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mented to an incalculable amount in articles of the greatest value for domestic use and foreign commerce. Our navigation will in like degree be increased, and as the shipping of the Atlantic States will be employed in the transportation of the vast produce of the Western country, even those parts of the United States which are most remote from each other will be further bound together by the strongest ties which mutual interest can create.

The situation of this District, it is thought, requires the attention of Congress. By the Constitution the power of legislation is exclusively vested in the Congress of the United States. In the exercise of this power, in which the people have no participation, Congress legislate in all cases directly on the local concerns of the District. As this is a departure, for a special purpose, from the general principles of our system, it may merit consideration whether an arrangement better adapted to the principles of our Government and to the particular interests of the people may not be devised which will neither infringe the Constitution nor affect the object which the provision in question was intended to secure. The growing population, already considerable, and the increasing business of the District, which it is believed already interferes with the deliberations of Congress on great national concerns, furnish additional motives for recommending this subject to your consideration.

When we view the great blessings with which our country has been favored, those which we now enjoy, and the means which we possess of handing them down unimpaired to our latest posterity, our attention is irresistibly drawn to the source from whence they flow. Let us, then, unite in offering our most grateful acknowledgments for these blessings to the Divine Author of All Good.

JAMES MONROE.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

NOVEMBER 30, 1818.

To the Senate of the United States:

I lay before the Senate, for their advice and consent, the several treaties which have recently been made with the Chickasaws, the Quapaws, the Wyandot, Seneca, Delaware, Shawnese, Potawatamies, Ottawas, and Chippewas, the Peoria, Kaskaskias, Mitchigamia, Cahokia, and Tamarois, the Great and Little Osages, the Weas, Potawatamies, Delaware and Miami, the Wyandot, and the four Pawnees tribes of Indians.

By reference to the journal of the commissioners it appears that George and Levi Colbert have bargained and sold to the United States the reservations made to them by the treaty of September, 1816, and that a deed of trust of the same has been made by them to James Jackson, of

Nashville.

I would therefore suggest, in case the Chickasaw treaty be approved by the Senate, the propriety of providing by law for the payment of the sum stipulated to be given to them for their reservations.

To the Senate of the United States:

JAMES MONROE.

DECEMBER 2, 1818.

I transmit to the Senate copies of such of the documents referred to in the message of the 17th of last month as have been prepared since that period. They contain a copy of the reports of Mr. Rodney and Mr. Graham, two of the commissioners to South America, who returned first from the mission, and of the papers connected with those reports. They also present a full view of the operations of our troops employed in the Seminole war in Florida.

It would have been gratifying to me to have communicated with the message all the documents referred to in it, but as two of our commissioners from South America made their reports a few days only before the meeting of Congress and the third on the day of its meeting, it was impossible to transmit at that time more than one copy of the two reports first made.

The residue of the documents will be communicated as soon as they are prepared.

To the Senate of the United States:

JAMES MONROE.

WASHINGTON, December 2, 1818.

In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of 25th of last month, requesting to be furnished with such information as may be possessed by the Executive touching the execution of so much of the first article of the late treaty of peace and amity between His Britannic Majesty and the United States as relates to the restitution of slaves, and which has not heretofore been communicated, I lay before the Senate a report made by the Secretary of State on the 1st instant in relation to that subject.

JAMES MONROE.

DECEMBER 2, 1818.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

I transmit to the House of Representatives copies of such documents. referred to in the message of the 17th ultimo as have been prepared since that period. They present a full view of the operations of our troops employed in the Seminole war who entered Florida.

The residue of the documents, which are very voluminous, will be transmitted as soon as they can be prepared.

JAMES MONROE,

DECEMBER 12, 1818.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the roth instant, I transmit a report of the Secretary of War, with copies of the correspondence between the governor of Georgia and Major-General Andrew Jackson on the subject of the arrest of Captain Obed Wright.

JAMES MONROE.

To the Senate of the United States:

DECEMBER 29, 1818.

I lay before the Senate, for their consideration, a convention, signed at London on the 20th of October last, between the United States and Great Britain, together with the documents showing the course and progress of the negotiation. I have to request that these documents, which are original, may be returned when the Senate shall have acted on the convention.

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To the House of Representatives of the United States: In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 24th instant, requesting me to lay before it "copies of the correspondence, if any, between the Department of War and the governor of Georgia, in answer to the letter of the latter to the former dated on the 1st of June of the present year, communicated to the House on the 12th instant; and also the correspondence, if any, between the Department of War and General Andrew Jackson, in answer to the letter of the latter of the date 7th May, 1818, also communicated to the House on the 12th instant," I transmit a report from the Secretary of War, with a copy of an extract of a letter from Major Van De Venter, chief clerk in the Department of War, in reply to General Jackson's letter of the 7th of May, 1818.

JAMES MONROE.

DECEMBER 31, 1818.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 7th instant, requesting me to lay before it "the proceedings which have been had under the act entitled 'An act for the gradual increase of the Navy of the United States,' specifying the number of ships which have been put on the stocks, and of what class, and the quantity and kind of materials which have been procured in compliance with the provisions of said act; and also the sums of money which have been paid out of the

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fund created by the said act, and for what objects; and likewise the contracts which have been entered into in execution of said act on which moneys may not yet have been advanced," I transmit a report from the Acting Secretary of the Navy, together with a communication from the Board of Navy Commissioners, which, with the documents accompanying it, comprehends all the information required by the House of Representatives.

JAMES MONROE.

WASHINGTON, January 4, 1819.

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

I transmit to Congress a proclamation, dated the 22d of last month, of the convention made and concluded at Madrid between the plenipotentiaries of the United States and His Catholic Majesty on the 11th of August, 1802, the ratifications of which were not exchanged until the 21st ultimo, together with the translation of a letter from the minister of Spain to the Secretary of State.

JAMES MONROE.

To the Senate of the United States:

JANUARY 4, 1819.

I transmit to the Senate, in pursuance of their resolution of the 30th of last month, requesting to be furnished with the instructions, including that of the 28th of July, 1818, to the plenipotentiaries of the United States who negotiated the convention with His Britannic Majesty signed on the 20th day of October in the same year, copies of all these instructions, including that particularly referred to.

JAMES MONROE.

JANUARY II, 1819.

To the Senate of the United States:

In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 5th instant, requesting me to cause to be laid before it a statement of the effective force composing the military establishment of the United States; also a statement of the different posts and garrisons at and within which troops are stationed, and the actual number of officers, noncommissioned officers, and privates at each post and garrison, respectively; also to designate in such statement the number of artillerists and the number and caliber of ordnance at each of the said posts and garrisons," I transmit a report from the Secretary of War, which, with the documents accompanying it, contains all the information required.

JAMES MONROE.

JANUARY 29, 1819.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

I transmit to the House of Representatives, in compliance with their resolution of the 4th of this month, a report from the Secretary of State concerning the applications which have been made by any of the independent Governments of South America to have a minister or consulgeneral accredited by the Government of the United States, with the answers of this Government to the applications addressed to it.

JAMES MONROE.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

JANUARY 30, 1819.

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 18th instant, requesting me to cause any information not already communicated to be laid before the House whether Amelia Island, St. Marks, and Pensacola yet remain in the possession of the United States, and, if so, by what laws the inhabitants are governed; whether articles imported therein from foreign countries are subject to any, and what, duties, and by what laws, and whether the said duties are collected and how; whether vessels arriving in the United States from Pensacola and Amelia Island, and in Pensacola and Amelia Island from the United States, respectively, are considered and treated as vessels arriving from foreign countries, I transmit a report from the Secretary of the Treasury, and likewise one from the Secretary of War, which will afford all the information requested by the House of Representatives.

To the Senate of the United States:

JAMES MONROE.

FEBRUARY 2, 1819.

I nominate John Overton, Newton Cannon, and Robert Weakly, of Tennessee, as commissioners to negotiate with the Chickasaw tribe of Indians for the cession of a tract of land 4 miles square, including a salt spring, reserved to the said tribe by the fourth article of a treaty concluded with the said Indians on the 19th day of October, 1818.

To the Senate of the United States:

JAMES MONROE.

FEBRUARY 2, 1819.

In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 13th of last month, requesting me "to cause to be laid before it a statement showing the measures that have been taken to collect the balances stated to be due from the several supervisors and collectors of the old direct tax of two millions; also a similar statement of the balances due from the officers of the old internal revenue, and to designate in such statement the persons

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