Western borders so well authorizes, it is necessary that we should not lose sight of an important truth which continually receives new confirmations, namely, that the provisions heretofore made with a view to the protection of the Indians from the violences of the lawless part of our frontier inhabitants are insufficient. It is demonstrated that these violences can now be perpetrated with impunity, and it can need no argument to prove that unless the murdering of Indians can be restrained by bringing the murderers to condign punishment, all the exertions of the Government to prevent destructive retaliations by the Indians will prove fruitless and all our present agreeable prospects illusory. The frequent destruction of innocent women and children, who are chiefly the victims of retaliation, must continue to shock humanity, and an enormous expense to drain the Treasury of the Union.

To enforce upon the Indians the observance of justice it is indispensable that there shall be competent means of rendering justice to them. If these means can be devised by the wisdom of Congress, and especially if there can be added an adequate provision for supplying the necessities of the Indians on reasonable terms (a measure the mention of which I the more readily repeat, as in all the conferences with them they urge it with solicitude), I should not hesitate to entertain a strong hope of rendering our tranquillity permanent. I add with pleasure that the probability even of their civilization is not diminished by the experiments which have been thus far made under the auspices of Government. The accomplishment of this work, if practicable, will reflect undecaying luster on our national character and administer the most grateful consolations that virtuous minds can know.

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives:

The state of our revenue, with the sums which have been borrowed and reimbursed pursuant to different acts of Congress, will be submitted from the proper Department, together with an estimate of the appropriations necessary to be made for the service of the ensuing year.

Whether measures may not be advisable to reenforce the provision for the redemption of the public debt will naturally engage your examination. Congress have demonstrated their sense to be, and it were superfluous to repeat mine, that whatsoever will tend to accelerate the honorable extinction of our public debt accords as much with the true interest of our country as with the general sense of our constituents.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

The statements which will be laid before you relative to the Mint will shew the situation of that institution and the necessity of some further legislative provisions for carrying the business of it more completely into effect, and for checking abuses which appear to be arising in particular quarters.

The progress in providing materials for the frigates and in building them, the state of the fortifications of our harbors, the measures which have been pursued for obtaining proper sites for arsenals and for replenishing our magazines with military stores, and the steps which have been taken toward the execution of the law for opening a trade with the Indians will likewise be presented for the information of Congress.

Temperate discussion of the important subjects which may arise in the course of the session and mutual forbearance where there is a difference of opinion are too obvious and necessary for the peace, happiness, and welfare of our country to need any recommendation of mine.

GO WASHINGTON.

ADDRESS OF THE SENATE TO GEORGE WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

SIR: It is with peculiar satisfaction that we are informed by your speech to the two Houses of Congress that the long and expensive war in which we have been engaged with the Indians northwest of the Ohio is in a situation to be finally terminated; and though we view with concern the danger of an interruption of the peace so recently confirmed with the Creeks, we indulge the hope that the measures that you have. adopted to prevent the same, if followed by those legislative provisions that justice and humanity equally demand, will succeed in laying the foundation of a lasting peace with the Indian tribes on the Southern as well as on the Western frontiers.

The confirmation of our treaty with Morocco, and the adjustment of a treaty of peace with Algiers, in consequence of which our captive fellow-citizens shall be delivered from slavery, are events that will prove no less interesting to the public humanity than they will be important in extending and securing the navigation and commerce of our country.

As a just and equitable conclusion of our depending negotiations with Spain will essentially advance the interest of both nations, and thereby cherish and confirm the good understanding and friendship which we have at all times desired to maintain, it will afford us real pleasure to receive an early confirmation of our expectations on this subject.

The interesting prospect of our affairs with regard to the foreign powers between whom and the United States controversies have subsisted is not more satisfactory than the review of our internal situation. If from the former we derive an expectation of the extinguishment of all the causes of external discord that have heretofore endangered our tranquillity, and on terms consistent with our national honor and safety, in the latter we discover those numerous and widespread tokens of prosperity which in so peculiar a manner distinguish our happy country.

Circumstances thus every way auspicious demand our gratitude and sincere acknowledgments to Almighty God, and require that we should

unite our efforts in imitation of your enlightened, firm, and persevering example to establish and preserve the peace, freedom, and prosperity of our country.

The objects which you have recommended to the notice of the Legislature will in the course of the session receive our careful attention, and with a true zeal for the public welfare we shall cheerfully cooperate in every measure that shall appear to us best calculated to promote the same. JOHN ADAMS, Vice-President of the United States and President of the Senate.

DECEMBER II, 1795.

REPLY OF THE PRESIDENT.

GENTLEMEN: With real pleasure I receive your address, recognizing the prosperous situation of our public affairs, and giving assurances of your careful attention to the objects demanding legislative consideration, and that with a true zeal for the public welfare you will cheerfully cooperate in every measure which shall appear to you best calculated to promote the same.

But I derive peculiar satisfaction from your concurrence with me in the expressions of gratitude to Almighty God, which a review of the auspicious circumstances that distinguish our happy country have excited, and I trust the sincerity of our acknowledgments will be evinced by a union of efforts to establish and preserve its peace, freedom, and prosperity. GO WASHINGTON.

DECEMBER 12, 1795.

ADDRESS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO GEORGE WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

SIR: As the Representatives of the people of the United States, we can not but participate in the strongest sensibility to every blessing which they enjoy, and cheerfully join with you in profound gratitude to the Author of all Good for the numerous and extraordinary blessings which He has conferred on our favored country.

A final and formal termination of the distressing war which has ravaged our Northwestern frontier will be an event which must afford a satisfaction proportionate to the anxiety with which it has long been sought, and in the adjustment of the terms we perceive the true policy of making them satisfactory to the Indians as well as to the United States as the best basis of a durable tranquillity. The disposition of such of the Southern tribes as had also heretofore annoyed our frontier is another prospect in our situation so important to the interest and happiness of the United States that it is much to be lamented that any clouds should

be thrown over it, more especially by excesses on the part of our own citizens.

While our population is advancing with a celerity which exceeds the most sanguine calculations; while every part of the United States displays indications of rapid and various improvement; while we are in the enjoyment of protection and security by mild and wholesome laws, administered by governments founded on the genuine principles of rational liberty, a secure foundation will be laid for accelerating, maturing, and establishing the prosperity of our country if, by treaty and amicable negotiation, all those causes of external discord which heretofore menaced our tranquillity shall be extinguished on terms compatible with our national rights and honor and with our Constitution and great commercial interests.

Among the various circumstances in our internal situation none can be viewed with more satisfaction and exultation than that the late scene of disorder and insurrection has been completely restored to the enjoyment of order and repose. Such a triumph of reason and of law is worthy of the free Government under which it happened, and was justly to be hoped from the enlightened and patriotic spirit which pervades and actuates the people of the United States.

In contemplating that spectacle of national happiness which our country exhibits, and of which you, sir, have been pleased to make an interesting summary, permit us to acknowledge and declare the very great share which your zealous and faithful services have contributed to it, and to express the affectionate attachment which we feel for your character.

The several interesting subjects which you recommend to our consideration will receive every degree of attention which is due to them; and whilst we feel the obligation of temperance and mutual indulgence in all our discussions, we trust and pray that the result to the happiness and welfare of our country may correspond with the pure affection we bear to it.

DECEMBER 16, 1795.

REPLY OF THE PRESIDENT.

GENTLEMEN: Coming as you do from all parts of the United States, I receive great satisfaction from the concurrence of your testimony in the justness of the interesting summary of our national happiness which, as the result of my inquiries, I presented to your view. The sentiments we have mutually expressed of profound gratitude to the source of those numerous blessings, the Author of all Good, are pledges of our obligations to unite our sincere and zealous endeavors, as the instruments of Divine Providence, to preserve and perpetuate them.

Accept, gentlemen, my thanks for your declaration that to my agency you ascribe the enjoyment of a great share of these benefits. So far as my

services contribute to the happiness of my country, the acknowledgment thereof by my fellow-citizens and their affectionate attachment will ever prove an abundant reward.

GO WASHINGTON.

DECEMBER 17, 1795.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

UNITED STATES, December 9, 1795.

Gentlemen of the Senate:

I lay before you, for your consideration, a treaty of peace which has been negotiated by General Wayne, on behalf of the United States, with all the late hostile tribes of Indians northwest of the river Ohio, together with the instructions which were given to General Wayne and the proceedings at the place of treaty.

GO WASHINGTON.

Gentlemen of the Senate:

UNITED STATES, December 21, 1795.

Herewith I transmit, for your information and consideration, the original letter from the Emperor of Morocco, recognizing the treaty of peace and friendship between the United States and his father, the late Emperor, accompanied with a translation thereof, and various documents relating to the negotiation by which the recognition was effected.

GO WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, January 4, 1796.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

A letter from the minister plenipotentiary of the French Republic, received on the 22d of the last month, covered an address, dated the 21st of October, 1794, from the committee of public safety to the Representatives of the United States in Congress, and also informed me that he was instructed by the committee to present to the United States the colors of France. I thereupon proposed to receive them last Friday, the first day of the new year, a day of general joy and congratulation. On that day the minister of the French Republic delivered the colors, with an address, to which I returned an answer. By the latter Congress will see that I have informed the minister that the colors will be deposited with the archives of the United States. But it seemed to me proper previously to exhibit to the two Houses of Congress these