Chapter 30 1812

WASHINGTON,  January 15, 1812 .

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

I transmit to Congress an account of the contingent expenses of the
Government for the year 1811, incurred on the occasion of taking
possession of the territory limited eastwardly by the river Perdido,
and amounting to $3,396.

JAMES MADISON.

WASHINGTON,  January 16, 1812 .

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

I communicate to Congress a letter from the envoy extraordinary and
minister plenipotentiary of Great Britain to the Secretary of State,
with the answer of the latter.

The continued evidence afforded in this correspondence of the hostile
policy of the British Government against our national rights strengthens
the considerations recommending and urging the preparation of adequate
means for maintaining them.

JAMES MADISON.

MARCH 3, 1812.

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

At the request of the convention assembled in the Territory of Orleans
on the 22d day of November last, I transmit to Congress the proceedings
of that body in pursuance of the act entitled "An act to enable the
people of the Territory of Orleans to form a constitution and State
government, and for the admission of the said State into the Union on an
equal footing with the original States, and for other purposes."

JAMES MADISON.

MARCH 9, 1812.

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

I lay before Congress copies of certain documents which remain in the
Department of State. They prove that at a recent period, whilst the
United States, notwithstanding the wrongs sustained by them, ceased not
to observe the laws of peace and neutrality toward Great Britain, and in
the midst of amicable professions and negotiations on the part of the
British Government, through its public minister here, a secret agent of
that Government was employed in certain States, more especially at the
seat of government in Massachusetts, in fomenting disaffection to the
constituted authorities of the nation, and in intrigues with the
disaffected, for the purpose of bringing about resistance to the laws,
and eventually, in concert with a British force, of destroying the Union
and forming the eastern part thereof into a political connection with
Great Britain.

In addition to the effect which the discovery of such a procedure ought
to have on the public councils, it will not fail to render more dear to
the hearts of all good citizens that happy union of these States which,
under Divine Providence, is the guaranty of their liberties, their
safety, their tranquillity, and their prosperity.

JAMES MADISON.

APRIL 1, 1812.

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

Considering it as expedient, under existing circumstances and prospects,
that a general embargo be laid on all vessels now in port, or hereafter
arriving, for the period of sixty days, I recommend the immediate
passage of a law to that effect.

JAMES MADISON.

APRIL 20, 1812.

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

Among the incidents to the unexampled increase and expanding interests
of the American nation under the fostering influence of free
constitutions and just laws has been a corresponding accumulation of
duties in the several Departments of the Government, and this has been
necessarily the greater in consequence of the peculiar state of our
foreign relations and the connection of these with our internal
administration.

The extensive and multiplied preparations into which the United States
are at length driven for maintaining their violated rights have caused
this augmentation of business to press on the Department of War
particularly, with a weight disproportionate to the powers of any single
officer, with no other aids than are authorized by existing laws. With a
view to a more adequate arrangement for the essential objects of that
Department, I recommend to the early consideration of Congress a
provision for two subordinate appointments therein, with such
compensations annexed as may be reasonably expected by citizens duly
qualified for the important functions which may be properly assigned to
them.

JAMES MADISON.

MAY 26, 1812.

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

I communicate to Congress, for their information, copies and extracts
from the correspondence of the Secretary of State and the minister
plenipotentiary of the United States at Paris. These documents will
place before Congress the actual posture of our relations with France.

JAMES MADISON.

WASHINGTON,  June 1, 1812 .

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

I communicate to Congress certain documents, being a continuation of
those heretofore laid before them on the subject of our affairs with
Great Britain.

Without going back beyond the renewal in 1803 of the war in which
Great Britain is engaged, and omitting unrepaired wrongs of inferior
magnitude, the conduct of her Government presents a series of acts
hostile to the United States as an independent and neutral nation.

British cruisers have been in the continued practice of violating
the American flag on the great highway of nations, and of seizing
and carrying off persons sailing under it, not in the exercise of a
belligerent right founded on the law of nations against an enemy, but
of a municipal prerogative over British subjects. British jurisdiction
is thus extended to neutral vessels in a situation where no laws can
operate but the law of nations and the laws of the country to which the
vessels belong, and a self-redress is assumed which, if British subjects
were wrongfully detained and alone concerned, is that substitution of
force for a resort to the responsible sovereign which falls within
the definition of war. Could the seizure of British subjects in such
cases be regarded as within the exercise of a belligerent right, the
acknowledged laws of war, which forbid an article of captured property
to be adjudged without a regular investigation before a competent
tribunal, would imperiously demand the fairest trial where the sacred
rights of persons were at issue. In place of such a trial these rights
are subjected to the will of every petty commander.

The practice, hence, is so far from affecting British subjects alone
that, under the pretext of searching for these, thousands of American
citizens, under the safeguard of public law and of their national flag,
have been torn from their country and from everything dear to them; have
been dragged on board ships of war of a foreign nation and exposed,
under the severities of their discipline, to be exiled to the most
distant and deadly climes, to risk their lives in the battles of their
oppressors, and to be the melancholy instruments of taking away those of
their own brethren.

Against this crying enormity, which Great Britain would be so prompt
to avenge if committed against herself, the United States have in vain
exhausted remonstrances and expostulations, and that no proof might be
wanting of their conciliatory dispositions, and no pretext left for a
continuance of the practice, the British Government was formally assured
of the readiness of the United States to enter into arrangements such as
could not be rejected if the recovery of British subjects were the real
and the sole object. The communication passed without effect.

British cruisers have been in the practice also of violating the rights
and the peace of our coasts. They hover over and harass our entering and
departing commerce. To the most insulting pretensions they have added
the most lawless proceedings in our very harbors, and have wantonly
spilt American blood within the sanctuary of our territorial
jurisdiction. The principles and rules enforced by that nation, when
a neutral nation, against armed vessels of belligerents hovering near
her coasts and disturbing her commerce are well known. When called on,
nevertheless, by the United States to punish the greater offenses
committed by her own vessels, her Government has bestowed on their
commanders additional marks of honor and confidence.

Under pretended blockades, without the presence of an adequate force and
sometimes without the practicability of applying one, our commerce has
been plundered in every sea, the great staples of our country have been
cut off from their legitimate markets, and a destructive blow aimed
at our agricultural and maritime interests. In aggravation of these
predatory measures they have been considered as in force from the dates
of their notification, a retrospective effect being thus added, as has
been done in other important cases, to the unlawfulness of the course
pursued. And to render the outrage the more signal these mock blockades
have been reiterated and enforced in the face of official communications
from the British Government declaring as the true definition of a legal
blockade "that particular ports must be actually invested and previous
warning given to vessels bound to them not to enter."

Not content with these occasional expedients for laying waste our
neutral trade, the cabinet of Britain resorted at length to the sweeping
system of blockades, under the name of orders in council, which has
been molded and managed as might best suit its political views, its
commercial jealousies, or the avidity of British cruisers.

To our remonstrances against the complicated and transcendent injustice
of this innovation the first reply was that the orders were reluctantly
adopted by Great Britain as a necessary retaliation on decrees of her
enemy proclaiming a general blockade of the British Isles at a time when
the naval force of that enemy dared not issue from his own ports. She
was reminded without effect that her own prior blockades, unsupported by
an adequate naval force actually applied and continued, were a bar to
this plea; that executed edicts against millions of our property could
not be retaliation on edicts confessedly impossible to be executed; that
retaliation, to be just, should fall on the party setting the guilty
example, not on an innocent party which was not even chargeable with an
acquiescence in it.

When deprived of this flimsy veil for a prohibition of our trade with
her enemy by the repeal of his prohibition of our trade with Great
Britain, her cabinet, instead of a corresponding repeal or a practical
discontinuance of its orders, formally avowed a determination to persist
in them against the United States until the markets of her enemy should
be laid open to British products, thus asserting an obligation on a
neutral power to require one belligerent to encourage by its internal
regulations the trade of another belligerent, contradicting her own
practice toward all nations, in peace as well as in war, and betraying
the insincerity of those professions which inculcated a belief that,
having resorted to her orders with regret, she was anxious to find an
occasion for putting an end to them.

Abandoning still more all respect for the neutral rights of the United
States and for its own consistency, the British Government now demands
as prerequisites to a repeal of its orders as they relate to the United
States that a formality should be observed in the repeal of the French
decrees nowise necessary to their termination nor exemplified by British
usage, and that the French repeal, besides including that portion of the
decrees which operates within a territorial jurisdiction, as well as
that which operates on the high seas, against the commerce of the United
States should not be a single and special repeal in relation to the
United States, but should be extended to whatever other neutral nations
unconnected with them may be affected by those decrees. And as an
additional insult, they are called on for a formal disavowal of
conditions and pretensions advanced by the French Government for which
the United States are so far from having made themselves responsible
that, in official explanations which have been published to the world,
and in a correspondence of the American minister at London with the
British minister for foreign affairs such a responsibility was
explicitly and emphatically disclaimed.

It has become, indeed, sufficiently certain that the commerce of
the United States is to be sacrificed, not as interfering with the
belligerent rights of Great Britain; not as supplying the wants of
her enemies, which she herself supplies; but as interfering with the
monopoly which she covets for her own commerce and navigation. She
carries on a war against the lawful commerce of a friend that she may
the better carry on a commerce with an enemy  a commerce polluted by the
forgeries and perjuries which are for the most part the only passports
by which it can succeed.

Anxious to make every experiment short of the last resort of injured
nations, the United States have withheld from Great Britain, under
successive modifications, the benefits of a free intercourse with their
market, the loss of which could not but outweigh the profits accruing
from her restrictions of our commerce with other nations. And to entitle
these experiments to the more favorable consideration they were so
framed as to enable her to place her adversary under the exclusive
operation of them. To these appeals her Government has been equally
inflexible, as if willing to make sacrifices of every sort rather than
yield to the claims of justice or renounce the errors of a false pride.
Nay, so far were the attempts carried to overcome the attachment
of the British cabinet to its unjust edicts that it received every
encouragement within the competency of the executive branch of our
Government to expect that a repeal of them would be followed by a war
between the United States and France, unless the French edicts should
also be repealed. Even this communication, although silencing forever
the plea of a disposition in the United States to acquiesce in those
edicts originally the sole plea for them, received no attention.

If no other proof existed of a predetermination of the British
Government against a repeal of its orders, it might be found in the
correspondence of the minister plenipotentiary of the United States at
London and the British secretary for foreign affairs in 1810, on the
question whether the blockade of May, 1806, was considered as in force
or as not in force. It had been ascertained that the French Government,
which urged this blockade as the ground of its Berlin decree, was
willing in the event of its removal to repeal that decree, which, being
followed by alternate repeals of the other offensive edicts, might
abolish the whole system on both sides. This inviting opportunity for
accomplishing an object so important to the United States, and professed
so often to be the desire of both the belligerents, was made known
to the British Government. As that Government admits that an actual
application of an adequate force is necessary to the existence of a
legal blockade, and it was notorious that if such a force had ever been
applied its long discontinuance had annulled the blockade in question,
there could be no sufficient objection on the part of Great Britain to a
formal revocation of it, and no imaginable objection to a declaration of
the fact that the blockade did not exist. The declaration would have
been consistent with her avowed principles of blockade, and would have
enabled the United States to demand from France the pledged repeal of
her decrees, either with success, in which case the way would have
been opened for a general repeal of the belligerent edicts, or without
success, in which case the United States would have been justified
in turning their measures exclusively against France. The British
Government would, however, neither rescind the blockade nor declare its
nonexistence, nor permit its nonexistence to be inferred and affirmed
by the American plenipotentiary. On the contrary, by representing the
blockade to be comprehended in the orders in council, the United States
were compelled so to regard it in their subsequent proceedings.

There was a period when a favorable change in the policy of the
British cabinet was justly considered as established. The minister
plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty here proposed an adjustment of
the differences more immediately endangering the harmony of the two
countries. The proposition was accepted with the promptitude and
cordiality corresponding with the invariable professions of this
Government. A foundation appeared to be laid for a sincere and lasting
reconciliation. The prospect, however, quickly vanished. The whole
proceeding was disavowed by the British Government without any
explanations which could at that time repress the belief that the
disavowal proceeded from a spirit of hostility to the commercial rights
and prosperity of the United States; and it has since come into proof
that at the very moment when the public minister was holding the
language of friendship and inspiring confidence in the sincerity of the
negotiation with which he was charged a secret agent of his Government
was employed in intrigues having for their object a subversion of our
Government and a dismemberment of our happy union.

In reviewing the conduct of Great Britain toward the United States
our attention is necessarily drawn to the warfare just renewed by the
savages on one of our extensive frontiers  a warfare which is known to
spare neither age nor sex and to be distinguished by features peculiarly
shocking to humanity. It is difficult to account for the activity and
combinations which have for some time been developing themselves among
tribes in constant intercourse with British traders and garrisons
without connecting their hostility with that influence and without
recollecting the authenticated examples of such interpositions
heretofore furnished by the officers and agents of that Government.

Such is the spectacle of injuries and indignities which have been heaped
on our country, and such the crisis which its unexampled forbearance and
conciliatory efforts have not been able to avert. It might at least
have been expected that an enlightened nation, if less urged by moral
obligations or invited by friendly dispositions on the part of the
United States, would have found in its true interest alone a sufficient
motive to respect their rights and their tranquillity on the high
seas; that an enlarged policy would have favored that free and general
circulation of commerce in which the British nation is at all times
interested, and which in times of war is the best alleviation of its
calamities to herself as well as to other belligerents; and more
especially that the British cabinet would not, for the sake of a
precarious and surreptitious intercourse with hostile markets, have
persevered in a course of measures which necessarily put at hazard the
invaluable market of a great and growing country, disposed to cultivate
the mutual advantages of an active commerce.

Other counsels have prevailed. Our moderation and conciliation have
had no other effect than to encourage perseverance and to enlarge
pretensions. We behold our seafaring citizens still the daily victims of
lawless violence, committed on the great common and highway of nations,
even within sight of the country which owes them protection. We behold
our vessels, freighted with the products of our soil and industry, or
returning with the honest proceeds of them, wrested from their lawful
destinations, confiscated by prize courts no longer the organs of public
law but the instruments of arbitrary edicts, and their unfortunate crews
dispersed and lost, or forced or inveigled in British ports into British
fleets, whilst arguments are employed in support of these aggressions
which have no foundation but in a principle equally supporting a claim
to regulate our external commerce in all cases whatsoever.

We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain a state of war against
the United States, and on the side of the United States a state of peace
toward Great Britain.

Whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive
usurpations and these accumulating wrongs, or, opposing force to force
in defense of their national rights, shall commit a just cause into
the hands of the Almighty Disposer of Events, avoiding all connections
which might entangle it in the contest or views of other powers,
and preserving a constant readiness to concur in an honorable
reestablishment of peace and friendship, is a solemn question which
the Constitution wisely confides to the legislative department of the
Government. In recommending it to their early deliberations I am happy
in the assurance that the decision will be worthy the enlightened and
patriotic councils of a virtuous, a free, and a powerful nation.

Having presented this view of the relations of the United States with
Great Britain and of the solemn alternative growing out of them, I
proceed to remark that the communications last made to Congress on the
subject of our relations with France will have shewn that since the
revocation of her decrees, as they violated the neutral rights of the
United States, her Government has authorized illegal captures by its
privateers and public ships, and that other outrages have been practiced
on our vessels and our citizens. It will have been seen also that no
indemnity had been provided or satisfactorily pledged for the extensive
spoliations committed under the violent and retrospective orders of the
French Government against the property of our citizens seized within the
jurisdiction of France. I abstain at this time from recommending to the
consideration of Congress definitive measures with respect to that
nation, in the expectation that the result of unclosed discussions
between our minister plenipotentiary at Paris and the French Government
will speedily enable Congress to decide with greater advantage on the
course due to the rights, the interests, and the honor of our country.

JAMES MADISON.

JUNE 30, 1812.

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

With a view the better to adapt to the public service the volunteer
force contemplated by the act passed on the 6th day of February, I
recommend to the consideration of Congress the expediency of making the
requisite provision for the officers thereof being commissioned by the
authority of the United States.

Considering the distribution of the military forces of the United States
required by the circumstances of our country, I recommend also to the
consideration of Congress the expediency of providing for the
appointment of an additional number of general officers, and of deputies
in the Adjutant's, Quartermaster's, Inspector's, and Paymaster's
departments of the Army, and for the employment in cases of emergency of
additional engineers.

JAMES MADISON.

JULY 1, 1812.

 To the House of Representatives of the United States :

In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
26th of June, I transmit the information contained in the documents
herewith enclosed.

JAMES MADISON.

 From the Secretary of State to General George Matthews and Colonel
John M'Kee .

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,  January 26, 1811 .

The President of the United States having appointed you jointly and
severally commissioners for carrying into effect certain provisions of
an act of Congress (a copy of which is inclosed) relative to the portion
of the Floridas situated to the east of the river Perdido, you will
repair to that quarter with all possible expedition, concealing from
general observation the trust committed to you with that discretion
which the delicacy and importance of the undertaking require.

Should you find Governor Folk or the local authority existing there
inclined to surrender in an amicable manner the possession of the
remaining portion or portions of West Florida now held by him in the
name of the Spanish Monarchy, you are to accept in behalf of the United
States the abdication of his or of the other existing authority and the
jurisdiction of the country over which it extends. And should a
stipulation be insisted on for the redelivery of the country at a future
period, you may engage for such redelivery to the lawful sovereign.

The debts clearly due from the Spanish Government to the people of the
Territory surrendered may, if insisted on, be assumed within reasonable
limits and under specified descriptions to be settled hereafter as a
claim against Spain in an adjustment of our affairs with her. You may
also guarantee, in the name of the United States, the confirmation of
all such titles to land as are clearly sanctioned by Spanish laws, and
Spanish civil functionaries, where no special reasons may require
changes, are to be permitted to remain in office with the assurance of a
continuation of the prevailing laws, with such alterations only as may
be necessarily required in the new situation of the country.

If it should be required and be found necessary, you may agree to
advance, as above, a reasonable sum for the transportation of the
Spanish troops.

These directions are adapted to one of the contingencies specified in
the act of Congress, namely, the amicable surrender of the possession of
the Territory by the local ruling authority. But should the arrangement
contemplated by the statute not be made, and should there be room to
entertain a suspicion of an existing design in any foreign power to
occupy the country in question, you are to keep yourselves on the alert,
and on the first undoubted manifestation of the approach of a force for
that purpose you will exercise with promptness and vigor the powers with
which you are invested by the President to preoccupy by force the
Territory, to the entire exclusion of any armament that may be advancing
to take the possession of it. In this event you will exercise a sound
discretion in applying the powers given with respect to debts, titles to
lands, civil officers, and the continuation of the Spanish laws, taking
care to commit the Government on no point further than may be necessary;
and should any Spanish military force remain within the country after
the occupancy by the troops of the United States, you may in such case
aid in their removal from the same.

The universal toleration which the laws of the United States assure to
every religious persuasion will not escape you as an argument for
quieting the minds of uninformed individuals who may entertain fears on
that head.

The conduct you are to pursue in regard to East Florida must be
regulated by the dictates of your own judgments, on a close view and
accurate knowledge of the precise state of things there, and of the real
disposition of the Spanish Government always recurring to the present
instruction as the paramount rule of your proceedings. Should you
discover an inclination in the governor of East Florida, or in the
existing local authority, amicably to surrender that province into the
possession of the United States, you are to accept it on the same terms
that are prescribed by these instructions in relation to West Florida.
And in case of the actual appearance of any attempt to take possession
by a foreign power, you will pursue the same effective measures for the
occupation of the Territory and for the exclusion of the foreign force
as you are directed to pursue with respect to the country east of the
Perdido, forming at this time the extent of Governor Folk's
jurisdiction.

If you should, under these instructions, obtain possession of Mobile,
you will lose no time in informing Governor Claiborne thereof, with a
request that he will without delay take the necessary steps for the
occupation of the same.

All ordnance and military stores that may be found in the Territory must
be held as the property of the Spanish Government, to be accounted for
hereafter to the proper authority, and you will not fail to transmit an
inventory thereof to this Department.

If in the execution of any part of these instructions you should need
the aid of a military force, the same will be afforded you upon your
application to the commanding officer of the troops of the United States
on that station, or to the commanding officer of the nearest post, in
virtue of orders which have been issued from the War Department. And in
case you should, moreover, need naval assistance, you will receive the
same upon your application to the naval commander in pursuance of orders
from the Navy Department.

From the Treasury Department will be issued the necessary instructions
in relation to imposts and duties, and to the slave ships whose arrival
is apprehended.

The President, relying upon your discretion, authorizes you to draw upon
the collectors of Orleans and Savannah for such sums as may be necessary
to defray unavoidable expenses that may be incurred in the execution of
these instructions, not exceeding in your drafts on New Orleans $8,000
and in your drafts on Savannah $2,000, without further authority, of
which expenses you will hereafter exhibit a detailed account duly
supported by satisfactory vouchers.

POSTSCRIPT.  If Governor Folk should unexpectedly require and
pertinaciously insist that the stipulation for the redelivery of the
Territory should also include that portion of the country which is
situated west of the river Perdido, you are, in yielding to such demand,
only to use general words that may by implication comprehend that
portion of country; but at the same time you are expressly to provide
that such stipulation shall not in any way impair or affect the right or
title of the United States to the same.

 The Secretary of State to General Matthews .

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,  April 4, 1812 .

General MATTHEWS, etc.

SIR: I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 14th of March,
and have now to communicate to you the sentiments of the President on
the very interesting subject to which it relates.

I am sorry to have to state that the measures which you appear to have
adopted for obtaining possession of Amelia Island and other parts of
Bast Florida are not authorized by the law of the United States or the
instructions founded on it under which you have acted.

You were authorized by the law, a copy of which was communicated to you,
and by your instructions, which are strictly conformable to it, to take
possession of East Florida only in case one of the following contingencies
should happen: Either that the governor or other existing local
authority should be disposed to place it amicably in the hands of the
United States, or that an attempt should be made to, take possession
of it by a foreign power. Should the first contingency happen it would
follow that the arrangement, being amicable, would require no force on
the part of the United States to carry it into effect. It was only in
case of an attempt to take it by a foreign power that force could be
necessary, in which event only were you authorized to avail yourself
of it.

In neither of these contingencies was it the policy of the law or
purpose of the Executive to wrest the Province forcibly from Spain,
but only to occupy it with a view to prevent its falling into the
hands of any foreign power, and to hold that pledge under the existing
peculiarity of the circumstances of the Spanish Monarchy for a just
result in an amicable negotiation with Spain.

Had the United States been disposed to proceed otherwise, that intention
would have been manifested by a change of the law and suitable measures
to carry it into effect; and as it was in their power to take possession
whenever they might think that circumstances authorized and required it,
it would be the more to be regretted if possession should be effected by
any means irregular in themselves and subjecting the Government of the
United States to unmerited censure.

The views of the Executive respecting East Florida are further
illustrated by your instructions as to West Florida. Although the United
States have thought that they had a good title to the latter Province,
they did not take possession until after the Spanish authority had been
subverted by a revolutionary proceeding, and the contingency of the
country being thrown into foreign hands had forced itself into view. Nor
did they then, nor have they since, dispossessed the Spanish troops of
the post which they occupied. If they did not think proper to take
possession by force of a province to which they thought they were justly
entitled, it could not be presumed that they should intend to act
differently in respect to one to which they had not such a claim.

I may add that although due sensibility has been always felt for the
injuries which were received from the Spanish Government in the last
war, the present situation of Spain has been a motive for a moderate and
pacific policy toward her.

In communicating to you these sentiments of the Executive on the
measures you have lately adopted for taking possession of East Florida,
I add with pleasure that the utmost confidence is reposed in your
integrity and zeal to promote the welfare of your country. To that zeal
the error into which you have fallen is imputed. But in consideration of
the part which you have taken, which differs so essentially from that
contemplated and authorized by the Government, and contradicts so
entirely the principles on which it has uniformly and sincerely acted,
you will be sensible of the necessity of discontinuing the service in
which you have been employed.

You will therefore consider your powers as revoked on the receipt of
this letter. The new duties to be performed will be transferred to the
governor of Georgia, to whom instructions will be given on all the
circumstances to which it may be proper at the present juncture to call
his attention.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, sir, your obedient servant,

JAMES MONROE.

 The Secretary of State to His Excellency D.B. Mitchell, the
governor of Georgia .

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,  April 10, 1812 .

SIR: The President is desirous of availing the public of your services
in a concern of much delicacy and of high importance to the United
States. Circumstances with which you are in some degree acquainted, but
which will be fully explained by the inclosed papers, have made it
necessary to revoke the powers heretofore committed to General Matthews
and to commit them to you. The President is persuaded that you will not
hesitate to undertake a trust so important to the nation, and peculiarly
to the State of Georgia. He is the more confident in this belief from
the consideration that these new duties may be discharged without
interfering, as he presumes, with those of the station which you now
hold.

By the act of the 15th of January, 1811, you will observe that it was
not contemplated to take possession of East Florida or any part thereof,
unless it should be surrendered to the United States amicably by the
governor or other local authority of the Province, or against an attempt
to take possession of it by a foreign power, and you will also see that
General Matthews's instructions, of which a copy is likewise inclosed,
correspond fully with the law.

By the documents in possession of the Government it appears that neither
of these contingencies have happened; that instead of an amicable
surrender by the governor or other local authority the troops of the
United States have been used to dispossess the Spanish authority by
force. I forbear to dwell on the details of this transaction because it
is painful to recite them. By the letter to General Matthews which is
inclosed, open for your perusal, you will fully comprehend the views of
the Government respecting the late transaction, and by the law, the
former instructions to the General, and the late letter now forwarded
you will be made acquainted with the course of conduct which it is
expected of you to pursue in future in discharging the duties heretofore
enjoined on him.

It is the desire of the President that you should turn your attention
and direct your efforts in the first instance to the restoration of that
state of things in the Province which existed before the late
transactions. The Executive considers it proper to restore back to the
Spanish authorities Amelia Island and such other parts, if any, of East
Florida as may have thus been taken from them. With this view it will be
necessary for you to communicate  directly  with the governor or
principal officer of Spain in that Province, and to act in harmony with
him in the attainment of it. It is presumed that the arrangement will be
easily and amicably made between you. I inclose you an order from the
Secretary of War to the commander of the troops of the United States to
evacuate the country when requested so to do by you, and to pay the same
respect in future to your order in fulfilling the duties enjoined by the
law that he had been instructed to do to that of General Matthews.

In restoring to the Spanish authorities Amelia Island and such other
parts of East Florida as may have been taken possession of in the name
of the United States there is another object to which your particular
attention will be due. In the measures lately adopted by General
Matthews to take possession of that Territory it is probable that much
reliance has been placed by the people who acted in it on the
countenance and support of the United States. It will be improper to
expose these people to the resentment of the Spanish authorities. It is
not to be presumed that those authorities in regaining possession of the
Territory in this amicable mode from the United States will be disposed
to indulge any such feeling toward them. You will, however, come to a
full understanding with the Spanish governor on this subject, and not
fail to obtain from him the most explicit and satisfactory assurance
respecting it. Of this assurance you will duly apprise the parties
interested, and of the confidence which you repose in it. It is hoped
that on this delicate and very interesting point the Spanish governor
will avail himself of the opportunity it presents to evince the friendly
disposition of his Government toward the United States.

There is one other remaining circumstance only to which I wish to call
your attention, and that relates to General Matthews himself. His
gallant and meritorious services in our Revolution and patriotic conduct
since have always been held in high estimation by the Government. His
errors in this instance are imputed altogether to his zeal to promote
the welfare of his country; but they are of a nature to impose on the
Government the necessity of the measures now taken, in giving effect to
which you will doubtless feel a disposition to consult, as far as may
be, his personal sensibility.

I have the honor to be, etc.,

JAMES MONROE.

P.S.  Should you find it impracticable to execute the duties designated
above in person, the President requests that you will be so good as to
employ some very respectable character to represent you in it, to whom
you are authorized to allow a similar compensation. It is hoped,
however, that you may be able to attend to it in person, for reasons
which I need not enter into. The expenses to which you may be exposed
will be promptly paid to your draft on this Department.

 The Secretary of State to D.B. Mitchell, esq., governor of Georgia .

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,  May 27, 1812 .

SIR: I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 2d instant from
St. Marys, where you had arrived in discharge of the trust reposed in
you by the President, in relation to East Florida.

My letter by Mr. Isaacs has, I presume, substantially answered the most
important of the queries submitted in your letter, but I will give to
each a more distinct answer.

By the law of which a copy was forwarded to you it is made the duty of
the President to prevent the occupation of East Florida by any foreign
power. It follows that you are authorized to consider the entrance, or
attempt to enter, especially under existing circumstances, of British
troops of any description as the case contemplated by the law, and to
use the proper means to defeat it.

An instruction will be immediately forwarded to the commander of the
naval force of the United States in the neighborhood of East Florida to
give you any assistance, in case of emergency, which you may think
necessary and require.

It is not expected, if you find it proper to withdraw the troops, that
you should interfere to compel the patriots to surrender the country or
any part of it to the Spanish authorities. The United States are
responsible for their own conduct only; not for that of the inhabitants
of East Florida. Indeed, in consequence of the compromitment of the
United States to the inhabitants, you have been already instructed not
to withdraw the troops, unless you find that it may be done consistently
with their safety, and to report to the Government the result of your
conferences with the Spanish authorities, with your opinion of their
views, holding in the meantime the ground occupied.

In the present state of our affairs with Great Britain the course above
pointed out is the more justifiable and proper.

I have the honor, etc.,

JAMES MONROE.

JULY 6, 1812.

 To the Senate of the United States :

I transmit to the Senate copies and extracts of documents in the
archives of the Department of State falling within the purview of their
resolution of the 4th instant, on the subject of British impressments
from American vessels. The information, though voluminous, might have
been enlarged with more time for research and preparation. In some
instances it might at the same time have been abridged but for the
difficulty of separating the matter extraneous to the immediate object
of the resolution.

JAMES MADISON.

VETO MESSAGE.

APRIL 3, 1812.

 To the House of Representatives of the United States :

Having examined and considered the bill entitled "An act providing for
the trial of causes pending in the respective district courts of the
United States, in case of the absence or disability of the judges
thereof," which bill was presented to me on the 25th of March past, I
now return the same to the House of Representatives, in which it
originated, with the following objections:

Because the additional services imposed by the bill on the justices of
the Supreme Court of the United States are to be performed by them
rather in the quality of other judges of other courts, namely, judges of
the district courts, than in the quality of justices of the Supreme
Court. They are to hold the said district courts, and to do and perform
all acts relating to the said courts which are by law required of the
district judges. The bill therefore virtually appoints, for the time,
the justices of the Supreme Court to other distinct offices to which, if
compatible with their original offices, they ought to be appointed by
another than the legislative authority, in pursuance of legislative
provisions authorizing the appointments.

Because the appeal allowed by law for the decision of the district
courts to the circuit courts, whilst it corroborates the construction
which regards a judge of one court as clothed with a new office, by
being constituted a judge of the other, submits for correction erroneous
judgments, not to superior or other judges, but to the erring individual
himself, acting as sole judge in the appellate court.

Because the additional services to be required may, by distances of
place and by the casualties contemplated by the bill, become
disproportionate to the strength and health of the justices who are to
perform them, the additional services being, moreover, entitled to no
additional compensation, nor the additional expenses incurred to
reimbursement. In this view the bill appears to be contrary to equity,
as well as a precedent for modifications and extensions of judicial
services encroaching on the constitutional tenure of judicial offices.

Because, by referring to the President of the United States questions of
disability in the district judges and of the unreasonableness of
delaying the suits or causes pending in the district courts, and leaving
it with him in such causes to require the justices of the Supreme Court
to perform additional services, the bill introduces an unsuitable
relation of members of the judiciary department to a discretionary
authority of the executive department.

JAMES MADISON

PROCLAMATIONS.

 (From Niles's Weekly Register, vol. 1, p. 448.)

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas information has been received that a number of individuals who
have deserted from the Army of the United States have become sensible of
their offense and are desirous of returning to their duty, a full pardon
is hereby granted and proclaimed to each and all 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.

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.

 (SEAL.)

Done at the city of Washington, the 7th day of February, A.D. 1812, and
of the Independence of the United States the thirty-sixth.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
     Secretary of State .

 (From Annals of Congress, Twelfth Congress, part 2, 2223.)

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the Congress of the United States, by virtue of the constituted
authority vested in them, have declared by their act bearing date the
18th day of the present month that war exists between the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland and the dependencies thereof and the United
States of America and their Territories:

Now, therefore, I, James Madison, President of the United States of
America, do hereby proclaim the same to all whom it may concern; and I
do specially enjoin on all persons holding offices, civil or military,
under the authority of the United States that they be vigilant and
zealous in discharging the duties respectively incident thereto; and I
do moreover exhort all the good people of the United States, as they
love their country, as they value the precious heritage derived from the
virtue and valor of their fathers, as they feel the wrongs which have
forced on them the last resort of injured nations, and as they consult
the best means under the blessing of Divine Providence of abridging its
calamities, that they exert themselves in preserving order, in promoting
concord, in maintaining the authority and efficacy of the laws, and in
supporting and invigorating all the measures which may be adopted by the
constituted authorities for obtaining a speedy, a just, and an honorable
peace.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed to these presents.

 (SEAL.)

Done at the city of Washington, the 19th day of June, 1812, and of the
Independence of the United States the thirty-sixth.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
     Secretary of State .

 (From Annals of Congress, Twelfth Congress, part 2, 2224.)

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the Congress of the United States, by a joint resolution of the
two Houses, have signified a request that a day may be recommended to be
observed by the people of the United States with religious solemnity as
a day of public humiliation and prayer; and

Whereas such a recommendation will enable the several religious
denominations and societies so disposed to offer at one and the same
time their common vows and adorations to Almighty God on the solemn
occasion produced by the war in which He has been pleased to permit
the injustice of a foreign power to involve these United States:

I do therefore recommend the third Thursday in August next as a
convenient day to be set apart for the devout purposes of rendering the
Sovereign of the Universe and the Benefactor of Mankind the public
homage due to His holy attributes; of acknowledging the transgressions
which might justly provoke the manifestations of His divine displeasure;
of seeking His merciful forgiveness and His assistance in the great
duties of repentance and amendment, and especially of offering fervent
supplications that in the present season of calamity and war He would
take the American people under His peculiar care and protection; that He
would guide their public councils, animate their patriotism, and bestow
His blessing on their arms; that He would inspire all nations with a
love of justice and of concord and with a reverence for the unerring
precept of our holy religion to do to others as they would require that
others should do to them; and, finally, that, turning the hearts of our
enemies from the violence and injustice which sway their councils
against us, He would hasten a restoration of the blessings of peace.

 (SEAL.)

Given at Washington, the 9th day of July, A.D. 1812.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
     Secretary of State .

 (From Niles's Weekly Register, vol. 3, p. 101.)

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 have become sensible of
their offenses and are desirous of returning to their duty, a full
pardon is hereby granted and proclaimed to each and all 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.

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.

 (SEAL.)

Done at the city of Washington, the 8th day of October, A.D. 1812, and
of the Independence of the United States the thirty-seventh.

JAMES MADISON.

By the President:
  JAMES MONROE,
     Secretary of State .

FOURTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON,  November 4, 1812 .

 Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives :

On our present meeting it is my first duty to invite your attention to
the providential favors which our country has experienced in the unusual
degree of health dispensed to its inhabitants, and in the rich abundance
with which the earth has rewarded the labors bestowed on it. In the
successful cultivation of other branches of industry, and in the
progress of general improvement favorable to the national prosperity,
there is just occasion also for our mutual congratulations and
thankfulness.

With these blessings are necessarily mingled the pressures and
vicissitudes incident to the state of war into which the United States
have been forced by the perseverance of a foreign power in its system of
injustice and aggression.

Previous to its declaration it was deemed proper, as a measure of
precaution and forecast, that a considerable force should be placed in
the Michigan Territory with a general view to its security, and, in
the event of war, to such operations in the uppermost Canada as would
intercept the hostile influence of Great Britain over the savages,
obtain the command of the lake on which that part of Canada borders,
and maintain cooperating relations with such forces as might be most
conveniently employed against other parts. Brigadier-General Hull was
charged with this provisional service, having under his command a body
of troops composed of regulars and of volunteers from the State of Ohio.
Having reached his destination after his knowledge of the war, and
possessing discretionary authority to act offensively, he passed into
the neighboring territory of the enemy with a prospect of easy and
victorious progress. The expedition, nevertheless, terminated
unfortunately, not only in a retreat to the town and fort of Detroit,
but in the surrender of both and of the gallant corps commanded by that
officer. The causes of this painful reverse will be investigated by a
military tribunal.

A distinguishing feature in the operations which preceded and followed
this adverse event is the use made by the enemy of the merciless savages
under their influence. Whilst the benevolent policy of the United States
invariably recommended peace and promoted civilization among that
wretched portion of the human race, and was making exertions to dissuade
them from taking either side in the war, the enemy has not scrupled to
call to his aid their ruthless ferocity, armed with the horrors of those
instruments of carnage and torture which are known to spare neither age
nor sex. In this outrage against the laws of honorable war and against
the feelings sacred to humanity the British commanders can not resort to
a plea of retaliation, for it is committed in the face of our example.
They can not mitigate it by calling it a self-defense against men in
arms, for it embraces the most shocking butcheries of defenseless
families. Nor can it be pretended that they are not answerable for the
atrocities perpetrated, since the savages are employed with a knowledge,
and even with menaces, that their fury could not be controlled. Such is
the spectacle which the deputed authorities of a nation boasting its
religion and morality have not been restrained from presenting to an
enlightened age.

The misfortune at Detroit was not, however, without a consoling effect.
It was followed by signal proofs that the national spirit rises
according to the pressure on it. The loss of an important post and of
the brave men surrendered with it inspired everywhere new ardor and
determination. In the States and districts least remote it was no sooner
known than every citizen was ready to fly with his arms at once to
protect his brethren against the bloodthirsty savages let loose by the
enemy on an extensive frontier, and to convert a partial calamity into
a source of invigorated efforts. This patriotic zeal, which it was
necessary rather to limit than excite, has embodied an ample force from
the States of Kentucky and Ohio and from parts of Pennsylvania and
Virginia. It is placed, with the addition of a few regulars, under
the command of Brigadier-General Harrison, who possesses the entire
confidence of his fellow-soldiers, among whom are citizens, some of them
volunteers in the ranks, not less distinguished by their political
stations than by their personal merits. The greater portion of this
force is proceeding on its destination toward the Michigan Territory,
having succeeded in relieving an important frontier post, and in several
incidental operations against hostile tribes of savages, rendered
indispensable by the subserviency into which they had been seduced by
the enemy  a seduction the more cruel as it could not fail to impose a
necessity of precautionary severities against those who yielded to it.

At a recent date an attack was made on a post of the enemy near Niagara
by a detachment of the regular and other forces under the command of
Major-General Van Rensselaer, of the militia of the State of New York.
The attack, it appears, was ordered in compliance with the ardor of the
troops, who executed it with distinguished gallantry, and were for a
time victorious; but not receiving the expected support, they were
compelled to yield to reenforcements of British regulars and savages.
Our loss has been considerable, and is deeply to be lamented. That of
the enemy, less ascertained, will be the more felt, as it includes among
the killed the commanding general, who was also the governor of the
Province, and was sustained by veteran troops from unexperienced
soldiers, who must daily improve in the duties of the field.

Our expectation of gaining the command of the Lakes by the invasion of
Canada from Detroit having been disappointed, measures were instantly
taken to provide on them a naval force superior to that of the enemy.
From the talents and activity of the officer charged with this object
everything that can be done may be expected. Should the present season
not admit of complete success, the progress made will insure for the
next a naval ascendency where it is essential to our permanent peace
with and control over the savages.

Among the incidents to the measures of the war I am constrained to
advert to the refusal of the governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut
to furnish the required detachments of militia toward the defense of the
maritime frontier. The refusal was founded on a novel and unfortunate
exposition of the provisions of the Constitution relating to the
militia. The correspondences which will be laid before you contain
the requisite information on the subject. It is obvious that if the
authority of the United States to call into service and command the
militia for the public defense can be thus frustrated, even in a state
of declared war and of course under apprehensions of invasion preceding
war, they are not one nation for the purpose most of all requiring it,
and that the public safety may have no other resource than in those
large and permanent military establishments which are forbidden by the
principles of our free government, and against the necessity of which
the militia were meant to be a constitutional bulwark.

On the coasts and on the ocean the war has been as successful as
circumstances inseparable from its early stages could promise. Our
public ships and private cruisers, by their activity, and, where there
was occasion, by their intrepidity, have made the enemy sensible of the
difference between a reciprocity of captures and the long confinement of
them to their side. Our trade, with little exception, has safely reached
our ports, having been much favored in it by the course pursued by a
squadron of our frigates under the command of Commodore Rodgers, and in
the instance in which skill and bravery were more particularly tried
with those of the enemy the American flag had an auspicious triumph.
The frigate  Constitution , commanded by Captain Hull, after a close
and short engagement completely disabled and captured a British frigate,
gaining for that officer and all on board a praise which can not be too
liberally bestowed, not merely for the victory actually achieved, but
for that prompt and cool exertion of commanding talents which, giving to
courage its highest character, and to the force applied its full effect,
proved that more could have been done in a contest requiring more.

Anxious to abridge the evils from which a state of war can not be
exempt, I lost no time after it was declared in conveying to the British
Government the terms on which its progress might be arrested, without
awaiting the delays of a formal and final pacification, and our charge
d'affaires at London was at the same time authorized to agree to an
armistice founded upon them. These terms required that the orders in
council should be repealed as they affected the United States, without a
revival of blockades violating acknowledged rules, and that there should
be an immediate discharge of American seamen from British ships, and a
stop to impressment from American ships, with an understanding that
an exclusion of the seamen of each nation from the ships of the other
should be stipulated, and that the armistice should be improved into
a definitive and comprehensive adjustment of depending controversies.
Although a repeal of the orders susceptible of explanations meeting the
views of this Government had taken place before this pacific advance was
communicated to that of Great Britain, the advance was declined from an
avowed repugnance to a suspension of the practice of impressments during
the armistice, and without any intimation that the arrangement proposed
with respect to seamen would be accepted. Whether the subsequent
communications from this Government, affording an occasion for
reconsidering the subject on the part of Great Britain, will be viewed
in a more favorable light or received in a more accommodating spirit
remains to be known. It would be unwise to relax our measures in any
respect on a presumption of such a result.

The documents from the Department of State which relate to this subject
will give a view also of the propositions for an armistice which have
been received here, one of them from the authorities at Halifax and in
Canada, the other from the British Government itself through Admiral
Warren, and of the grounds on which neither of them could be accepted.

Our affairs with France retain the posture which they held at my last
communications to you. Notwithstanding the authorized expectations of an
early as well as favorable issue to the discussions on foot, these have
been procrastinated to the latest date. The only intervening occurrence
meriting attention is the promulgation of a French decree purporting to
be a definitive repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees. This proceeding,
although made the ground of the repeal of the British orders in council,
is rendered by the time and manner of it liable to many objections.

The final communications from our special minister to Denmark afford
further proofs of the good effects of his mission, and of the amicable
disposition of the Danish Government. From Russia we have the
satisfaction to receive assurances of continued friendship, and that it
will not be affected by the rupture between the United States and Great
Britain. Sweden also professes sentiments favorable to the subsisting
harmony.

With the Barbary Powers, excepting that of Algiers, our affairs remain
on the ordinary footing. The consul-general residing with that Regency
has suddenly and without cause been banished, together with all the
American citizens found there. Whether this was the transitory effect of
capricious despotism or the first act of predetermined hostility is not
ascertained. Precautions were taken by the consul on the latter
supposition.

The Indian tribes not under foreign instigations remain at peace, and
receive the civilizing attentions which have proved so beneficial to
them.

With a view to that vigorous prosecution of the war to which our
national faculties are adequate, the attention of Congress will be
particularly drawn to the insufficiency of existing provisions for
filling up the military establishment. Such is the happy condition of
our country, arising from the facility of subsistence and the high wages
for every species of occupation, that notwithstanding the augmented
inducements provided at the last session, a partial success only has
attended the recruiting service. The deficiency has been necessarily
supplied during the campaign by other than regular troops, with all
the inconveniences and expense incident to them. The remedy lies in
establishing more favorably for the private soldier the proportion
between his recompense and the term of his enlistment, and it is a
subject which can not too soon or too seriously be taken into
consideration.

The same insufficiency has been experienced in the provisions for
volunteers made by an act of the last session. The recompense for the
service required in this case is still less attractive than in the
other, and although patriotism alone has sent into the field some
valuable corps of that description, those alone who can afford the
sacrifice can be reasonably expected to yield to that impulse.

It will merit consideration also whether as auxiliary to the security
of our frontiers corps may not be advantageously organized with a
restriction of their services to particular districts convenient to
them, and whether the local and occasional services of mariners and
others in the seaport towns under a similar organization would not be
a provident addition to the means of their defense.

I recommend a provision for an increase of the general officers of the
Army, the deficiency of which has been illustrated by the number and
distance of separate commands which the course of the war and the
advantage of the service have required.

And I can not press too strongly on the earliest attention of the
Legislature the importance of the reorganization of the staff
establishment with a view to render more distinct and definite the
relations and responsibilities of its several departments. That there
is room for improvements which will materially promote both economy and
success in what appertains to the Army and the war is equally inculcated
by the examples of other countries and by the experience of our own.

A revision of the militia laws for the purpose of rendering them more
systematic and better adapting them to emergencies of the war is at this
time particularly desirable.

Of the additional ships authorized to be fitted for service, two will
be shortly ready to sail, a third is under repair, and delay will be
avoided in the repair of the residue. Of the appropriations for the
purchase of materials for shipbuilding, the greater part has been
applied to that object and the purchase will be continued with the
balance.

The enterprising spirit which has characterized our naval force and its
success, both in restraining insults and depredations on our coasts and
in reprisals on the enemy, will not fail to recommend an enlargement of
it.

There being reason to believe that the act prohibiting the acceptance
of British licenses is not a sufficient guard against the use of them,
for purposes favorable to the interests and views of the enemy, further
provisions on that subject are highly important. Nor is it less so that
penal enactments should be provided for cases of corrupt and perfidious
intercourse with the enemy, not amounting to treason nor yet embraced
by any statutory provisions.

A considerable number of American vessels which were in England when the
revocation of the orders in council took place were laden with British
manufactures under an erroneous impression that the nonimportation act
would immediately cease to operate, and have arrived in the United
States. It did not appear proper to exercise on unforeseen cases of such
magnitude the ordinary powers vested in the Treasury Department to
mitigate forfeitures without previously affording to Congress an
opportunity of making on the subject such provision as they may think
proper. In their decision they will doubtless equally consult what is
due to equitable considerations and to the public interest.

The receipts into the Treasury during the year ending on the 30th of
September last have exceeded $16,500,000, which have been sufficient
to defray all the demands on the Treasury to that day, including a
necessary reimbursement of near three millions of the principal of the
public debt. In these receipts is included a sum of near $5,850,000,
received on account of the loans authorized by the acts of the last
session; the whole sum actually obtained on loan amounts to $11,000,000,
the residue of which, being receivable subsequent to the 30th of
September last, will, together with the current revenue, enable us to
defray all the expenses of this year.

The duties on the late unexpected importations of British manufactures
will render the revenue of the ensuing year more productive than could
have been anticipated.

The situation of our country, fellow-citizens, is not without its
difficulties, though it abounds in animating considerations, of which
the view here presented of our pecuniary resources is an example. With
more than one nation we have serious and unsettled controversies, and
with one, powerful in the means and habits of war, we are at war. The
spirit and strength of the nation are nevertheless equal to the support
of all its rights, and to carry it through all its trials. They can be
met in that confidence. Above all, we have the inestimable consolation
of knowing that the war in which we are actually engaged is a war
neither of ambition nor of vainglory; that it is waged not in violation
of the rights of others, but in the maintenance of our own; that it was
preceded by a patience without example under wrongs accumulating without
end, and that it was finally not declared until every hope of averting
it was extinguished by the transfer of the British scepter into new
hands clinging to former councils, and until declarations were
reiterated to the last hour, through the British envoy here, that
the hostile edicts against our commercial rights and our maritime
independence would not be revoked; nay, that they could not be revoked
without violating the obligations of Great Britain to other powers, as
well as to her own interests. To have shrunk under such circumstances
from manly resistance would have been a degradation blasting our best
and proudest hopes; it would have struck us from the high rank where the
virtuous struggles of our fathers had placed us, and have betrayed the
magnificent legacy which we hold in trust for future generations. It
would have acknowledged that on the element which forms three-fourths of
the globe we inhabit, and where all independent nations have equal and
common rights, the American people were not an independent people,
but colonists and vassals. It was at this moment and with such an
alternative that war was chosen. The nation felt the necessity of it,
and called for it. The appeal was accordingly made, in a just cause,
to the Just and All-powerful Being who holds in His hand the chain of
events and the destiny of nations. It remains only that, faithful to
ourselves, entangled in no connections with the views of other powers,
and ever ready to accept peace from the hand of justice, we prosecute
the war with united counsels and with the ample faculties of the nation
until peace be so obtained and as the only means under the Divine
blessing of speedily obtaining it.

JAMES MADISON.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

NOVEMBER, 12, 1812.

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

For the further information of Congress relative to the pacific advances
made on the part of this Government to that of Great Britain, and the
manner in which they have been met by the latter, I transmit the sequel
of the communications on that subject received from the late charge
d'affaires at London.

JAMES MADISON.

NOVEMBER 17, 1812.

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

I transmit to Congress copies of a letter from the consul general of
the United States to Algiers, stating the circumstances preceding and
attending his departure from that Regency.

JAMES MADISON

WASHINGTON,  December 11, 1812 .

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

I transmit to Congress copies of a letter to the Secretary of the Navy
from Captain Decatur, of the frigate  United States , reporting his
combat and capture of the British frigate  Macedonian . Too much
praise can not be bestowed on that officer and his companions on board
for the consummate skill and conspicuous valor by which this trophy has
been added to the naval arms of the United States.

I transmit also a letter from Captain Jones, who commanded the sloop
of war  Wasp , reporting his capture of the British sloop of war
 Frolic , after a close action, in which other brilliant titles will
be seen to the public admiration and praise.

A nation feeling what it owes to itself and to its citizens could never
abandon to arbitrary violence on the ocean a class of them which give
such examples of capacity and courage in defending their rights on that
element, examples which ought to impress on the enemy, however brave and
powerful, preference of justice and peace to hostility against a country
whose prosperous career may be accelerated but can not be prevented by
the assaults made on it.

JAMES MADISON.