which shall be advantageous to them and only not losing to us, and so regulated as that no incendiaries of our own or any other nation may be permitted to disturb the natural effects of our just and friendly offices, we may render ourselves so necessary to their comfort and prosperity that the protection of our citizens from their disorderly members will become their interest and their voluntary care. Instead, therefore, of an augmentation of military force proportioned to our extension of frontier, I propose a moderate enlargement of the capital employed in that commerce as a more effectual, economical, and humane instrument for preserving peace and good neighborhood with them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

TH: JEFFERSON.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

NOVEMBER 15, 1804.

To the Senate of the United States:

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

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

TH: JEFFERSON.

NOVEMBER 15, 1804.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

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

TH: JEFFERSON.

NOVEMBER 30, 1804.

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

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

To the Senate of the United States:

TH: JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 13, 1804.

I present for your advice a treaty entered into on behalf of the United States with the Creek Indians for the extinguishment of their right in certain lands in the forks of Oconee and Okmulgee rivers, within the State of Georgia. For the purpose of enabling you to form a satisfactory judgment on the subject, it is accompanied with the instructions of 1802, April 12, to James Wilkinson, Benjamin Hawkins, and Andrew Pickens, commissioners; those of 1803, May 5, to James Wilkinson, Benjamin Hawkins, and Robert Anderson, commissioners, and those of 1804, April 2, to Benjamin Hawkins, sole commissioner. The negotiations for obtaining the whole of the lands between the Oconee and Okmulgee have now been continued through three successive seasons under the original instructions and others supplementary to them given from time to time, as circumstances required, and the unity of the negotiation has been preserved not only by the subject, but by continuing Colonel Hawkins always one of the commissioners, and latterly the sole one. The extent of the cession to be obtained being uncertain, the limitation of price was what should be thought reasonable according to the usual rate of compensation. The commissioner has been induced to go beyond this limit probably by

the just attentions due to the strong interest which the State of Georgia feels in making this particular acquisition, and by a despair of procuring it on more reasonable terms from a tribe which is one of those most fixed in the policy of holding fast their lands. To this may be added that if, by an alteration in the first article, instead of giving them stock which may be passed into other hands and render them the prey of speculators, an annuity shall be paid them in this case, as has hitherto been practiced in all similar cases, the price of these lands will become a pledge and guaranty for our future peace with this important tribe, and eventually an indemnity for the breach of it.

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

TH: JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 31, 1804.

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

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

TH: JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 31, 1804.

To the Senate of the United States:

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

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

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

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

JANUARY 31, 1805.

In compliance with the desire of the House of Representatives, expressed in their resolution of yesterday, I have to inform them that by a letter of the 30th of May last from the Secretary of War to Samuel Hammond, a member of the House, it was proposed to him to accept a commission of colonel-commandant for the district of Louisiana when the new government there should commence. By a letter of the 30th of June he signified a willingness to accept, but still more definitively by one of October 26, a copy of which is therefore now communicated. A commission had been made out for him bearing date the 1st day of October last, and forwarded before the receipt of his letter of October 26. No later communication has been received from him, nor is anything later known of his movements.

TH: JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 1, 1805.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

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

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