danger; instructions were given to require explanations, and with assur ances 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 defence 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 defence 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 gun-boats, too, already provided, have on a like principle been chiefly assigned to New York, New Orleans, and the Chesapeake. Whether our moveable 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 defence 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 gun-boats into actual service for the defence 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 defence; and have, morcover, 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 wherever 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 pretence 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 thirtieth 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 sixteen millions of dollars, 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 twenty-five millions and a half of dollars, 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 treas ury eight millions and a half of dollars. A portion of this sum may be considered as a commencement of accumulation of the surpluses of revenue, which, after paying the instalments of debts as they shall become payable, will remain without any specific object. It may partly, indeed, be applied toward completing the defence 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 despatch to the proceedings of the legislature in the exercise of their high duties, and at a moment so interesting to the public welfare.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

NOVEMBER 23, 1807.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:AGREEABLY to the assurance 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.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

DECEMBER 18, 1807.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:THE communications now made, showing 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 great 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.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

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 nations 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 General 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.

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A paper on the commerce of Louisiana," bearing date of 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 cer tain 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 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 others, 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 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 Gagoso, 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 burned. This, however, was not done, and he was so informed by the secretary of state, and that they would be held subject to his order. 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 enables 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 already been 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 recently been 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.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

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 huntings, 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 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 Pooshapakonuk, on the 16th 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 five millions of 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 have suffered it to be unacted But progressive difficulties in our foreign relations have brought into

on.