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.

DECEMBER 17, 1795.

GO WASHINGTON.

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

evidences of the continued friendship of the French Republic, together with the sentiments expressed by me on the occasion in behalf of the United States. They are herewith communicated.

GO WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, January 8, 1796.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

I transmit to you a memorial of the commissioners appointed by virtue of an act entitled "An act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States," on the subject of the public buildings under their direction.

Since locating a district for the permanent seat of the Government of the United States, as heretofore announced to both Houses of Congress, I have accepted the grants of money and of land stated in the memorial of the commissioners. I have directed the buildings therein mentioned to be commenced on plans which I deemed consistent with the liberality of the grants and proper for the purposes intended.

I have not been inattentive to this important business intrusted by the Legislature to my care. I have viewed the resources placed in my hands, and observed the manner in which they have been applied. The progress is pretty fully detailed in the memorial from the commissioners, and one of them attends to give further information if required. In a case new and arduous, like the present, difficulties might naturally be expected. Some have occurred, but they are in a great degree surmounted, and I have no doubt, if the remaining resources are properly cherished, so as to prevent the loss of property by hasty and numerous sales, that all the buildings required for the accommodation of the Government of the United States may be completed in season without aid from the Federal Treasury. The subject is therefore recommended to the consideration of Congress, and the result will determine the measures which I shall cause to be pursued with respect to the property remaining unsold.

GO WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, January 29, 1796.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

I send herewith for the information of Congress:

First. An act of the legislature of the State of Rhode Island, ratifying an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to prevent suits in certain cases against a State.

Second. An act of the State of North Carolina making the like ratification.

Third. An act of the State of North Carolina, assenting to the purchase by the United States of a sufficient quantity of land on Shell Castle

Island for the purpose of erecting a beacon thereon, and ceding the jurisdiction thereof to the United States.

Fourth. A copy from the journal of proceedings of the governor in his executive department of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio from July 1 to December 31, 1794.

Fifth. A copy from the records of the executive proceedings of the same governor from January 1 to June 30, 1795; and

Sixth and seventh. A copy of the journal of the proceedings of the governor in his executive department of the territory of the United States south of the river Ohio from September 1, 1794, to September 1, 1795.

Eighth. The acts of the first and second sessions of the general assembly of the same territory.

GO WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, January 29, 1796.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

In pursuance of the authority vested in the President of the United States by an act of Congress passed the 3d of March last, to reduce the weights of the copper coin of the United States whenever he should think it for the benefit of the United States, provided that the reduction should not exceed 2 pennyweights in each cent, and in the like proportion in a half cent, I have caused the same to be reduced since the 27th of last December, to wit, I pennyweight and 16 grains in each cent, and in the like proportion in a half cent; and I have given notice thereof by proclamation.

By the letter of the judges of the circuit court of the United States, held at Boston in June last, and the inclosed application of the underkeeper of the jail at that place, of which copies are herewith transmitted, Congress will perceive the necessity of making a suitable provision for the maintenance of prisoners committed to the jails of the several States under the authority of the United States.

GO WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, February 2, 1796.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

I transmit herewith the copy of a letter, dated the 19th of December last, from Governor Blount to the Secretary of War, stating the avowed and daring designs of certain persons to take possession of the lands belonging to the Cherokees, and which the United States have by treaty solemnly guaranteed to that nation. The injustice of such intrusions and the mischievous consequences which must necessarily result therefrom demand that effectual provision be made to prevent them.

GO WASHINGTON.