress a report of the Secretary of
the Treasury on the subject of our marine hospitals, which appear to
require legislative attention.

As connected with the same subject, I also inclose information
respecting the situation of our seamen and boatmen frequenting the port
of New Orleans and suffering there from sickness and the want of
accommodation. There is good reason to believe their numbers greater
than stated in these papers. When we consider how great a proportion of
the territory of the United States must communicate with that port
singly, and how rapidly that territory is increasing its population and
productions, it may perhaps be thought reasonable to make hospital
provisions there of a different order from those at foreign ports
generally.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 25, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

No occasion having arisen since the last account rendered by my
predecessor of making use of any part of the moneys heretofore granted
to defray the contingent charges of the Government, I now transmit to
Congress an official statement thereof to the 31st day of December last,
when the whole unexpended balance, amounting to $20,911.80, was carried
to the credit of the surplus fund, as provided for by law, and this
account consequently becomes finally closed,

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 26, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

Some statements have been lately received of the causes decided or
depending in the courts of the Union in certain States, supplementary or
corrective of those from which was formed the general statement
accompanying my message at the opening of the session. I therefore
communicate them to Congress, with a report of the Secretary of State
noting their effect on the former statement and correcting certain
errors in it which arose partly from inexactitude in some of the returns
and partly in analyzing, adding, and transcribing them while hurried in
preparing the other voluminous papers accompanying that message.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 1, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

I transmit for the information of Congress letters recently received
from our consuls at Gibraltar and Algiers, presenting the latest view of
the state of our affairs with the Barbary Powers. The sums due to the
Government of Algiers are now fully paid up, and of the gratuity which
had been promised to that of Tunis, and was in a course of preparation,
a small portion only remains still to be finished and delivered.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 9, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate :

The governor of New York has desired that, in addition to the
negotiations with certain Indians already authorized under the
superintendence of John Taylor, further negotiations should be held with
the Oneidas and other members of the Confederacy of the Six Nations for
the purchase of lands in and for the State of New York, which they are
willing to sell, as explained in the letter from the Secretary of War
herewith sent. I have therefore thought it better to name a commissioner
to superintend the negotiations specified with the Six Nations
generally, or with any of them.

I do accordingly nominate John Taylor, of New York, to be commissioner
for the United States, to hold a convention or conventions between the
State of New York and the Confederacy of the Six Nations of Indians, or
any of the nations composing it.

This nomination, if advised and consented to by the Senate, will
comprehend and supersede that of February 1 of the same John Taylor so
far as it respected the Seneca Indians,

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 10, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate :

I now submit for the ratification of the Senate a treaty entered into
by the commissioners of the United States with the Choctaw Nation of
Indians, and I transmit therewith so much of the instructions to the
commissioners as related to the Choctaws, with the minutes of their
proceedings and the letter accompanying them.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 29, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

The Secretary of State, charged with the civil affairs of the several
Territories of the United States, has received from the marshal of
Columbia a statement of the condition, unavoidably distressing, of the
persons committed to his custody on civil or criminal process and the
urgency for some legislative provisions for their relief. There are
other important cases wherein the laws of the adjoining States under
which the Territory is placed, though adapted to the purposes of those
States, are insufficient for those of the Territory from the dissimilar
or defective organization of its authorities. The letter and statement
of the marshal and the disquieting state of the Territory generally are
now submitted to the wisdom and consideration of the Legislature.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 29, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate :

The commissioners who were appointed to carry into execution the sixth
article of the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation between the
United States and His Britannic Majesty having differed in opinion as to
the objects of that article and discontinued their proceedings, the
Executive of the United States took early measures, by instructions to
our minister at the British Court, to negotiate explanations of that
article. This mode of resolving the difficulty, however, proved
unacceptable to the British Government, which chose rather to avoid all
further discussion and expense under that article by fixing at a given
sum the amount for which the United States should be held responsible
under it. Mr. King was consequently authorized to meet this proposition,
and a settlement in this way has been effected by a convention entered
into with the British Government, and now communicated for your advice
and consent, together with the instructions and correspondence relating
to it. The greater part of these papers being originals, the return of
them is requested at the convenience of the Senate.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 30, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

The Secretary of War has prepared an estimate of expenditures for the
Army of the United States during the year 1802, conformably to the act
fixing the military peace establishment, which estimate, with his letter
accompanying and explaining it, I now transmit to both Houses of
Congress.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 31, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the House of Representatives :

According to the desire expressed in your resolution of the 23d instant,
I now transmit a report of the Secretary of State, with the letters it
refers to, shewing the proceedings which have taken place under the
resolution of Congress of the 16th of April, 1800. The term prescribed
for the execution of the resolution having elapsed before the person
appointed had sat out on the service, I did not deem it justifiable to
commence a course of expenditure after the expiration of the resolution
authorizing it. The correspondence which has taken place, having regard
to dates, will place this subject properly under the view of the House
of Representatives.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL, 8, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate :

In order to satisfy as far as it is in my power the desire expressed in
your resolution of the 6th instant, I now transmit you a letter from
John Read, agent for the United States before the board of commissioners
under the sixth article of the treaty with Great Britain, to the
Attorney-General, bearing date the 25th of April, 1801, in which he
gives a summary view of the proceedings of those commissioners and of
the principles established or insisted on by a majority of them.

Supposing it might be practicable for us to settle by negotiation with
Great Britain the principles which ought to govern the decisions under
the treaty, I caused instructions to be given to Mr. Read to analyze
the claims before the board of commissioners, to class them under the
principles on which they respectively depended, and to state the sum
depending on each principle or the amount of each description of debt.
The object of this was that we might know what principles were most
important for us to contend for and what others might be conceded
without much injury. He performed this duty, and gave in such a
statement during the last summer, but the chief clerk of the Secretary
of State's office being absent on account of sickness, and the only
person acquainted with the arrangement of the papers of the office, this
particular document can not at this time be found. Having, however,
been myself in possession of it a few days after its receipt, I then
transcribed from it for my own use the recapitulation of the amount of
each description of debt. A copy of this transcript I shall subjoin
hereto, with assurances that it is substantially correct, and with the
hope that it will give a view of the subject sufficiently precise to
fulfill the wishes of the Senate. To save them the delay of waiting till
a copy of the agent's letter could be made, I send the original, with
the request that it may be returned at the convenience of the Senate.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 15, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the House of Representatives :

I now transmit the papers desired in your resolution of the 6th
instant. Those respecting the  Berceau  will sufficiently explain
themselves. The officer charged with her repairs states in his letter,
received August 27, 1801, that he had been led by circumstances, which
he explains, to go considerably beyond his orders. In questions between
nations, who have no common umpire but reason, something must often be
yielded of mutual opinion to enable them to meet in a common point.

The allowance which had been proposed to the officers of that vessel
being represented as too small for their daily necessities, and still
more so as the means of paying before their departure debts contracted
with our citizens for subsistence, it was requested on their behalf that
the daily pay of each might be the measure of their allowance.

This being solicited and reimbursement assumed by the agent of their
nation, I deemed that the indulgence would have a propitious effect in
the moment of returning friendship. The sum of $870.83 was accordingly
furnished them for the five months of past captivity and a proportional
allowance authorized until their embarkation.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 20, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the House of Representatives :

I transmit you a report from the Secretary of State, with the
information desired by the House of Representatives, of the 8th of
January, relative to certain spoliations and other proceedings therein
referred to.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 26, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

In pursuance of the act entitled "An act supplemental to the act
entitled 'An act for an amicable settlement of limits with the State
of Georgia, and authorizing the establishment of a government in the
Mississippi Territory,'" James Madison, Secretary of State, Albert
Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, and Levi Lincoln, Attorney-General
of the United States, were appointed commissioners to settle by
compromise with the commissioners appointed by the State of Georgia the
claims and cession to which the said act has relation.

Articles of agreement and cession have accordingly been entered into and
signed by the said commissioners of the United States and of Georgia,
which, as they leave a right to Congress to act upon them legislatively
at any time within six months after their date, I have thought it my
duty immediately to communicate to the Legislature.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 27, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

The commissioners who were appointed to carry into execution the sixth
article of the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation between the
United States and Great Britain having differed in their construction
of that article, and separated in consequence of that difference, the
President of the United States took immediate measures for obtaining
conventional explanations of that article for the government of the
commissioners. Finding, however, great difficulties opposed to a
settlement in that way, he authorized our minister at the Court of
London to meet a proposition that the United States by the payment of a
fixed sum should discharge themselves from their responsibility for such
debts as can not be recovered from the individual debtors. A convention
has accordingly been signed, fixing the sum to be paid at L600,000 in
three equal and annual installments, which has been ratified by me with
the advice and consent of the Senate.

I now transmit copies thereof to both Houses of Congress, trusting that
in the free exercise of the authority which the Constitution has given
them on the subject of public expenditures they will deem it for the
public interest to appropriate the sums necessary for carrying this
convention into execution.

TH. JEFFERSON.

SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE.

DECEMBER 15, 1802

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

When we assemble together, fellow-citizens, to consider the state of our
beloved country, our just attentions are first drawn to those pleasing
circumstances which mark the goodness of that Being from whose favor
they flow and the large measure of thankfulness we owe for His bounty.
Another year has come around, and finds us still blessed with peace and
friendship abroad; law, order, and religion at home; good affection and
harmony with our Indian neighbors; our burthens lightened, yet our
income sufficient for the public wants, and the produce of the year
great beyond example. These, fellow-citizens, are the circumstances
under which we meet, and we remark with special satisfaction those which
under the smiles of Providence result from the skill, industry, and
order of our citizens, managing their own affairs in their own way and
for their own use, unembarrassed by too much regulation, unoppressed by
fiscal exactions.

On the restoration of peace in Europe that portion of the general
carrying trade which had fallen to our share during the war was abridged
by the returning competition of the belligerent powers. This was to
be expected, and was just. But in addition we find in some parts of
Europe monopolizing discriminations, which in the form of duties tend
effectually to prohibit the carrying thither our own produce in our own
vessels. From existing amities and a spirit of justice it is hoped that
friendly discussion will produce a fair and adequate reciprocity. But
should false calculations of interest defeat our hope, it rests with the
Legislature to decide whether they will meet inequalities abroad with
countervailing inequalities at home, or provide for the evil in any
other way.

It is with satisfaction I lay before you an act of the British
Parliament anticipating this subject so far as to authorize a mutual
abolition of the duties and countervailing duties permitted under the
treaty of 1794. It shows on their part a spirit of justice and friendly
accommodation which it is our duty and our interest to cultivate with
all nations. Whether this would produce a due equality in the navigation
between the two countries is a subject for your consideration.

Another circumstance which claims attention as directly affecting the
very source of our navigation is the defect or the evasion of the law
providing for the return of seamen, and particularly of those belonging
to vessels sold abroad. Numbers of them, discharged in foreign ports,
have been thrown on the hands of our consuls, who, to rescue them from
the dangers into which their distresses might plunge them and save them
to their country, have found it necessary in some cases to return them
at the public charge.

The cession of the Spanish Province of Louisiana to France, which took
place in the course of the late war, will, if carried into effect, make
a change in the aspect of our foreign relations which will doubtless
have just weight in any deliberations of the Legislature connected with
that subject.

There was reason not long since to apprehend that the warfare in which
we were engaged with Tripoli might be taken up by some other of the
Barbary Powers. A reenforcement, therefore, was immediately ordered to
the vessels already there. Subsequent information, however, has removed
these apprehensions for the present. To secure our commerce in that sea
with the smallest force competent, we have supposed it best to watch
strictly the harbor of Tripoli. Still, however, the shallowness of their
coast and the want of smaller vessels on our part has permitted some
cruisers to escape unobserved, and to one of these an American vessel
unfortunately fell a prey. The captain, one American seaman, and two
others of color remain prisoners with them unless exchanged under an
agreement formerly made with the Bashaw, to whom, on the faith of that,
some of his captive subjects had been restored.

The convention with the State of Georgia has been ratified by their
legislature, and a repurchase from the Creeks has been consequently made
of a part of the Talasscee country. In this purchase has been also
comprehended a part of the lands within the fork of Oconee and Oakmulgee
rivers. The particulars of the contract will be laid before Congress so
soon as they shall be in a state for communication.

In order to remove every ground of difference possible with our Indian
neighbors, I have proceeded in the work of settling with them and
marking the boundaries between us. That with the Choctaw Nation is fixed
in one part and will be through the whole within a short time. The
country to which their title had been extinguished before the Revolution
is sufficient to receive a very respectable population, which Congress
will probably see the expediency of encouraging so soon as the limits
shall be declared. We are to view this position as an outpost of the
United States, surrounded by strong neighbors and distant from its
support; and how far that monopoly which prevents population should
here be guarded against and actual habitation made a condition of
the continuance of title will be for your consideration. A prompt
settlement, too, of all existing rights and claims within this territory
presents itself as a preliminary operation.

In that part of the Indiana Territory which includes Vincennes the lines
settled with the neighboring tribes fix the extinction of their title
at a breadth of 24 leagues from east to west and about the same length
parallel with and including the Wabash. They have also ceded a tract of
4 miles square, including the salt springs near the mouth of that river.

In the Department of Finance it is with pleasure I inform you that the
receipts of external duties for the last twelve months have exceeded
those of any former year, and that the ratio of increase has been also
greater than usual. This has enabled us to answer all the regular
exigencies of Government, to pay from the Treasury within one year
upward of $8,000,000, principal and interest, of the public debt,
exclusive of upward of one million paid by the sale of bank stock, and
making in the whole a reduction of nearly five millions and a half of
principal, and to have now in the Treasury $4,500,000, which are in a
course of application to the further discharge of debt and current
demands. Experience, too, so far, authorizes us to believe, if no
extraordinary event supervenes, and the expenses which will be actually
incurred shall not be greater than were contemplated by Congress
at their last session, that we shall not be disappointed in the
expectations then formed. But nevertheless, as the effect of peace
on the amount of duties is not yet fully ascertained, it is the more
necessary to practice every useful economy and to incur no expense which
may be avoided without prejudice.

The collection of the internal taxes having been completed in some of
the States, the officers employed in it are of course out of commission.
In others they will be so shortly. But in a few, where the arrangements
for the direct tax had been retarded, it will be some time before the
system is closed. It has not yet been thought necessary to employ the
agent authorized by an act of the last session for transacting business
in Europe relative to debts and loans. Nor have we used the power
confided by the same act of prolonging the foreign debt by reloans, and
of redeeming instead thereof an equal sum of the domestic debt. Should,
however, the difficulties of remittance on so large a scale render it
necessary at any time, the power shall be executed and the money thus
unemployed abroad shall, in conformity with that law, be faithfully
applied here in an equivalent extinction of domestic debt. When effects
so salutary result from the plans you have already sanctioned; when
merely by avoiding false objects of expense we are able, without a
direct tax, without internal taxes, and without borrowing to make large
and effectual payments toward the discharge of our public debt and
the emancipation of our posterity from that mortal canker, it is an
encouragement, fellow-citizens, of the highest order to proceed as we
have begun in substituting economy for taxation, and in pursuing what is
useful for a nation placed as we are, rather than what is practiced by
others under different circumstances. And whensoever we are destined to
meet events which shall call forth all the energies of our countrymen,
we have the firmest reliance on those energies and the comfort of
leaving for calls like these the extraordinary resources of loans and
internal taxes. In the meantime, by payments of the principal of our
debt, we are liberating annually portions of the external taxes and
forming from them a growing fund still further to lessen the necessity
of recurring to extraordinary resources.

The usual account of receipts and expenditures for the last year, with
an estimate of the expenses of the ensuing one, will be laid before you
by the Secretary of the Treasury.

No change being deemed necessary in our military establishment, an
estimate of its expenses for the ensuing year on its present footing,
as also of the sums to be employed in fortifications and other objects
within that department, has been prepared by the Secretary of War, and
will make a part of the general estimates which will be presented you.

Considering that our regular troops are employed for local purposes,
and that the militia is our general reliance for great and sudden
emergencies, you will doubtless think this institution worthy of a
review, and give it those improvements of which you find it susceptible.

Estimates for the Naval Department, prepared by the Secretary of the
Navy, for another year will in like manner be communicated with the
general estimates. A small force in the Mediterranean will still be
necessary to restrain the Tripoline cruisers, and the uncertain tenure
of peace with some other of the Barbary Powers may eventually require
that force to be augmented. The necessity of procuring some smaller
vessels for that service will raise the estimate, but the difference
in their maintenance will soon make it a measure of economy.

Presuming it will be deemed expedient to expend annually a convenient
sum toward providing the naval defense which our situation may require,
I can not but recommend that the first appropriations for that purpose
may go to the saving what we already possess. No cares, no attentions,
can preserve vessels from rapid decay which lie in water and exposed
to the sun . These decays require great and constant repairs, and will
consume, if continued, a great portion of the moneys destined to naval
purposes. To avoid this waste of our resources it is proposed to add
to our navy-yard here a dock within which our present vessels may be
laid up dry and under cover from the sun . Under these circumstances
experience proves that works of wood will remain scarcely at all
affected by time. The great abundance of running water which this
situation possesses, at heights far above the level of the tide, if
employed as is practiced for lock navigation, furnishes the means for
raising and laying up our vessels on a dry and sheltered bed. And should
the measure be found useful here, similar depositories for laying up as
well as for building and repairing vessels may hereafter be undertaken
at other navy-yards offering the same means. The plans and estimates
of the work, prepared by a person of skill and experience, will be
presented to you without delay, and from this it will be seen that
scarcely more than has been the cost of one vessel is necessary to save
the whole, and that the annual sum to be employed toward its completion
may be adapted to the views of the Legislature as to naval expenditure.

To cultivate peace and maintain commerce and navigation in all their
lawful enterprises; to foster our fisheries as nurseries of navigation
and for the nurture of man, and protect the manufactures adapted to our
circumstances; to preserve the faith of the nation by an exact discharge
of its debts and contracts, expend the public money with the same care
and economy we would practice with our own, and impose on our citizens
no unnecessary burthens; to keep in all things within the pale of our
constitutional powers, and cherish the federal union as the only rock
of safety  these, fellow-citizens, are the landmarks by which we are to
guide our selves in all our proceedings. By continuing to make these the
rule of our action we shall endear to our countrymen the true principles
of their Constitution and promote an union of sentiment and of action
equally auspicious to their happiness and safety. On my part, you may
count on a cordial concurrence in every measure for the public good and
on all the information I possess which may enable you to discharge to
advantage the high functions with which you are invested by your
country.

TH. JEFFERSON.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

DECEMBER 22, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the House of Representatives :

I now transmit a report from the Secretary of State with the information
requested in your resolution of the 17th instant.

In making this communication I deem it proper to observe that I was led
by the regard due to the rights and interests of the United States and
to the just sensibility of the portion of our fellow-citizens more
immediately affected by the irregular proceeding at New Orleans to lose
not a moment in causing every step to be taken which the occasion
claimed from me, being equally aware of the obligation to maintain in
all cases the rights of the nation and to employ for that purpose those
just and honorable means which belong to the character of the United
States.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 23, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the House of Representatives .

In pursuance of the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 3d
of May last, desiring a statement of expenditures from January 1, 1797,
by the Quartermaster-General and the navy agents, for the contingencies
of the naval and military establishments and the navy contracts for
timber and stores, I now transmit such statements from the offices of
the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, and Navy, where alone these
expenditures are entered.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 27, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate :

I lay before you a treaty, which has been agreed to by commissioners
duly authorized on the part of the United States and the Creek Nation
of Indians, for the extinguishment of the native title to lands in the
Talassee County, and others between the forks of Oconce and Oakmulgee
rivers, in Georgia, in pursuance of the convention with that State,
together with the documents explanatory thereof; and it is submitted
to your determination whether you will advise and consent to the
ratification thereof.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 27, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate :

I lay before you a treaty, which has been concluded between the State of
New York and the Oneida Indians, for the purchase of lands within that
State.

One other, between the same State and the Seneca Indians, for the
purchase of other lands within the same State.

One other, between certain individuals styled the Holland Company with
the Senecas, for the exchange of certain lands in the same State.

And one other, between Oliver Phelps, a citizen of the United States,
and the Senecas, for the exchange of lands in the same State; with
sundry explanatory papers, all of them conducted under the
superintendence of a commissioner on the part of the United States, who
reports that they have been adjusted with the fair and free consent
and understanding of the parties. It is therefore submitted to your
determination whether you will advise and consent to their respective
ratifications.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 27, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

In my message of the 15th instant I mentioned that plans and estimates
of a dry dock for the preservation of our ships of war, prepared by a
person of skill and experience, should be laid before you without delay.
These are now transmitted, the report and estimates by duplicates; but
the plans being single only, I must request an intercommunication of
them between the Houses and their return when they shall no longer be
wanting for their consideration.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 30, 1802.

 Gentlemen of the House of Representatives :

In addition to the information accompanying my message of the 22d
instant, I now transmit the copy of a letter on the same subject,
recently received.

TH. JEFFERSON.

WASHINGTON,  December 30, 1802 .

The SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

SIR: Although an informal communication to the public of the substance
of the inclosed letter may be proper for quieting the public mind, yet I
refer to the consideration of the House of Representatives whether the
publication of it in form might not give dissatisfaction to the writer
and tend to discourage the freedom and confidence of communications
between the agents of the two Governments. Accept assurances of my high
consideration and respect.

TH. JEFFERSON.

NATCHEZ,  November 25, 1802 .

The Honorable the Secretary of State,

 Washington .

SIR: I have the honor to inclose you an original copy of a communication
(together with a translation thereof) which I this morning received
from the governor-general of the Province of Louisiana in answer to my
letters of the 28th ultimo.

I am, sir, with respect and esteem, your humble servant,

WILLIAM C.C. CLAIBORNE.

 (Translation.)

New Orleans,  November 15, 1802 .

His Excellency WILLIAM C.C. CLAIBORNE.

Most Excellent Sir: I received a few days past your excellency's
esteemed letter of the 28th ultimo, in which your excellency, referring
to the twenty-second article of the treaty of friendship, navigation,
and limits agreed upon between the King, my master, and the United
States of America, has been pleased to inquire, after transcribing the
literal text of said article (which you find so explicit as not to
require any comment nor to admit of dubious construction), if His
Majesty has been pleased to designate any other position on the banks
of the Mississippi, and where that is, if his royal pleasure does not
continue the permission stipulated by the said treaty which entitled the
citizens of the United States to deposit their merchandise and effects
in the port of New Orleans; and you request at the same time that, as
the affair is so interesting to the commerce of the United States and
to the welfare of its citizens, I may do you the favor to send you an
answer as early as possible. I can now assure your excellency that His
Catholic Majesty has not hitherto issued any order for suspending the
deposit, and consequently has not designated any other position on the
banks of the Mississippi for that purpose. But I must inform you, in
answer to your inquiry, that the intendant of these provinces (who
in the affairs of his own department is independent of the general
Government), at the same time that, in conformity with the royal
commands (the peace in Europe having been published since the 4th of May
last), he suspended the commerce of neutrals, also thought proper to
suspend the tacit prolongation which continued, and to put a stop to
the infinite abuses which resulted from the deposit, contrary to the
interest of the State and of the commerce of these colonies, in
consequence of the experience he acquired of the frauds which have been
committed and which it has been endeavored to excuse under the pretext
of ignorance, as is manifested by the number of causes which now await
the determination of His Majesty, as soon as they can be brought to his
royal knowledge, besides many others which have been dropt because the
individuals have absconded who introduced their properties into the
deposit and did not extract them, thus defrauding the royal interests.

It might appear on the first view that particular cases like these ought
not to operate against a general privilege granted by a solemn treaty,
and it is an incontestable principle that the happiness of nations
consists in a great measure in maintaining a good harmony and
correspondence with their neighbors by respecting their rights, by
supporting their own, without being deficient in what is required by
humanity and civil intercourse; but it is also indubitable that for a
treaty, although solemn, to be entirely valid it ought not to contain
any defect; and if it be pernicious and of an injurious tendency,
although it has been effectuated with good faith but without a knowledge
of its bad consequence, it will be necessary to undo it, because
treaties ought to be viewed like other acts of public will, in which
more attention ought to be paid to the intention than to the words in
which they are expressed; and thus it will not appear so repugnant
that the term of three years fixed by the twenty-second article being
completed without the King's having granted a prolongation, the
intendancy should not, after putting a stop to the commerce of neutrals,
take upon itself the responsibility of continuing that favor without the
express mandate of the King, a circumstance equally indispensable for
designating another place on the banks of the Mississippi.

From the foregoing I trust that you will infer that as it is the duty of
the intendant, who conducts the business of his ministry with a perfect
independence of the Government, to have informed the King of what he has
done in fulfillment of what has been expressly stipulated, it is to be
hoped that His Majesty will take the measures which are convenient to
give effect to the deposit, either in this capital, if he should not
find it prejudicial to the interests of Spain, or in the place on
the banks of the Mississippi which it may be his royal pleasure to
designate; as it ought to be confided that the justice and generosity
of the King will not refuse to afford to the American citizens all
the advantages they can desire, a measure which does not depend upon
discretion, nor can an individual chief take it upon himself. Besides
these principles on which the regulation of the intendant is founded, I
ought at the same time to inform you that I myself opposed on my part,
as far as I reasonably could, the measure of suspending the deposit,
until the reasons adduced by the intendant brought it to my view; that
as all events can not be prevented, and as with time and different
circumstances various others occur which can not be foreseen, a just
and rational interpretation is always necessary. Notwithstanding the
foregoing, the result of my own reflections, I immediately consulted on
the occasion with my captain-general, whose answer, which can not be
long delayed, will dissipate every doubt that may be raised concerning
the steps which are to be taken, By all means your excellency may live
in the firm persuasion that as there has subsisted, and does subsist,
the most perfect and constant good harmony between the King, my master,
and the United States of America, I will spare no pains to preserve it
by all the means in my power, being assured of a reciprocity of equal
good offices in observing the treaty with good faith, ever keeping it in
view that the felicity and glory of nations are deeply concerned in the
advantages of a wise and prudently conducted commerce.

I have the honor to assure your excellency of the respect and high
consideration which I profess for you; and I pray the Most High to
preserve your life many years.

I kiss your excellency's hands.

Your most affectionate servant,

MANUEL DE SALCEDO.
Chapter 20
JANUARY 5, 1803.

 Gentlemen of the House of Representatives :

Agreeably to the request of the House of Representatives, I now transmit
a statement of the militia of those States from which any returns have
been made to the War Office. They are, as you will perceive, but a small
proportion of the whole. I send you also the copy of a circular letter
written some time since for the purpose of obtaining returns from all
the States. Should any others in consequence of this be made during the
session of Congress, they shall be immediately communicated.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 7, 1803.

 Gentlemen of the Senate :

I submit for your approbation and consent a convention entered into with
the Choctaw Nation of Indians for ascertaining and marking the limits of
the territory ceded to our nation while under its former government, and
lying between the Tombigbee and Mobile rivers on the east and the
Chickasawhay River on the west.

We are now engaged in ascertaining and marking in like manner the limits
of the former cessions of the Choctaws from the river Yazoo to our
southern boundary, which will be the subject of another convention,
and we expect to obtain from the same nation a new cession of lands
of considerable extent between the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers.

These several tracts of country will compose that portion of the
Mississippi Territory which, so soon as certain individual claims are
arranged, the United States will be free to sell and settle immediately.

TH. JEFFERSON

JANUARY 11, 1803.

 Gentlemen of the Senate :

The cession of the Spanish Province of Louisiana to France, and perhaps
of the Floridas, and the late suspension of our right of deposit at New
Orleans are events of primary interest to the United States. On both
occasions such measures were promptly taken as were thought most
likely amicably to remove the present and to prevent future causes of
inquietude. The objects of these measures were to obtain the territory
on the left bank of the Mississippi and eastward of that, if
practicable, on conditions to which the proper authorities of our
country would agree, or at least to prevent any changes which might
lessen the secure exercise of our rights. While my confidence in our
minister plenipotentiary at Paris is entire and undiminished, I still
think that these objects might be promoted by joining with him a person
sent from hence directly, carrying with him the feelings and sentiments
of the nation excited on the late occurrence, impressed by full
communications of all the views we entertain on this interesting
subject, and thus prepared to meet and to improve to an useful result
the counter propositions of the other contracting party, whatsoever form
their interests may give to them, and to secure to us the ultimate
accomplishment of our object.

I therefore nominate Robert R. Livingston to be minister plenipotentiary
and James Monroe to be minister extraordinary and plenipotentiary, with
full powers to both jointly, or to either on the death of the other, to
enter into a treaty or convention with the First Consul of France for
the purpose of enlarging and more effectually securing our rights and
interests in the river Mississippi and in the Territories eastward
thereof.

But as the possession of these provinces is still in Spain, and the
course of events may retard or prevent the cession to France being
carried into effect, to secure our object it will be expedient to
address equal powers to the Government of Spain also, to be used only
in the event of its being necessary.

I therefore nominate Charles Pinckney to be minister plenipotentiary,
and James Monroe, of Virginia, to be minister extraordinary and
plenipotentiary, with full powers to both jointly, or to either on the
death of the other, to enter into a treaty or convention with His
Catholic Majesty for the purpose of enlarging and more effectually
securing our rights and interests in the river Mississippi and in the
Territories eastward thereof.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 11, 1803.

 Gentlemen of the Senate :

The spoliations and irregularities committed on our commerce during
the late war by subjects of Spain or by others deemed within her
responsibility having called for attention, instructions were
accordingly given to our minister at Madrid to urge our right to just
indemnifications, and to propose a convention for adjusting them. The
Spanish Government listened to our proposition with an honorable
readiness and agreed to a convention, which I now submit for your advice
and consent. It does not go to the satisfaction of all our claims, but
the express reservation of our right to press the validity of the
residue has been made the ground of further instructions to our minister
on the subject of an additional article, which it is to be hoped will
not be without effect.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 18, 1803.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

As the continuance of the act for establishing trading houses with the
Indian tribes will be under the consideration of the Legislature at its
present session, I think it my duty to communicate the views which have
guided me in the execution of that act, in order that you may decide
on the policy of continuing it in the present or any other form, or
discontinue it altogether if that shall, on the whole, seem most for
the public good.

The Indian tribes residing within the limits of the United States
have for a considerable time been growing more and more uneasy at the
constant diminution of the territory they occupy, although effected by
their own voluntary sales, and the policy has long been gaining strength
with them of refusing absolutely all further sale on any conditions,
insomuch that at this time it hazards their friendship and excites
dangerous jealousies and perturbations in their minds to make any
overture for the purchase of the smallest portions of their land. A
very few tribes only are not yet obstinately in these dispositions. In
order peaceably to counteract this policy of theirs and to provide an
extension of territory which the rapid increase of our numbers will call
for, two measures are deemed expedient. First. To encourage them to
abandon hunting, to apply to the raising stock, to agriculture, and
domestic manufacture, and thereby prove to themselves that less land and
labor will maintain them in this better than in their former mode of
living. The extensive forests necessary in the hunting life will then
become useless, and they will see advantage in exchanging them for
the means of improving their farms and of increasing their domestic
comforts. Secondly. To multiply trading houses among them, and place
within their reach those things which will contribute more to their
domestic comfort than the possession of extensive but uncultivated
wilds. Experience and reflection will develop to them the wisdom of
exchanging what they can spare and we want for what we can spare and
they want. In leading them thus to agriculture, to manufactures, and
civilization; in bringing together their and our sentiments, and
in preparing them ultimately to participate in the benefits of our
Government, I trust and believe we are acting for their greatest good.
At these trading houses we have pursued the principles of the act of
Congress which directs that the commerce shall be carried on liberally,
and requires only that the capital stock shall not be diminished. We
consequently undersell private traders, foreign and domestic, drive them
from the competition, and thus, with the good will of the Indians, rid
ourselves of a description of men who are constantly endeavoring to
excite in the Indian mind suspicions, fears, and irritations toward us.
A letter now inclosed shows the effect of our competition on the
operations of the traders, while the Indians, perceiving the advantage
of purchasing from us, are soliciting generally our establishment
of trading houses among them. In one quarter this is particularly
interesting. The legislature, reflecting on the late occurrences on
the Mississippi, must be sensible how desirable it is to possess a
respectable breadth of country on that river, from our southern limit to
the Illinois, at least, so that we may present as firm a front on that
as on our eastern border. We possess what is below the Yazoo, and can
probably acquire a certain breadth from the Illinois and Wabash to the
Ohio; but between the Ohio and Yazoo the country all belongs to the
Chickasaws, the most friendly tribe within our limits, but the most
decided against the alienation of lands. The portion of their country
most important for us is exactly that which they do not inhabit. Their
settlements are not on the Mississippi, but in the interior country.
They have lately shown a desire to become agricultural, and this leads
to the desire of buying implements and comforts. In the strengthening
and gratifying of these wants I see the only prospect of planting on the
Mississippi itself the means of its own safety. Duty has required me to
submit these views to the judgment of the Legislature, but as their
disclosure might embarrass and defeat their effect, they are committed
to the special confidence of the two Houses.

While the extension of the public commerce among the Indian tribes may
deprive of that source of profit such of our citizens as are engaged
in it, it might be worthy the attention of Congress in their care of
individual as well as of the general interest to point in another
direction the enterprise of these citizens, as profitably for themselves
and more usefully for the public. The river Missouri and the Indians
inhabiting it are not as well known as is rendered desirable by their
connection with the Mississippi, and consequently with us. It is,
however, understood that the country on that river is inhabited by
numerous tribes, who furnish great supplies of furs and peltry to the
trade of another nation, carried on in a high latitude through an
infinite number of portages and lakes shut up by ice through a long
season. The commerce on that line could bear no competition with that of
the Missouri, traversing a moderate climate, offering, according to the
best accounts, a continued navigation from its source, and possibly with
a single portage from the Western Ocean, and finding to the Atlantic a
choice of channels through the Illinois or Wabash, the Lakes and Hudson,
through the Ohio and Susquehanna, or Potomac or James rivers, and
through the Tennessee and Savannah rivers. An intelligent officer,
with ten or twelve chosen men, fit for the enterprise and willing to
undertake it, taken from our posts where they may be spared without
inconvenience, might explore the whole line, even to the Western
Ocean, have conferences with the natives on the subject of commercial
intercourse, get admission among them for our traders as others are
admitted, agree on convenient deposits for an interchange of articles,
and return with the information acquired in the course of two summers.
Their arms and accouterments, some instruments of observation, and light
and cheap presents for the Indians would be all the apparatus they could
carry, and with an expectation of a soldier's portion of land on their
return would constitute the whole expense. Their pay would be going on
whether here or there. While other civilized nations have encountered
great expense to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge by undertaking
voyages of discovery, and for other literary purposes, in various parts
and directions, our nation seems to owe to the same object, as well
as to its own interests, to explore this the only line of easy
communication across the continent, and so directly traversing our own
part of it. The interests of commerce place the principal object within
the constitutional powers and care of Congress, and that it should
incidentally advance the geographical knowledge of our own continent
can not but be an additional gratification. The nation claiming the
territory, regarding this as a literary pursuit, which it is in the
habit of permitting within its dominions, would not be disposed to view
it with jealousy, even if the expiring state of its interests there did
not render it a matter of indifference. The appropriation of $2,500 "for
the purpose of extending the external commerce of the United States,"
while understood and considered by the Executive as giving the
legislative sanction, would cover the undertaking from notice and
prevent the obstructions which interested individuals might otherwise
previously prepare in its way.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 18, 1803.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

I inclose a report of the Secretary of War, stating the trading houses
established in the Indian territories, the progress which has been made
in the course of the last year in settling and marking boundaries with
the different tribes, the purchases of lands recently made from them,
and the prospect of further progress in marking boundaries and in new
extinguishments of title in the year to come, for which some
appropriations of money will be wanting.

To this I have to add that when the Indians ceded to us the salt springs
on the Wabash they expressed a hope that we would so employ them as to
enable them to procure there the necessary supplies of salt. Indeed, it
would be the most proper and acceptable form in which the annuity could
be paid which we propose to give them for the cession. These springs
might at the same time be rendered eminently serviceable to our Western
inhabitants by using them as the means of counteracting the monopolies
of supplies of salt and of reducing the price in that country to a just
level. For these purposes a small appropriation would be necessary to
meet the first expenses, after which they should support themselves and
repay those advances. These springs are said to possess the advantage of
being accompanied with a bed of coal.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 19, 1803.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

I now lay before Congress the annual account of the fund established
for defraying the contingent charges of Government. A single article of
$1,440, paid for bringing home 72 seamen discharged in foreign ports
from vessels sold abroad, is the only expenditure from that fund,
leaving an unexpended balance of $18,560 in the Treasury.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 24. 1803.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

I transmit a report by the superintendent of the city of Washington on
the affairs of the city committed to his care. By this you will perceive
that the resales of lots prescribed by an act of the last session of
Congress did not produce a sufficiency to pay the debt to Maryland
to which they are appropriated, and as it was evident that the sums
necessary for the interest and installments due to that State could not
be produced by a sale of the other public lots without an unwarrantable
sacrifice of the property, the deficiencies were of necessity drawn from
the Treasury of the United States.

The office of the surveyor for the city, created during the former
establishment, being of indispensable necessity, it has been continued,
and to that of the superintendent, substituted instead of the board of
commissioners at the last session of Congress, no salary was annexed by
law. These offices being permanent, I have supposed it more agreeable to
principle that their salaries should be fixed by the Legislature, and
therefore have assigned them none. Their services to be compensated are
from the 1st day of June last.

The marshal of the District of Columbia has, as directed by law, caused
a jail to be built in the city of Washington. I inclose his statements
of the expenses already incurred and of what remains to be finished. The
portion actually completed has rendered the situation of the persons
confined much more comfortable and secure than it has been heretofore.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 3, 1803.

 Gentlemen of the House of Representatives :

The inclosed letter and affidavits exhibiting matter of complaint against
John Pickering, district judge of New Hampshire, which is not within
Executive cognizance, I transmit them to the House of Representatives,
to whom the Constitution has confided a power of instituting proceedings
of redress, if they shall be of opinion that the case calls for them.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 14, 1803.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

In obedience to the ordinance for the government of the Territories of
the United States requiring that the laws adopted by the governor and
judges thereof shall be reported to Congress from time to time, I now
transmit those which have been adopted in the Indiana Territory from
January, 1801, to February, 1802, as forwarded to the office of the
Secretary of State.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 21, 1803.

 Gentlemen of the Senate :

The Tuscarora Indians, having an interest in some lands within the State
of North Carolina, asked the superintendence of the Government of the
United States over a treaty to be held between them and the State of
North Carolina respecting these lands. William Richardson Davie was
appointed a commissioner for this purpose, and a treaty was concluded
under his superintendence. This, with his letter on the subject, is now
laid before the Senate for their advice and consent whether it shall be
ratified.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 23, 1803.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives :

I lay before you a report of the Secretary of State on the case of
the Danish brigantine  Henrick , taken by a French privateer in 1799,
retaken by an armed vessel of the United States, carried into a British
island, and there adjudged to be neutral, but under allowance of such
salvage and costs as absorbed nearly the whole amount of sales of
the vessel and cargo. Indemnification for these losses occasioned
by our officers is now claimed by the sufferers, supported by the
representations of their Government. I have no doubt the legislature
will give to the subject that just attention and consideration which
it is useful as well as honorable to practice in our transactions with
other nations, and particularly with one which has observed toward us
the most friendly treatment and regard.

TH. JEFFERSON.

PROCLAMATION.

 (From the National Intelligencer, July 18, 1803.)

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas great and weighty matters claiming the consideration of the
Congress of the United States form an extraordinary occasion for
convening them, I do by these presents appoint Monday, the 17th day
of October next, for their meeting at the city of Washington, hereby
requiring their respective Senators and Representatives then and there
to assemble in Congress, in order to receive such communications as may
then be made to them and to consult and determine on such measures as in
their wisdom may be deemed meet for the welfare of the United States.

 (SEAL.)

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
hereunto affixed, and signed the same with my hand.

Done at the city of Washington, the 16th day of July, A.D. 1803, and
in the twenty-eighth year of the Independence of the United States.

TH. JEFFERSON.

By the President:
  JAMES MADISON,
     Secretary .

THIRD ANNUAL MESSAGE.

OCTOBER 17, 1803.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

In calling you together, fellow-citizens, at an earlier day than was
contemplated by the act of the last session of Congress, I have not been
insensible to the personal inconveniences necessarily resulting from
an unexpected change in your arrangements. But matters of great public
concernment have rendered this call necessary, and the interests you
feel in these will supersede in your minds all private considerations.

Congress witnessed at their late session the extraordinary agitation
produced in the public mind by the suspension of our right of deposit at
the port of New Orleans, no assignment of another place having been made
according to treaty. They were sensible that the continuance of that
privation would be more injurious to our nation than any consequences
which could flow from any mode of redress, but reposing just confidence
in the good faith of the Government whose officer had committed the
wrong, friendly and reasonable representations were resorted to, and
the right of deposit was restored.

Previous, however, to this period we had not been unaware of the danger
to which our peace would be perpetually exposed whilst so important a
key to the commerce of the Western country remained under foreign power.
Difficulties, too, were presenting themselves as to the navigation of
other streams which, arising within our territories, pass through those
adjacent. Propositions had therefore been authorized for obtaining on
fair conditions the sovereignty of New Orleans and of other possessions
in that quarter interesting to our quiet to such extent as was deemed
practicable, and the provisional appropriation of $2,000,000 to be
applied and accounted for by the President of the United States,
intended as part of the price, was considered as conveying the sanction
of Congress to the acquisition proposed. The enlightened Government of
France saw with just discernment the importance to both nations of such
liberal arrangements as might best and permanently promote the peace,
friendship, and interests of both, and the property and sovereignty of
all Louisiana which had been restored to them have on certain conditions
been transferred to the United States by instruments bearing date the
30th of April last. When these shall have received the constitutional
sanction of the Senate, they will without delay be communicated to the
Representatives also for the exercise of their functions as to those
conditions which are within the powers vested by the Constitution in
Congress.

Whilst the property and sovereignty of the Mississippi and its waters
secure an independent outlet for the produce of the Western States
and an uncontrolled navigation through their whole course, free from
collision with other powers and the dangers to our peace from that
source, the fertility of the country, its climate and extent, promise
in due season important aids to our Treasury, an ample provision for
our posterity, and a wide spread for the blessings of freedom and
equal laws.

With the wisdom of Congress it will rest to take those ulterior measures
which may be necessary for the immediate occupation and temporary
government of the country; for its incorporation into our Union; for
rendering the change of government a blessing to our newly adopted
brethren; for securing to them the rights of conscience and of property;
for confirming to the Indian inhabitants their occupancy and
self-government, establishing friendly and commercial relations with
them, and for ascertaining the geography of the country acquired. Such
materials, for your information, relative to its affairs in general as
the short space of time has permitted me to collect will be laid before
you when the subject shall be in a state for your consideration.

Another important acquisition of territory has also been made since the
last session of Congress. The friendly tribe of Kaskaskia Indians, with
which we have never had a difference, reduced by the wars and wants of
savage life to a few individuals unable to defend themselves against the
neighboring tribes, has transferred its country to the United States,
reserving only for its members what is sufficient to maintain them in an
agricultural way. The considerations stipulated are that we shall extend
to them our patronage and protection and give them certain annual
aids in money, in implements of agriculture, and other articles of
their choice. This country, among the most fertile within our limits,
extending along the Mississippi from the mouth of the Illinois to and up
the Ohio, though not so necessary as a barrier since the acquisition of
the other bank, may yet be well worthy of being laid open to immediate
settlement, as its inhabitants may descend with rapidity in support of
the lower country should future circumstances expose that to foreign
enterprise. As the stipulations in this treaty also involve matters
within the competence of both Houses only, it will be laid before
Congress as soon as the Senate shall have advised its ratification.

With many of the other Indian tribes improvements in agriculture
and household manufacture are advancing, and with all our peace and
friendship are established on grounds much firmer than heretofore.
The measure adopted of establishing trading houses among them and of
furnishing them necessaries in exchange for their commodities at such
moderate prices as leave no gain, but cover us from loss, has the most
conciliatory and useful effect on them, and is that which will best
secure their peace and good will.

The small vessels authorized by Congress with a view to the
Mediterranean service have been sent into that sea, and will be able
more effectually to confine the Tripoline cruisers within their harbors
and supersede the necessity of convoy to our commerce in that quarter.
They will sensibly lessen the expenses of that service the ensuing year.

A further knowledge of the ground in the northeastern and northwestern
angles of the United States has evinced that the boundaries established
by the treaty of Paris between the British territories and ours in those
parts were too imperfectly described to be susceptible of execution.
It has therefore been thought worthy of attention for preserving and
cherishing the harmony and useful intercourse subsisting between the
two nations to remove by timely arrangements what unfavorable incidents
might otherwise render a ground of future misunderstanding. A convention
has therefore been entered into which provides for a practicable
demarcation of those limits to the satisfaction of both parties.

An account of the receipts and expenditures of the year ending the 30th
of September last, with the estimates for the service of the ensuing
year, will be laid before you by the Secretary of the Treasury so soon
as the receipts of the last quarter shall be returned from the more
distant States. It is already ascertained that the amount paid into the
Treasury for that year has been between $11,000,000 and $12,000,000, and
that the revenue accrued during the same term exceeds the sum counted on
as sufficient for our current expenses and to extinguish the public debt
within the period heretofore proposed.

The amount of debt paid for the same year is about $3,100,000, exclusive
of interest, and making, with the payment of the preceding year, a
discharge of more than $8,500,000 of the principal of that debt,
besides the accruing interest; and there remain in the Treasury nearly
$6,000,000. Of these, $880,000 have been reserved for payment of the
first installment due under the British convention of January 8, 1802,
and two millions are what have been before mentioned as placed by
Congress under the power and accountability of the President toward the
price of New Orleans and other territories acquired, which, remaining
untouched, are still applicable to that object and go in diminution of
the sum to be funded for it.

Should the acquisition of Louisiana be constitutionally confirmed and
carried into effect, a sum of nearly $13,000,000 will then be added to
our public debt, most of which is payable after fifteen years, before
which term the present existing debts will all be discharged by the
established operation of the sinking fund. When we contemplate the
ordinary annual augmentation of impost from increasing population and
wealth, the augmentation of the same revenue by its extension to the new
acquisition, and the economies which may still be introduced into our
public expenditures, I can not but hope that Congress in reviewing their
resources will find means to meet the intermediate interest of this
additional debt without recurring to new taxes, and applying to this
object only the ordinary progression of our revenue. Its extraordinary
increase in times of foreign war will be the proper and sufficient fund
for any measures of safety or precaution which that state of things may
render necessary in our neutral position.

Remittances for the installments of our foreign debt having been found
practicable without loss, it has not been thought expedient to use the
power given by a former act of Congress of continuing them by reloans,
and of redeeming instead thereof equal sums of domestic debt, although
no difficulty was found in obtaining that accommodation.

The sum of $50,000 appropriated by Congress for providing gunboats
remains unexpended. The favorable and peaceable turn of affairs on the
Mississippi rendered an immediate execution of that law unnecessary,
and time was desirable in order that the institution of that branch of
our force might begin on models the most approved by experience, The
same issue of events dispensed with a resort to the appropriation of
$1,500,000, contemplated for purposes which were effected by happier
means.

We have seen with sincere concern the flames of war lighted up again
in Europe, and nations with which we have the most friendly and useful
relations engaged in mutual destruction. While we regret the miseries
in which we see others involved, let us bow with gratitude to that
kind Providence which, inspiring with wisdom and moderation our late
legislative councils while placed under the urgency of the greatest
wrongs, guarded us from hastily entering into the sanguinary contest and
left us only to look on and to pity its ravages. These will be heaviest
on those immediately engaged. Yet the nations pursuing peace will not
be exempt from all evil. In the course of this conflict let it be our
endeavor, as it is our interest and desire, to cultivate the friendship
of the belligerent nations by every act of justice and of innocent
kindness; to receive their armed vessels with hospitality from the
distresses of the sea, but to administer the means of annoyance to none;
to establish in our harbors such a police as may maintain law and order;
to restrain our citizens from embarking individually in a war in which
their country takes no part; to punish severely those persons, citizen
or alien, who shall usurp the cover of our flag for vessels not entitled
to it, infecting thereby with suspicion those of real Americans and
committing us into controversies for the redress of wrongs not our
own; to exact from every nation the observance toward our vessels and
citizens of those principles and practices which all civilized people
acknowledge; to merit the character of a just nation, and maintain
that of an independent one, preferring every consequence to insult and
habitual wrong. Congress will consider whether the existing laws enable
us efficaciously to maintain this course with our citizens in all places
and with others while within the limits of our jurisdiction, and will
give them the new modifications necessary for these objects. Some
contraventions of right have already taken place, both within our
jurisdictional limits and on the high seas. The friendly disposition of
the Governments from whose agents they have proceeded, as well as their
wisdom and regard for justice, leave us in reasonable expectation that
they will be rectified and prevented in future, and that no act will
be countenanced by them which threatens to disturb our friendly
intercourse. Separated by a wide ocean from the nations of Europe
and from the political interests which entangle them together, with
productions and wants which render our commerce and friendship useful to
them and theirs to us, it can not be the interest of any to assail us,
nor ours to disturb them. We should be most unwise, indeed, were we to
cast away the singular blessings of the position in which nature has
placed us, the opportunity she has endowed us with of pursuing, at a
distance from foreign contentions, the paths of industry, peace, and
happiness, of cultivating general friendship, and of bringing collisions
of interest to the umpirage of reason rather than of force. How
desirable, then, must it be in a Government like ours to see its
citizens adopt individually the views, the interests, and the conduct
which their country should pursue, divesting themselves of those
passions and partialities which tend to lessen useful friendships and to
embarrass and embroil us in the calamitous scenes of Europe. Confident,
fellow-citizens, that you will duly estimate the importance of neutral
dispositions toward the observance of neutral conduct, that you will
be sensible how much it is our duty to look on the bloody arena spread
before us with commiseration indeed, but with no other wish than to see
it closed, I am persuaded you will cordially cherish these dispositions
in all discussions among yourselves and in all communications with your
constituents; and I anticipate with satisfaction the measures of wisdom
which the great interests now committed to you will give  you  an
opportunity of providing, and  myself  that of approving and of
carrying into execution with the fidelity I owe to my country,

TH. JEFFERSON.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

OCTOBER 17, 1803.

 Gentlemen of the Senate :

In my message of this day to both Houses of Congress I explained the
circumstances which had led to the conclusion of conventions with France
for the cession of the Province of Louisiana to the United States. Those
conventions are now laid before you with such communications relating to
them as may assist in deciding whether you will advise and consent to
their ratification.

The ratification of the First Consul of France is in the hands of his
charge d'affaires here, to be exchanged for that of the United States
whensoever, before the 30th instant, it shall be in readiness.

TH. JEFFERSON.

OCTOBER 21, 1803.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

In my communication to you of the 17th instant I informed you that
conventions had been entered into with the Government of France for the
cession of Louisiana to the United States. These, with the advice and
consent of the Senate, having now been ratified and my ratification
exchanged for that of the First Consul of France in due form, they are
communicated to you for consideration in your legislative capacity. You
will observe that some important conditions can not be carried into
execution but with the aid of the Legislature, and that time presses
a decision on them without delay.

The ulterior provisions, also suggested in the same communication,
for the occupation and government of the country will call for early
attention. Such information relative to its government as time and
distance have permitted me to obtain will be ready to be laid before you
within a few days; but as permanent arrangements for this object may
require time and deliberation, it is for your consideration whether you
will not forthwith make such temporary provisions for the preservation
in the meanwhile of order and tranquillity in the country as the case
may require.

TH. JEFFERSON.

OCTOBER 24, 1803.

 To the Senate of the United States :

I lay before you the convention signed on the 12th day of May last
between the United States and Great Britain for settling their
boundaries in the northeastern and northwestern parts of the United
States, which was mentioned in my general message of the 17th instant,
together with such papers relating thereto as may enable you to
determine whether you will advise and consent to its ratification.

TH. JEFFERSON.

OCTOBER 31, 1803.

 To the Senate of the United States of America :

I now lay before you the treaty mentioned im my general message at the
opening of the session as having been concluded with the Kaskaskia
Indians for the transfer of their country to us under certain
reservations and conditions.

Progress having been made in the demarcation of Indian boundaries, I am
now able to communicate, to you a treaty with the Delawares, Shawanese,
Potawatamies, Miamis, Eel-rivers, Weeas, Kickapoos, Piankeshaws, and
Kaskaskias, establishing the boundaries of the territory around Saint
Vincennes.

Also a supplementary treaty with the Eel-rivers, Wyandots, Piankeshaws,
Kaskaskias, and Kickapoos, in confirmation of the fourth article of the
preceding treaty.

Also a treaty with the Choctaws, describing and establishing our
demarcation of boundaries with them.

Which several treaties are accompanied by the papers relating to them,
and are now submitted to the Senate for consideration whether they will
advise and consent to their ratification.

TH. JEFFERSON.

NOVEMBER 4, 1803.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

By the copy now communicated of a letter from Captain Bainbridge, of
the  Philadelphia  frigate, to our consul at Gibraltar, you will learn
that an act of hostility has been committed on a merchant vessel of the
United States by an armed ship of the Emperor of Morocco. This conduct
on the part of that power is without cause and without explanation. It
is fortunate that Captain Bainbridge fell in with and took the capturing
vessel and her prize, and I have the satisfaction to inform you that
about the date of this transaction such a force would be arriving in
the neighborhood of Gibraltar, both from the east and from the west,
as leaves less to be feared for our commerce from the suddenness of
the aggression.

On the 4th of September the  Constitution  frigate, Captain Preble,
with Mr. Lear on board, was within two days' sail of Gibraltar, where
the  Philadelphia  would then be arrived with her prize, and such
explanations would probably be instituted as the state of things
required, and as might perhaps arrest the progress of hostilities.

In the meanwhile it is for Congress to consider the provisional
authorities which may be necessary to restrain the depredations of
this power should they be continued,

TH. JEFFERSON.

NOVEMBER 14, 1803.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now communicate a digest of the information I have received relative
to Louisiana, which may be useful to the Legislature in providing for
the government of the country. A translation of the most important laws
in force in that province, now in press, shall be the subject of a
supplementary communication, with such further and material information
as may yet come to hand.

TH. JEFFERSON.

NOVEMBER 24, 1803.

 To the House of Representatives of the United States :

In conformity with the desire expressed in the resolution of the House
of Representatives of the 15th instant, I now lay before them copies of
such documents as are in possession of the Executive relative to the
arrest and confinement of Zachariah Cox by officers in the service of
the United States in the year 1798. From the nature of the transaction
some documents relative to it might have been expected from the War
Office; but if any ever existed there they were probably lost when the
office and its papers were consumed by fire.

TH. JEFFERSON.

NOVEMBER 25, 1803.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

The treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians being ratified with the advice
and consent of the Senate, it is now laid before both Houses in their
legislative capacity. It will inform them of the obligations which the
United States thereby contract, and particularly that of taking the
tribe under their future protection, and that the ceded country is
submitted to their immediate possession and disposal.

TH. JEFFERSON.

NOVEMBER 29, 1803.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now communicate an appendix to the information heretofore given on
the subject of Louisiana. You will be sensible, from the face of these
papers, as well as of those to which they are a sequel, that they
are not and could not be official, but are furnished by different
individuals as the result of the best inquiries they had been able
to make, and now given as received from them, only digested under
heads to prevent repetitions.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 5, 1803.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I have the satisfaction to inform you that the act of hostility
mentioned in my message of the 4th of November to have been committed by
a cruiser of the Emperor of Morocco on a vessel of the United States has
been disavowed by the Emperor. All differences in consequence thereof
have been amicably adjusted, and the treaty of 1786 between this country
and that has been recognized and confirmed by the Emperor, each party
restoring to the other what had been detained or taken. I inclose the
Emperor's orders given on this occasion.

The conduct of our officers generally who have had a part in these
transactions has merited entire approbation.

The temperate and correct course pursued by our consul, Mr. Simpson, the
promptitude and energy of Commodore Preble, the efficacious cooperation
of Captains Rodgers and Campbell, of the returning squadron, the proper
decision of Captain Bainbridge that a vessel which had committed an open
hostility was of right to be detained for inquiry and consideration,
and the general zeal of the other officers and men are honorable facts
which I make known with pleasure. And to these I add what was indeed
transacted in another quarter  the gallant enterprise of Captain Rodgers
in destroying on the coast of Tripoli a corvette of that power of 22
guns.

I recommend to the consideration of Congress a just indemnification
for the interest acquired by the captors of the  Mishouda  and
 Mirboha , yielded by them for the public accommodation.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 5, 1803,

 To the Senate of the United States :

In compliance with the desire of the Senate expressed in their
resolution of the 22d of November, on the impressment of seamen in
the service of the United States by the agents of foreign nations,
I now lay before the Senate a letter from the Secretary of State with
a specification of the cases of which information has been received.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 21, 1803.

 To the Senate of the United States :

On the 11th of January last I laid before the Senate, for their
consideration and advice, a convention with Spain on the subject of
indemnities for spoliations on our commerce committed by her subjects
during the late war, which convention is still before the Seriate. As
this instrument did not embrace French seizures and condemnations of
our vessels in the ports of Spain, for which we deemed the latter power
responsible, our minister at that Court was instructed to press for
an additional article, comprehending that branch of wrongs. I now
communicate what has since passed on that subject. The Senate will judge
whether the prospect it offers will justify a longer suspension of
that portion of indemnities conceded by Spain should she now take no
advantage of the lapse of the period for ratification. As the settlement
of the boundaries of Louisiana will call for new negotiations on our
receiving possession of that Province, the claims not obtained by the
convention now before the Senate may be incorporated into those
discussions.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 31, 1803.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now lay before Congress the annual account of the fund established
for defraying the contingent charges of Government. No occasion having
arisen for making use of any part of it in the present year, the balance
of $18,560 unexpended at the end of the last year remains now in the
Treasury.

TH. JEFFERSON.

Chapter 21

( Note of Interest )THE DUEL BETWEEN BURR AND HAMILTON.

In 1804, Alexander Hamilton, present at a caucus of Federalists in Albany, spoke deprecatingly of the proposal to nominate Aaron Burr for governor of New York State. Some of Burr's friends in an adjoining room overheard Hamilton's remarks; and although Hamilton's opinions contained nothing uncomplimentary to Burr's personal character, Burr chose to revenge his defeat upon Hamilton himself. He seized the publication of Hamilton's low political estimate of him as a pretext for demanding a retraction. Hamilton replied by denying that he had in any way attacked Burr personally, and offered to withdraw any statement to which Burr took exception. Burr refused to be mollified, however, and challenged Hamilton to a duel, which the prevailing code of honor of the time compelled Hamilton to accept. The two men met at Weehawken, N. J., on July 11, 1804. Hamilton, with no malice toward his opponent, refused to aim at him, but was himself mortally wounded, and died the next day. Burr's deed drove him from New York State; and, a fugitive from justice, he found that, by killing Hamilton, he had caused his own political death. (End Note of Interest)

JANUARY 16, 1804.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

In execution of the act of the present session of Congress for taking
possession of Louisiana, as ceded to us by France, and for the temporary
government thereof, Governor Claiborne, of the Mississippi Territory,
and General Wilkinson were appointed commissioners to receive
possession. They proceeded with such regular troops as had been
assembled at Fort Adams from the nearest posts and with some militia of
the Mississippi Territory to New Orleans, To be prepared for anything
unexpected which might arise out of the transaction, a respectable
body of militia was ordered to be in readiness in the States of Ohio,
Kentucky, and Tennessee, and a part of those of Tennessee was moved
on to the Natchez. No occasion, however, arose for their sendees. Our
commissioners, on their arrival at New Orleans, found the Province
already delivered by the commissioners of Spain to that of France, who
delivered it over to them on the 20th day of December, as appears by
their declaratory act accompanying this. Governor Claiborne, being
duly invested with the powers heretofore exercised by the governor and
intendant of Louisiana, assumed the government on the same day, and for
the maintenance of law and order immediately issued the proclamation and
address now communicated.

On this important acquisition, so favorable to the immediate interests
of our Western citizens, so auspicious to the peace and security of the
nation in general, which adds to our country territories so extensive
and fertile and to our citizens new brethren to partake of the blessings
of freedom and self-government, I offer to Congress and our country my
sincere congratulations,

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 24, 1804.

 Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

I communicate for your information a letter just received from Governor
Claiborne, which may throw light on the subject of the government of
Louisiana, under contemplation of the Legislature. The paper being
original, a return is asked.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 16, 1804.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

Information having been received some time ago that the public lands in
the neighborhood of Detroit required particular attention, the agent
appointed to transact business with the Indians in that quarter was
instructed to inquire into and report the situation of the titles
and occupation of the lands, private and public, in the neighboring
settlements. His report is now communicated, that the Legislature may
judge how far its interposition is necessary to quiet the legal titles,
confirm the equitable, to remove the past and prevent future intrusions
which have neither law nor justice for the basis.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 22, 1804.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I communicate to Congress, for their information, a report of the
surveyor of the public buildings at Washington, stating what has been
done under the act of the last session concerning the city of Washington
on the Capitol and other public buildings, and the highway between them.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 29, 1804.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I communicate, for the information of Congress, a letter stating certain
fraudulent practices for monopolizing lands in Louisiana, which may
perhaps require legislative provisions.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 20, 1804.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I communicate to Congress a letter received from Captain Bainbridge,
commander of the  Philadelphia  frigate, informing us of the wreck
of that vessel on the coast of Tripoli, and that himself, his officers
and men, had fallen into the hands of the Tripolitans. This accident
renders it expedient to increase our force and enlarge our expenses
in the Mediterranean beyond what the last appropriation for the naval
service contemplated. I recommend, therefore, to the consideration of
Congress such an addition to that appropriation as they may think the
exigency requires.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 22, 1804.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I lay before Congress the last returns of the militia of the United
States. Their incompleteness is much to be regretted, and its remedy
may at some future time be a subject worthy the attention of Congress.

TH. JEFFERSON.

PROCLAMATION.

 (From Annals of Congress, Eighth Congress, second session, 1234.)

 To all whom these presents shall come :

Whereas by an act of Congress authority has been given to the President
of the United States, whenever he shall deem it expedient, to erect the
shores, waters, and inlets of the bay and river of Mobile, and of the
other rivers, creeks, inlets, and bays emptying into the Gulf of Mexico
east of the said river Mobile and west thereof to the Pascagoula,
inclusive, into a separate district for the collection of duties on
imports and tonnage; and to establish such place within the same as he
shall deem it expedient to be the port of entry and delivery for such
district; and to designate such other places within the same district,
not exceeding two, to be ports of delivery only:

Now know ye that I, Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States,
do hereby decide that all the above-mentioned shores, waters, inlets,
creeks, and rivers lying within the boundaries of the United States
shall constitute and form a separate district, to be denominated "the
district of Mobile;" and do also designate Fort Stoddert, within the
district aforesaid, to be the port of entry and delivery for the said
district.

Given under my hand this 20th day of May, 1804.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FOURTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.

NOVEMBER 8, 1804.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

To a people, fellow-citizens, who sincerely desire the happiness and
prosperity of other nations; to those who justly calculate that their
own well-being is advanced by that of the nations with which they have
intercourse, it will be a satisfaction to observe that the war which
was lighted up in Europe a little before our last meeting has not yet
extended its flames to other nations, nor been marked by the calamities
which sometimes stain the footsteps of war. The irregularities, too, on
the ocean, which generally harass the commerce of neutral nations, have,
in distant parts, disturbed ours less than on former occasions; but in
the American seas they have been greater from peculiar causes, and even
within our harbors and jurisdiction infringements on the authority of
the laws have been committed which have called for serious attention.
The friendly conduct of the Governments from whose officers and subjects
these acts have proceeded, in other respects and in places more under
their observation and control, gives us confidence that our
representations on this subject will have been properly regarded.

While noticing the irregularities committed on the ocean by others,
those on our own part should not be omitted nor left unprovided for.
Complaints have been received that persons residing within the United
States have taken on themselves to arm merchant vessels and to force a
commerce into certain ports and countries in defiance of the laws of
those countries. That individuals should undertake to wage private war,
independently of the authority of their country, can not be permitted in
a well-ordered society. Its tendency to produce aggression on the laws
and rights of other nations and to endanger the peace of our own is so
obvious that I doubt not you will adopt measures for restraining it
effectually in future.

Soon after the passage of the act of the last session authorizing the
establishment of a district and port of entry on the waters of the
Mobile we learnt that its object was misunderstood on the part of
Spain. Candid explanations were immediately given and assurances
that, reserving our claims in that quarter as a subject of discussion
and arrangement with Spain, no act was meditated in the meantime
inconsistent with the peace and friendship existing between the two
nations, and that conformably to these intentions would be the execution
of the law. That Government had, however, thought proper to suspend the
ratification of the convention of 1802; but the explanations which would
reach them soon after, and still more the confirmation of them by
the tenor of the instrument establishing the port and district, may
reasonably be expected to replace them in the dispositions and views
of the whole subject which originally dictated the convention.

I have the satisfaction to inform you that the objections which had
been urged by that Government against the validity of our title to the
country of Louisiana have been withdrawn, its exact limits, however,
remaining still to be settled between us; and to this is to be added
that, having prepared and delivered the stock created in execution of
the convention of Paris of April 30, 1803, in consideration of the
cession of that country, we have received from the Government of France
an acknowledgment, in due form, of the fulfillment of that stipulation.

With the nations of Europe in general our friendship and intercourse
are undisturbed, and from the Governments of the belligerent powers
especially we continue to receive those friendly manifestations which
are justly due to an honest neutrality and to such good offices
consistent with that as we have opportunities of rendering.

The activity and success of the small force employed in the
Mediterranean in the early part of the present year, the reenforcements
sent into that sea, and the energy of the officers having command in
the several vessels will, I trust, by the sufferings of war, reduce the
barbarians of Tripoli to the desire of peace on proper terms. Great
injury, however, ensues to ourselves, as well as to others interested,
from the distance to which prizes must be brought for adjudication and
from the impracticability of bringing hither such as are not seaworthy.

The Bey of Tunis having made requisitions unauthorized by our treaty,
their rejection has produced from him some expressions of discontent.
But to those who expect us to calculate whether a compliance with unjust
demands will not cost us less than a war we must leave as a question of
calculation for them also whether to retire from unjust demands will
not cost them less than a war. We can do to each other very sensible
injuries by war, but the mutual advantages of peace make that the best
interest of both.

Peace and intercourse with the other powers on the same coast continue
on the footing on which they are established by treaty.

In pursuance of the act providing for the temporary government of
Louisiana, the necessary officers for the Territory of Orleans were
appointed in due time to commence the exercise of their functions on
the 1st day of October. The distance, however, of some of them and
indispensable previous arrangements may have retarded its commencement
in some of its parts. The form of government thus provided having been
considered but as temporary, and open to such future improvements as
further information of the circumstances of our brethren there might
suggest, it will of course be subject to your consideration.

In the district of Louisiana it has been thought best to adopt the
division into subordinate districts which had been established under its
former government. These being five in number, a commanding officer has
been appointed to each, according to the provisions of the law, and so
soon as they can be at their stations that district will also be in its
due state of organization. In the meantime their places are supplied by
the officers before commanding there. And the functions of the governor
and judges of Indiana having commenced, the government, we presume, is
proceeding in its new form. The lead mines in that district offer so
rich a supply of that metal as to merit attention. The report now
communicated will inform you of their state and of the necessity of
immediate inquiry into their occupation and titles.

With the Indian tribes established within our newly acquired limits,
I have deemed it necessary to open conferences for the purpose of
establishing a good understanding and neighborly relations between us.
So far as we have yet learned, we have reason to believe that their
dispositions are generally favorable and friendly; and with these
dispositions on their part, we have in our own hands means which can
not fail us for preserving their peace and friendship. By pursuing
an uniform course of justice toward them, by aiding them in all the
improvements which may better their condition, and especially by
establishing a commerce on terms which shall be advantageous to them and
only not losing to us, and so regulated as that no incendiaries of our
own or any other nation may be permitted to disturb the natural effects
of our just and friendly offices, we may render ourselves so necessary
to their comfort and prosperity that the protection of our citizens
from their disorderly members will become their interest and their
voluntary care. Instead, therefore, of an augmentation of military
force proportioned to our extension of frontier, I propose a moderate
enlargement of the capital employed in that commerce as a more
effectual, economical, and humane instrument for preserving peace and
good neighborhood with them.

On this side the Mississippi an important relinquishment of native title
has been received from the Delawares. That tribe, desiring to extinguish
in their people the spirit of hunting and to convert superfluous lands
into the means of improving what they retain, has ceded to us all the
country between the Wabash and Ohio south of and including the road from
the rapids toward Vincennes, for which they are to receive annuities in
animals and implements for agriculture and in other necessaries. This
acquisition is important, not only for its extent and fertility, but as
fronting 300 miles on the Ohio, and near half that on the Wabash. The
produce of the settled country descending those rivers will no longer
pass in review of the Indian frontier but in a small portion, and, with
the cession heretofore made by the Kaskaskias, nearly consolidates our
possessions north of the Ohio, in a very respectable breadth  from
Lake Erie to the Mississippi. The Piankeshaws having some claim to the
country ceded by the Delawares, it has been thought best to quiet that
by fair purchase also. So soon as the treaties on this subject shall
have received their constitutional sanctions they shall be laid before
both Houses.

The act of Congress of February 28, 1803, for building and employing
a number of gunboats, is now in a course of execution to the extent
there provided for. The obstacle to naval enterprise which vessels of
this construction offer for our seaport towns, their utility toward
supporting within our waters the authority of the laws, the promptness
with which they will be manned by the seamen and militia of the place
in the moment they are wanting, the facility of their assembling from
different parts of the coast to any point where they are required in
greater force than ordinary, the economy of their maintenance and
preservation from decay when not in actual service, and the competence
of our finances to this defensive provision without any new burthen are
considerations which will have due weight with Congress in deciding
on the expediency of adding to their number from year to year, as
experience shall test their utility, until all our important harbors,
by these and auxiliary means, shall be secured against insult and
opposition to the laws.

No circumstance has arisen since your last session which calls for any
augmentation of our regular military force. Should any improvement occur
in the militia system, that will be always seasonable.

Accounts of the receipts and expenditures of the last year, with
estimates for the ensuing one, will as usual be laid before you.

The state of our finances continues to fulfill our expectations. Eleven
millions and a half of dollars, received in the course of the year
ending the 30th of September last, have enabled us, after meeting all
the ordinary expenses of the year, to pay upward of $3,600,000 of the
public debt, exclusive of interest. This payment, with those of the
two preceding years, has extinguished upward of twelve millions of the
principal and a greater sum of interest within that period, and by a
proportionate diminution of interest renders already sensible the effect
of the growing sum yearly applicable to the discharge of the principal.

It is also ascertained that the revenue accrued during the last year
exceeds that of the preceding, and the probable receipts of the ensuing
year may safely be relied on as sufficient, with the sum already in the
Treasury, to meet all the current demands of the year, to discharge
upward of three millions and a half of the engagements incurred under
the British and French conventions, and to advance in the further
redemption of the funded debt as rapidly as had been contemplated.
These, fellow-citizens, are the principal matters which I have thought
it necessary at this time to communicate for your consideration and
attention. Some others will be laid before you in the course of the
session; but in the discharge of the great duties confided to you by
our country you will take a broader view of the field of legislation.
Whether the great interests of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, or
navigation can within the pale of your constitutional powers be aided
in any of their relations; whether laws are provided in all cases where
they are wanting; whether those provided are exactly what they should
be; whether any abuses take place in their administration, or in that of
the public revenues; whether the organization of the public agents or of
the public force is perfect in all its parts; in fine, whether anything
can be done to advance the general good, are questions within the limits
of your functions which will necessarily occupy your attention. In these
and all other matters which you in your wisdom may propose for the good
of our country you may count with assurance on my hearty cooperation and
faithful execution.

TH. JEFFERSON.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

November 15, 1804.

 To the Senate of the United States :

I now lay before you a treaty, entered into on the 18th day of August of
the present year, between the United States on one part and the Delaware
Indians on the other, for the extinguishment of their title to a tract
of country between the Ohio and Wabash rivers.

And another of the 27th day of the same month, between the United States
and the Piankeshaws, for a confirmation of the same by the latter,
together with a letter from Governor Harrison on the same subject; which
treaties are submitted for your advice and consent.

TH. JEFFERSON.

NOVEMBER 15, 1804.

 To the House of Representatives of the United States :

Agreeably to your resolution of the 9th instant, I now lay before you a
statement of the circumstances attending the destruction of the frigate
 Philadelphia , with the names of the officers and the number of men
employed on the occasion, to which I have to add that Lieutenant Decatur
was thereupon advanced to be a captain in the Navy of the United States.

TH. JEFFERSON.

NOVEMBER 30, 1804.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now lay before you copies of the treaties concluded with the Delaware
and Piankeshaw Indians for the extinguishment of their title to the
lands therein described, and I recommend to the consideration of
Congress the making provision by law for carrying them into execution.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 13. 1804.

 To the Senate of the United States :

I present for your advice a treaty entered into on behalf of the United
States with the Creek Indians for the extinguishment of their right in
certain lands in the forks of Oconee and Okmulgee rivers, within the
State of Georgia. For the purpose of enabling you to form a satisfactory
judgment on the subject, it is accompanied with the instructions of
1802, April 12, to James Wilkinson, Benjamin Hawkins, and Andrew
Pickens, commissioners; those of 1803, May 5, to James Wilkinson,
Benjamin Hawkins, and Robert Anderson, commissioners, and those of 1804,
April 2, to Benjamin Hawkins, sole commissioner. The negotiations for
obtaining the whole of the lands between the Oconee and Okmulgee have
now been continued through three successive seasons under the original
instructions and others supplementary to them given from time to time,
as circumstances required, and the unity of the negotiation has been
preserved not only by the subject, but by continuing Colonel Hawkins
always one of the commissioners, and latterly the sole one. The extent
of the cession to be obtained being uncertain, the limitation of price
was what should be thought  reasonable according to the usual rate of
compensation . The commissioner has been induced to go beyond this
limit probably by the just attentions due to the strong interest which
the State of Georgia feels in making this particular acquisition, and by
a despair of procuring it on more reasonable terms from a tribe which
is one of those most fixed in the policy of holding fast their lands.
To this may be added that if, by an alteration in the first article,
instead of giving them stock which may be passed into other hands and
render them the prey of speculators, an annuity shall be paid them in
this case, as has hitherto been practiced in all similar cases, the
price of these lands will become a pledge and guaranty for our future
peace with this important tribe, and eventually an indemnity for the
breach of it.

On the whole, I rest with entire satisfaction on the wisdom and counsel
of those whose sanctions the Constitution has rendered necessary to the
final validity of this act.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 31, 1804.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

The inclosed letter, written from Malta by Richard O'Brien, our late
consul at Algiers, giving some details of transactions before Tripoli,
is communicated for the information of Congress.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 31, 1804.

 To the Senate of the United States :

Most of the Indians residing within our northern boundary on this
side of the Mississippi receiving from us annual aids in money and
necessaries, it was a subject of complaint with the Sacs that they
received nothing and were connected with us by no treaty. As they owned
the country in the neighborhood of our settlements of Kaskaskia and Saint
Louis, it was thought expedient to engage their friendship, and Governor
Harrison was accordingly instructed in June last to propose to them an
annuity of $500 or $600, stipulating in return an adequate cession of
territory and an exact definition of boundaries. The Sacs and Foxes
acting generally as one nation, and coming forward together, he found
it necessary to add an annuity for the latter tribe also, enlarging
proportionably the cession of territory, which was accordingly done by
the treaty now communicated, of November the 3d, with those two tribes.

This cession, giving us a perfect title to such a breadth of country on
the eastern side of the Mississippi, with a command of the Ouisconsin,
strengthens our means of retaining exclusive commerce with the Indians
on the western side of the Mississippi  a right indispensable to the
policy of governing those Indians by commerce rather than by arms.

The treaty is now submitted to the Senate for their advice and consent.

TH. JEFFERSON.

Chapter 22

JANUARY 31, 1805.

 To the House of Representatives of the United States :

In compliance with the desire of the House of Representatives, expressed
in their resolution of yesterday, I have to inform them that by a letter
of the 30th of May last from the Secretary of War to Samuel Hammond, a
member of the House, it was proposed to him to accept a commission of
colonel-commandant for the district of Louisiana when the new government
there should commence. By a letter of the 30th of June he signified a
willingness to accept, but still more definitively by one of October 26,
a copy of which is therefore now communicated. A commission had been
made out for him bearing date the ist day of October last, and forwarded
before the receipt of his letter of October 26. No later communication
has been received from him, nor is anything later known of his
movements.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 1, 1805.

 To the House of Representatives of the United States :

For some weeks past I have had reason to expect by every mail from New
Orleans information which would have fully met the views of the House of
Representatives, expressed in their resolution of December 31, on the
subject of a post-road from the city of Washington to New Orleans; but
this being not yet received, I think it my duty without further delay to
communicate to the House the information I possess, however imperfect.

Isaac Briggs, one of the surveyors-general of the United States, being
about to return in July last to his station at Natchez, and apprised of
the anxiety existing to have a practicable road explored for forwarding
the mail to New Orleans without crossing the mountains, offered his
services voluntarily to return by the route contemplated, taking as
he should go such observations of longitude and latitude as would
enable him to delineate it exactly, and by protraction to show of what
shortenings it would admit, The offer was accepted and he was furnished
with an accurate sextant for his observations. The route proposed was
from Washington by Fredericksburg, Cartersville, Lower Sauratown,
Salisbury, Franklin Court-House in Georgia, Tuckabachee, Fort Stoddert,
and the mouth of Pearl River to New Orleans. It is believed he followed
this route generally, deviating at times only for special purposes, and
returning again into it. His letters, herewith communicated, will
shew his opinion to have been, after completing his journey, that the
practicable distance between Washington and New Orleans will be a little
over 1,000 miles. He expected to forward his map and special report
within one week from the date of his last letter, but a letter of
December 10, from another person, informs me he had been unwell, but
would forward them within a week from that time. So soon as they shall
be received they shall be communicated to the House of Representatives.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 5, 1805.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

The Secretary of State has lately received a note from the Danish charge
d'affaires, claiming,  in the name of his Government , restitution
in the case of the brig  Henrich , communicated to Congress at a
former session, in which note were transmitted sundry documents chiefly
relating to the value and neutral character of the vessel, and to the
question whether the judicial proceedings were instituted and conducted
without the concurrence of the captain of the  Henrich . As these
documents appear to form a necessary appendage to those already before
Congress, and throw additional light on the subject, I transmit copies
of them herewith.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 13, 1805.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

In the message to Congress at the opening of the present session I
informed them that treaties had been entered into with the Delaware and
Piankeshaw Indians for the purchase of their right to certain lands on
the Ohio. I have since received another, entered into with the Sacs and
Foxes, for a portion of country on both sides of the river Mississippi.
These treaties, having been advised and consented to by the Senate, have
accordingly been ratified, but as they involve conditions which require
legislative provision, they are now submitted to both branches for
consideration.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 20, 1805.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I communicate, for the information of Congress, a letter of September 18
from Commodore Preble, giving a detailed account of the transactions of
the vessels under his command from July the 9th to the 10th of September
last past.

The energy and judgment displayed by this excellent officer through the
whole course of the service lately confided to him and the zeal and
valor of his officers and men in the several enterprises executed by
them can not fail to give high satisfaction to Congress and their
country, of whom they have deserved well.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 28, 1805.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now lay before Congress a statement of the militia of the United
States, according to the returns last received from the several States.
It will be perceived that some of these are not of recent dates, and
that from the States of Maryland, Delaware, and Tennessee no returns are
stated. As far as appears from our records, none were ever rendered from
either of these States.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 28, 1805.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now render to Congress the account of the fund established by the act
of May 1, 1802, for defraying the contingent charges of Government. No
occasion having arisen for making use of any part of the balance of
$18,560 unexpended on the 31st day of December, 1803, when the last
account was rendered by message, that balance has been carried to the
credit of the surplus fund.

TH. JEFFERSON.

SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

Proceeding, fellow-citizens, to that qualification which the
Constitution requires before my entrance on the charge again conferred
on me, it is my duty to express the deep sense I entertain of this new
proof of confidence from my fellow-citizens at large, and the zeal with
which it inspires me so to conduct myself as may best satisfy their just
expectations.

On taking this station on a former occasion I declared the principles
on which I believed it my duty to administer the affairs of our
Commonwealth. My conscience tells me I have on every occasion acted
up to that declaration according to its obvious import and to the
understanding of every candid mind.

In the transaction of your foreign affairs we have endeavored to
cultivate the friendship of all nations, and especially of those with
which we have the most important relations. We have clone them justice
on all occasions, favored where favor was lawful, and cherished mutual
interests and intercourse on fair and equal terms. We are firmly
convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with
individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found
inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the
fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had
to armaments and wars to bridle others.

At home, fellow-citizens, you best know whether we have done well or
ill. The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments
and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These,
covering our land with officers and opening our doors to their
intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which
once entered is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively
every article of property and produce. If among these taxes some minor
ones fell which had not been inconvenient, it was because their amount
would not have paid the officers who collected them, and because, if
they had any merit, the State authorities might adopt them instead of
others less approved.

The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign articles is paid
chiefly by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic
comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and,
incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be
the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what
mechanic, what laborer ever sees a taxgatherer of the United States?
These contributions enable us to support the current expenses of the
Government, to fulfill contracts with foreign nations, to extinguish the
native right of soil within our limits, to extend those limits, and to
apply such a surplus to our public debts as places at a short day their
final redemption, and that redemption once effected the revenue thereby
liberated may, by a just repartition of it among the States and a
corresponding amendment of the Constitution, be applied  in time
of peace  to rivers, canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education,
and other great objects within each State.  In time of war , if
injustice by ourselves or others must sometimes produce war, increased
as the same revenue will be by increased population and consumption, and
aided by other resources reserved for that crisis, it may meet within
the year all the expenses of the year without encroaching on the rights
of future generations by burthening them with the debts of the past. War
will then be but a suspension of useful works, and a return to a state
of peace a return to the progress of improvement.

I have said, fellow-citizens, that the income reserved had enabled us to
extend our limits, but that extension may possibly pay for itself before
we are called on, and in the meantime may keep down the accruing
interest; in all events, it will replace the advances we shall have
made. I know that the acquisition of Louisiana has been disapproved by
some from a candid apprehension that the enlargement of our territory
would endanger its union. But who can limit the extent to which the
federative principle may operate effectively? The larger our association
the less will it be shaken by local passions; and in any view is it not
better that the opposite bank of the Mississippi should be settled by
our own brethren and children than by strangers of another family? With
which should we be most likely to live in harmony and friendly
intercourse?

In matters of religion I have considered that its free exercise is
placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the General
Government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe
the religious exercises suited to it, but have left them, as the
Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of the
church or state authorities acknowledged by the several religious
societies.

The aboriginal inhabitants of these countries I have regarded with the
commiseration their history inspires. Endowed with the faculties and the
rights of men, breathing an ardent love of liberty and independence, and
occupying a country which left them no desire but to be undisturbed, the
stream of overflowing population from other regions directed itself on
these shores; without power to divert or habits to contend against
it, they have been overwhelmed by the current or driven before it;
now reduced within limits too narrow for the hunter's state, humanity
enjoins us to teach them agriculture and the domestic arts; to encourage
them to that industry which alone can enable them to maintain their
place in existence and to prepare them in time for that state of society
which to bodily comforts adds the improvement of the mind and morals. We
have therefore liberally furnished them with the implements of husbandry
and household use; we have placed among them instructors in the arts of
first necessity, and they are covered with the aegis of the law against
aggressors from among ourselves.

But the endeavors to enlighten them on the fate which awaits their
present course of life, to induce them to exercise their reason, follow
its dictates, and change their pursuits with the change of circumstances
have powerful obstacles to encounter; they are combated by the habits
of their bodies, prejudices of their minds, ignorance, pride, and the
influence of interested and crafty individuals among them who feel
themselves something in the present order of things and fear to become
nothing in any other. These persons inculcate a sanctimonious reverence
for the customs of their ancestors; that whatsoever they did must be
done through all time; that reason is a false guide, and to advance
under its counsel in their physical, moral, or political condition is
perilous innovation; that their duty is to remain as their Creator made
them, ignorance being safety and knowledge full of danger; in short,
my friends, among them also is seen the action and counteraction of
good sense and of bigotry; they too have their antiphilosophists who
find an interest in keeping things in their present state, who dread
reformation, and exert all their faculties to maintain the ascendency of
habit over the duty of improving our reason and obeying its mandates.

In giving these outlines I do not mean, fellow-citizens, to arrogate to
myself the merit of the measures. That is due, in the first place, to
the reflecting character of our citizens at large, who, by the weight of
public opinion, influence and strengthen the public measures. It is due
to the sound discretion with which they select from among themselves
those to whom they confide the legislative duties. It is due to the zeal
and wisdom of the characters thus selected, who lay the foundations of
public happiness in wholesome laws, the execution of which alone remains
for others, and it is due to the able and faithful auxiliaries, whose
patriotism has associated them with me in the executive functions.

During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it,
the artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged with
whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of
an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be
regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap
its safety. They might, indeed, have been corrected by the wholesome
punishments reserved to and provided by the laws of the several States
against falsehood and defamation, but public duties more urgent press on
the time of public servants, and the offenders have therefore been left
to find their punishment in the public indignation.

Nor was it uninteresting to the world that an experiment should be
fairly and fully made, whether freedom of discussion, unaided by power,
is not sufficient for the propagation and protection of truth  whether
a government conducting itself in the true spirit of its constitution,
with zeal and purity, and doing no act which it would be unwilling
the whole world should witness, can be written down by falsehood and
defamation. The experiment has been tried: you have witnessed the scene;
our fellow-citizens looked on, cool and collected; they saw the latent
source from which these outrages proceeded; they gathered around their
public functionaries, and when the Constitution called them to the
decision by suffrage, they pronounced their verdict, honorable to those
who had served them and consolatory to the friend of man who believes
that he may be trusted with the control of his own affairs.

No inference is here intended that the laws provided by the States
against false and defamatory publications should not be enforced; he
who has time renders a service to public morals and public tranquillity
in reforming these abuses by the salutary coercions of the law; but
the experiment is noted to prove that, since truth and reason have
maintained their ground against false opinions in league with false
facts, the press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint;
the public judgment will correct false reasonings and opinions on a
full hearing of all parties; and no other definite line can be drawn
between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing
licentiousness. If there be still improprieties which this rule would
not restrain, its supplement must be sought in the censorship of public
opinion.

Contemplating the union of sentiment now manifested so generally as
auguring harmony and happiness to our future course, I offer to our
country sincere congratulations. With those, too, not yet rallied to
the same point the disposition to do so is gaining strength; facts are
piercing through the veil drawn over them, and our doubting brethren
will at length see that the mass of their fellow-citizens with whom they
can not yet resolve to act as to principles and measures, think as they
think and desire what they desire; that our wish as well as theirs is
that the public efforts may be directed honestly to the public good,
that peace be cultivated, civil and religious liberty unassailed, law
and order preserved, equality of rights maintained, and that state of
property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own
industry or that of his father's. When satisfied of these views it is
not in human nature that they should not approve and support them. In
the meantime let us cherish them with patient affection, let us do them
justice, and more than justice, in all competitions of interest, and we
need not doubt that truth, reason, and their own interests will at
length prevail, will gather them into the fold of their country, and
will complete that entire union of opinion which gives to a nation the
blessing of harmony and the benefit of all its strength.

I shall now enter on the duties to which my fellow-citizens have again
called me, and shall proceed in the spirit of those principles which
they have approved. I fear not that any motives of interest may lead me
astray; I am sensible of no passion which could seduce me knowingly from
the path of justice, but the weaknesses of human nature and the limits
of my own understanding will produce errors of judgment sometimes
injurious to your interests. I shall need, therefore, all the indulgence
which I have heretofore experienced from my constituents; the want of
it will certainly not lessen with increasing years. I shall need, too,
the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as
Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country
flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered
our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom and
power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with
me that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their
councils, and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall
result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship,
and approbation of all nations.

MARCH 4, 1805.

FIFTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.

DECEMBER 3, 1805.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States .

At a moment when the nations of Europe are in commotion and arming
against each other, and when those with whom we have principal
intercourse are engaged in the general contest, and when the countenance
of some of them toward our peaceable country threatens that even that
may not be unaffected by what is passing on the general theater, a
meeting of the representatives of the nation in both Houses of Congress
has become more than usually desirable. Coming from every section of our
country, they bring with them the sentiments and the information of the
whole, and will be enabled to give a direction to the public affairs
which the will and the wisdom of the whole will approve and support.

In taking a view of the state of our country we in the first place
notice the late affliction of two of our cities under the fatal fever
which in latter times has occasionally visited our shores. Providence in
His goodness gave it an early termination on this occasion and lessened
the number of victims which have usually fallen before it. In the course
of the several visitations by this disease it has appeared that it
is strictly local, incident to cities and on the tide waters only,
incommunicable in the country either by persons under the disease or by
goods carried from diseased places; that its access is with the autumn
and it disappears with the early frosts. These restrictions within
narrow limits of time and space give security even to our maritime
cities during three-fourths of the year, and to the country always.
Although from these facts it appears unnecessary, yet to satisfy the
fears of foreign nations and cautions on their part not to be complained
of in a danger whose limits are yet unknown to them I have strictly
enjoined on the officers at the head of the customs to certify with
exact truth for every vessel sailing for a foreign port the state of
health respecting this fever which prevails at the place from which she
sails. Under every motive from character and duty to certify the truth,
I have no doubt they have faithfully executed this injunction. Much real
injury has, however, been sustained from a propensity to identify with
this endemic and to call by the same name fevers of very different
kinds, which have been known at all times and in all countries, and
never have been placed among those deemed contagious. As we advance in
our knowledge of this disease, as facts develop the source from which
individuals receive it, the State authorities charged with the care of
the public health, and Congress with that of the general commerce, will
become able to regulate with effect their respective functions in these
departments. The burthen of quarantines is felt at home as well as
abroad; their efficacy merits examination. Although the health laws of
the States should be found to need no present revisal by Congress, yet
commerce claims that their attention be ever awake to them.

Since our last meeting the aspect of our foreign relations has
considerably changed. Our coasts have been infested and our harbors
watched by private armed vessels, some of them without commissions,
some with illegal commissions, others with those of legal form, but
committing piratical acts beyond the authority of their commissions.
They have captured in the very entrance of our harbors, as well as
on the high seas, not only the vessels of our friends coming to trade
with us, but our own also. They have carried them off under pretense of
legal adjudication, but not daring to approach a court of justice, they
have plundered and sunk them by the way or in obscure places where no
evidence could arise against them, maltreated the crews, and abandoned
them in boats in the open sea or on desert shores without food or
covering. These enormities appearing to be unreached by any control of
their sovereigns, I found it necessary to equip a force to cruise within
our own seas, to arrest all vessels of these descriptions found hovering
on our coasts within the limits of the Gulf Stream and to bring the
offenders in for trial as pirates.

The same system of hovering on our coasts and harbors under color of
seeking enemies has been also carried on by public armed ships to the
great annoyance and oppression of our commerce. New principles, too,
have been interpolated into the law of nations, founded neither in
justice nor the usage or acknowledgment of nations. According to these
a belligerent takes to itself a commerce with its own enemy which it
denies to a neutral on the ground of its aiding that enemy in the war;
but reason revolts at such an inconsistency, and the neutral having
equal right with the belligerent to decide the question, the interests
of our constituents and the duty of maintaining the authority of reason,
the only umpire between just nations, impose on us the obligation of
providing an effectual and determined opposition to a doctrine so
injurious to the rights of peaceable nations. Indeed, the confidence
we ought to have in the justice of others still countenances the hope
that a sounder view of those rights will of itself induce from every
belligerent a more correct observance of them.

With Spain our negotiations for a settlement of differences have not
had a satisfactory issue. Spoliations during a former war, for which
she had formally acknowledged herself responsible, have been refused
to be compensated but on conditions affecting other claims in no wise
connected with them. Yet the same practices are renewed in the present
war and are already of great amount. On the Mobile, our commerce passing
through that river continues to be obstructed by arbitrary duties and
vexatious searches. Propositions for adjusting amicably the boundaries
of Louisiana have not been acceded to. While, however, the right is
unsettled, we have avoided changing the state of things by taking new
posts or strengthening ourselves in the disputed territories, in the
hope that the other power would not by a contrary conduct oblige us to
meet their example and endanger conflicts of authority the issue of
which may not be easily controlled. But in this hope we have now reason
to lessen our confidence. Inroads have been recently made into the
Territories of Orleans and the Mississippi, our citizens have been
seized and their property plundered in the very parts of the former
which had been actually delivered up by Spain, and this by the regular
officers and soldiers of that Government. I have therefore found it
necessary at length to give orders to our troops on that frontier to be
in readiness to protect our citizens, and to repel by arms any similar
aggressions in future. Other details necessary for your full information
of the state of things between this country and that shall be the
subject of another communication.

In reviewing these injuries from some of the belligerent powers the
moderation, the firmness, and the wisdom of the Legislature will all be
called into action. We ought still to hope that time and a more correct
estimate of interest as well as of character will produce the justice
we are bound to expect. But should any nation deceive itself by false
calculations, and disappoint that expectation, we must join in the
unprofitable contest of trying which party can do the other the most
harm. Some of these injuries may perhaps admit a peaceable remedy. Where
that is competent it is always the most desirable. But some of them are
of a nature to be met by force only, and all of them may lead to it.
I can not, therefore, but recommend such preparations as circumstances
call for. The first object is to place our seaport towns out of the
danger of insult. Measures have been already taken for furnishing them
with heavy cannon for the service of such land batteries as may make a
part of their defense against armed vessels approaching them. In aid of
these it is desirable we should have a competent number of gunboats, and
the number, to be competent, must be considerable. If immediately begun,
they may be in readiness for service at the opening of the next season.
Whether it will be necessary to augment our land forces will be decided
by occurrences probably in the course of your session. In the meantime
you will consider whether it would not be expedient for a state of peace
as well as of war so to organize or class the militia as would enable
us on any sudden emergency to call for the services of the younger
portions, unencumbered with the old and those having families. Upward
of 300,000 able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 26 years, which
the last census shews we may now count within our limits, will furnish
a competent number for offense or defense in any point where they may
be wanted, and will give time for raising regular forces after the
necessity of them shall become certain; and the reducing to the early
period of life all its active service can not but be desirable to our
younger citizens of the present as well as future times, inasmuch as it
engages to them in more advanced age a quiet and undisturbed repose in
the bosom of their families. I can not, then, but earnestly recommend
to your early consideration the expediency of so modifying our militia
system as, by a separation of the more active part from that which is
less so, we may draw from it when necessary an efficient corps fit for
real and active service, and to be called to it in regular rotation.

Considerable provision has been made under former authorities from
Congress of materials for the construction of ships of war of 74 guns.
These materials are on hand subject to the further will of the
Legislature.

An immediate prohibition of the exportation of arms and ammunition is
also submitted to your determination.

Turning from these unpleasant views of violence and wrong, I
congratulate you on the liberation of our fellow-citizens who were
stranded on the coast of Tripoli and made prisoners of war. In a
government bottomed on the will of all the life and liberty of every
individual citizen become interesting to all. In the treaty, therefore,
which has concluded our warfare with that State an article for the
ransom of our citizens has been agreed to. An operation by land by a
small band of our countrymen and others, engaged for the occasion in
conjunction with the troops of the ex-Bashaw of that country, gallantly
conducted by our late consul, Eaton, and their successful enterprise
on the city of Derne, contributed doubtless to the impression which
produced peace, and the conclusion of this prevented opportunities of
which the officers and men of our squadron destined for Tripoli would
have availed themselves to emulate the acts of valor exhibited by
their brethren in the attack of the last year. Reflecting with high
satisfaction on the distinguished bravery displayed whenever occasions
permitted in the late Mediterranean service, I think it would be an
useful encouragement as well as a just reward to make an opening for
some present promotion by enlarging our peace establishment of captains
and lieutenants.

With Tunis some misunderstandings have arisen not yet sufficiently
explained, but friendly discussions with their ambassador recently
arrived and a mutual disposition to do whatever is just and reasonable
can not fail of dissipating these, so that we may consider our peace on
that coast, generally, to be on as sound a footing as it has been at any
preceding time. Still, it will not be expedient to withdraw immediately
the whole of our force from that sea.

The law providing for a naval peace establishment fixes the number of
frigates which shall be kept in constant service in time of peace, and
prescribes that they shall be manned by not more than two-thirds of
their complement of seamen and ordinary seamen. Whether a frigate may
be trusted to two-thirds only of her proper complement of men must
depend on the nature of the service on which she is ordered; that may
sometimes, for her safety as well as to insure her object, require her
fullest complement. In adverting to this subject Congress will perhaps
consider whether the best limitation on the Executive discretion in
this case would not be by the number of seamen which may be employed in
the whole service rather than by the number of the vessels. Occasions
oftener arise for the employment of small than of large vessels, and it
would lessen risk as well as expense to be authorized to employ them of
preference. The limitation suggested by the number of seamen would admit
a selection of vessels best adapted to the service.

Our Indian neighbors are advancing, many of them with spirit, and
others beginning to engage in the pursuits of agriculture and household
manufacture. They are becoming sensible that the earth yields
subsistence with less labor and more certainty than the forest, and find
it their interest from time to time to dispose of parts of their surplus
and waste lands for the means of improving those they occupy and of
subsisting their families while they are preparing their farms. Since
your last session the Northern tribes have sold to us the lands between
the Connecticut Reserve and the former Indian boundary and those on the
Ohio from the same boundary to the rapids and for a considerable depth
inland. The Chickasaws and Cherokees have sold us the country between
and adjacent to the two districts of Tennessee, and the Creeks the
residue of their lands in the fork of Ocmulgee up to the Ulcofauhatche.
The three former purchases are important, inasmuch as they consolidate
disjoined parts of our settled country and render their intercourse
secure; and the second particularly so, as, with the small point on
the river which we expect is by this time ceded by the Piankeshaws, it
completes our possession of the whole of both banks of the Ohio from its
source to near its mouth, and the navigation of that river is thereby
rendered forever safe to our citizens settled and settling on its
extensive waters. The purchase from the Creeks, too, has been for some
time particularly interesting to the State of Georgia.

The several treaties which have been mentioned will be submitted to both
Houses of Congress for the exercise of their respective functions.

Deputations now on their way to the seat of Government from various
nations of Indians inhabiting the Missouri and other parts beyond the
Mississippi come charged with assurances of their satisfaction with the
new relations in which they are placed with us, of their dispositions
to cultivate our peace and friendship, and their desire to enter into
commercial intercourse with us. A state of our progress in exploring the
principal rivers of that country, and of the information respecting them
hitherto obtained, will be communicated so soon as we shall receive some
further relations which we have reason shortly to expect.

The receipts at the Treasury during the year ending on the 30th day of
September last have exceeded the sum of $13,000,000, which, with not
quite five millions in the Treasury at the beginning of the year, have
enabled us after meeting other demands to pay nearly two millions of the
debt contracted under the British treaty and convention, upward of four
millions of principal of the public debt, and four millions of interest.
These payments, with those which had been made in three years and a half
preceding, have extinguished of the funded debt nearly eighteen millions
of principal. Congress by their act of November 10, 1803, authorized us
to borrow $1,750,000 toward meeting the claims of our citizens assumed
by the convention with France. We have not, however, made use of this
authority, because the sum of four millions and a half, which remained
in the Treasury on the same 30th day of September last, with the
receipts which we may calculate on for the ensuing year, besides paying
the annual sum of $8,000,000 appropriated to the funded debt and meeting
all the current demands which may be expected, will enable us to pay
the whole sum of $3,750,000 assumed by the French convention and still
leave us a surplus of nearly $1,000,000 at our free disposal. Should
you concur in the provisions of arms and armed vessels recommended by
the circumstances of the times, this surplus will furnish the means of
doing so.

On this first occasion of addressing Congress since, by the choice of
my constituents, I have entered on a second term of administration, I
embrace the opportunity to give this public assurance that I will exert
my best endeavors to administer faithfully the executive department,
and will zealously cooperate with you in every measure which may
tend to secure the liberty, property, and personal safety of our
fellow-citizens, and to consolidate the republican forms and principles
of our Government.

In the course of your session you shall receive all the aid which I
can give for the dispatch of public business, and all the information
necessary for your deliberations, of which the interests of our own
country and the confidence reposed in us by others will admit a
communication.

TH. JEFFERSON.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

DECEMBER 6, 1805.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

The depredations which had been committed on the commerce of the United
States during a preceding war by persons under the authority of Spain
are sufficiently known to all. These made it a duty to require from that
Government indemnifications for our injured citizens. A convention was
accordingly entered into between the minister of the United States at
Madrid and the minister of that Government for foreign affairs, by which
it was agreed that spoliations committed by Spanish subjects and carried
into ports of Spain should be paid for by that nation, and that those
committed by French subjects and carried into Spanish ports should
remain for further discussion. Before this convention was returned
to Spain with our ratification the transfer of Louisiana by France to
the United States took place, an event as unexpected as disagreeable
to Spain. From that moment she seemed to change her conduct and
dispositions toward us. It was first manifested by her protest against
the right of France to alienate Louisiana to us, which, however, was
soon retracted and the right confirmed. Then high offense was manifested
at the act of Congress establishing a collection district on the Mobile,
although by an authentic declaration immediately made it was expressly
confined to our acknowledged limits; and she now refused to ratify the
convention signed by her own minister under the eye of his Sovereign
unless we would consent to alterations of its terms which would have
affected our claims against her for the spoliations by French subjects
carried into Spanish ports.

To obtain justice as well as to restore friendship I thought a special
mission advisable, and accordingly appointed James Monroe minister
extraordinary and plenipotentiary to repair to Madrid, and in
conjunction with our minister resident there to endeavor to procure a
ratification of the former convention and to come to an understanding
with Spain as to the boundaries of Louisiana. It appeared at once that
her policy was to reserve herself for events, and in the meantime to
keep our differences in an undetermined state. This will be evident
from the papers now communicated to you. After nearly five months of
fruitless endeavor to bring them to some definite and satisfactory
result, our ministers ended the conferences without having been able to
obtain indemnity for spoliations of any description or any satisfaction
as to the boundaries of Louisiana, other than a declaration that we had
no rights eastward of the Iberville, and that our line to the west was
one which would have left us but a string of land on that bank of the
river Mississippi. Our injured citizens were thus left without any
prospect of retribution from the wrongdoer, and as to boundary each
party was to take its own course. That which they have chosen to pursue
will appear from the documents now communicated. They authorize the
inference that it is their intention to advance on our possessions until
they shall be repressed by an opposing force. Considering that Congress
alone is constitutionally invested with the power of changing our
condition from peace to war, I have thought it my duty to await their
authority for using force in any degree which could be avoided. I have
barely instructed the officers stationed in the neighborhood of the
aggressions to protect our citizens from violence, to patrol within the
borders actually delivered to us, and not to go out of them but when
necessary to repel an inroad or to rescue a citizen or his property; and
the Spanish officers remaining at New Orleans are required to depart
without further delay. It ought to be noted here that since the late
change in the state of affairs in Europe Spain has ordered her cruisers
and courts to respect our treaty with her.

The conduct of France and the part she may take in the misunderstandings
between the United States and Spain are too important to be
unconsidered. She was prompt and decided in her declarations that our
demands on Spain for French spoliations carried into Spanish ports were
included in the settlement between the United States and France. She
took at once the ground that she had acquired no right from Spain, and
had meant to deliver us none eastward of the Iberville, her silence as
to the western boundary leaving us to infer her opinion might be against
Spain in that quarter. Whatever direction she might mean to give to
these differences, it does not appear that she has contemplated their
proceeding to actual rupture, or that at the date of our last advices
from Paris her Government had any suspicion of the hostile attitude
Spain had taken here; on the contrary, we have reason to believe that
she was disposed to effect a settlement on a plan analogous to what our
ministers had proposed, and so comprehensive as to remove as far as
possible the grounds of future collision and controversy on the eastern
as well as western side of the Mississippi.

The present crisis in Europe is favorable for pressing such a
settlement, and not a moment should be lost in availing ourselves of
it. Should it pass unimproved, our situation would become much more
difficult. Formal war is not necessary  it is not probable it will
follow; but the protection of our citizens, the spirit and honor of our
country require that force should be interposed to a certain degree it
will probably contribute to advance the object of peace,

But the course to be pursued will require the command of means which
it belongs to Congress exclusively to yield or to deny. To them I
communicate every fact material for their information and the documents
necessary to enable them to judge for themselves. To their wisdom, then,
I look for the course I am to pursue, and will pursue with sincere zeal
that which they shall approve.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 11, 1805.

 To the Senate of the United States :

I now lay before the Senate the several treaties and conventions
following, which have been entered into on the part of the United
States since their last session:

1. A treaty of peace and amity between the United States of America
and the Bashaw, Bey, and subjects of Tripoli, in Barbary.

2. A treaty between the United States and the Wyandot, Ottawa, Chippewa,
Munsee, and Delaware, Shawnee, and Potawatamie nations of Indians.

3. A treaty between the United States and the agents of the Connecticut
Land Companies on one part and the Wyandot, Ottawa, Chippewa, Munsee,
and Delaware, Shawnee, and Potawatamie nations of Indians.

4. A treaty between the United States and the Delawares, Potawatamies,
Miamis, Eel-rivers, and Weeas.

5. A treaty between the United States and the Chickasaw Nation of
Indians.

6. A treaty between the United States of America and the Cherokee
Indians.

7. A convention between the United States and the Creek Nation of
Indians; with the several documents necessary for their explanation.

The Senate having dissented to the ratification of the treaty with the
Creeks submitted to them at their last session, which gave a sum of
$200,000 for the country thereby conveyed, it is proper now to observe
that instead of that sum, which was equivalent to a perpetual annuity of
$12,000, the present purchase gives them an annuity of $12,000 for eight
years only and of $11,000 for ten years more, the payments of which
would be effected by a present sum of $130,000 placed at an annual
interest of 6 per cent. If from this sum we deduct the reasonable
value of the road ceded through the whole length of their country from
Ocmulgee toward New Orleans, a road of indispensable necessity to us,
the present convention will be found to give little more than the half
of the sum which was formerly proposed to be given. This difference is
thought sufficient to justify the presenting this subject a second time
to the Senate. On these several treaties I have to request that the
Senate will advise whether I shall ratify them or not.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 23, 1805.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

The governor and presiding judge of the Territory of Michigan have made
a report to me of the state of that Territory, several matters in which
being within the reach of the legislative authority only, I lay the
report before Congress.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 31, 1805.

 To the House of Representatives of the United States :

I now communicate to the House of Representatives all the information
which the executive offices furnish on the subject of their resolution
of the 23d instant respecting the States indebted to the United States.

TH. JEFFERSON.

Chapter 23

JANUARY 10, 1806.

 To the Senate of the United States :

In compliance with the request of the Senate expressed in their
resolution of December 27, I now lay before them such documents and
papers (there being no other information in my possession) as relate to
complaints by the Government of France against the commerce carried on
by the citizens of the United States to the French island of Saint
Domingo.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 13, 1806.

 To the Senate of the United States :

According to the request of the Senate of December 30, I now lay before
them the correspondence of the naval commanders Barron and Rodgers and
of Mr. Eaton, late consul at Tunis, respecting the progress of the
war with Tripoli, antecedent to the treaty with the Bey and Regency
of Tripoli, and respecting the negotiations for the same, and the
commission and instructions of Mr. Eaton, with such other correspondence
in possession of the offices as I suppose may be useful to the Senate in
their deliberations upon the said treaty.

The instructions which were given to Mr. Lear, the consul-general at
Algiers, respecting the negotiations for the said treaty accompanied
the treaty and the message concerning the same, and are now with them
in possession of the Senate.

So much of these papers has been extracted and communicated to the House
of Representatives as relates to the principles of the cooperation
between the United States and Hamet Caramalli, which is the subject
of a joint message to both Houses of Congress bearing equal date with
the present, and as those now communicated to the Senate comprehend
the whole of that matter, I request that they may be considered as
comprising the documents stated in that message as accompanying it.
Being mostly originals or sole copies, a return of them is requested
at the convenience of the Senate.

We have no letter from Mr. Lear respecting Tripoline affairs of later
date than that of July 5, which was transmitted to the Senate with the
treaty, nor, consequently, any later information what steps have been
taken to carry into effect the stipulation for the delivery of the wife
and children of the brother of the reigning Bashaw of Tripoli.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 13, 1806.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I lay before Congress the application of Hamet Caramalli, elder brother
of the reigning Bashaw of Tripoli, soliciting from the United States
attention to his services and sufferings in the late war against
that State; and in order to possess them of the ground on which that
application stands, the facts shall be stated according to the views
and information of the Executive.

During the war with Tripoli it was suggested that Hamet Caramalli, elder
brother of the reigning Bashaw, and driven by him from his throne,
meditated the recovery of his inheritance, and that a concert in action
with us was desirable to him. We considered that concerted operations
by those who have a common enemy were entirely justifiable, and might
produce effects favorable to both without binding either to guarantee
the objects of the other. But the distance of the scene, the
difficulties of communication, and the uncertainty of our information
inducing the less confidence in the measure, it was committed to our
agents as one which might be resorted to if it promised to promote our
success.

Mr. Eaton, however (our late consul), on his return from the
Mediterranean, possessing personal knowledge of the scene and having
confidence in the effect of a joint operation, we authorized Commodore
Barron, then proceeding with his squadron, to enter into an
understanding with Hamet if he should deem it useful; and as it was
represented that he would need some aids of arms and ammunition, and
even of money, he was authorized to furnish them to a moderate extent,
according to the prospect of utility to be expected from it. In order to
avail him of the advantages of Mr. Eaton's knowledge of circumstances,
an occasional employment was provided for the latter as an agent for the
Navy in that sea. Our expectation was that an intercourse should be kept
up between the ex-Bashaw and the commodore; that while the former moved
on by land our squadron should proceed with equal pace, so as to arrive
at their destination together and to attack the common enemy by land and
sea at the same time. The instructions of June 6 to Commodore Barron
shew that a cooperation only was intended, and by no means an union
of our object with the fortune of the ex-Bashaw, and the commodore's
letters of March 22 and May 19 prove that he had the most correct idea
of our intentions. His verbal instructions, indeed, to Mr. Eaton and
Captain Hull, if the expressions are accurately committed to writing
by those gentlemen, do not limit the extent of his cooperation as
rigorously as he probably intended; but it is certain from the
ex-Bashaw's letter of January 3, written when he was proceeding to join
Mr. Eaton, and in which he says, "Your operations should be carried on
by sea, mine by land," that he left the position in which he was with a
proper idea of the nature of the cooperation. If Mr. Eaton's subsequent
convention should appear to bring forward other objects, his letter of
April 29 and May 1 views this convention but as provisional, the second
article, as he expressly states, guarding it against any ill effect; and
his letter of June 30 confirms this construction.

In the event it was found that after placing the ex-Bashaw in possession
of Derne, one of the most important cities and provinces of the country,
where he had resided himself as governor, lie was totally unable to
command any resources or to bear any part in cooperation with us. This
hope was then at an end, and we certainly had never contemplated, nor
were we prepared, to land an army of our own, or to raise, pay, or
subsist an army of Arabs to march from Derne to Tripoli and to carry
on a land war at such a distance from our resources. Our means and our
authority were merely naval, and that such were the expectations of
Hamet his letter of June 29 is an unequivocal acknowledgment. While,
therefore, an impression from the capture of Derne might still operate
at Tripoli, and an attack on that place from our squadron was daily
expected. Colonel Lear thought it the best moment to listen to overtures
of peace then made by the Bashaw. He did so, and while urging provisions
for the United States he paid attention also to the interests of Hamet,
but was able to effect nothing more than to engage the restitution of
his family, and even the persevering in this demand suspended for some
time the conclusion of the treaty.

In operations at such a distance it becomes necessary to leave much to
the discretion of the agents employed, but events may still turn up
beyond the limits of that discretion. Unable in such a case to consult
his Government, a zealous citizen will act as he believes that would
direct him were it apprised of the circumstances, and will take on
himself the responsibility. In all these cases the purity and patriotism
of the motives should shield the agent from blame, and even secure a
sanction where the error is not too injurious. Should it be thought by
any that the verbal instructions said to have been given by Commodore
Barron to Mr. Eaton amount to a stipulation that the United States
should place Hamet Caramalli on the throne of Tripoli  a stipulation so
entirely unauthorized, so far beyond our views, and so onerous could not
be sanctioned by our Government  or should Hamet Caramalli, contrary
to the evidence of his letters of January 3 and June 29, be thought to
have left the position which he now seems to regret, under a mistaken
expectation that we were at all events to place him on his throne, on
an appeal to the liberality of the nation something equivalent to the
replacing him in his former situation might be worthy its consideration.

A nation by establishing a character of liberality and magnanimity gains
in the friendship and respect of others more than the worth of mere
money. This appeal is now made by Hamet Caramalli to the United States.
The ground he has taken being different not only from our views but from
those expressed by himself on former occasions, Mr. Eaton was desired to
state whether any verbal communications passed from him to Hamet which
had varied what we saw in writing. His answer of December 5 is herewith
transmitted, and has rendered it still more necessary that in presenting
to the Legislature the application of Hamet I should present them at
the same time an exact statement of the views and proceedings of the
Executive through this whole business, that they may clearly understand
the ground on which we are placed. It is accompanied by all the papers
which bear any relation to the principles of the cooperation, and which
can inform their judgment in deciding on the application of Hamet
Caramalli.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 15, 1806.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now render to Congress an account of the grant of $20,000 for the
contingent charges of Government by an act making appropriations for the
support of Government for the year 1805. Of that sum $1,987.50 have been
necessarily applied to the support of the Territorial governments of
Michigan and Louisiana until an opportunity could occur of making a
specific appropriation for that purpose. The balance of $18,012.50
remains in the Treasury.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 17, 1806.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

In my message to both Houses of Congress at the opening of their present
session I submitted to their attention, among other subjects, the
oppression of our commerce and navigation by the irregular practices
of armed vessels, public and private, and by the introduction of new
principles derogatory of the rights of neutrals and unacknowledged by
the usage of nations.

The memorials of several bodies of merchants of the United States are
now communicated, and will develop these principles and practices which
are producing the most ruinous effects on our lawful commerce and
navigation.

The rights of a neutral to carry on commercial intercourse with every
part of the dominions of a belligerent permitted by the laws of the
country (with the exception of blockaded ports and contraband of war)
was believed to have been decided between Great Britain and the United
States by the sentence of their commissioners mutually appointed
to decide on that and other questions of difference between the two
nations, and by the actual payment of the damages awarded by them
against Great Britain for the infractions of that right. When,
therefore, it was perceived that the same principle was revived with
others more novel and extending the injury, instructions were given
to the minister plenipotentiary of the United States at the Court of
London, and remonstrances duly made by him on this subject, as will
appear by documents transmitted herewith. These were followed by a
partial and temporary suspension only, without any disavowal of the
principle. He has therefore been instructed to urge this subject anew,
to bring it more fully to the bar of reason, and to insist on rights too
evident and too important to be surrendered. In the meantime the evil is
proceeding under adjudications founded on the principle which is denied.
Under these circumstances the subject presents itself for the
consideration of Congress.

On the impressment of our seamen our remonstrances have never been
intermitted. A hope existed at one moment of an arrangement which might
have been submitted to, but it soon passed away, and the practice,
though relaxed at times in the distant seas, has been constantly pursued
in those in our neighborhood. The grounds on which the reclamations on
this subject have been urged will appear in an extract from instructions
to our minister at London now communicated.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 17, 1806

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

The inclosed letter from the minister plenipotentiary of the United
States at the Court of London contains interesting information on
the subjects of my other message of this date. It is sent separately
and confidentially because its publication may discourage frank
communications between our ministers generally and the Governments
with which they reside, and especially between the same ministers.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 24, 1806.

 To the Senate of the United States :

A convention has been entered into between the United States and the
Cherokee Nation for the extinguishment of the rights of the latter, and
of some unsettled claims in the country north of the river Tennessee,
therein described. This convention is now laid before the Senate for
their advice and consent as to its ratification.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 27, 1806.

 To the Senate of the United States :

According to the desire of the Senate expressed in their resolution of
the 10th instant, I now communicate to them a report of the Secretary of
State, with its documents, stating certain new principles attempted to
be introduced on the subject of neutral rights, injurious to the rights
and interests of the United States. These, with my message to both
Houses of the 17th instant and the documents accompanying it, fulfill
the desires of the Senate as far as it can be done by any information
in my possession which is authentic and not publicly known.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 29, 1806.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

Having received from sundry merchants at Baltimore a memorial on the
same subject with those I communicated to Congress with my message of
the 17th instant, I now communicate this also as a proper sequel to the
former, and as making a part of the mass of evidence of the violations
of our rights on the ocean.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 3, 1806.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

A letter has been received from the governor of South Carolina covering
an act of the legislature of that State ceding to the United States
various forts and fortifications and sites for the erection of forts in
that State on the conditions therein expressed. This letter and the act
it covered are now communicated to Congress.

I am not informed whether the positions ceded are the best which
can be taken for securing their respective objects. No doubt is
entertained that the legislature deemed them such. The river of Beaufort,
particularly, said to be accessible to ships of very large size and
capable of yielding them a protection which they can not find elsewhere
but very far to the north, is from these circumstances so interesting to
the Union in general as to merit particular attention and inquiry as to
the positions on it best calculated for health as well as safety.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 3, 1806.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

In the course of the last year the following treaties and conventions
for the extinguishment of Indian title to lands within our limits were
entered into on behalf of the United States:

A treaty between the United States and the Wyandot, Ottawa, Chippeway,
Munsee and Delaware, Shawanee and Pottawatamy nations of Indians.

A treaty between the United States and the agents of the Connecticut
Land Company on one part and the Wyandot and Ottawa, Chippeway, Munsey
and Delaware, Shawanee and Pottawatamy nations of Indians.

A treaty between the United States and the Delawares, Pottawatamies,
Miamis, Eel-rivers, and Weas.

A treaty between the United States and the Chickasaw Nation of Indians.

Two treaties between the United States and the Cherokee Indians.

A convention between the United States and the Creek Nation of Indians.

The Senate having advised and consented to the ratification of these
several treaties and conventions, I now lay them before both Houses of
Congress for the exercise of their constitutional powers as to the means
of fulfilling them.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 6, 1806.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

Since the date of my message of January 17 a letter of the 26th of
November has been received from the minister plenipotentiary of the
United States at London, covering one from the secretary for foreign
affairs of that Government, which, being on the subject of that message,
is now transmitted for the information of Congress. Although nothing
forbids the substance of these letters from being communicated without
reserve, yet so many ill effects proceed from the publications of
correspondences between ministers remaining still in office that I can
not but recommend that these letters be not permitted to be formally
published.

TH; JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 19, 1806.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

In pursuance of a measure proposed to Congress by a message of January
18, 1803, and sanctioned by their approbation for carrying it into
execution, Captain Meriwether Lewis, of the First Regiment of infantry,
was appointed, with a party of men, to explore the river Missouri from
its mouth to its source, and, crossing the highlands by the shortest
portage, to seek the best water communication thence to the Pacific
Ocean; and Lieutenant Clarke was appointed second in command. They were
to enter into conference with the Indian nations on their route with
a view to the establishment of commerce with them. They entered the
Missouri May 14, 1804, and on the 1st of November took up their winter
quarters near the Mandan towns, 1,609 miles above the mouth of the
river, in latitude 47 deg. 21' 47" north and longitude 99 deg. 24' 45" west from
Greenwich. On the 8th of April, 1805, they proceeded up the river in
pursuance of the objects prescribed to them. A letter of the preceding
day, April 7th, from Captain Lewis is herewith communicated. During
his stay among the Mandans he had been able to lay down the Missouri
according to courses and distances taken on his passage up it, corrected
by frequent observations of longitude and latitude, and to add to the
actual survey of this portion of the river a general map of the country
between the Mississippi and Pacific from the thirty-fourth to the
fifty-fourth degree of latitude. These additions are from information
collected from Indians with whom he had opportunities of communicating
during his journey and residence with them. Copies of this map are now
presented to both Houses of Congress. With these I communicate also a
statistical view, procured and forwarded by him, of the Indian nations
inhabiting the Territory of Louisiana and the countries adjacent to
its northern and western borders, of their commerce, and of other
interesting circumstances respecting them.

In order to render the statement as complete as may be of the Indians
inhabiting the country west of the Mississippi, I add Dr. Sibley's
account of those residing in and adjacent to the Territory of Orleans.

I communicate also, from the same person, an account of the Red River,
according to the best information he had been able to collect.

Having been disappointed, after considerable preparation, in the purpose
of sending an exploring party up that river in the summer of 1804, it
was thought best to employ the autumn of that year in procuring a
knowledge of an interesting branch of the river called the Washita.

This was undertaken under the direction of Mr. Dunbar, of Natchez, a
citizen of distinguished science, who had aided and continues to aid
us with his disinterested and valuable services in the prosecution of
these enterprises. He ascended the river to the remarkable hot springs
near it, in latitude 34 deg. 31' 4.16", longitude 92 deg. 50' 45" west from
Greenwich, taking its courses and distances, and correcting them by
frequent celestial observations. Extracts from his observations and
copies of his map of the river from its mouth to the hot springs make
part of the present communications. The examination of the Red River
itself is but now commencing.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 5, 1806.

 To the Senate of the United States :

According to the request of the Senate expressed in their resolution of
3d instant, I now transmit the extract of a letter from the Secretary of
State to the minister plenipotentiary of the United States at Paris, the
answer to that letter, and two letters from Henry Waddell, a citizen of
the United States, relative to the interference of the said minister
in the case of the ship  New Jersey  and to the principles alleged to
have been laid down on that occasion.

There are in the office of the Department of State several printed
documents in this case by the agent of those interested in the ship,
which are voluminous and in French. If these be within the scope of the
request of the Senate, the printed copies can be sent in immediately,
but if translations be necessary some considerable time will be
requisite for their execution. On this subject any further desire which
the Senate shall think proper to express shall be complied with.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 7, 1806.

 To the Senate of the United States :

According to the request of the Senate of yesterday, I now transmit
the five printed memorials of the agent for the ship  New Jersey , in
the one of which marked B, at the ninth page, will be found the letter
relative to it from the minister plenipotentiary of the United States
at Paris to the French minister of the treasury, supposed to be the one
designated in the resolution. We have no information of this letter but
through the channel of the party interested in the ship, nor any proof
of it more authentic than that now communicated.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 19, 1806.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

It was reasonably expected that while the limits between the territories
of the United States and of Spain were unsettled neither party would
have innovated on the existing state of their respective positions.
Some time since, however, we learnt that the Spanish authorities were
advancing into the disputed country to occupy new posts and make new
settlements. Unwilling to take any measures which might preclude a
peaceable accommodation of differences, the officers of the United
States were ordered to confine themselves within the country on this
side of the Sabine River which, by delivery of its principal post,
Natchitoches, was understood to have been itself delivered up by Spain,
and at the same time to permit no adverse post to be taken nor armed
men to remain within it. In consequence of these orders the commanding
officer of Natchitoches, learning that a party of Spanish troops had
crossed the Sabine River and were posting themselves on this side the
Adais, sent a detachment of his force to require them to withdraw to
the other side of the Sabine, which they accordingly did.

I have thought it proper to communicate to Congress the letter detailing
this incident, that they may fully understand the state of things in
that quarter and be enabled to make such provision for its security as,
in their wisdom, they shall deem sufficient.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 11, 1806.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now lay before Congress a statement of the militia of the United
States according to the returns last received from the several States
and Territories. It will be perceived that some of these are not of
recent dates, and that from the States of Maryland and Delaware no
returns are stated. As far as appears from our records, none were ever
rendered from either of these States. From the Territories of Orleans,
Louisiana, and Michigan complete returns have not yet been received.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 14, 1806.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

During the blockade of Tripoli by the squadron of the United States
a small cruiser, under the flag of Tunis, with two prizes, all of
trifling value, attempted to enter Tripoli; was turned back, warned,
and, attempting again to enter, was taken and detained as prize by the
squadron. Her restitution was claimed by the Bey of Tunis with a threat
of war in terms so serious that on withdrawing from the blockade of
Tripoli the commanding officer of the squadron thought it his duty
to repair to Tunis with his squadron and to require a categorical
declaration whether peace or war was intended. The Bey preferred
explaining himself by an ambassador to the United States, who on his
arrival renewed the request that the vessel and her prizes should be
restored. It was deemed proper to give this proof of friendship to the
Bey, and the ambassador was informed the vessels would be restored.
Afterwards he made a requisition of naval stores to be sent to the Bey,
in order to secure a peace for the term of three years, with a threat
of war if refused. It has been refused, and the ambassador is about to
depart without receding from his threat or demand.

Under these circumstances, and considering that the several provisions
of the act of March 25, 1804, will cease in consequence of the
ratification of the treaty of peace with Tripoli, now advised and
consented to by the Senate, I have thought it my duty to communicate
these facts, in order that Congress may consider the expediency of
continuing the same provisions for a limited time or making others
equivalent.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 15, 1806.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

The Senate having advised and consented to the ratification of a treaty
concluded with the Piankeshaw Indians for extinguishing their claim to
the country between the Wabash and Kaskaskia cessions, it is now laid
before both Houses for the exercise of their constitutional powers as
to the means of fulfilling it on our part.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 17, 1806.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

The Senate having advised and consented to the ratification of a
convention between the United States and the Cherokee Indians, concluded
at Washington on the 7th day of January last, for the cession of their
right to the tract of country therein described, it is now laid before
both Houses of Congress for the exercise of their constitutional powers
toward the fulfillment thereof.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 18, 1806.

 To the Senate of the United States :

In compliance with the request of the Senate of yesterday's date, I now
communicate the entire correspondence between the ambassador of Tunis
and the Secretary of State, from which the Senate will see that the
first application by the ambassador for restitution of the vessels taken
in violation of blockade having been yielded to, the only remaining
cause of difference brought forward by him is the requisition of a
present of naval stores to secure a peace for three years, after which
the inference is obvious that a renewal of the presents is to be
expected to renew the prolongation of peace for another term. But this
demand has been pressed in verbal conferences much more explicitly and
pertinaciously than appears in the written correspondence. To save the
delay of copying, some originals are inclosed, with a request that they
be returned.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 19, 1806.

 To the Senate of the United States :

I nominate James Monroe, now minister plenipotentiary of the United
States at the Court of London, and William Pinkney, of Maryland, to be
commissioners plenipotentiary and extraordinary for settling all matters
of difference between the United States and the United Kingdoms of Great
Britain and Ireland relative to wrongs committed between the parties on
the high seas or other waters, and for establishing the principles of
navigation and commerce between them.

James Houston, of Maryland, to be judge of the court of the United
States for the district of Maryland.

Willis W. Parker, of Virginia, to be collector of the district and
inspector of the revenue for the port of South Quay.

TH. JEFFERSON.

PROCLAMATIONS.

 (From Annals of Congress, Ninth Congress, second session, 685.)

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas satisfactory information has been received that Henry Whitby,
commanding a British armed vessel called the  Leander , did on the
25th day of the month of April last, within the waters and jurisdiction
of the United States, and near to the entrance of the harbor of New
York, by a cannon shot fired from the said vessel  Leander , commit
a murder on the body of John Pierce, a citizen of the United States,
then pursuing his lawful vocation within the same waters and
jurisdiction of the United States and near to their shores; and that
the said Henry Whitby can not at this time be brought to justice by
the ordinary process of law; and

Whereas it does further appear that both before and after the said day
sundry trespasses, wrongs, and unlawful interruptions and vexations on
trading vessels coming to the United States, and within their waters and
vicinity, were committed by the said armed vessel the  Leander , her
officers and people; by one other armed vessel called the  Cambrian ,
commanded by John Nairne, her officers and people; and by one other
armed vessel called the  Driver , commanded by Slingsby Simpson, her
officers and people; which vessels, being all of the same nation, were
aiding and assisting each other in the trespasses, interruptions, and
vexations aforesaid:

Now, therefore, to the end that the said Henry Whitby may be brought to
justice and due punishment inflicted for the said murder, I do hereby
especially enjoin and require all officers having authority, civil or
military, and all other persons within the limits or jurisdiction of the
United States, wheresoever the said Henry Whitby may be found, now or
hereafter, to apprehend and secure the said Henry Whitby, and him safely
and diligently to deliver to the civil authority of the place, to be
proceeded against according to law.

And I do hereby further require that the said armed vessel the
 Leander , with her officers and people, and the said armed vessels the
 Cambrian  and  Driver , their officers and people, immediately and
without any delay depart from the harbors and wraters of the United
States. And I do forever interdict the entrance of all other vessels
which shall be commanded by the said Henry Whitby, John Nairne, and
Slingsby Simpson, or either of them.

And if the said vessels, or any of them, shall fail to depart as
aforesaid, or shall reenter the harbors or waters aforesaid, I do
in that case forbid all intercourse with the said armed vessels the
 Leander , the  Cambrian , and the  Driver , or with any of them, and
the officers and crews thereof, and do prohibit all supplies and aid
from being furnished them, or any of them. And I do declare and make
known that if any person from or within the jurisdictional limits of the
United States shall afford any aid to either of the said armed vessels
contrary to the prohibition contained in this proclamation, either in
repairing such vessel or in furnishing her, her officers or crew, with
supplies of any kind or in any manner whatever; or if any pilot shall
assist in navigating any of the said armed vessels, unless it be for
the purpose of carrying them in the first instance beyond the limits
and jurisdiction of the United States, such person or persons shall on
conviction suffer all the pains and penalties by the laws provided for
such offenses. And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing
office, civil or military, within the United States, and all others
citizens or inhabitants thereof, or being within the same, with
vigilance and promptitude to exert their respective authorities and
to be aiding and assisting to the carrying this proclamation and every
part thereof into full effect.

 (SEAL.)

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand.

Given at the city of Washington, the 3d day of May, A.D. 1806, and of
the Sovereignty and Independence of the United States the thirtieth.

TH. JEFFERSON.

By the President:
  JAMES MADISON,
     Secretary of State .

 (From Annals of Congress, Ninth Congress, second session, 686.)

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas information has been received that sundry persons, citizens of
the United States or residents within the same, are conspiring and
confederating together to begin and set on foot, provide, and prepare
the means for a military expedition or enterprise against the dominions
of Spain; that for this purpose they are fitting out and arming vessels
in the western waters of the United States, collecting provisions,
arms, military stores, and means; are deceiving and seducing honest
and well-meaning citizens, under various pretenses, to engage in their
criminal enterprises; are organizing, officering, and arming themselves
for the same, contrary to the laws in such cases made and provided:

I have therefore thought proper to issue this my proclamation, warning
and enjoining all faithful citizens who have been led without due
knowledge or consideration to participate in the said unlawful
enterprises to withdraw from the same without delay, and commanding all
persons whatsoever engaged or concerned in the same to cease all further
proceedings therein, as they will answer the contrary at their peril and
incur prosecution with all the rigors of the law. And I hereby enjoin
and require all officers, civil and military, of the United States, or
of any of the States or Territories, and especially all governors and
other executive authorities, all judges, justices, and other officers
of the peace, all military officers of the Army or Navy of the United
States, or officers of the militia, to be vigilant, each within his
respective department and according to his functions, in searching out
and bringing to condign punishment all persons engaged or concerned in
such enterprise, in seizing and detaining, subject to the disposition of
the law, all vessels, arms, military stores, or other means provided or
providing for the same, and, in general, in preventing the carrying on
such expedition or enterprise by all lawful means within their power;
and I require all good and faithful citizens and others within the
United States to be aiding and assisting herein, and especially in the
discovery, apprehension, and bringing to justice of all such offenders,
in preventing the execution of their unlawful designs, and in giving
information against them to the proper authorities.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to
be affixed to these presents, and have signed the same with my hand.

 (SEAL.)

Given at the city of Washington on the 27th day of November, 1806, and
in the year of the Sovereignty of the United States the thirty-first.

TH. JEFFERSON.

By the President:
  JAMES MADISON,
     Secretary of State .

SIXTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.

DECEMBER 2, 1806.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled :

It would have given me, fellow-citizens, great satisfaction to announce
in the moment of your meeting that the difficulties in our foreign
relations existing at the time of your last separation had been amicably
and justly terminated. I lost no time in taking those measures which
were most likely to bring them to such a termination  by special
missions charged with such powers and instructions as in the event
of failure could leave no imputation on either our moderation or
forbearance. The delays which have since taken place in our negotiations
with the British Government appear to have proceeded from causes which
do not forbid the expectation that during the course of the session I
may be enabled to lay before you their final issue. What will be that of
the negotiations for settling our differences with Spain nothing which
had taken place at the date of the last dispatches enables us to
pronounce. On the western side of the Mississippi she advanced in
considerable force, and took post at the settlement of Bayou Pierre, on
the Red River. This village was originally settled by France, was held
by her as long as she held Louisiana, and was delivered to Spain only
as a part of Louisiana. Being small, insulated, and distant, it was not
observed at the moment of redelivery to France and the United States
that she continued a guard of half a dozen men which had been stationed
there. A proposition, however, having been lately made by our commander
in chief to assume the Sabine River as a temporary line of separation
between the troops of the two nations until the issue of our
negotiations shall be known, this has been referred by the Spanish
commandant to his superior, and in the meantime he has withdrawn his
force to the western side of the Sabine River. The correspondence on
this subject now communicated will exhibit more particularly the present
state of things in that quarter.

The nature of that country requires indispensably that an unusual
proportion of the force employed there should be cavalry or mounted
infantry. In order, therefore, that the commanding officer might be
enabled to act with effect, I had authorized him to call on the
governors of Orleans and Mississippi for a corps of 500 volunteer
cavalry. The temporary arrangement he has proposed may perhaps render
this unnecessary; but I inform you with great pleasure of the
promptitude with which the inhabitants of those Territories have
tendered their services in defense of their country. It has done honor
to themselves, entitled them to the confidence of their fellow-citizens
in every part of the Union, and must strengthen the general
determination to protect them efficaciously under all circumstances
which may occur.

Having received information that in another part of the United States
a great number of private individuals were combining together, arming
and organizing themselves contrary to law, to carry on a military
expedition against the territories of Spain, I thought it necessary,
by proclamation as well as by special orders, to take measures for
preventing and suppressing this enterprise, for seizing the vessels,
arms, and other means provided for it, and for arresting and bringing
to justice its authors and abettors. It was due to that good faith
which ought ever to be the rule of action in public as well as in
private transactions, it was due to good order and regular government,
that while the public force was acting strictly on the defensive and
merely to protect our citizens from aggression the criminal attempts
of private individuals to decide for their country the question of
peace or war by commencing active and unauthorized hostilities should
be promptly and efficaciously suppressed.

Whether it will be necessary to enlarge our regular force will depend on
the result of our negotiations with Spain; but as it is uncertain when
that result will be known, the provisional measures requisite for that,
and to meet any pressure intervening in that quarter, will be a subject
for your early consideration.

The possession of both banks of the Mississippi reducing to a single
point the defense of that river, its waters, and the country adjacent,
it becomes highly necessary to provide for that point a more adequate
security. Some position above its mouth, commanding the passage of the
river, should be rendered sufficiently strong to cover the armed vessels
which may be stationed there for defense, and in conjunction with them
to present an insuperable obstacle to any force attempting to pass. The
approaches to the city of New Orleans from the eastern quarter also will
require to be examined and more effectually guarded. For the internal
support of the country the encouragement of a strong settlement on the
western side of the Mississippi, within reach of New Orleans, will be
worthy the consideration of the Legislature.

The gunboats authorized by an act of the last session are so advanced
that they will be ready for service in the ensuing spring. Circumstances
permitted us to allow the time necessary for their more solid
construction. As a much larger number will still be wanting to place
our seaport towns and waters in that state of defense to which we are
competent and they entitled, a similar appropriation for a further
provision for them is recommended for the ensuing year.

A further appropriation will also be necessary for repairing
fortifications already established and the erection of such other works
as may have real effect in obstructing the approach of an enemy to our
seaport towns, or their remaining before them.

In a country whose constitution is derived from the will of the people,
directly expressed by their free suffrages; where the principal
executive functionaries and those of the legislature are renewed by them
at short periods; where under the character of jurors they exercise in
person the greatest portion of the judiciary powers; where the laws are
consequently so formed and administered as to bear with equal weight and
favor on all, restraining no man in the pursuits of honest industry and
securing to everyone the property which that acquires, it would not be
supposed that any safeguards could be needed against insurrection or
enterprise on the public peace or authority. The lawrs, however, aware
that these should not be trusted to moral restraints only, have wisely
provided punishment for these crimes when committed. But would it not be
salutary to give also the means of preventing their commission? Where an
enterprise is meditated by private individuals against a foreign nation
in amity with the United States, powers of prevention to a certain
extent are given by the laws. Would they not be as reasonable and useful
where the enterprise preparing is against the United States? While
adverting to this branch of law it is proper to observe that in
enterprises meditated against foreign nations the ordinary process of
binding to the observance of the peace and good behavior, could it
be extended to acts to be done out of the jurisdiction of the United
States, would be effectual in some cases where the offender is able to
keep out of sight every indication of his purpose which could draw on
him the exercise of the powers now given by law.

The States on the coast of Barbary seem generally disposed at present
to respect our peace and friendship; with Tunis alone some uncertainty
remains. Persuaded that it is our interest to maintain our peace with
them on equal terms or not at all, I propose to send in due time a
reen-forcement into the Mediterranean unless previous information shall
shew it to be unnecessary.

We continue to receive proofs of the growing attachment of our Indian
neighbors and of their disposition to place all their interests under
the patronage of the United States. These dispositions are inspired by
their confidence in our justice and in the sincere concern we feel for
their welfare; and as long as we discharge these high and honorable
functions with the integrity and good faith which alone can entitle us
to their continuance we may expect to reap the just reward in their
peace and friendship.

The expedition of Messrs. Lewis and Clarke for exploring the river
Missouri and the best communication from that to the Pacific Ocean has
had all the success which could have been expected. They have traced the
Missouri nearly to its source, descended the Columbia to the Pacific
Ocean; ascertained with accuracy the geography of that interesting
communication across our continent, learnt the character of the country,
of its commerce and inhabitants; and it is but justice to say that
Messrs. Lewis and Clarke and their brave companions have by this arduous
service deserved well of their country.

The attempt to explore the Red River, under the direction of Mr.
Freeman, though conducted with a zeal and prudence meriting entire
approbation, has not been equally successful. After proceeding up it
about 600 miles, nearly as far as the French settlements had extended
while the country was in their possession, our geographers were obliged
to return without completing their work.

Very useful additions have also been made to our knowledge of the
Mississippi by Lieutenant Pike, who has ascended it to its source, and
whose journal and map, giving the details of his journey, will shortly
be ready for communication to both Houses of Congress. Those of Messrs.
Lewis, Clarke, and Freeman will require further time to be digested
and prepared. These important surveys, in addition to those before
possessed, furnish materials for commencing an accurate map of the
Mississippi and its western waters. Some principal rivers, however,
remain still to be explored, toward which the authorization of Congress
by moderate appropriations will be requisite.

I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the approach of the period at
which you may interpose your authority constitutionally to withdraw
the citizens of the United States from all further participation in
those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on
the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the
reputation, and the best interests of our country have long been eager
to proscribe. Although no law you may pass can take prohibitory effect
till the first day of the year 1808, yet the intervening period is
not too long to prevent by timely notice expeditions which can not
be completed before that day.

The receipts at the Treasury during the year ending on the 30th day of
September last have amounted to near $15,000,000, which have enabled us,
after meeting the current demands, to pay $2,700,000 of the American
claims in part of the price of Louisiana; to pay of the funded debt
upward of three millions of principal and nearly four of interest, and,
in addition, to reimburse in the course of the present month near two
millions of 5-1/2 per cent stock. These payments and reimbursements of
the funded debt, with those which had been made in the four years and a
half preceding, will at the close of the present year have extinguished
upward of twenty-three millions of principal.

The duties composing the Mediterranean fund will cease by law at the
end of the present session. Considering, however, that they are levied
chiefly on luxuries and that we have an impost on salt, a necessary
of life, the free use of which otherwise is so important, I recommend
to your consideration the suppression of the duties on salt and the
continuation of the Mediterranean fund instead thereof for a short time,
after which that also will become unnecessary for any purpose now within
contemplation.

When both of these branches of revenue shall in this way be relinquished
there will still ere long be an accumulation of moneys in the Treasury
beyond the installments of public debt which we are permitted by
contract to pay. They can not then, without a modification assented to
by the public creditors, be applied to the extinguishment of this debt
and the complete liberation of our revenues, the most desirable of all
objects. Nor, if our peace continues, will they be wanting for any other
existing purpose. The question therefore now comes forward, To what
other objects shall these surpluses be appropriated, and the whole
surplus of impost, after the entire discharge of the public debt, and
during those intervals when the purposes of war shall not call for them?
Shall we suppress the impost and give that advantage to foreign over
domestic manufactures? On a few articles of more general and necessary
use the suppression in due season will doubtless be right, but the great
mass of the articles on which impost is paid are foreign luxuries,
purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the
use of them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance
and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads,
rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may
be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of Federal
powers. By these operations new channels of communication will be opened
between the States, the lines of separation will disappear, their
interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and
indissoluble ties. Education is here placed among the articles of public
care, not that it would be proposed to take its ordinary branches out
of the hands of private enterprise, which manages so much better all
the concerns to which it is equal, but a public institution can alone
supply those sciences which though rarely called for are yet necessary
to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the
improvement of the country and some of them to its preservation. The
subject is now proposed for the consideration of Congress, because if
approved by the time the State legislatures shall have deliberated on
this extension of the Federal trusts, and the laws shall be passed and
other arrangements made for their execution, the necessary funds will
be on hand and without employment. I suppose an amendment to the
Constitution, by consent of the States, necessary, because the objects
now recommended are not among those enumerated in the Constitution, and
to which it permits the public moneys to be applied.

The present consideration of a national establishment for education
particularly is rendered proper by this circumstance also, that if
Congress, approving the proposition, shall yet think it more eligible
to found it on a donation of lands, they have it now in their power to
endow it with those which will be among the earliest to produce the
necessary income. This foundation would have the advantage of being
independent of war, which may suspend other improvements by requiring
for its own purposes the resources destined for them.

This, fellow-citizens, is the state of the public interests at the
present moment and according to the information now possessed. But such
is the situation of the nations of Europe and such, too, the predicament
in which we stand with some of them that we can not rely with certainty
on the present aspect of our affairs, that may change from moment
to moment during the course of your session or after you shall have
separated. Our duty is, therefore, to act upon things as they are and
to make a reasonable provision for whatever they may be. Were armies to
be raised whenever a speck of war is visible in our horizon, we never
should have been without them. Our resources would have been exhausted
on dangers which have never happened, instead of being reserved for
what is really to take place. A steady, perhaps a quickened, pace in
preparations for the defense of our seaport towns and waters; an early
settlement of the most exposed and vulnerable parts of our country; a
militia so organized that its effective portions can be called to any
point in the Union, or volunteers instead of them to serve a sufficient
time, are means which may always be ready, yet never preying on our
resources until actually called into use. They will maintain the
public interests while a more permanent force shall be in course of
preparation. But much will depend on the promptitude with which these
means can be brought into activity. If war be forced upon us, in spite
of our long and vain appeals to the justice of nations, rapid and
vigorous movements in its outset will go far toward securing us in its
course and issue, and toward throwing its burthens on those who render
necessary the resort from reason to force.

The result of our negotiations, or such incidents in their course as may
enable us to infer their probable issue; such further movements also
on our western frontiers as may shew whether war is to be pressed there
while negotiation is protracted elsewhere, shall be communicated to
you from time to time as they become known to me, with whatever other
information I possess or may receive, which may aid your deliberations
on the great national interests committed to your charge.

TH. JEFFERSON.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

DECEMBER 3, 1806.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I have the satisfaction to inform you that the negotiation depending
between the United States and the Government of Great Britain is
proceeding in a spirit of friendship and accommodation which promises a
result of mutual advantage. Delays, indeed, have taken place, occasioned
by the long illness and subsequent death of the British minister charged
with that duty. But the commissioners appointed by that Government
to resume the negotiation have shewn every disposition to hasten its
progress. It is, however, a work of time, as many arrangements are
necessary to place our future harmony on stable grounds. In the meantime
we find by the communications of our plenipotentiaries that a temporary
suspension of the act of the last session prohibiting certain
importations would, as a mark of candid disposition on our part and of
confidence in the temper and views with which they have been met, have
a happy effect on its course. A step so friendly will afford further
evidence that all our proceedings have flowed from views of justice and
conciliation, and that we give them willingly that form which may best
meet corresponding dispositions.

Add to this that the same motives which produced the postponement of
the act till the 15th of November last are in favor of its further
suspension, and as we have reason to hope that it may soon yield to
arrangements of mutual consent and convenience, justice seems to require
that the same measure may be dealt out to the few cases which may fall
within its short course as to all others preceding and following it.
I can not, therefore, but recommend the suspension of this act for a
reasonable time, on considerations of justice, amity, and the public
interests.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 15, 1806,

 To the House of Representatives of the United States :

I lay before Congress a report of the surveyor of the public buildings,
stating the progress made on them during the last season and what is
proposed for the ensuing one.

I took every measure within my power for carrying into effect the
request of the House of Representatives of the 17th of April last
to cause the south wing of the Capitol to be prepared for their
accommodation by the commencement of the present session. With great
regret I found it was not to be accomplished. The quantity of freestone
necessary, with the size and quality of many of the blocks, was
represented as beyond what could be obtained from the quarries by any
exertions which could be commanded. The other parts of the work, which
might all have been completed in time, were necessarily retarded by the
insufficient progress of the stonework.

TH. JEFFERSON.

Chapter 24
JANUARY 5, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I transmit to each House of Congress a copy of the laws of the Territory
of Michigan passed by the governor and judges of the Territory during
the year 1805.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 22, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

Agreeably to the request of the House of Representatives communicated
in their resolution of the 16th instant, I proceed to state, under the
reserve therein expressed, information received touching an illegal
combination of private individuals against the peace and safety of the
Union, and a military expedition planned by them against the territories
of a power in amity with the United States, with the measures I have
pursued for suppressing the same.

I had for some time been in the constant expectation of receiving
such further information as would have enabled me to lay before the
Legislature the termination as well as the beginning and progress of
this scene of depravity so far as it has been acted on the Ohio and its
waters. From this the state of safety of the lower country might have
been estimated on probable grounds, and the delay was indulged the
rather because no circumstance had yet made it necessary to call in the
aid of the legislative functions. Information now recently communicated
has brought us nearly to the period contemplated. The mass of what I
have received in the course of these transactions is voluminous, but
little has been given under the sanction of an oath so as to constitute
formal and legal evidence. It is chiefly in the form of letters, often
containing such a mixture of rumors, conjectures, and suspicions
as renders it difficult to sift out the real facts and unadvisable
to hazard more than general outlines, strengthened by concurrent
information or the particular credibility of the relator. In this state
of the evidence, delivered sometimes, too, under the restriction of
private confidence, neither safety nor justice will permit the exposing
names, except that of the principal actor, whose guilt is placed beyond
question.

Some time in the latter part of September I received intimations that
designs were in agitation in the Western country unlawful and unfriendly
to the peace of the Union, and that the prime mover in these was Aaron
Burr, heretofore distinguished by the favor of his country. The grounds
of these intimations being inconclusive, the objects uncertain, and the
fidelity of that country known to be firm, the only measure taken was to
urge the informants to use their best endeavors to get further insight
into the designs and proceedings of the suspected persons and to
communicate them to me.

It was not till the latter part of October that the objects of the
conspiracy began to be perceived, but still so blended and involved in
mystery that nothing distinct could be singled out for pursuit. In this
state of uncertainty as to the crime contemplated, the acts done, and
the legal course to be pursued, I thought it best to send to the scene
where these things were principally in transaction a person in whose
integrity, understanding, and discretion entire confidence could be
reposed, with instructions to investigate the plots going on, to enter
into conference (for which he had sufficient credentials) with the
governors and all other officers, civil and military, and with their
aid to do on the spot whatever should be necessary to discover the
designs of the conspirators, arrest their means, bring their persons
to punishment, and to call out the force of the country to suppress any
unlawful enterprise in which it should be found they were engaged.
By this time it was known that many boats were under preparation,
stores of provisions collecting, and an unusual number of suspicious
characters in motion on the Ohio and its waters. Besides dispatching
the confidential agent to that quarter, orders were at the same time
sent to the governors of the Orleans and Mississippi Territories and
to the commanders of the land and naval forces there to be on their
guard against surprise and in constant readiness to resist any enterprise
which might be attempted on the vessels, posts, or other objects under
their care; and on the 8th of November instructions were forwarded to
General Wilkinson to hasten an accommodation with the Spanish commandant
on the Sabine, and as soon as that was effected to fall back with his
principal force to the hither bank of the Mississippi for the defense
of the interesting points on that river. By a letter received from
that officer on the 25th of November, but dated October 21, we learnt
that a confidential agent of Aaron Burr had been deputed to him with
communications, partly written in cipher and partly oral, explaining his
designs, exaggerating his resources, and making such offers of emolument
and command to engage him and the army in his unlawful enterprise as he
had flattered himself would be successful. The General, with the honor
of a soldier and fidelity of a good citizen, immediately dispatched a
trusty officer to me with information of what had passed, proceeding
to establish such an understanding with the Spanish commandant on the
Sabine as permitted him to withdraw his force across the Mississippi
and to enter on measures for opposing the projected enterprise.

The General's letter, which came to hand on the 25th of November, as has
been mentioned, and some other information received a few days earlier,
when brought together developed Burr's general designs, different parts
of which only had been revealed to different informants. It appeared
that he contemplated two distinct objects, which might be carried on
either jointly or separately, and either the one or the other first,
as circumstances should direct. One of these was the severance of the
Union of these States by the Alleghany Mountains; the other an attack
on Mexico. A third object was provided, merely ostensible, to wit, the
settlement of a pretended purchase of a tract of country on the Washita
claimed by a Baron Bastrop. This was to serve as the pretext for all
his preparations, an allurement for such followers as really wished to
acquire settlements in that country and a cover under which to retreat
in the event of a final discomfiture of both branches of his real
design.

He found at once that the attachment of the Western country to the
present Union was not to be shaken; that its dissolution could not be
effected with the consent of its inhabitants, and that his resources
were inadequate as yet to effect it by force. He took his course then
at once, determined to seize on New Orleans, plunder the bank there,
possess himself of the military and naval stores, and proceed on his
expedition to Mexico, and to this object all his means and preparations
were now directed. He collected from all the quarters where himself or
his agents possessed influence all the ardent, restless, desperate,
and disaffected persons who were ready for any enterprise analogous to
their characters. He seduced good and well-meaning citizens, some by
assurances that he possessed the confidence of the Government and was
acting under its secret patronage, a pretense which procured some credit
from the state of our differences with Spain, and others by offers of
land in Bastrop's claim on the Washita.

This was the state of my information of his proceedings about the last
of November, at which time, therefore, it was first possible to take
specific measures to meet them. The proclamation of November 27, two
days after the receipt of General Wilkinson's information, was now
issued. Orders were dispatched to every interesting point on the Ohio
and Mississippi from Pittsburg to New Orleans for the employment of such
force either of the regulars or of the militia and of such proceedings
also of the civil authorities as might enable them to seize on all the
boats and stores provided for the enterprise, to arrest the persons
concerned, and to suppress effectually the further progress of the
enterprise. A little before the receipt of these orders in the State
of Ohio our confidential agent, who had been diligently employed in
investigating the conspiracy, had acquired sufficient information to
open himself to the governor of that State and apply for the immediate
exertion of the authority and power of the State to crush the
combination. Governor Tiffin and the legislature, with a promptitude,
an energy, and patriotic zeal which entitle them to a distinguished
place in the affection of their sister States, effected the seizure
of all the boats, provisions, and other preparations within their
reach, and thus gave a first blow, materially disabling the enterprise
in its outset.

In Kentucky a premature attempt to bring Burr to justice without
sufficient evidence for his conviction had produced a popular impression
in his favor and a general disbelief of his guilt. This gave him an
unfortunate opportunity of hastening his equipments. The arrival of
the proclamation and orders and the application and information of our
confidential agent at length awakened the authorities of that State
to the truth, and then produced the same promptitude and energy of
which the neighboring State had set the example. Under an act of their
legislature of December 23 militia was instantly ordered to different
important points, and measures taken for doing whatever could yet be
done. Some boats (accounts vary from five to double or treble that
number) and persons (differently estimated from 100 to 300) had in
the meantime passed the Falls of Ohio to rendezvous at the mouth of
Cumberland with others expected down that river.

Not apprised till very late that any boats were building on Cumberland,
the effect of the proclamation had been trusted to for some time in the
State of Tennessee; but on the *19th of December similar communications
and instructions with those to the neighboring States were dispatched by
express to the governor and a general officer of the western division
ofthe State, and on the 23d of December our confidential agent left
Frankfort for Nashville to put into activity the means of that State
also. But by information received yesterday I learn that on the 22d of
December Mr. Burr descended the Cumberland with two boats merely of
accommodation, carrying with him from that State no quota toward his
unlawful enterprise. Whether after the arrival of the proclamation, of
the orders, or of our agent any exertion which could be made by that
State or the orders of the governor of Kentucky for calling out the
militia at the mouth of Cumberland would be in time to arrest these
boats and those from the Falls of Ohio is still doubtful.

On the whole, the fugitives from the Ohio, with their associates from
Cumberland or any other place in that quarter, can not threaten serious
danger to the city of New Orleans.

By the same express of December 19 orders were sent to the governors of
Orleans and Mississippi, supplementary to those which had been given
onthe 25th of November, to hold the militia of their Territories in
readiness to cooperate for their defense with the regular troops and
armed vessels then under command of General Wilkinson. Great alarm,
indeed, was excited at New Orleans by the exaggerated accounts of Mr.
Burr, disseminated through his emissaries, of the armies and navies
he was to assemble there. General Wilkinson had arrived there himself
on the 24th of November, and had immediately put into activity the
resources of the place for the purpose of its defense, and on the 10th
of December he was joined by his troops from the Sabine. Great zeal was
shewn by the inhabitants generally, the merchants of the place readily
agreeing to the most laudable exertions and sacrifices for manning the
armed vessels with their seamen, and the other citizens manifesting
unequivocal fidelity to the Union and a spirit of determined resistance
to their expected assailants.

Surmises have been hazarded that this enterprise is to receive aid
from certain foreign powers; but these surmises are without proof or
probability. The wisdom of the measures sanctioned by Congress at its
last session has placed us in the paths of peace and justice with the
only powers with whom we had any differences, and nothing has happened
since which makes it either their interest or ours to pursue another
course. No change of measures has taken place on our part; none ought
to take place at this time. With the one, friendly arrangement was then
proposed, and the law deemed necessary on the failure of that was
suspended to give time for a fair trial of the issue. With the same
power friendly arrangement is now proceeding under good expectations,
and the same law deemed necessary on failure of that is still suspended,
to give time for a fair trial of the issue. With the other, negotiation
was in like manner then preferred, and provisional measures only taken
to meet the event of rupture. With the same power negotiation is still
preferred, and provisional measures only are necessary to meet the event
of rupture. While, therefore, we do not deflect in the slightest degree
from the course we then assumed and are still pursuing with mutual
consent to restore a good understanding, we arc not to impute to them
practices as irreconcilable to interest as to good faith, and changing
necessarily the relations of peace and justice between us to those of
war. These surmises are therefore to be imputed to the vauntings of the
author of this enterprise to multiply his partisans by magnifying the
belief of his prospects and support.

By letters from General Wilkinson of the 14th and 18th of December,
which came to hand two days after the date of the resolution of the
House of Representatives  that is to say, on the morning of the 18th
instant  I received the important affidavit a copy of which I now
communicate, with extracts of so much of the letters as comes within the
scope of the resolution. By these it will be seen that of three of the
principal emissaries of Mr. Burr whom the General had caused to be
apprehended, one had been liberated by habeas corpus, and two others,
being those particularly employed in the endeavor to corrupt the general
and army of the United States, have been embarked by him for ports in
the Atlantic States, probably on the consideration that an impartial
trial could not be expected during the present agitations of New
Orleans, and that that city was not as yet a safe place of confinement.
As soon as these persons shall arrive they will be delivered to the
custody of the law and left to such course of trial, both as to place
and process, as its functionaries may direct. The presence of the
highest judicial authorities, to be assembled at this place within a few
days, the means of pursuing a sounder course of proceedings here than
elsewhere, and the aid of the Executive means, should the judges have
occasion to use them, render it equally desirable for the criminals as
for the public that, being already removed from the place where they
were first apprehended, the first regular arrest should take place here,
and the course of proceedings receive here its proper direction.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 26, 1807.

 To the Senate, and House of Representatives of the United States :

I received from General Wilkinson on the 23d instant his affidavit
charging Samuel Swartwout, Peter V. Ogden, and James Alexander with the
crimes described in the affidavit a copy of which is now communicated
to both Houses of Congress.

It was announced to me at the same time that Swartwout and Bollman, two
of the persons apprehended by him, were arrived in this city in custody
each of a military officer. I immediately delivered to the attorney of
the United States in this district the evidence received against them,
with instructions to lay the same before the judges and apply for their
process to bring the accused to justice, and put into his hands orders
to the officers having them in custody to deliver them to the marshal
on his application.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 27, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now render to Congress the account of the fund established for
defraying the contingent expenses of Government for the year 1806.
No occasion having arisen for making use of any part of the balance of
$18,012.50, unexpended on the 31st day of December, 1805, that balance
remains in the Treasury.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 28, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

By the letters of Captain Bissel, who commands at Fort Massac, and of
Mr. Murrell, to General Jackson, of Tennessee, copies of which are now
communicated to Congress, it will be seen that Aaron Burr passed Fort
Massac on the 31st December with about ten boats, navigated by about six
hands each, without any military appearance, and that three boats with
ammunition were said to have been arrested by the militia at Louisville.

As the guards of militia posted on various points of the Ohio will be
able to prevent any further aids passing through that channel, should
any be attempted, we may now estimate with tolerable certainty the means
derived from the Ohio and its waters toward the accomplishment of the
purposes of Mr. Burr.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 31, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

In execution of the act of the last session of Congress entitled "An
act to regulate the laying out and making a road from Cumberland, in
the State of Maryland, to the State of Ohio," I appointed Thomas Moore,
of Maryland; Joseph Kerr, of Ohio, and Eli Williams, of Maryland,
commissioners to lay out the said road, and to perform the other duties
assigned to them by the act. The progress which they made in the
execution of the work during the last season will appear in their report
now communicated to Congress. On the receipt of it I took measures
to obtain consent for making the road of the States of Pennsylvania,
Maryland, and Virginia, through which the commissioners proposed to
lay it out. I have received acts of the legislatures of Maryland and
Virginia giving the consent desired; that of Pennsylvania has the
subject still under consideration, as is supposed. Until I receive full
consent to a free choice of route through the whole distance I have
thought it safest neither to accept nor reject finally the partial
report of the commissioners. Some matters suggested in the report belong
exclusively to the Legislature.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 6, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I lay before Congress the laws for the government of Louisiana, passed
by the governor and judges of the Indiana Territory at their session at
Vincennes begun on the 1st of October, 1804.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 6, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

The Government of France having examined into the claim of M. de
Beaumarchais against the United States, and considering it as just and
legal, has instructed its minister here to make representations on the
subject to the Government of the United States. I now lay his memoir
thereon before the Legislature, the only authority competent to a final
decision on the same.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 10, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I communicate, for the information of Congress, a letter from Cowles
Mead, secretary of the Mississippi Territory, to the Secretary of War,
by which it will be seen that Mr. Burr had reached that neighborhood
on the 13th of January.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 10, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

In compliance with the request of the House of Representatives expressed
in their resolution of the 5th instant, I proceed to give such
information as is possessed of the effect of gunboats in the protection
and defense of harbors, of the numbers thought necessary, and of the
proposed distribution of them among the ports and harbors of the United
States.

Under present circumstances, and governed by the intentions of the
Legislature as manifested by their annual appropriations of money for
the purposes of defense, it has been concluded to combine, first, land
batteries furnished with heavy cannon and mortars, and established on
all the points around the place favorable for preventing vessels from
lying before it; second, movable artillery, which may be carried, as
occasion may require, to points unprovided with fixed batteries; third,
floating batteries, and fourth, gunboats which may oppose an enemy at
his entrance and cooperate with the batteries for his expulsion.

On this subject professional men were consulted as far as we had
opportunity. General Wilkinson and the late General Gates gave their
opinions in writing in favor of the system, as will be seen by their
letters now communicated. The higher officers of the Navy gave the same
opinions in separate conferences, as their presence at the seat of
Government offered occasions of consulting them, and no difference of
judgment appeared on the subject. Those of Commodore Barren and Captain
Tingey, now here, are recently furnished in writing, and transmitted
herewith to the Legislature.

The efficacy of gunboats for the defense of harbors and of other smooth
and inclosed waters may be estimated in part from that of galleys
formerly much used but less powerful, more costly in their construction
and maintenance, and requiring more men. But the gunboat itself is
believed to be in use with every modern maritime nation for the purposes
of defense. In the Mediterranean, on which are several small powers
whose system, like ours, is peace and defense, few harbors are without
this article of protection. Our own experience there of the effect of
gunboats for harbor service is recent. Algiers is particularly known
to have owed to a great provision of these vessels the safety of its
city since the epoch of their construction, Before that it had been
repeatedly insulted and injured. The effect of gunboats at present in
the neighborhood of Gibraltar is well known, and how much they were used
both in the attack and defense of that place during a former war. The
extensive resort to them by the two greatest naval powers in the world
on an enterprise of invasion not long since in prospect shews their
confidence in their efficacy for the purposes for which they are suited.
By the northern powers of Europe, whose seas are particularly adapted
to them, they are still more used. The remarkable action between the
Russian flotilla of gunboats and galleys and a Turkish fleet of ships
of the line and frigates in the Liman Sea in 1788 will be readily
recollected. The latter, commanded by their most celebrated admiral,
were completely defeated, and several of their ships of the line
destroyed.

From the opinions given as to the number of gunboats necessary for some
of the principal seaports, and from a view of all the towns and ports
from Orleans to Maine, inclusive, entitled to protection in proportion
to their situation and circumstances, it is concluded that to give them
a due measure of protection in times of war about 200 gunboats will be
requisite.

According to first ideas the following would be their general
distribution, liable to be varied on more mature examination and
as circumstances shall vary; that is to say:

To the Mississippi and its neighboring waters, 40 gunboats.

To Savannah and Charleston, and the harbors on each side from Saint Marys
to Currituck, 25.

To the Chesapeake and its waters, 20.

To Delaware Bay and River, 15.

To New York, the Sound, and waters as far as Cape Cod, 50.

To Boston and the harbors north of Cape Cod, 50.

The flotillas assigned to these several stations might each be under
the care of a particular commandant, and the vessels composing them
would in ordinary be distributed among the harbors within the station
in proportion to their importance.

Of these boats a proper proportion would be of the larger size, such
as those heretofore built, capable of navigating any seas and of
reenforcing occasionally the strength of even the most distant ports
when menaced with danger. The residue would be confined to their own
or the neighboring harbors, would be smaller, less furnished for
accommodation, and consequently less costly. Of the number supposed
necessary, 73 are built or building, and the 127 still to be provided
would cost from $500,000 to $600,000. Having regard to the convenience
of the Treasury as well as to the resources for building, it has been
thought that the one-half of these might be built in the present year
and the other half the next. With the Legislature, however, it will rest
to stop where we are, or at any further point, when they shall be of
opinion that the number provided shall be sufficient for the object.

At times when Europe as well as the United States shall be at peace
it would not be proposed that more than six or eight of these vessels
should be kept afloat. When Europe is in war, treble that number might
be necessary, to be distributed among those particular harbors which
foreign vessels of war are in the habit of frequenting for the purpose
of preserving order therein. But they would be manned in ordinary, with
only their complement for navigation, relying on the seamen and militia
of the port if called into action on any sudden emergency. It would be
only when the United States should themselves be at war that the whole
number would be brought into active service, and would be ready in the
first moments of the war to cooperate with the other means for covering
at once the line of our seaports. At all times those unemployed would be
withdrawn into places not exposed to sudden enterprise, hauled up under
sheds from the sun and weather, and kept in preservation with little
expense for repairs or maintenance.

It must be superfluous to observe that this species of naval armament
is proposed merely for defensive operation; that it can have but little
effect toward protecting our commerce in the open seas, even on our own
coast; and still less can it become an excitement to engage in offensive
maritime war, toward which it would furnish no means.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 11, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now lay before Congress a statement of the militia of the United
States according to the latest returns received by the Department
of War. From two of the States no returns have ever been received.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 19, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I transmit to Congress a letter from our ministers plenipotentiary
at London, informing us that they have agreed with the British
commissioners to conclude a treaty on all the points which had formed
the object of their negotiation, and on terms which they trusted we
would approve.

Also a letter from our minister plenipotentiary at Paris covering one
to him from the minister of marine of that Government assuring him that
the imperial decree lately passed was not to affect our commerce, which
would still be governed by the rules of the treaty established between
the two countries.

Also a letter from Cowles Mead, secretary of the Mississippi Territory,
acting as governor, informing us that Aaron Burr had surrendered himself
to the civil authority of that Territory.

TH. JEFFERSON.

PROCLAMATIONS.

BY THOMAS JEFFERSON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

During the wars which for some time have unhappily prevailed among the
powers of Europe the United States of America, firm in their principles
of peace, have endeavored, by justice, by a regular discharge of all
their national and social duties, and by every friendly office their
situation has admitted, to maintain with all the belligerents their
accustomed relations of friendship, hospitality, and commercial
intercourse. Taking no part in the questions which animate these powers
against each other, nor permitting themselves to entertain a wish but
for the restoration of general peace, they have observed with good faith
the neutrality they assumed, and they believe that no instance of a
departure from its duties can be justly imputed to them by any nation.
A free use of their harbors and waters, the means of refitting and of
refreshment, of succor to their sick and suffering, have at all times
and on equal principles been extended to all, and this, too, amidst a
constant recurrence of acts of insubordination to the laws, of violence
to the persons, and of trespasses on the property of our citizens
committed by officers of one of the belligerent parties received among
us. In truth, these abuses of the laws of hospitality have, with few
exceptions, become habitual to the commanders of the British armed
vessels hovering on our coasts and frequenting our harbors. They have
been the subject of repeated representations to their Government.
Assurances have been given that proper orders should restrain them
within the limits of the rights and of the respect due to a friendly
nation; but those orders and assurances have been without effect  no
instance of punishment for past wrongs has taken place. At length a deed
transcending all we have hitherto seen or suffered brings the public
sensibility to a serious crisis and our forbearance to a necessary
pause. A frigate of the United States, trusting to a state of peace, and
leaving her harbor on a distant service, has been surprised and attacked
by a British vessel of superior force  one of a squadron then lying in
our waters and covering the transaction  and has been disabled from
service, with the loss of a number of men killed and wounded. This
enormity was not only without provocation or justifiable cause, but was
committed with the avowed purpose of taking by force from a ship of war
of the United States a part of her crew; and that no circumstance might
be wanting to mark its character, it had been previously ascertained
that the seamen demanded were native citizens of the United States.
Having effected her purpose, she returned to anchor with her squadron
within our jurisdiction. Hospitality under such circumstances ceases to
be a duty, and a continuance of it with such uncontrolled abuses would
tend only, by multiplying injuries and irritations, to bring on a
rupture between the two nations. This extreme resort is equally opposed
to the interests of both, as it is to assurances of the most friendly
dispositions on the part of the British Government, in the midst of
which this outrage has been committed. In this light the subject can not
but present itself to that Government and strengthen the motives to
an honorable reparation of the wrong which has been done, and to that
effectual control of its naval commanders which alone can justify the
Government of the United States in the exercise of those hospitalities
it is now constrained to discontinue.

In consideration of these circumstances and of the right of every nation
to regulate its own police, to provide for its peace and for the safety
of its citizens, and consequently to refuse the admission of armed
vessels into its harbors or waters, either in such numbers or of such
descriptions as are inconsistent with these or with the maintenance
of the authority of the laws, I have thought proper, in pursuance of
the authorities specially given by law, to issue this my proclamation,
hereby requiring all armed vessels bearing commissions under the
Government of Great Britain now within the harbors or waters of the
United States immediately and without any delay to depart from the same,
and interdicting the entrance of all the said harbors and waters to the
said armed vessels and to all others bearing commissions under the
authority of the British Government.

And if the said vessels, or any of them, shall fail to depart as
aforesaid, or if they or any others so interdicted shall hereafter
enter the harbors or waters aforesaid, I do in that case forbid all
intercourse with them, or any of them, their officers or crews, and
do prohibit all supplies and aid from being furnished to them, or any
of them.

And I do declare and make known that if any person from or within the
jurisdictional limits of the United States shall afford any aid to any
such vessel contrary to the prohibition contained in this proclamation,
either in repairing any such vessel or in furnishing her, her officers
or crew, with supplies of any kind or in any manner whatsoever; or if
any pilot shall assist in navigating any of the said armed vessels,
unless it be for the purpose of carrying them in the first instance
beyond the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, or unless it
be in the case of a vessel forced by distress or charged with public
dispatches, as hereinafter provided for, such person or persons shall
on conviction suffer all the pains and penalties by the laws provided
for such offenses.

And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office, civil or
military, within or under the authority of the United States, and all
others citizens or inhabitants thereof, or being within the same, with
vigilance and promptitude to exert their respective authorities and to
be aiding and assisting to the carrying this proclamation and every part
thereof into full effect.

Provided, nevertheless, that if any such vessel shall be forced into the
harbors or waters of the United States by distress, by the dangers of
the sea, or by the pursuit of an enemy, or shall enter them charged
with dispatches or business from their Government, or shall be a public
packet for the conveyance of letters and dispatches, the commanding
officer, immediately reporting his vessel to the collector of the
district, stating the object or causes of entering the said harbors
or waters, and conforming himself to the regulations in that case
prescribed under the authority of the laws, shall be allowed the benefit
of such regulations respecting repairs, supplies, stay, intercourse, and
departure as shall be permitted under the same authority.

 (SEAL.)

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
affixed to these presents, and signed the same.

Given at the city of Washington, the 2d day of July, A.D. 1807, and of
the Sovereignty and Independence of the United States the thirty-first.

TH. JEFFERSON.

By the President:
  JAMES MADISON,
     Secretary of State .

 (From Annals of Congress, Tenth Congress, first session, vol. i, 9.)

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas great and weighty matters claiming the consideration of the
Congress of the United States form an extraordinary occasion for
convening them, I do by these presents appoint Monday, the 26th day
of October next, for their meeting at the city of Washington, hereby
requiring the respective Senators and Representatives then and there to
assemble in Congress, in order to receive such communications as may
then be made to them, and to consult and determine on such measures as
in their wisdom may be deemed meet for the welfare of the United States.

 (SEAL.)

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
hereunto affixed, and signed the same with my hand.

Done at the city of Washington, the 30th day of July, A.D. 1807, and in
the thirty-second year of the Independence of the United States.

TH. JEFFERSON.

By the President:
  JAMES MADISON,
     Secretary of State .

 (From the National Intelligencer, October 19, 1807.)

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas information has been received that a number of individuals who
have deserted from the Army of the United States and sought shelter
without the jurisdiction thereof have become sensible of their offense
and are desirous of returning to their duty, a full pardon is hereby
proclaimed to each and all of such individuals as shall within four
months from the date hereof surrender themselves to the commanding
officer of any military post within the United States or the Territories
thereof.

 (SEAL.)

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand.

Done at the city of Washington, the 15th day of October, A.D. 1807, and
of the Independence of the United States of America the thirty-second.

TH. JEFFERSON.

By the President:
  JAMES MADISON,
     Secretary of State .

SEVENTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.

OCTOBER 27, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

Circumstances, fellow-citizens, which seriously threatened the peace
of our country have made it a duty to convene you at an earlier period
than usual. The love of peace so much cherished in the bosoms of our
citizens, which has so long guided the proceedings of their public
councils and induced forbearance under so many wrongs, may not insure
our continuance in the quiet pursuits of industry. The many injuries
and depredations committed on our commerce and navigation upon the high
seas for years past, the successive innovations on those principles
of public law which have been established by the reason and usage of
nations as the rule of their intercourse and the umpire and security
of their rights and peace, and all the circumstances which induced
the extraordinary mission to London are already known to you. The
instructions given to our ministers were framed in the sincerest spirit
of amity and moderation. They accordingly proceeded, in conformity
therewith, to propose arrangements which might embrace and settle all
the points in difference between us, which might bring us to a mutual
understanding on our neutral and national rights and provide for a
commercial intercourse on conditions of some equality. After long and
fruitless endeavors to effect the purposes of their mission and to
obtain arrangements within the limits of their instructions, they
concluded to sign such as could be obtained and to send them for
consideration, candidly declaring to the other negotiators at the same
time that they were acting against their instructions, and that their
Government, therefore, could not be pledged for ratification. Some
of the articles proposed might have been admitted on a principle
of compromise, but others were too highly disadvantageous, and no
sufficient provision was made against the principal source of the
irritations and collisions which were constantly endangering the peace
of the two nations. The question, therefore, whether a treaty should
be accepted in that form could have admitted but of one decision, even
had no declarations of the other party impaired our confidence in it.
Still anxious not to close the door against friendly adjustment, new
modifications were framed and further concessions authorized than could
before have been supposed necessary; and our ministers were instructed
to resume their negotiations on these grounds. On this new reference to
amicable discussion we were reposing in confidence, when on the 22d day
of June last by a formal order from a British admiral the frigate
 Chesapeake , leaving her port for a distant service, was attacked
by one of those vessels which had been lying in our harbors under the
indulgences of hospitality, was disabled from proceeding, had several
of her crew killed and four taken away. On this outrage no commentaries
are necessary. Its character has been pronounced by the indignant voice
of our citizens with an emphasis and unanimity never exceeded. I
immediately, by proclamation, interdicted our harbors and waters to all
British armed vessels, forbade intercourse with them, and uncertain how
far hostilities were intended, and the town of Norfolk, indeed, being
threatened with immediate attack, a sufficient force was ordered for
the protection of that place, and such other preparations commenced and
pursued as the prospect rendered proper. An armed vessel of the United
States was dispatched with instructions to our ministers at London to
call on that Government for the satisfaction and security required by
the outrage. A very short interval ought now to bring the answer, which
shall be communicated to you as soon as received; then also, or as soon
after as the public interests shall be found to admit, the unratified
treaty and proceedings relative to it shall be made known to you.

The aggression thus begun has been continued on the part of the British
commanders by remaining within our waters in defiance of the authority
of the country, by habitual violations of its jurisdiction, and at
length by putting to death one of the persons whom they had forcibly
taken from on board the  Chesapeake . These aggravations necessarily
lead to the policy either of never admitting an armed vessel into our
harbors or of maintaining in every harbor such an armed force as may
constrain obedience to the laws and protect the lives and property
of our citizens against their armed guests; but the expense of such
a standing force and its inconsistence with our principles dispense
with those courtesies which would necessarily call for it, and leave
us equally free to exclude the navy, as we are the army, of a foreign
power from entering our limits.

To former violations of maritime rights another is now added of very
extensive effect. The Government of that nation has issued an order
interdicting all trade by neutrals between ports not in amity with
them; and being now at war with nearly every nation on the Atlantic and
Mediterranean seas, our vessels are required to sacrifice their cargoes
at the first port they touch or to return home without the benefit of
going to any other market. Under this new law of the ocean our trade
on the Mediterranean has been swept away by seizures and condemnations,
and that in other seas is threatened with the same fate.

Our differences with Spain remain still unsettled, no measure having
been taken on her part since my last communications to Congress to
bring them to a close. But under a state of things which may favor
reconsideration they have been recently pressed, and an expectation is
entertained that they may now soon be brought to an issue of some sort.
With their subjects on our borders no new collisions have taken place
nor seem immediately to be apprehended. To our former grounds of
complaint has been added a very serious one, as you will see by the
decree a copy of which is now communicated. Whether this decree, which
professes to be conformable to that of the French Government of November
21, 1806, heretofore communicated to Congress, will also be conformed
to that in its construction and application in relation to the United
States had not been ascertained at the date of our last communications.
These, however, gave reason to expect such a conformity.

With the other nations of Europe our harmony has been uninterrupted,
and commerce and friendly intercourse have been maintained on their
usual footing.

Our peace with the several states on the coast of Barbary appears as
firm as at any former period and as likely to continue as that of any
other nation.

Among our Indian neighbors in the northwestern quarter some fermentation
was observed soon after the late occurrences, threatening the
continuance of our peace. Messages were said to be interchanged and
tokens to be passing, which usually denote a state of restlessness among
them, and the character of the agitators pointed to the sources of
excitement. Measures were immediately taken for providing against that
danger; instructions were given to require explanations, and, with
assurances of our continued friendship, to admonish the tribes to remain
quiet at home, taking no part in quarrels not belonging to them. As
far as we are yet informed, the tribes in our vicinity, who are most
advanced in the pursuits of industry, are sincerely disposed to adhere
to their friendship with us and to their peace with all others, while
those more remote do not present appearances sufficiently quiet to
justify the intermission of military precaution on our part.

The great tribes on our southwestern quarter, much advanced beyond
the others in agriculture and household arts, appear tranquil and
identifying their views with ours in proportion to their advancement.
With the whole of these people, in every quarter, I shall continue to
inculcate peace and friendship with all their neighbors and perseverance
in those occupations and pursuits which will best promote their own
well-being.

The appropriations of the last session for the defense of our seaport
towns and harbors were made under expectation that a continuance of
our peace would permit us to proceed in that work according to our
convenience. It has been thought better to apply the sums then given
toward the defense of New York, Charleston, and New Orleans chiefly, as
most open and most likely first to need protection, and to leave places
less immediately in danger to the provisions of the present session.

The gunboats, too, already provided have on a like principle been
chiefly assigned to New York, New Orleans, and the Chesapeake. Whether
our movable force on the water, so material in aid of the defensive
works on the land, should be augmented in this or any other form is
left to the wisdom of the Legislature. For the purpose of manning
these vessels in sudden attacks on our harbors it is a matter for
consideration whether the seamen of the United States may not justly
be formed into a special militia, to be called on for tours of duty
in defense of the harbors where they shall happen to be, the ordinary
militia of the place furnishing that portion which may consist of
landsmen.

The moment our peace was threatened I deemed it indispensable to secure
a greater provision of those articles of military stores with which our
magazines were not sufficiently furnished. To have awaited a previous
and special sanction by law would have lost occasions which might not
be retrieved. I did not hesitate, therefore, to authorize engagements
for such supplements to our existing stock as would render it adequate
to the emergencies threatening us, and I trust that the Legislature,
feeling the same anxiety for the safety of our country, so materially
advanced by this precaution, will approve, when done, what they would
have seen so important to be done if then assembled. Expenses, also
unprovided for, arose out of the necessity of calling all our gunboats
into actual service for the defense of our harbors; of all which
accounts will be laid before you.

Whether a regular army is to be raised, and to what extent, must depend
on the information so shortly expected. In the meantime I have called
on the States for quotas of militia, to be in readiness for present
defense, and have, moreover, encouraged the acceptance of volunteers;
and I am happy to inform you that these have offered themselves with
great alacrity in every part of the Union. They are ordered to be
organized and ready at a moment's warning to proceed on any service to
which they may be called, and every preparation within the Executive
powers has been made to insure us the benefit of early exertions.

I informed Congress at their last session of the enterprises against the
public peace which were believed to be in preparation by Aaron Burr and
his associates, of the measures taken to defeat them and to bring the
offenders to justice. Their enterprises were happily defeated by the
patriotic exertions of the militia whenever called into action, by the
fidelity of the Army, and energy of the commander in chief in promptly
arranging the difficulties presenting themselves on the Sabine,
repairing to meet those arising on the Mississippi, and dissipating
before their explosion plots engendering there. I shall think it my duty
to lay before you the proceedings and the evidence publicly exhibited on
the arraignment of the principal offenders before the circuit court of
Virginia. You will be enabled to judge whether the defect was in the
testimony, in the law, or in the administration of the law; and wherever
it shall be found, the Legislature alone can apply or originate the
remedy. The framers of our Constitution certainly supposed they had
guarded as well their Government against destruction by treason as their
citizens against oppression under pretense of it, and if these ends are
not attained it is of importance to inquire by what means more effectual
they may be secured.

The accounts of the receipts of revenue during the year ending on the
30th day of September last being not yet made up, a correct statement
will be hereafter transmitted from the Treasury. In the meantime, it is
ascertained that the receipts have amounted to near $16,000,000, which,
with the five millions and a half in the Treasury at the beginning
of the year, have enabled us, after meeting the current demands and
interest incurred, to pay more than four millions of the principal of
our funded debt. These payments, with those of the preceding five and a
half years, have extinguished of the funded debt $25,500,000, being the
whole which could be paid or purchased within the limits of the law and
of our contracts, and have left us in the Treasury $8,500,000. A portion
of this sum may be considered as a commencement of accumulation of the
surpluses of revenue which, after paying the installments of debt as
they shall become payable, will remain without any specific object. It
may partly, indeed, be applied toward completing the defense of the
exposed points of our country, on such a scale as shall be adapted to
our principles and circumstances. This object is doubtless among the
first entitled to attention in such a state of our finances, and it is
one which, whether we have peace or war, will provide security where it
is due. Whether what shall remain of this, with the future surpluses,
may be usefully applied to purposes already authorized or more usefully
to others requiring new authorities, or how otherwise they shall be
disposed of, are questions calling for the notice of Congress, unless,
indeed, they shall be superseded by a change in our public relations now
awaiting the determination of others. Whatever be that determination, it
is a great consolation that it will become known at a moment when the
supreme council of the nation is assembled at its post, and ready to
give the aids of its wisdom and authority to whatever course the good
of our country shall then call us to pursue.

Matters of minor importance will be the subjects of future
communications, and nothing shall be wanting on my part which may give
information or dispatch to the proceedings of the Legislature in the
exercise of their high duties, and at a moment so interesting to the
public welfare.

TH. JEFFERSON.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

NOVEMBER 11, 1807.

 To the Senate of the United States :

Some time had elapsed after the receipt of the late treaty between
the United States and Tripoli before the circumstance drew particular
attention that, although by the third article the wife and children of
the ex-Bashaw were to be restored to him, this did not appear either
to have been done or demanded; still, it was constantly expected that
explanations on the subject would be received. None, however, having
arrived when Mr. Davis went as consul to Tripoli, he was instructed to
demand the execution of the article. He did so, but was answered by the
exhibition of a declaration, signed by our negotiator the day after the
signature of the treaty, allowing four years for the restoration of the
family. This declaration and the letter of Mr. Davis stating what passed
on the occasion are now communicated to the Senate. On the receipt of
this letter I caused the correspondence of Mr. Lear to be diligently
reexamined in order to ascertain whether there might have been a
communication of this paper made and overlooked or forgotten. None such,
however, is found. There appears only in a journalized account of the
transaction by Mr. Lear, under date of June 3, a passage intimating that
he should be disposed to give time rather than suffer the business to be
broken off and our countrymen left in slavery; and again, that on the
return of the person who passed between himself and the Bashaw, and
information that the Bashaw would require time for the delivery of the
family, he consented, and went ashore to consummate the treaty. This was
done the next day, and being forwarded to us as ultimately signed, and
found to contain no allowance of time nor any intimation that there was
any stipulation but what was in the public treaty, it was supposed that
the Bashaw had, in fine, abandoned the proposition, and the instructions
before mentioned were consequently given to Mr. Davis.

An extract of so much of Mr. Lear's communication as relates to this
circumstance is now transmitted to the Senate, the whole of the papers
having been laid before them on a former occasion. How it has happened
that the declaration of June 5 has never before come to our knowledge
can not with certainty be said, but whether there has been a miscarriage
of it or a failure of the ordinary attention and correctness of that
officer in making his communications, I have thought it due to the
Senate as well as to myself to explain to them the circumstances
which have withheld from their knowledge, as they did from my own,
a modification which, had it been placed in the public treaty, would
have been relieved from the objections which candor and good faith can
not but feel in its present form.

As the restoration of the family has probably been effected, a just
regard to the character of the United States will require that I make
to the Bashaw a candid statement of facts, and that the sacrifices of
his right to the peace and friendship of the two countries, by yielding
finally to the demand of Mr. Davis, be met by proper acknowledgments and
reparation on our part.

TH. JEFFERSON.

NOVEMBER 19, 1807.

 To the House of Representatives of the United States :

According to the request expressed in your resolution of the 18th
instant, I now transmit a copy of my proclamation interdicting our
harbors and waters to British armed vessels and forbidding intercourse
with them, referred to in my message of the 27th of October last.

TH. JEFFERSON.

NOVEMBER 23, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

Agreeably to the assurance given in my message at the opening of
the present session of Congress, I now lay before you a copy of the
proceedings and of the evidence exhibited on the arraignment of Aaron
Burr and others before the circuit court of the United States held in
Virginia in the course of the present year, in as authentic form as
their several parts have admitted.

TH. JEFFERSON.

NOVEMBER 23, 1807.

 To the Senate of the United States :

Some circumstance, which can not now be ascertained, induced a belief
that an act had passed at the last session of Congress for establishing
a surveyor and inspector of revenue for the port of Stonington, in
Connecticut, and commissions were signed appointing Jonathan Palmer,
of Connecticut, to those offices. The error was discovered at the
Treasury, and the commissions were retained; but not having been
notified to me, I renewed the nomination in my message of the 9th
instant to the Senate. In order to correct the error, I have canceled
the temporary commissions, and now revoke the nomination which I made
of the said Jonathan Palmer to the Senate.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 2, 1807.

 To the Senate of the United States :

In compliance with the request made in the resolution of the Senate
of November 30, I must inform them that when the prosecutions against
Aaron Burr and his associates were instituted I delivered to the
Attorney-General all the evidence on the subject, formal and informal,
which I had received, to be used by those employed in the prosecutions.
On the receipt of the resolution of the Senate I referred it to the
Attorney-General, with a request that he would enable me to comply with
it by putting into my hands such of the papers as might give information
relative to the conduct of John Smith, a Senator from the State of Ohio,
as an alleged associate of Aaron Burr, and having this moment received
from him the affidavit of Elias Glover, with an assurance that it is the
only paper in his possession which is within the term of the request of
the Senate, I now transmit it for their use.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 7, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

Having recently received from our late minister plenipotentiary at
the Court of London a duplicate of dispatches, the original of which
has been sent by the  Revenge  schooner, not yet arrived, I hasten
to lay them before both Houses of Congress. They contain the whole
of what has passed between the two Governments on the subject of
the outrage committed by the British ship  Leopard  on the frigate
 Chesapeake . Congress will learn from these papers the present
state of the discussion on that transaction, and that it is to be
transferred to this place by the mission of a special minister.

While this information will have its proper effect on their
deliberations and proceedings respecting the relations between the two
countries, they will be sensible that, the negotiation being still
depending, it is proper for me to request that the communications may
be considered as confidential.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 18, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

The communications now made, shewing the great and increasing dangers
with which our vessels, our seamen, and merchandise are threatened
on the high seas and elsewhere from the belligerent powers of Europe,
and it being of the greatest importance to keep in safety these
essential resources, I deem it my duty to recommend the subject to
the consideration of Congress, who will doubtless perceive all the
advantages which may be expected from an inhibition of the departure
of our vessels from the ports of the United States.

Their wisdom will also see the necessity of making every preparation
for whatever events may grow out of the present crisis.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 30, 1807.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I communicate to Congress the inclosed letters from Governor Hull,
respecting the Indians in the vicinity of Detroit residing within our
lines. They contain information of the state of things in that quarter
which will properly enter into their view in estimating the means to
be provided for the defense of our country generally.

TH. JEFFERSON.

Chapter 25

JANUARY 8, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now render to Congress the account of the fund established for
defraying the contingent expenses of Government for the year 1807.
Of the sum of $18,012.50, which remained unexpended at the close
of the year 1806, $8,731.11 have been placed in the hands of the
Attorney-General of the United States, to enable him to defray sundry
expenses incident to the prosecution of Aaron Burr and his accomplices
for treasons and misdemeanors alleged to have been committed by them,
and the unexpended balance of $9,275.39 is now carried according to
law to the credit of the surplus fund.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 15, 1808.

 To the Senate of the United States :

The posts of Detroit and Mackinac having been originally intended by the
Governments which established and held them as mere depots for commerce
with the Indians, very small cessions of land around them were obtained
or asked from the native proprietors, and these posts depended for
protection on the strength of their garrisons. The principles of our
Government leading us to the employment of such moderate garrisons in
time of peace as may merely take care of the post, and to a reliance on
the neighboring militia for its support in the first moments of war,
I have thought it would be important to obtain from the Indians such a
cession in the neighborhood of these posts as might maintain a militia
proportioned to this object; and I have particularly contemplated, with
this view, the acquisition of the eastern moiety of the peninsula
between lakes Michigan and Huron, comprehending the waters of the latter
and of Detroit River, so soon as it could be effected with the perfect
good will of the natives. Governor Hull was therefore appointed a
commissioner to treat with them on this subject, but was instructed to
confine his propositions for the present to so much of the tract before
described as lay south of Saguina Bay and round to the Connecticut
Reserve, so as to consolidate the new with the present settled country.
The result has been an acquisition of so much only of what would have
been acceptable as extends from the neighborhood of Saguina Bay to the
Miami of the Lakes, with a prospect of soon obtaining a breadth of 2
miles for a communication from the Miami to the Connecticut Reserve.
The treaty for this purpose entered into with the Ottoways, Chippeways,
Wyandots, and Pottawattamies at Detroit on the 17th of November last is
now transmitted to the Senate, and I ask their advice and consent as to
its ratification.

I communicate herewith such papers as bear any material relation to
the subject.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 15, 1808.

 To the Senate of the United States :

Although it is deemed very desirable that the United States should
obtain from the native proprietors the whole left bank of the
Mississippi to a certain breadth, yet to obliterate from the Indian
mind an impression deeply made in it that we are constantly forming
designs on their lands I have thought it best where urged by no
peculiar necessity to leave to themselves and to the pressure of
their own convenience only to come forward with offers of sale to
the United States.

The Choctaws, being indebted to certain mercantile characters beyond
what could be discharged by the ordinary proceeds of their huntings, and
pressed for payment by those creditors, proposed at length to the United
States to cede lands to the amount of their debts, and designated them
in two different portions of their country. These designations not at
all suiting us, their proposals were declined for that reason, and with
an intimation that if their own convenience should ever dispose them to
cede their lands on the Mississippi we should be willing to purchase.
Still urged by their creditors, as well as by their own desire to be
liberated from debt, they at length proposed to make a cession which
should be to our convenience. James Robertson, of Tennessee, and Silas
Dinsmore were thereupon appointed commissioners to treat with them on
that subject, with instructions to purchase only on the Mississippi. On
meeting their chiefs, however, it was found that such was the attachment
of the nation to their lands on the Mississippi that their chiefs could
not undertake to cede them; but they offered all their lands south of
a line to be run from their and our boundary at the Omochita eastwardly
to their boundary with the Creeks, on the ridge between the Tombigbee
and Alabama, which would unite our possessions there from Natchez
to Tombigbee. A treaty to this effect was accordingly signed at
Pooshapekanuk on the 16th of November, 1805; but this being against
express instructions, and not according with the object then in view,
I was disinclined to its ratification, and therefore did not at the last
session of Congress lay it before the Senate for their advice, but have
suffered it to lie unacted on.

Progressive difficulties, however, in our foreign relations have brought
into view considerations other than those which then prevailed. It is
now, perhaps, become as interesting to obtain footing for a strong
settlement of militia along our southern frontier eastward of the
Mississippi as on the west of that river, and more so than higher up
the river itself. The consolidation of the Mississippi Territory and
the establishing a barrier of separation between the Indians and our
Southern neighbors are also important objects. The cession is supposed
to contain about 5,000,000 acres, of which the greater part is said to
be fit for cultivation, and no inconsiderable proportion of the first
quality, on the various waters it includes; and the Choctaws and their
creditors are still anxious for the sale.

I therefore now transmit the treaty for the consideration of the Senate,
and I ask their advice and consent as to its ratification. I communicate
at the same time such papers as bear any material relation to the
subject, together with a map on which is sketched the northern limit of
the cession, rather to give a general idea than with any pretension to
exactness, which our present knowledge of the country would not warrant.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 20, 1808.

 To the House of Representatives of the United States :

Some days previous to your resolutions of the 13th instant a court of
inquiry had been instituted at the request of General Wilkinson, charged
to make the inquiry into his conduct which the first resolution desires,
and had commenced their proceedings. To the judge-advocate of that court
the papers and information on that subject transmitted to me by the
House of Representatives have been delivered, to be used according to
the rules and powers of that court.

The request of a communication of any information which may have been
received at any time since the establishment of the present Government
touching combinations with foreign agents for dismembering the Union
or the corrupt receipt of money by any officer of the United States
from the agents of foreign governments can be complied with but in a
partial degree.

It is well understood that in the first or second year of the Presidency
of General Washington information was given to him relating to
certain combinations with the agents of a foreign government for the
dismemberment of the Union, which combinations had taken place before
the establishment of the present Federal Government. This information,
however, is believed never to have been deposited in any public office,
or left in that of the President's secretary, these having been duly
examined, but to have been considered as personally confidential, and
therefore retained among his private papers. A communication from the
governor of Virginia to President Washington is found in the office
of the President's secretary, which, although not strictly within the
terms of the request of the House of Representatives, is communicated,
inasmuch as it may throw some light on the subjects of the
correspondence of that time between certain foreign agents and citizens
of the United States.

In the first or second year of the Administration of President Adams
Andrew Ellicott, then employed in designating, in conjunction with the
Spanish authorities, the boundaries between the territories of the
United States and Spain, under the treaty with that nation, communicated
to the Executive of the United States papers and information respecting
the subjects of the present inquiry, which were deposited in the
Office of State. Copies of these are now transmitted to the House of
Representatives, except of a single letter and a reference from the
said Andrew Ellicott, which, being expressly desired to be kept secret,
is therefore not communicated, but its contents can be obtained from
himself in a more legal form, and directions have been given to summon
him to appear as a witness before the court of inquiry.

A paper on "The Commerce of Louisiana," bearing date the 18th of
April, 1798, is found in the Office of State, supposed to have been
communicated by Mr. Daniel Clark, of New Orleans, then a subject of
Spain, and now of the House of Representatives of the United States,
stating certain commercial transactions of General Wilkinson in New
Orleans. An extract from this is now communicated, because it contains
facts which may have some bearing on the questions relating to him.

The destruction of the War Office by fire in the close of 1800 involved
all information it contained at that date.

The papers already described therefore constitute the whole of the
information on the subjects deposited in the public offices during the
preceding Administrations, as far as has yet been found; but it can
not be affirmed that there may be no other, because, the papers of the
office being filed for the most part alphabetically, unless aided by the
suggestion of any particular name which may have given such information,
nothing short of a careful examination of the papers in the offices
generally could authorize such an affirmation.

About a twelvemonth after I came to the administration of the Government
Mr. Clark gave some verbal information to myself, as well as to the
Secretary of State, relating to the same combinations for the
dismemberment of the Union. He was listened to freely, and he then
delivered the letter of Governor Gayoso, addressed to himself, of which
a copy is now communicated. After his return to New Orleans he forwarded
to the Secretary of State other papers, with a request that after
perusal they should be burnt. This, however, was not done, and he was so
informed by the Secretary of State, and that they would be held subject
to his orders. These papers have not yet been found in the office.
A letter, therefore, has been addressed to the former chief clerk, who
may perhaps give information respecting them. As far as our memories
enable us to say, they related only to the combinations before spoken
of, and not at all to the corrupt receipt of money by any officer of
the United States; consequently they respected what was considered as
a dead matter, known to the preceding Administrations, and offering
nothing new to call for investigations, which those nearest the dates
of the transactions had not thought proper to institute.

In the course of the communications made to me on the subject of the
conspiracy of Aaron Burr I sometimes received letters, some of them
anonymous, some under names true or false, expressing suspicions and
insinuations against General Wilkinson; but one only of them, and that
anonymous, specified any particular fact, and that fact was one of those
which had been already communicated to a former Administration.

No other information within the purview of the request of the House is
known to have been received by any department of the Government from the
establishment of the present Federal Government. That which has been
recently communicated to the House of Representatives, and by them
to me, is the first direct testimony ever made known to me charging
General Wilkinson with the corrupt receipt of money, and the House of
Representatives may be assured that the duties which this information
devolves on me shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality. Should any
want of power in the court to compel the rendering of testimony obstruct
that full and impartial inquiry which alone can establish guilt or
innocence and satisfy justice, the legislative authority only will be
competent to the remedy.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 30, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

The Choctaws, being indebted to their merchants beyond what could be
discharged by the ordinary proceeds of their buntings, and pressed for
payment, proposed to the United States to cede lands to the amount of
their debts, and designated them in two different portions of their
country. These designations, not at all suiting us, were declined. Still
urged by their creditors, as well as by their own desire to be liberated
from debt, they at length proposed to make a cession which should be to
our convenience. By a treaty signed at Pooshapuckanuck on the 16th of
November, 1805, they accordingly ceded all their lands south of a line
to be run from their and our boundary at the Omochita eastwardly to
their boundary with the Creeks, on the ridge between the Tombigbee and
Alabama, as is more particularly described in the treaty, containing
about 5,000,000 acres, as is supposed, and uniting our possessions there
from Adams to Washington County.

The location contemplated in the instructions to the commissioners was
on the Mississippi. That in the treaty being entirely different, I was
at that time disinclined to its ratification, and I have suffered it to
lie unacted on. But progressive difficulties in our foreign relations
have brought into view considerations other than those which then
prevailed. It is now, perhaps, as interesting to obtain footing for a
strong settlement of militia along our southern frontier eastward of the
Mississippi as on the west of that river, and more so than higher up the
river itself. The consolidation of the Mississippi Territory and the
establishment of a barrier of separation between the Indians and our
Southern neighbors are also important objects; and the Choctaws and
their creditors being still anxious that the sale should be made, I
submitted the treaty to the Senate, who have advised and consented to
its ratification. I therefore now lay it before both Houses of Congress
for the exercise of their constitutional powers as to the means of
fulfilling it.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 30, 1808.

 To the House of Representatives of the United States :

The posts of Detroit and Mackinac having been originally intended by the
Governments which established and held them as mere depots for commerce
with the Indians, very small cessions of land around them were obtained
or asked from the native proprietors, and these posts depended for
protection on the strength of their garrisons. The principles of our
Government leading us to the employment of such moderate garrisons in
time of peace as may merely take care of the post, and to a reliance on
the neighboring militia for its support in the first moments of war,
I have thought it would be important to obtain from the Indians such a
cession in the neighborhood of these posts as might maintain a militia
proportioned to this object; and I have particularly contemplated,
with this view, the acquisition of the eastern moiety of the peninsula
between the lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie, extending it to the
Connecticut Reserve so soon as it could be effected with the perfect
good will of the natives.

By a treaty concluded at Detroit on the 17th of November last with the
Ottoways, Chippeways, Wyandots, and Pattawatimas so much of this country
has been obtained as extends from about Saguina Bay southwardly to the
Miami of the Lakes, supposed to contain upward of 5,000,000 acres, with
a prospect of obtaining for the present a breadth of 2 miles for a
communication from the Miami to the Connecticut Reserve.

The Senate having advised and consented to the ratification of this
treaty, I now lay it before both Houses of Congress for the exercise
of their constitutional powers as to the means of fulfilling it.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 2, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

Having received an official communication of certain orders of the
British Government against the maritime rights of neutrals, bearing date
the 11th of November, 1807, I transmit them to Congress, as a further
proof of the increasing dangers to our navigation and commerce, which
led to the provident measure of the act of the present session laying an
embargo on our own vessels,

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 4, 1808.

 To the House of Representatives of the United States :

In my message of January 20 I stated that some papers forwarded by Mr.
Daniel Clark, of New Orleans, to the Secretary of State in 1803 had not
then been found in the Office of State, and that a letter had been
addressed to the former chief clerk, in the hope that he might advise
where they should be sought for. By indications received from him they
are now found. Among them are two letters from the Baron de Carondelet
to an officer serving under him at a separate post, in which his views
of a dismemberment of our Union are expressed. Extracts of so much of
these letters as are within the scope of the resolution of the House are
now communicated. With these were found the letters written by Mr. Clark
to the Secretary of State in 1803. A part of one only of these relates
to this subject, and is extracted and inclosed for the information of
the House. In no part of the papers communicated by Mr. Clark, which are
voluminous and in different languages, nor in his letters, have we found
any intimation of the corrupt receipt of money by any officer of the
United States from any foreign agent. As to the combinations with
foreign agents for dismembering the Union, these papers and letters
offer nothing which was not probably known to my predecessors, or which
could call anew for inquiries, which they had not thought necessary to
institute, when the facts were recent and could be better proved. They
probably believed it best to let pass into oblivion transactions which,
however culpable, had commenced before this Government existed, and had
been finally extinguished by the treaty of 1795.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 9, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I communicate to Congress, for their information, a letter from the
person acting in the absence of our consul at Naples, giving reason
to believe, on the affidavit of a Captain Sheffield, of the American
schooner  Mary Ann , that the Dey of Algiers has commenced war
against the United States. For this no just cause has been given on
our part within my knowledge. We may daily expect more authentic and
particular information on the subject from Mr. Lear, who was residing
as our consul at Algiers.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 15, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I communicate for the information of Congress a letter from the consul
of the United States at Malaga to the Secretary of State, covering one
from Mr. Lear, our consul at Algiers, which gives information that the
rupture threatened on the part of the Dey of Algiers has been amicably
settled, and the vessels seized by him are liberated.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 19, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

The States of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia having by their
several acts consented that the road from Cumberland to the State of
Ohio, authorized by the act of Congress of the 29th of March, 1806,
should pass through those States, and the report of the commissioners,
communicated to Congress with my message of the 31st January, 1807,
having been duly considered, I have approved of the route therein
proposed for the said road as far as Brownsville, with a single
deviation, since located, which carries it through Uniontown.

From thence the course to the Ohio and the point within the legal limits
at which it shall strike that river is still to be decided. In forming
this decision I shall pay material regard to the interests and wishes of
the populous parts of the State of Ohio and to a future and convenient
connection with the road which is to lead from the Indian boundary near
Cincinnati by Vincennes to the Mississippi at Saint Louis, under authority
of the act of the 21st April, 1806. In this way we may accomplish a
continued and advantageous line of communication from the seat of the
General Government to Saint Louis, passing through several very
interesting points of the Western country.

I have thought it advisable also to secure from obliteration the trace
of the road so far as it has been approved, which has been executed at
such considerable expense, by opening one-half of its breadth through
its whole length.

The report of the commissioners, herewith transmitted, will give
particular information of their proceedings under the act of the 29th
March, 1806, since the date of my message of the 31st January, 1807, and
will enable Congress to adopt such further measures relative thereto as
they may deem proper under existing circumstances.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 25, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

The dangers to our country arising from the contests of other nations
and the urgency of making preparation for whatever events might affect
our relations with them have been intimated in preceding messages to
Congress. To secure ourselves by due precautions an augmentation of our
military force, as well regular as of volunteer militia, seems to be
expedient. The precise extent of that augmentation can not as yet be
satisfactorily suggested, but that no time may be lost, and especially
at a season deemed favorable to the object, I submit to the wisdom of
the Legislature whether they will authorize a commencement of this
precautionary work by a present provision for raising and organizing
some additional force, reserving to themselves to decide its ultimate
extent on such views of our situation as I may be enabled to present
at a future day of the session.

If an increase of force be now approved, I submit to their consideration
the outlines of a plan proposed in the inclosed letter from the
Secretary of War.

I recommend also to the attention of Congress the term at which the act
of April 18, 1806, concerning the militia, will expire, and the effect
of that expiration.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 26, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I inclose, for the information of Congress, letters recently received
from our ministers at Paris and London, communicating their
representations against the late decrees and orders of France and Great
Britain, heretofore transmitted to Congress. These documents will
contribute to the information of Congress as to the dispositions of
those powers and the probable course of their proceedings toward
neutrals, and will doubtless have their due influence in adopting
the measures of the Legislature to the actual crisis.

Although nothing forbids the general matter of these letters from being
spoken of without reserve, yet as the publication of papers of this
description would restrain injuriously the freedom of our foreign
correspondence, they are communicated so far confidentially and with
a request that after being read to the satisfaction of both Houses
they may be returned.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 1, 1808.

 To the Senate of the United States :

In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of February 26, I
now lay before them such memorials and petitions for the district of
Detroit, and such other information as is in my possession, in relation
to the conduct of William Hull, governor of the Territory of Michigan,
and Stanley Griswold, esq., while acting as secretary of that Territory.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 2, 1808.

 To the Senate of the United States :

In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of November 30, 1807,
I now transmit a report of the Secretary of State on the subject of
impressments, as requested in that resolution. The great volume of the
documents and the time necessary for the investigation will explain to
the Senate the causes of the delay which has intervened.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 7, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

In the city of New Orleans and adjacent to it are sundry parcels of
ground, some of them with buildings and other improvements on them,
which it is my duty to present to the attention of the Legislature.
The title to these grounds appears to have been retained in the former
sovereigns of the Province of Louisiana as public fiduciaries and for
the purposes of the Province. Some of them were used for the residence
of the governor, for public offices, hospitals, barracks, magazines,
fortifications, levees, etc., others for the townhouse, schools,
markets, landings, and other purposes of the city of New Orleans; some
were held by religious corporations or persons, others seem to have
been reserved for future disposition. To these must be added a parcel
called the Batture, which requires more particular description. It is
understood to have been a shoal or elevation of the bottom of the river
adjacent to the bank of the suburbs of Saint Mary, produced by the
successive depositions of mud during the annual inundations of the
river, and covered with water only during those inundations. At all
other seasons it has been used by the city immemorially to furnish
earth for raising their streets and courtyards, for mortar, and other
necessary purposes, and as a landing or quay for unlading firewood,
lumber, and other articles brought by water. This having been lately
claimed, by a private individual, the city opposed the claim on a
supposed legal title in itself; but it has been adjudged that the legal
title was not in the city. It is, however, alleged that that title,
originally in the former sovereigns, was never parted with by them,
but was retained in them for the uses of the city and Province, and
consequently has now passed over to the United States. Until this
question can be decided under legislative authority, measures have been
taken according to law to prevent any change in the state of things and
to keep the grounds clear of intruders. The settlement of this title,
the appropriation of the grounds and improvements formerly occupied for
provincial purposes to the same or such other objects as may be better
suited to present circumstances, the confirmation of the uses in other
parcels to such bodies, corporate or private, as may of right or on
other reasonable considerations expect them, are matters now submitted
to the determination of the legislature.

The papers and plans now transmitted will give them such information on
the subject as I possess, and being mostly originals, I must request
that they may be communicated from the one to the other House, to answer
the purposes of both.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 10, 1808.

 To the Senate of the United States :

A purchase having lately been made from the Cherokee Indians of a
tract of land 6 miles square at the mouth of the Chickamogga, on the
Tennessee, I now lay the treaty and papers relating to it before the
Senate, with an explanation of the views which have led to it.

It was represented that there was within that tract a great abundance of
iron ore of excellent quality, with a stream and fall of water suitable
for iron works; that the Cherokees were anxious to have works
established there, in the hope of having a better supply of those
implements of household and agriculture of which they have learned the
use and necessity, but on the condition that they should be under the
authority and control of the United States.

As such an establishment would occasion a considerable and certain
demand for corn and other provisions and necessaries, it seemed
probable that it would immediately draw around it a close settlement
of the Cherokees, would encourage them to enter on a regular life of
agriculture, familiarize them with the practice and value of the arts,
attach them to property, lead them of necessity and without delay to
the establishment of laws and government, and thus make a great and
important advance toward assimilating their condition to ours. At the
same time it offers considerable accommodation to the Government by
enabling it to obtain more conveniently than it now can the necessary
supplies of cast and wrought iron for all the Indians south of the
Tennessee, and for those also to whom Saint Louis is a convenient deposit,
and will benefit such of our own citizens likewise as shall be within
its reach. Under these views the purchase has been made, with the
consent and desire of the great body of the nation, although not without
some dissenting members, as must be the case will all collections of
men. But it is represented that the dissentients are few, and under
the influence of one or two interested individuals. It is by no means
proposed that these works should be conducted on account of the United
States. It is understood that there are private individuals ready
to erect them, subject to such reasonable rent as may secure a
reimbursement to the United States, and to such other conditions as
shall secure to the Indians their rights and tranquillity.

The instrument is now submitted to the Senate, with a request of their
advice and consent as to its ratification.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 17, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I have heretofore communicated to Congress the decrees of the Government
of France of November 21, 1806, and of Spain of February 19, 1807, with
the orders of the British Government of January and November, 1807.

I now transmit a decree of the Emperor of France of December 17,1807,
and a similar decree of the 3d of January last by His Catholic Majesty.
Although the decree of France has not been received by official
communication, yet the different channels of promulgation through which
the public are possessed of it, with the formal testimony furnished by
the Government of Spain in their decree, leave us without a doubt that
such a one has been issued. These decrees and orders, taken together,
want little of amounting to a declaration that every neutral vessel
found on the high seas, whatsoever be her cargo and whatsoever foreign
port be that of her departure or destination, shall be deemed lawful
prize; and they prove more and more the expediency of retaining our
vessels, our seamen, and property within our own harbors until the
dangers to which they are exposed can be removed or lessened.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 18, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

The scale on which the Military Academy at West Point was
originally established is become too limited to furnish the number
of well-instructed subjects in the different branches of artillery
and engineering which the public service calls for. The want of such
characters is already sensibly felt, and will be increased with the
enlargement of our plans of military preparation. The chief engineer,
having been instructed to consider the subject and to propose an
augmentation which might render the establishment commensurate with
the present circumstances of our country, has made the report which
I now transmit for the consideration of Congress.

The idea suggested by him of removing the institution to this place is
also worthy of attention. Besides the advantage of placing it under the
immediate eye of the Government, it may render its benefits common to
the Naval Department, and will furnish opportunities of selecting on
better information the characters most qualified to fulfill the duties
which the public service may call for.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 22, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

At the opening of the present session I informed the Legislature that
the measures which had been taken with the Government of Great Britain
for the settlement of our neutral and national rights and of the
conditions of commercial intercourse with that nation had resulted in
articles of a treaty which could not be acceded to on our part; that
instructions had been consequently sent to our ministers there to resume
the negotiations, and to endeavor to obtain certain alterations,
and that this was interrupted by the transaction which took place
betweenthe frigates  Leopard  and  Chesapeake . The call on that
Government for reparation of this wrong produced, as Congress has been
already informed, the mission of a special minister to this country,
and the occasion is now arrived when the public interest permits and
requires that the whole of these proceedings should be made known to
you.

I therefore now communicate the instructions given to our minister
resident at London and his communications with that Government on
the subject of the  Chesapeake , with the correspondence which has
taken place here between the Secretary of State and Mr. Rose, the
special minister charged with the adjustment of that difference; the
instructions to our ministers for the formation of a treaty; their
correspondence with the British commissioners and with their own
Government on that subject; the treaty itself and written declaration of
the British commissioners accompanying it, and the instructions given by
us for resuming the negotiation, with the proceedings and correspondence
subsequent thereto. To these I have added a letter lately addressed to
the Secretary of State from one of our late ministers, which, though
not strictly written in an official character, I think it my duty to
communicate, in order that his views of the proposed treaty and of its
several articles may be fairly presented and understood.

Although I have heretofore and from time to time made such
communications to Congress as to keep them possessed of a general and
just view of the proceedings and dispositions of the Government of
France toward this country, yet in our present critical situation, when
we find that no conduct on our part, however impartial and friendly, has
been sufficient to insure from either belligerent a just respect for our
rights, I am desirous that nothing shall be omitted on my part which may
add to your information on this subject or contribute to the correctness
of the views which should be formed. The papers which for these reasons
I now lay before you embrace all the communications, official or verbal,
from the French Government respecting the general relations between the
two countries which have been transmitted through our minister there,
or through any other accredited channel, since the last session of
Congress, to which time all information of the same kind had from
time to time been given them. Some of these papers have already been
submitted to Congress, but it is thought better to offer them again in
order that the chain of communications of which they make a part may be
presented unbroken.

When, on the 26th of February, I communicated to both Houses the letter
of General Armstrong to M. Champagny, I desired it might not be
published because of the tendency of that practice to restrain
injuriously the freedom of our foreign correspondence. But perceiving
that this caution, proceeding purely from a regard to the public good,
has furnished occasion for disseminating unfounded suspicions and
insinuations, I am induced to believe that the good which will now
result from its publication, by confirming the confidence and union of
our fellow-citizens, will more than countervail the ordinary objection
to such publications. It is my wish, therefore, that it may be now
published.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 22, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

In a separate message of this date I have communicated to Congress
so much as may be made public of papers which give a full view of
the present state of our relations with the two contending powers,
France and England. Everyone must be sensible that in the details of
instructions for negotiating a treaty and in the correspondence and
conferences respecting it matters will occur which interest sometimes
and sometimes respect or other proper motives forbid to be made public.
To reconcile my duty in this particular with my desire of letting
Congress know everything which can give them a full understanding of the
subjects on which they are to act, I have suppressed in the documents
of the other message the parts which ought not to be made public and
have given them in the supplementary and confidential papers herewith
inclosed, with such references as that they may be read in their
original places as if still standing in them; and when these
confidential papers shall have been read to the satisfaction of the
House, I request their return, and that their contents may not be made
public.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 25, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

In proceeding to carry into execution the act for fortifying our forts
and harbors it is found that the sites most advantageous for their
defense, and sometimes the only sites competent to that defense, are in
some cases the property of minors incapable of giving a valid consent to
their alienation; in others belong to persons who may refuse altogether
to alienate, or demand a compensation far beyond the liberal justice
allowable in such cases. From these causes the defense of our seaboard,
so necessary to be pressed during the present season, will in various
parts be defeated unless a remedy can be applied. With a view to this
I submit the case to the consideration of Congress, who, estimating its
importance and reviewing the powers vested in them by the Constitution,
combined with the amendment providing that private property shall not
be taken for public use without just compensation, will decide on the
course most proper to be pursued.

I am aware that as the consent of the legislature of the State to the
purchase of the site may not in some instances have been previously
obtained, exclusive legislation can not be exercised therein by Congress
until that consent is given. But in the meantime it will be held under
the same laws which protect the property of individuals and other
property of the United States in the same State, and the legislatures
at their next meetings will have opportunities of doing what will be
so evidently called for by the particular interest of their own State.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 25, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now lay before Congress a statement of the militia of the United
States according to the latest returns received by the Department of
War. From the State of Delaware alone no return has been made.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 25, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I transmit to both Houses of Congress a report from the surveyor on the
public buildings of the progress made on them during the last session,
of their present state, and of that of the funds appropriated to them.
These have been much exceeded by the cost of the work done, a fact not
known to me till the close of the season. The circumstances from which
it arose are stated in the report of the surveyor.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 29, 1808.

 To the Senate of the United States :

When the convention of the 7th of January, 1806, was entered into with
the Cherokees for the purchase of certain lands, it was believed
by both parties that the eastern limit, when run in the direction
therein prescribed, would have included all the waters of Elk River.
On proceeding to run that line, however, it was found to omit a
considerable extent of those waters, on which were already settled
about 200 families. The Cherokees readily consented, for a moderate
compensation, that the line should be so run as to include all the
waters of that river. Our commissioners accordingly entered into an
explanatory convention for that purpose, which I now lay before the
Senate for consideration whether they will advise and consent to its
ratification. A letter from one of the commissioners, now also inclosed,
will more fully explain the circumstances which led to it.

Lieutenant Pike on his journey up the Mississippi in 1805-6, being at
the village of the Sioux, between the rivers Saint Croix and Saint Peters,
conceived that the position was favorable for a military and commercial
post for the United States whenever it should be thought expedient to
advance in that quarter. He therefore proposed to the chiefs a cession
of lands for that purpose. Their desire of entering into connection
with the United States and of getting a trading house established there
induced a ready consent to the proposition, and they made, by articles
of agreement now inclosed, a voluntary donation to the United States of
two portions of land, the one of 9 miles square at the mouth of the Saint
Croix, the other from below the mouth of Saint Peters up the Mississippi
to Saint Anthonys Falls, extending 9 miles in width on each side of the
Mississippi. These portions of land are designated on the map now
inclosed. Lieutenant Pike on his part made presents to the Indians to
some amount. This convention, though dated the 23d of September, 1805,
is but lately received, and although we have no immediate view of
establishing a trading post at that place, I submit it to the Senate for
the sanction of their advice and consent to its ratification, in order
to give to our title a full validity on the part of the United States,
whenever it may be wanting, for the special purpose which constituted
in the mind of the donors the sole consideration and inducement to the
cession.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 30, 1808,

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

Since my message of the 22d instant letters have been received from our
ministers at Paris and London, extracts from which, with a letter to
General Armstrong from the French minister of foreign relations, and a
letter from the British envoy residing here to the Secretary of State,
I now communicate to Congress. They add to the materials for estimating
the dispositions of those Governments toward this country.

The proceedings of both indicate designs of drawing us, if possible,
into the vortex of their contests; but every new information confirms
the prudence of guarding against these designs as it does of adhering
to the precautionary system hitherto contemplated.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 2, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

Believing that the confidence and union of our fellow-citizens at the
present crisis will be still further confirmed by the publication of the
letter of Mr. Champagny to General Armstrong and that of Mr. Erskine to
the Secretary of State, communicated with my message of the 30th ultimo,
and therefore that it may be useful to except them from the confidential
character of the other documents accompanying that message, I leave to
the consideration of Congress the expediency of making them public.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 8, 1808.

 To the Senate of the United States :

Agreeably to the request of the Senate in their resolution of yesterday,
I have examined my papers and find no letter from Matthew Nimmo of
the date of November 28, 1806, nor any other from him of any date but
that of January 23, 1807, now transmitted, with all the papers in my
possession which accompanied it. Nor do I find any letter from John
Smith, of Ohio, bearing date at any time in the month of January, 1807.

Having delivered to the Attorney-General all the papers respecting the
conspiracy of Aaron Burr which came to my hands during or before his
prosecution, I might suppose the letters above requested had been
delivered to him; but I must add my belief that I never received such
letters, and the ground of it. I am in the habit of noting daily in the
list kept for that purpose the letters I receive daily by the names of
the writers, and dates of time, and place, and this has been done with
such exactness that I do not recollect ever to have detected a single
omission. I have carefully examined that list from the 1st of November,
1806, to the last of June, 1807, and I find no note within that
period of the receipt of any letter from Matthew Nimmo but that now
transmitted, nor of any one of the date of January, 1807, from John
Smith, of Ohio. The letters noted as received from him within that
period are dated at Washington, February 2, 2, 7, and 21, which I have
examined, and find relating to subjects entirely foreign to the objects
of the resolution of the 7th instant; and others, dated at Cincinnati,
March 27, April 6, 13, and 17, which, not being now in my possession,
I presume have related to Burr's conspiracy, and have been delivered to
the Attorney-General. I recollect nothing of their particular contents.
I must repeat, therefore, my firm belief that the letters of Nimmo of
November 28, 1806, and of John Smith of January, 1807, never came to
my hands, and that if such were written (and Nimmo's letter expressly
mentions his of November 28), they have been intercepted or otherwise
miscarried.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 22, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I transmit to both Houses of Congress a letter from the envoy of His
Britannic Majesty at this place to the Secretary of State on the subject
of certain British claims to lands in the Territory of Mississippi,
relative to which several acts have been heretofore passed by the
Legislature.

TH. JEFFERSON.

PROCLAMATION.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas information has been received that sundry persons are combined
or combining and confederating together on Lake Champlain and the
country thereto adjacent for the purposes of forming insurrections
against the authority of the laws of the United States, for opposing the
same and obstructing their execution, and that such combinations are too
powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings
or by the powers vested in the marshals by the laws of the United
States:

Now, therefore, to the end that the authority of the laws may be
maintained, and that those concerned, directly or indirectly, in any
insurrection or combination against the same may be duly warned, I have
issued this my proclamation, hereby commanding such insurgents and all
concerned in such combination instantly and without delay to disperse
and retire peaceably to their respective abodes. And I do hereby further
require and command all officers having authority, civil or military,
and all other persons, civil or military, who shall be found within
the vicinage of such insurrections or combinations to be aiding
and assisting by all the means in their power, by force of arms or
otherwise, to quell and subdue such insurrections or combinations,
to seize upon all those therein concerned who shall not instantly and
without delay disperse and retire to their respective abodes, and to
deliver them over to the civil authority of the place, to be proceeded
against according to law.

 (SEAL.)

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to
be affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand.

Given at the city of Washington, the 19th day of April, 1808, and in
the year of the Sovereignty and Independence of the United States the
thirty-second.

TH. JEFFERSON.

By the President:
  JAMES MADISON,
     Secretary of State .

EIGHTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.

NOVEMBER 8, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

It would have been a source, fellow-citizens, of much gratification if
our last communications from Europe had enabled me to inform you that
the belligerent nations, whose disregard of neutral rights has been so
destructive to our commerce, had become awakened to the duty and true
policy of revoking their unrighteous edicts. That no means might be
omitted to produce this salutary effect, I lost no time in availing
myself of the act authorizing a suspension, in whole or in part, of the
several embargo laws. Our ministers at London and Paris were instructed
to explain to the respective Governments there our disposition to
exercise the authority in such manner as would withdraw the pretext on
of which the aggressions were originally founded and open the way for
a renewal of that commercial intercourse which it was alleged on all
sides had been reluctantly obstructed. As each of those Governments had
pledged its readiness to concur in renouncing a measure which reached
its adversary through the incontestable rights of neutrals only, and as
the measure had been assumed by each as a retaliation for an asserted
acquiescence in the aggressions of the other, it was reasonably expected
that the occasion would have been seized by both for evincing the
sincerity of their professions, and for restoring to the commerce of the
United States its legitimate freedom. The instructions to our ministers
with respect to the different belligerents were necessarily modified
with a reference to their different circumstances, and to the condition
annexed by law to the Executive power of suspension, requiring a decree
of security to our commerce which would not result from a repeal of the
decrees of France. Instead of a pledge, therefore, of a suspension of
the embargo as to her in case of such a repeal, it was presumed that
a sufficient inducement might be found in other considerations, and
particularly in the change produced by a compliance with our just
demands by one belligerent and a refusal by the other in the relations
between the other and the United States. To Great Britain, whose power
on the ocean is so ascendant, it was deemed not inconsistent with that
condition to state explicitly that on her rescinding her orders in
relation to the United States their trade would be opened with her, and
remain shut to her enemy in case of his failure to rescind his decrees
also. From France no answer has been received, nor any indication that
the requisite change in her decrees is contemplated. The favorable
reception of the proposition to Great Britain was the less to be
doubted, as her orders of council had not only been referred for
their vindication to an acquiescence on the part of the United States
no longer to be pretended, but as the arrangement proposed, whilst
it resisted the illegal decrees of France, involved, moreover,
substantially the precise advantages professedly aimed at by the
British orders. The arrangement has nevertheless been rejected.

This candid and liberal experiment having thus failed, and no other
event having occurred on which a suspension of the embargo by the
Executive was authorized, it necessarily remains in the extent
originally given to it. We have the satisfaction, however, to reflect
that in return for the privations imposed by the measure, and which
our fellow-citizens in general have borne with patriotism, it has had
the important effects of saving our mariners and our vast mercantile
property, as well as of affording time for prosecuting the defensive and
provisional measures called for by the occasion. It has demonstrated to
foreign nations the moderation and firmness which govern our councils,
and to our citizens the necessity of uniting in support of the laws
and the rights of their country, and has thus long frustrated those
usurpations and spoliations which, if resisted, involved war; if
submitted to, sacrificed a vital principle of our national independence.

Under a continuance of the belligerent measures which, in defiance of
laws which consecrate the rights of neutrals, overspread the ocean with
danger, it will rest with the wisdom of Congress to decide on the course
best adapted to such a state of things; and bringing with them, as they
do, from every part of the Union the sentiments of our constituents, my
confidence is strengthened that in forming this decision they will, with
an unerring regard to the essential rights and interests of the nation,
weigh and compare the painful alternatives out of which a choice is to
be made. Nor should I do justice to the virtues which on other occasions
have marked the character of our fellow-citizens if I did not cherish an
equal confidence that the alternative chosen, whatever it may be, will
be maintained with all the fortitude and patriotism which the crisis
ought to inspire.

The documents containing the correspondences on the subject of the
foreign edicts against our commerce, with the instructions given to
our ministers at London and Paris, are now laid before you.

The communications made to Congress at their last session explained the
posture in which the close of the discussions relating to the attack
by a British ship of war on the frigate  Chesapeake  left a subject on
which the nation had manifested so honorable a sensibility. Every view
of what had passed authorized a belief that immediate steps would be
taken by the British Government for redressing a wrong which the more it
was investigated appeared the more clearly to require what had not been
provided for in the special mission. It is found that no steps have been
taken for the purpose. On the contrary, it will be seen in the documents
laid before you that the inadmissible preliminary which obstructed the
adjustment is still adhered to, and, moreover, that it is now brought
into connection with the distinct and irrelative case of the orders in
council. The instructions which had been given to our minister at London
with a view to facilitate, if necessary, the reparation claimed by the
United States are included in the documents communicated.

Our relations with the other powers of Europe have undergone no material
changes since your last session. The important negotiations with Spain
which had been alternately suspended and resumed necessarily experience
a pause under the extraordinary and interesting crisis which
distinguishes her internal situation.

With the Barbary Powers we continue in harmony, with the exception of an
unjustifiable proceeding of the Dey of Algiers toward our consul to that
Regency. Its character and circumstances are now laid before you, and
will enable you to decide how far it may, either now or hereafter, call
for any measures not within the limits of the Executive authority.

With our Indian neighbors the public peace has been steadily maintained.
Some instances of individual wrong have, as at other times, taken
place, but in no wise implicating the will of the nation. Beyond the
Mississippi the loways, the Sacs, and the Alabamas have delivered up
for trial and punishment individuals from among themselves accused of
murdering citizens of the United States. On this side of the Mississippi
the Creeks are exerting themselves to arrest offenders of the same kind,
and the Choctaws have manifested their readiness and desire for amicable
and just arrangements respecting depredations committed by disorderly
persons of their tribe. And, generally, from a conviction that we
consider them as a part of ourselves, and cherish with sincerity their
rights and interests, the attachment of the Indian tribes is gaining
strength daily  is extending from the nearer to the more remote, and
will amply requite us for the justice and friendship practiced toward
them. Husbandry and household manufacture are advancing among them more
rapidly with the Southern than Northern tribes, from circumstances of
soil and climate, and one of the two great divisions of the Cherokee
Nation have now under consideration to solicit the citizenship of the
United States, and to be identified with us in laws and government in
such progressive manner as we shall think best.

In consequence of the appropriations of the last session of Congress for
the security of our seaport towns and harbors, such works of defense
have been erected as seemed to be called for by the situation of the
several places, their relative importance, and the scale of expense
indicated by the amount of the appropriation. These works will chiefly
be finished in the course of the present season, except at New York and
New Orleans, where most was to be done; and although a great proportion
of the last appropriation has been expended on the former place, yet
some further views will be submitted to Congress for rendering its
security entirely adequate against naval enterprise. A view of what has
been done at the several places, and of what is proposed to be done,
shall be communicated as soon as the several reports are received.

Of the gunboats authorized by the act of December last, it has been
thought necessary to build only 103 in the present year. These, with
those before possessed, are sufficient for the harbors and waters most
exposed, and the residue will require little time for their construction
when it shall be deemed necessary.

Under the act of the last session for raising an additional military
force so many officers were immediately appointed as were necessary for
carrying on the business of recruiting, and in proportion as it advanced
others have been added. We have reason to believe their success has been
satisfactory, although such returns have not yet been received as enable
me to present you a statement of the numbers engaged.

I have not thought it necessary in the course of the last season to call
for any general detachments of militia or of volunteers under the laws
passed for that purpose. For the ensuing season, however, they will be
required to be in readiness should their service be wanted, Some small
and special detachments have been necessary to maintain trie laws of
embargo on that portion of our northern frontier which offered peculiar
facilities for evasion, but these were replaced as soon as it could be
done by bodies of new recruits. By the aid of these and of the armed
vessels called into service in other quarters the spirit of disobedience
and abuse, which manifested itself early and with sensible effect while
we were unprepared to meet it, has been considerably repressed.

Considering the extraordinary character of the times in which we live,
our attention should unremittingly be fixed on the safety of our
country. For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well
organized and armed militia is their best security. It is therefore
incumbent on us at every meeting to revise the condition of the militia,
and to ask ourselves if it is prepared to repel a powerful enemy at
every point of our territories exposed to invasion. Some of the States
have paid a laudable attention to this object, but every degree of
neglect is to be found among others. Congress alone having the power to
produce an uniform state of preparation in this great organ of defense,
the interests which they so deeply feel in their own and their country's
security will present this as among the most important objects of their
deliberation.

Under the acts of March 11 and April 23 respecting arms, the difficulty
of procuring them from abroad during the present situation and
dispositions of Europe induced us to direct our whole efforts to the
means of internal supply. The public factories have therefore been
enlarged, additional machineries erected, and, in proportion as
artificers can be found or formed, their effect, already more than
doubled, may be increased so as to keep pace with the yearly increase
of the militia. The annual sums appropriated by the latter act have
been directed to the encouragement of private factories of arms, and
contracts have been entered into with individual undertakers to nearly
the amount of the first year's appropriation.

The suspension of our foreign commerce, produced by the injustice of
the belligerent powers, and the consequent losses and sacrifices of our
citizens are subjects of just concern. The situation into which we have
thus been forced has impelled us to apply a pbrtion of our industry and
capital to internal manufactures and improvements. The extent of this
conversion is daily increasing, and little doubt remains that the
establishments formed and forming will, under the auspices of cheaper
materials and subsistence, the freedom of labor from taxation with us,
and of protecting duties and prohibitions, become permanent. The
commerce with the Indians, too, within our own boundaries is likely to
receive abundant aliment from the same internal source, and will secure
to them peace and the progress of civilization, undisturbed by practices
hostile to both.

The accounts of the receipts and expenditures during the year ending
the 30th of September last being not yet made up, a correct statement
will hereafter be transmitted from the Treasury. In the meantime it is
ascertained that the receipts have amounted to near $18,000,000, which,
with the eight millions and a half in the Treasury at the beginning
of the year, have enabled us, after meeting the current demands and
interest incurred, to pay $2,300,000 of the principal of our funded
debt, and left us in the Treasury on that day near $14,000,000. Of
these, $5,350,000 will be necessary to pay what will be clue on the 1st
day of January next, which will complete the reimbursement of the 8 per
cent stock. These payments, with those made in the six years and a half
preceding, will have extinguished $33,580,000 of the principal of the
funded debt, being the whole which could be paid or purchased within the
limits of the law and of our contracts, and the amount of principal thus
discharged will have liberated the revenue from about $2,000,000 of
interest and added that sum annually to the disposable surplus. The
probable accumulation of the surpluses of revenue beyond what can be
applied to the payment of the public debt whenever the freedom and
safety of our commerce shall be restored merits the consideration of
Congress. Shall it lie unproductive in the public vaults? Shall the
revenue be reduced? Or shall it not rather be appropriated to the
improvements of roads, canals, rivers, education, and other great
foundations of prosperity and union under the powers which Congress may
already possess or such amendment of the Constitution as may be approved
by the States? While uncertain of the course of things, the time may be
advantageously employed in obtaining the powers necessary for a system
of improvement, should that be thought best.

Availing myself of this the last occasion which will occur of addressing
the two Houses of the Legislature at their meeting, I can not omit the
expression of my sincere gratitude for the repeated proofs of confidence
manifested to me by themselves and their predecessors since my call to
the administration and the many indulgences experienced at their hands.
The same grateful acknowledgments are due to my fellow-citizens
generally, whose support has been my great encouragement under all
embarrassments. In the transaction of their business I can not have
escaped error. It is incident to out imperfect nature. But I may say
with truth my errors have been of the understanding, not of intention,
and that the advancement of their rights and interests has been the
constant motive for every measure. On these considerations I solicit
their indulgence. Looking forward with anxiety to their future destinies,
I trust that in their steady character, unshaken by difficulties, in
their love of liberty, obedience to law, and support of the public
authorities I see a sure guaranty of the permanence of our Republic;
and, retiring from the charge of their affairs, I carry with me the
consolation of a firm persuasion that Heaven has in store for our
beloved country long ages to come of prosperity and happiness.

TH. JEFFERSON.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

NOVEMBER 8, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

The documents communicated with my public message of this day contain
such portions of the correspondences therein referred to, of the
ministers of the United States at Paris and London, as relate to the
present state of affairs between those Governments and the United
States, and as may be made public. I now communicate, confidentially,
such supplementary portions of the same correspondences as I deem
improper for publication, yet necessary to convey to Congress full
information on a subject of their deliberations so interesting to
our country.

TH. JEFFERSON.

NOVEMBER 11, 1808.

 To the Senate of the United States :

       *       *       *       *       *

The governor of the Mississippi Territory having thought it expedient
to dissolve the general assembly of that Territory, according to the
authority vested in him by the ordinance of July 13, 1787, and having
declared it dissolved accordingly, some doubt was suggested whether that
declaration effected the dissolution of the legislative council. On
mature consideration and advice I approved of the proceeding of the
governor. The house of representatives of the Territory, since chosen,
have consequently nominated ten persons out of whom a legislative
council should be appointed. I do accordingly nominate and, by and with
the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint John Flood McGrew,
Thomas Calvit, James Lea, Alexander Montgomery, and Daniel Burnet, being
five of the said ten persons, to serve as a legislative council for the
said Territory, to continue in office five years, unless sooner removed
according to law.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 13, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now transmit to both Houses of Congress a report of the commissioners
appointed under the act of March 29, 1806, concerning a road from
Cumberland to Ohio, being a statement of the proceedings under the said
act since their last report communicated to Congress, in order that
Congress may be enabled to adopt such further measures as may be proper
under existing circumstances.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 23, 1808.

 To the Senate of the United States :

According to the request of the Senate in their resolution of November
14, that copies should be laid before them of all the orders and decrees
of the belligerent powers of Europe, passed since 1791, affecting the
commercial rights of the United States, I now transmit them a report of
the Secretary of State of such of them as have been attainable in the
Department of State and are supposed to have entered into the views of
the Senate.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 27, 1808.

 To the Senate of the United States :

According to the request expressed by the Senate in their resolution of
November 14, I now transmit a report of the Secretary of the Treasury
and statement showing, as far as returns have been received from the
collectors, the number of vessels which have departed from the United
States with permission, and specifying the other particulars
contemplated by that resolution.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 30, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

At the request of the governor, the senate, and house of representatives
of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I communicate certain resolutions
entered into by the said senate and house of representatives, and
approved by the governor, on the 23d instant. It can not but be
encouraging to those whom the nation has placed in the direction of
their affairs to see that their fellow-citizens will press forward
in support of their country in proportion as it is threatened by the
disorganizing conflicts of the other hemisphere.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 30, 1808.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I lay before the Legislature a letter from Governor Claiborne on the
subject of a small tribe of Alabama Indians on the western side of the
Mississippi, consisting of about a dozen families. Like other erratic
tribes in that country, it is understood that they have hitherto
moved from place to place according to their convenience, without
appropriating to themselves exclusively any particular territory; but
having now become habituated to some of the occupations of civilized
life, they wish for a fixed residence. I suppose it will be the interest
of the United States to encourage the wandering tribes of that country
to reduce themselves to fixed habitations whenever they are so disposed.
The establishment of towns and growing attachments to them will furnish
in some degree pledges of their peaceable and friendly conduct. The case
of this particular tribe is now submitted to the consideration of
Congress.

TH. JEFFERSON.

Chapter 26

JANUARY 6, 1809.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now lay before Congress a statement of the works of defense which it
has been thought necessary to provide in the first instance for the
security of our seaport towns and harbors, and of the progress toward
their completion. Their extent has been adapted to the scale of the
appropriation and to the circumstances of the several places.

The works undertaken at New York are calculated to annoy and endanger
any naval force which shall enter the harbor, and, still more, one
which should attempt to lie before the city. To prevent altogether the
entrance of large vessels, a line of blocks across the harbor has been
contemplated, and would, as is believed, with the auxiliary means
already provided, render that city safe against naval enterprise. The
expense as well as the importance of the work renders it a subject
proper for the special consideration of Congress.

At New Orleans two separate systems of defense are necessary  the one
for the river, the other for the lake, which at present can give no aid
to one another. The canal now leading from the lake, if continued into
the river, would enable the armed vessels in both stations to unite, and
to meet in conjunction an attack from either side. Half the aggregate
force would then have the same effect as the whole, or the same force
double the effect of what either can now have. It would also enable the
vessels stationed in the lake when attacked by superior force to retire
to a safer position in the river. The same considerations of expense and
importance render this also a question for the special decision of
Congress.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 13, 1809.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now render to Congress the account of the fund established for
defraying the contingent expenses of Government for the year 1808.
Of the $20,000 appropriated for that purpose, $2,000 were deposited in
the hands of the Attorney-General of the United States to pay expenses
incident to the prosecution of Aaron Burr and his accomplices for
treason and misdemeanors alleged to have been committed by them; $990
were paid to the order of Governor Williams on the same account, and
the balance of $17,010 remains in the Treasury unexpended.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 17, 1809.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I communicate to Congress certain letters which passed between the
British secretary of state, Mr. Canning, and Mr. Pinkney, our minister
plenipotentiary at London. When the documents concerning the relations
between the United States and Great Britain were laid before Congress at
the commencement of the session, the answer of Mr. Pinkney to the letter
of Mr. Canning had not been received, and a communication of the latter
alone would have accorded neither with propriety nor with the wishes of
Mr. Pinkney. When that answer afterwards arrived it was considered that,
as what had passed by conversation had been superseded by the written
and formal correspondence on the subject, the variance in the two
statements of what had verbally passed was not of sufficient importance
to be made the matter of a distinct and special communication. The
letter of Mr. Canning, however, having lately appeared in print,
unaccompanied by that of Mr. Pinkney in reply, and having a tendency
to make impressions not warranted by the statements of Mr. Pinkney,
it has become proper that the whole should be brought into public view.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 24, 1809.

 To the Senate of the United States :

According to the resolution of the Senate of the 17th instant, I
now transmit them the information therein requested, respecting the
execution of the act of Congress of February 21, 1806, appropriating
$2,000,000 for defraying any extraordinary expenses attending the
intercourse between the United States and foreign nations.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 30, 1809.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I transmit to Congress a letter recently received from our minister at
the Court of Saint James, covering one to him from the British secretary
of state, with his reply. These are communicated as forming a sequel to
the correspondence which accompanied my message to both Houses of the
17th instant.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 18, 1809.

 To the Senate of the United States :

I submit a treaty, concluded at Brownstown, in the Territory of
Michigan, between the United States and the Chippewas, Ottawas,
Potawattamies, Wyandots, and Shawnees, on the 25th day of November
last, whereby those tribes grant to the United States two roads,
therein described, for the decision of the Senate whether they will
advise and consent to the ratification of it.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 24, 1809.

 To the Senate of the United States :

The Emperor of Russia has on several occasions indicated sentiments
particularly friendly to the United States, and expressed a wish through
different channels that a diplomatic intercourse should be established
between the two countries. His high station and the relations of
Russia to the predominant powers of Europe must give him weight with
them according to the vicissitudes of the war, and his influence in
negotiations for peace may be of value to the United States should
arrangements of any sort affecting them be contemplated by other powers
in the present extraordinary state of the world; and under the constant
possibility of sudden negotiations for peace I have thought that the
friendly dispositions of such a power might be advantageously cherished
by a mission which should manifest our willingness to meet his good
will. I accordingly commissioned in the month of August last William
Short, formerly minister plenipotentiary of the United States at Madrid,
to proceed as minister plenipotentiary to the Court of Saint Petersburg,
and he proceeded accordingly; and I now nominate him to the Senate for
that appointment.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 25, 1809.

 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I now lay before Congress a statement of the militia of the United
States according to the latest returns received by the Department
of War.

TH. JEFFERSON.

PROCLAMATION.

 (From Annals of Congress, Tenth Congress, second session, 462.)

WASHINGTON,  December 30, 1808 .

 The President of the United States to        ,  Senator for the
State of        .

Certain matters touching the public good requiring that the Senate
should be convened on Saturday, the 4th day of March next, you are
desired to attend at the Senate Chamber, in the city of Washington,
on that day, then and there to deliberate on such communications as
shall be made to you.

TH. JEFFERSON.