of what shall be consistent with a just and indispensable regard to the rights and honor of our country; nor will I easily cease to cherish the expectation that a spirit of justice, candor, and friendship, on the part of the republic, will eventually insure success.

In pursuing this course, however, I cannot forget what is due to the character of our government and nation, or to a full and entire confidence in the good sense, patriotism, self-respect, and fortitude of my countrymen.

I reserve for a special message a more particular communication on this interesting subject.

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives:

I have directed an estimate of the appropriations, necessary for the service of the ensuing year, to be submitted from the proper department, with a view of the public receipts and expenditures to the latest period to which an account can be prepared.

It is with satisfaction I am able to inform you, that the revenues of the United States continue in a state of progressive improvement.

A reinforcement of the existing provisions for discharging our public debt was mentioned in my address at the opening of the last session. Some preliminary steps were taken towards it, the maturing of which will, no doubt, engage your zealous attention during the present session. I will only add, that it will afford me a heart-felt satisfaction to concur in such further measures as will ascertain to our country the prospect of a speedy extinguishment of the debt. Posterity may have cause to regret if, from any motive, intervals of tranquillity are left unimproved for accelerating this valuable end.

Gentlemen of the Senate,

and House of Representatives:

My solicitude to see the militia of the United States placed on an efficient establishment has been so often and so ardently expressed, that I shall but barely recall the subject to your view on the present occasion; at the same time that I shall submit to your inquiry, whether our har bors are yet sufficiently secured.

The situation in which I now stand, for the last time, in the midst of the Representatives of the people of the United States, naturally recalls the period when the administration of the present form of government commenced; and I cannot omit the occasion to congratulate you and my country on the success of the experiment; nor to repeat my fervent supplications to the Supreme Ruler of the universe and sovereign Arbiter of nations, that his providential care may still be extended to the United States; that the virtue and happiness of the people may be preserved; and that the government which they have instituted for the protection of their liberties may be perpetual.

PROCLAMATION,

APRIL 22, 1793.

Whereas, it appears that a state of war exists between Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, Great Britain, and the United Netherland of the one part, and France on the otherand the duty and interests of the United States require that they should with sincerity and good faith adopt and pursue a conduct friendly and impartial towards the belligerent powers.

I have therefore thought fit, by these presents, to declare the disposition of the United States to observe the conduct aforesaid towards those powers respectively; and to exhort and warn the citizens of the United States carefully to avoid all acts and proceedings whatsoever, which may, in any manner, tend to contravene such disposition.

And I do hereby also make known, that whosoever of the citizens of the United States shall render himself liable to punishment or forfeiture under the law of nations, by committing, aiding, or abetting hostilities against any of the said powers, or by carrying to any of them those articles which are deemed contraband by the modern usage of nations, will not receive the protection of the United States against such punishment of forfeiture; and

further, that I have given instructions to those officers, to whom it belongs, to cause prosecutions to be instituted against all persons who shall, within the cognizance of the courts of the United States, violate the laws of nations, with respect to the powers at war, or any of them.

In testimony whereof, I have caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand. Done at the city of Philadelphia, the 22d day of April, one thousand, seven hundred and ninety-three, and of the independence of the United States of America the seventeenth.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

PROCLAMATION,

AUGUST 7, 1794.

Whereas combinations to defeat the execution of the laws laying duties upon spirits distilled within the United States, and upon stills, have from the time of the commencement of those laws existed in some of the western parts of Pennsylvania: And whereas the said combina tions, proceeding in a manner subversive equally of the just authority of government and of the rights of indi viduals, have hitherto effected their dangerous and criminal purpose by the influence of certain irregular meetings, whose proceedings have tended to encourage and uphold the spirit of opposition by misrepresentations of the laws calculated to render them odious; by endeavors to deter those, who might be so disposed, from accepting offices under them, through fear of public resentments and of injury to person and property-and to compel those who had accepted such offices by actual violence to surrender or forbear the execution of them; by circulating vindictive measures against all who should otherwise directly or indirectly aid in the execution of the said laws, or who, yielding to the dictates of conscience and to a sense of obligation, should themselves comply therewith, by actually injuring and destroying the pro

perty of persons who were understood to have so com plied; by inflicting cruel, humiliating punishments upon private citizens for no other cause than that of appearing to be the friends of the laws; by interrupting the public officers on the highways, abusing, assaulting, and otherwise ill treating them; by going to their houses in the night, gaining admittance by force, taking away their papers, and committing other outrages; employing for these unwarrantable purposes the agency of armed banditti, disguised in such a manner as for the most part to escape discovery; and whereas the endeavors of the legislature to obviate objections to the said laws by lowering the duties, and by other alterations conducive to the convenience of those whom they immediately affected, (though they have given satisfaction in other quarters,) and the endeavors of the executive officers to conciliate a compliance with the laws by expostulation, by forbearance, and even by recommendations founded on the suggestion of local considerations, have been disappointed of their effect by the machinations of persons whose industry to excite resistance has increased with the appearance of a disposition among the people to relax in their opposition and to acquiesce in the laws; insomuch that many persons in the said western parts of Pennsylvania have been hardy enough to perpetrate acts which I am advised amount to treason, being overt acts of levying war against the United States; the said persons, having, on the 16th and 17th of July last, proceeded in arms (on the second day amounting to several hundred) to the house of John Neville, inspector of the revenues for the fourth survey of the districts of Pennsylvania, having repeatedly attacked the said house with the persons therein, wounding some of them; having seized David Lennox, marshal of the district of Pennsylvania, who previously thereto had been fired upon while in the execution of his duty by a party of men detaining him for some time prisoner, till, for the preservation of his life and obtaining of his liberty, he found it necessary to enter into stipulations to forbear the execution of certain official duties touching processes issuing out of a court of the United States-and having finally obliged the said

VOL. II.

6*

inspector of the revenue and the marshal, from considerations of personal safety, to fly from this part of the country, in order by a circuitous route to proceed to the seat of government; avowing, as the motives of these outrageous proceedings, an intention to prevent by force of arms the execution of the said laws, to oblige the said inspector of the revenue to renounce his office, to withstand by open violence the lawful authority of the government of the United States, and to compel thereby an alteration in the measures of the legislature, and a repeal of the laws aforesaid:And whereas, by a law of the United States, entitled "An act to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions," it is enacted, "that whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed in any state by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings or by the powers vested in the marshals by that act, the same being notified by an associate justice or the district judges, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia of said state to suppress such combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed. And if the militia of a state where such combinations may happen, shall refuse or shall be insufficient to suppress the same, it shall be lawful for the President, if the legislature of the United States shall not be in session, to call forth and employ such numbers of the militia of any other state or states most convenient thereto as may be necessary, and the use of the militia so to be called forth may be continued, if necessary, until the expiration of thirty days after the commencement of the ensuing session. Provided always, that whenever it may be necessary in the judgment of the President to use the military force, hereby directed to be called forth, the President shall forthwith, and previous thereto, by proclamation, command such insurgents to disperse, retire peaceably to their respective abodes within a limited time:" And whereas James Wilson, an associate justice, on the fourth instant, by writing under his hand, did, from evidence which had been laid before him, notify to me that...“ in