part I

have always felt satisfied with the report of the commissioners, so far as it respects the question of title. They have investigated the subject with more diligence and attention than can well be bestowed on it by members of this House, and being men distinguished for their abilities and of high official standing, their opinion, certainly, should have great weight. That opinion, as recorded in their report, is, that the title of the claimants cannot be supported. In this opinion I most heartily concur, for I can never be induced to believe that an act so marked with fraud and corruption as the act of Georgia, under which the claimants pretend to derive their title, has been fully proved to be, can vest a title either in law or in equity.

The question of title being given up, any remarks respecting the weight that ought to attach to the rescinding act passed by the Legislature of Georgia, in 1796, will be unnecessary. On that part of the subject I will only just observe, in reply to one of my colleagues, (Mr. FINDLAY,) who has stated that act to be without precedent, and that one Legislature cannot repeal an act of a preceding Legislature where it involves a contract, that there is one instance at least of such an act, and that instance is in the State in which he and I live. The case to which I allude, is an act passed by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, for repealing the charter of the Bank of North America. This act, if I am not mistaken, was passed when my colleague was a member of the Legislature, and I believe received his support.

But, leaving the question of title, good policy, say gentlemen, requires us to pass the resolution. In this sentiment, they and the commissioners appear to unite. The commissioners acknowledge that the title of the claimants cannot be supported, and yet undertake to recommend a compromise, by stating “that the interest of the United States, the tranquillity of those who may hereafter inhabit that territory, and certain equitable considerations which may be urged in favor of most of the present claimants, render it expedient to enter into a compromise on reasonable terms.” Now, I would ask, how is the interest of the United States to be promoted by giving five millions of acres of land to persons acknowledged not to have a good title in law, and none in equity? If our interest is to be promoted in this way, we may soon get rid of all our land. Claimants will not be wanting, if it is to be got for asking.

With respect to the equitable considerations which have been urged so strenuously in favor of the present claimants, I must acknowledge they have not appeared to me so very forcible. The innocence of the claimants has been painted in strong and glowing colors. They have been represented, not only as innocent, but innocent through ignorance. One of my colleagues, in particular, has dilated largely on this idea, and applied it especially to the New England purchasers. In evidence of this, he has referred to the case of the Connecticut intruders in the State of Pennsylvania. But in this allusion he was certainly extremely unfortunate. The case might be cited to prove a position exactly the reverse. The fact is, that these intruders have for many years, by their superior skill and address, held their lands in defiance of the State; and, from appearance, I believe will continue to hold them, without making any compensation to the State; and this instance may serve to show the impropriety and inefficiency of governments pretending to compromise with individuals. The measures pursued by the State of Pennsylvania relative to these claimants have generally been of this description. They have produced no advantage to the State, and have always been converted by the intruders into arguments in favor of their claims. I do know of one case that goes far to prove that there are some persons in the Eastern States extremely uninformed in matters relating to land. The case to which I allude is recent, having occurred but a few days ago. A petition was presented by a gentleman from Vermont, signed by a number of persons, praying to be permitted to form a settlement on the public lands lying north-west of the river Ohio. On a motion for referring it to a committee, a member from the same State rose and opposed the reference, assigning as a reason, that if the petition should so far receive the countenance of the House as to be referred, the petitioners would instantly commence the sale of rights. Now, if there are people so extremely ignorant as to purchase rights of this description, they certainly ought to be pitied. But will any person say that the present claimants belong to this class? No, sir; they are men experienced in business, by all accounts well versed in transactions relating to land, and as little liable to be imposed on as perhaps any equal number of persons that could be selected.

But it is said they could not have knowledge of the circumstances under which the act of Georgia of 1795 was passed; that they became purchasers before such information could possibly reach them. This certainly cannot be seriously insisted on. Will gentlemen look at the deeds conveying the titles, and then say the purchasers had no notice? Evidence, if not of the fraud, at least that there was something wrong in the business, is stamped on the very face of all the conveyances.

Mr. J. RANDOLPH said, that, as well as his extreme indisposition and excessive hoarseness would permit, he would lay before the House some observations on the various objections which had been urged against the amendment of his worthy and respectable colleague, (Mr. CLARK,) for such he was in every point of view.

The venerable gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. FINDLAY,) when he gave in his recantation of his last year’s opinions on this subject, told you that General Washington’s Message had no reference to the fraudulency of the act of 1795. He considered it as a _caveat_ on behalf of the United States, who claimed a great part of the territory in question. Be it so. Was that notice to subsequent purchasers, or not? How will gentlemen reconcile this inconsistency? Within the disputed limits between the Federal Government and Georgia, five-sixths of this very New England Company’s purchase were comprised, besides that valuable part of the Georgia Company’s grant contained in the fork of the Alabama and Tombigbee. The United States contended, that the country west of the Chatahoochee, and south of a parallel of latitude which should intersect the mouth of the Yazoo River, never constituted a part of Georgia--that it was within the limits of the province of West Florida, from which being severed by the peace of 1783, it became vested in the Confederacy, and not in the State to which it happened to be contiguous. The far greater part of the grant to the Georgia Mississippi Company is embraced within these limits: the purchase of the New England Company is stated, by themselves, to have been made from that company, twelve months after the President’s Message. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, himself, considers this Message as a formal annunciation of the adverse claim of the United States to the land in question, and, in the same breath, avers that the New England Company, subsequent purchasers of that very land, were ignorant of any defect of title in the State of Georgia, or the grantees under her. How will he reconcile this?

The same gentleman has introduced into this debate the names of two persons; one of them, at that time, _a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, the other a Senator from the State of Georgia_; who, he tells us, were deeply concerned in the transaction of 1795. Both these gentlemen are no more. Private character, always dear, always to be respected, seems almost canonized by the grave. When men go hence, their evil deeds should follow them, and, for me, might sleep oblivious in their tomb. But if the mouldering ashes of the dead are to be raked up, let it not be for the furtherance of injustice. In every stage of this discussion, whilst I have kept my eye steadily fixed on the enormity of the act of 1795, I have lost sight of the agents. Since, however, some of them have been mentioned, it may not be immaterial to notice the interest which they took in this business. It is too true, sir, that the Senator in question was one of the fathers of the act of 1795. By the Assembly which passed it he was, at the same session, re-elected to the Senate of the United States for six years thereafter. It is equally true, Mr. Speaker, that the notorious British Treaty was ratified by that Senator’s casting vote. And as the Yazoo speculation then carried through the British Treaty, now, it seems, the adherents of that treaty are to drag the Yazoo speculation out of the mire. The connection of the two questions at that day is too notorious to be denied. That very Senator, were he now here, would disdain to deny it. With all his faults, he was a man of some noble qualities. Hypocrisy, at least, was not in the catalogue of his vices. The coupling together of the British Treaty and the Yazoo business, cannot surely be unknown to the gentleman from Pennsylvania. He was a member of the House of Representatives which voted the appropriation for carrying that treaty into effect, and is understood to have acted a conspicuous part on the occasion. Can it be matter of surprise that the same Senate that ratified the British Treaty by the casting vote of one of the principal grantees of the act of Georgia of 1795, should refuse to co-operate with the House of Representatives, in measures for obviating the mischiefs of that act? When you see this corruption extending itself to two great departments of Government, can you wonder at the bitterness of its fruit? With their leaders in the Legislature and on the judgment seat, well might the host of corruption feel confident in their strength; even yet they have scarcely laid aside their audacity.

A gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. EUSTIS) has said, that the claimants from his State had no notice of the fraud; “that he knows they had not;” I cannot have mistaken him, for I took down the words. Sir, I would ask that gentleman whence arises the proverbial difficulty of providing a negative, but from the difficulty of knowing one?

[Mr. EUSTIS rose to explain. If he had said that he knew the claimants had not a knowledge of the fraud, he had said too much. It was impossible that any one should know all that was known or passing in the mind of another. Without recollecting the precise words used, he had intended to state his own belief that they had no such knowledge or information. He was resident and conversant with those concerned in the transaction, it was the subject of general conversation, and if there had been any knowledge or report of the kind, he thought it must have come to his knowledge; but he also recollected to have stated at the time that this circumstance did not depend on the knowledge or opinion of any individual--as the price paid for the land precluded any idea or belief, that the purchasers could have had any knowledge of the fraud.]

Mr. RANDOLPH resumed. The facts which I am about to mention are derived from such a source that I could almost pledge myself for their truth: When the agent of the Georgia Mississippi Company (under whom the New England Land Company claim) arrived in the Eastern States, he had great difficulty in disposing of his booty. The rumor of the fraud by which it was acquired had gone before him. People did not like to vest their money in this new Mississippi scheme. He accordingly applied to some leading men of wealth and intelligence, offering to some as high as 200,000 acres, to others less, for which they were neither to pay money, nor pass their paper, but were to stand on his books as purchasers at so much per acre. These were the decoy-birds to bring the ducks and geese into the net of speculation. On the faith of these persons, under the idea that men of their information would not risk such vast sums without some prospect of return, others resolved to venture, and gambled in this new land fund, laid out their money in the Yazoo lottery and have drawn blanks. And these, sir, are the innocent purchasers by whom we are beset; purchasers without price, who never paid a shilling, and never can be called upon for one; the vile panders of speculation. And in what do their dupes differ from the losers in any other gambling or usurious transaction? The premium was proportioned to the risk. As well may your buyers and sellers of stock, your bulls and your bears of the alley, require indemnification for their losses at the hands of the nation. There is another fact, too little known, but unquestionably true, in relation to this business. This scheme of buying up the Western Territory of Georgia did not originate there. It was hatched in Philadelphia and New York, (and I believe Boston; of this, however, I am not positive,) and the funds with which it was effected were principally furnished by moneyed capitalists in those towns. The direction of these resources devolved chiefly on the Senator who has been mentioned. Too wary to commit himself to writing, he and his associates agreed upon a countersign. His re-election to the Senate was to be considered as evidence that the temper of the Legislature of Georgia was suited to their purpose, and his Northern confederates were to take their measures accordingly. In proof of this fact, no sooner was the news of his reappointment announced at New York, than it was publicly said in a coffee house there, “then the Western Territory of Georgia is sold.” Does this require a comment? Do you not see the strong probability that many of those, who now appear in the character of purchasers from the original grantees named in the act of 1795, are in fact partners, perhaps instigators and prime movers of a transaction in which their names do not appear? Amidst such a complication of guilt, how are you to discriminate; how fix the Proteus? The Chairman of the Committee of Claims, who brought in this report, under the lash of whose criticism we have all so often smarted, that he is generally known as the pedagogue of the House, will give me leave on this subject to refer him to an authority. It is one with which he is no doubt familiar, and, however humble, well disposed to respect. The authority which I am about to cite is Dillworth’s Spelling Book, and if it will be more grateful to the gentleman, not our common American edition, but the Royal English Spelling Book. In one of the chapters of that useful elementary work it is related, that two persons going into a shop on pretence of purchase, one of them stole a piece of goods and handed it to the other to conceal under his cloak. When challenged with the theft, he who stole it said he had it not, and he who had it said he did not take it. Gentlemen, replied the honest tradesman, what you say may all be very true, but, at the same time, I know that between you I am robbed. And such precisely is our case. But I hope, sir, we shall not permit the parties, whether original grantees who took it, or subsequent purchasers who have it, to make off with the public property.

The rigor of the Committee of Claims has passed into a proverb. It has more than once caused the justice of this House to be questioned. What, then, was our surprise, on reading their report, to find that they have discovered “Equity” in the pretensions of these petitioners. Sir, when the war-worn soldier of the Revolution, or the desolate widow and famished offspring of him who sealed your independence with his blood, ask at the door of that Committee for _bread_, they receive the statute of limitation. On such occasions you hear of no equity in the case. Their claims have not the stamp and seal of iniquity upon them. _Summum jus_ is the measure dealt out to them. The equity of the committee is reserved for those claims which are branded with iniquity and stamped with infamy. This reminds me of the story of a poor, distressed female in London applying for admittance into the Magdalen Charity. Being asked who she was, her wretched tale was told in a few words--“I am poor, innocent, and friendless.” “Unhappy girl,” replied the director, “your case does not come within the purview of this institution. Innocence has no admission here; this is a place of reception for prostitutes; you must go and qualify yourself before you can partake of our relief.” With equal discretion the directors of the Committee of Claims suffer nothing to find support in their asylum but what is tainted with corruption, and stamped with fraud. Give it these properties and they will give it “equity.”

I have said, and I repeat it, that the aspect in which this thing presents itself, would, alone, determine me to resist it. In one of the petitioners I behold an executive officer, who receives and distributes a yearly revenue of $300,000, yielding scarcely any net profit to Government. Offices in his disposal to the annual amount of $94,000, and contracts more lucrative making up the residue of the sum. A patronage limited only by the extent of our country. Is this right? Is it even decent? Shall political power be made the engine of private interest? Shall such a suspicion tarnish your proceedings? How would you receive a petition from the President of the United States, if such a thing can be supposed possible? Sir, I wish to see the same purity pervading every subordinate branch of the Administration, which, I am persuaded, exists in its great departments. Shall persons holding appointments under the great and good man who presides over our councils, draw on the rich fund of his well-earned reputation, to eke out their flimsy and scanty pretensions? Is the relation in which they stand to him, to be made the cloak and cover of their dark designs? To the gentleman from New York, (Mr. ROOT,) who takes fire at every insinuation against his friend, I have only to observe, on this subject, that what I dare to say, I dare to justify. To the House I will relate an incident, from which it may judge how far I have lightly conceived or expressed an opinion to the prejudice of any man. I owe an apology to my informant for making public what he certainly did not authorize me to reveal. There is no reparation which can be offered by one gentleman and accepted by another, that I shall not be ready to make him; but I feel myself already justified to him, since he sees the circumstances under which I act. A few evenings since, a profitable contract for carrying the mail was offered to a friend of mine who is a member of this House. You must know, sir, that the person so often alluded to maintains a jackal, fed, not (as you would suppose) upon the offal of contract, but with the fairest pieces in the shambles; and, at night, when honest men are in bed, does this obscene animal prowl through the streets of this vast and desolate city, seeking whom he may tamper with. Well, sir, when this worthy plenipotentiary had made his proposal, in due form, the independent man to whom it was addressed, saw at once its drift. “Tell your principal,” said he, “that I will take his contract, but I shall vote against the Yazoo claim, notwithstanding.” Next day, he was told that there had been some misunderstanding of the business, that he could not have the contract, as it was previously bespoken by another!

Sir, I well recollect, when first I had the honor of a seat in this House, we were members then of a small minority; a poor, forlorn hope; that this very petitioner appeared in Philadelphia, on behalf of another great land company on Lake Erie. He then told us as an inducement to vote for the Connecticut reserve (as it was called) that if that measure failed, it would ruin the republicans and the cause in that State. You, sir, cannot have forgotten the reply he received: “That we did not understand the republicanism that was to be paid for; that we feared it was not of the right sort, but spurious.” And, having maintained our principles through the ordeal of that day, shall we now abandon them, to act with the men and upon the maxims which we then abjured? Shall we now condescend to means which we disdained to use in the most desperate crisis of our political fortune? This is, indeed, the age of monstrous coalitions; and this corruption has the quality of cementing the most inveterate enmities, personal as well as political. It has united in close concert those, of whom it has been said, not in the figurative language of prophecy, but in the sober narrative of history: “I have bruised thy head, and thou hast bruised my heel.” Such is the description of persons who would present to the President of the United States an act to which, when he puts his hand, he signs a libel on his whole political life. But he will never tarnish the unsullied lustre of his fame; he will never sanction the monstrous position, (for such it is, dress it up as you will,) “that a legislator may sell his vote, and a right, which cannot be divested, will pass under such sale.” Establish this doctrine, and there is an end of representative government; from that moment republicanism receives its death-blow.

FRIDAY, February 1.

_Postmaster-General._

The SPEAKER laid before the House the following letter from Gideon Granger, Postmaster-General of the United States:--

FEBRUARY 1, 1805.

Hon. NATHANIEL MACON, _Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States_.

SIR,--I have received information, from various sources, that both my public and private character and conduct have been arraigned on the floor of the House of Congress by a member of that House, in a debate of the 29th, and in another of the 31st ultime, in a case where no examination of my official conduct was proposed. As there is not, within my knowledge, any instance of a similar abuse offered to an officer of Government, I know not of any precedent whereby to regulate my conduct. I wish at all times, and more especially on an occasion so extraordinary and unprecedented, to approach the representatives of the nation with all that respect and regard to which they are entitled. My feelings do not allow me, at present, to exercise that coolness and judgment which I might call to my aid in a case less interesting.

Conscious of the purity of my conduct, and that no charge can be made or supported against me consistent with truth and justice, it is a duty which I owe to my country--to the government which has confided in me--to myself and my family--to declare (and I do now most solemnly declare) that every charge or insinuation which has been made against my private or public character, or against my fairness and impartiality, or of my attempting, by bribery, or in any improper manner, to influence any member of Congress upon any question pending before that honorable body, is absolutely and altogether untrue, and founded at least in error only.

The high respect due to your body and every member of it during your sessions, will not allow me to hazard a conjecture as to the motives of the gentleman who has proclaimed these charges.

I court and solicit of Congress an investigation into my official (and if they please my private) conduct, from the first moment the Post-Office Department was committed to my charge to the present period. Nor have I any favor to ask, save only this, that an investigation may be had the present session.

I pray you to communicate this to the House of Representatives; and I tender to that honorable body, and to you, their Speaker, the assurance of my high esteem and respect.

GIDEON GRANGER.[24]

Mr. VARNUM moved that the letter of the Postmaster-General be referred to a select committee to inquire into the subject.

Mr. NELSON hoped the motion would not prevail, as no good purpose could be answered by the inquiry. It appeared to him to be an affair of honor between two gentlemen, and Congress had nothing to do with it. If, upon investigation, the charges were found to be true, Congress had no power to remove the Postmaster-General from office. For what purpose, then, were they to waste the time of the House in such an inquiry? That was not the proper place to make the application; it should have been made to the President, if made at all, as he had the power of removing officers. The session was far advanced and limited in its duration. A variety of important business still remained unfinished, and he feared some of it would remain so; yet, notwithstanding, the House was called upon to take up private quarrels between gentlemen. He hoped the motion would not prevail, and that the gentlemen would be left to settle the dispute themselves.

Mr. BRYAN called for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ELLIOT.--This House was informed by a member, (Mr. RANDOLPH,) in language too strong to be misunderstood, that corruption had found its way within these walls, and that indirect advantages had been taken to influence the decision of the House upon a question pending before them. An officer of the Government, who considered his conduct much implicated, has informed the House, by letter, that he has been informed that his public conduct has been arraigned, and prays an investigation into it. In my opinion, nothing can be more just and reasonable than to grant it.

Mr. NICHOLSON.--I recollect but a single instance in which the conduct of an officer of the Government has been inquired into, at his request; that was the case of Mr. Wolcott, the late Secretary of the Treasury, who, upon his resignation, addressed a letter to the House, requesting an investigation into his conduct. That letter was couched in decent terms, and the language was such that no member could take umbrage at. Had the letter of the Postmaster-General been written in the same style, I should have had no objection to the investigation, although I can see no good likely to result from it. But it is couched in such language as this House ought not to listen to. We are told in it, that charges made by a member of this House are untrue. Are we to sit here, and suffer such language to be used? I trust not, sir; had I known the language of the letter, I should have opposed its being read. If gentlemen wish an investigation into their conduct, they ought to ask it in decent terms; and I should not oppose it, although, as I before observed, I can see no good likely to result, for I trust that the Postmaster-General will never be dignified with an impeachment. If the charges against him are true, the President ought to remove him, and it is to him that he ought to justify himself. If, however, gentlemen are anxious that an investigation should take place, let them lay a resolution to that effect on the table, and I will give it no opposition; but I will never agree that such a letter as the one now on the table be referred to a committee, and, by that means, give a sanction to the language contained in it.

Mr. GREGG regretted that such business had been brought before the House, especially at so late a period of the session. He did not know for what purpose an inquiry was to be made; for, supposing the charges to be true, the House had no power to remove him. The Postmaster-General was not one of those officers who could be impeached; and the President was the only one that could remove him. He was opposed to the motion, conceiving that too much important business remains unfinished, to take up new matters, which would answer no good purpose whatever.

Mr. CLARK was opposed to the reference of the letter, on account of the language which it contained. It charged a member of the House with having uttered falsehood. In his opinion, such language ought not to receive any sanction from the House.

Mr. LYON.--I feel, Mr. Speaker, a sympathy for the Postmaster-General, who, as well as myself, was so egregiously belied yesterday by the member from Virginia, (Mr RANDOLPH.)

[Here Mr. NICHOLSON called Mr. LYON to order, whereupon the latter sat down, when the SPEAKER decided that the words were out of order.]

After this decision was made, Mr. LYON again rose to proceed, and was again called to order, but the SPEAKER determining that he was in order,

Mr. BRYAN appealed to the House, and

Mr. NICHOLSON called for the yeas and nays.

The question was then taken, “Is the decision of the Chair correct?” And it was determined in the affirmative--yeas 81, nays 34.

Mr. LYON, upon this, immediately said, I give up my right; and would not proceed.

Mr. ELLIOT.--However surprising it may appear to some gentlemen, it is not so to me, that the language of innocence should be warm and pointed. We have been told that the letter is couched in disrespectful terms. For my part, I cannot perceive any thing of the kind in it; and I am surprised that, as it respects the gentleman who made the charges against him, that he is so moderate. Gentlemen have said that an inquiry would be of no service; because, if the charges are true, the officer cannot be impeached. If gentlemen will advert to the constitution they will find that “all civil officers are liable to impeachment,” and removal from office. Surely it will not be contended that the Postmaster-General is not a civil officer. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. NICHOLSON) differs very widely from his friend from Virginia (Mr. RANDOLPH) as to the Postmaster-General. The former considers him as holding an office too insignificant to be dignified with an impeachment, while the latter deems his patronage and influence sufficient to influence or to bribe the majority of this House. However insignificant the gentleman from Maryland may think the Postmaster-General, still he is a civil officer, and as such is liable to be impeached, and removed from office. We have been told that a combination has taken place between some of those who have avowed themselves republicans and the federalists, and that the liberties of the country will be endangered. Sir, we have no danger to apprehend from monarchists, aristocrats, or federalists.

Our liberty can only be endangered by those description of persons against whom the gentleman from New York (Mr. ROOT) so emphatically exclaimed--I mean political demagogues and popular leaders! They have been the curse and destruction of every Republic, and I fear will be our destruction. We are cursed with them in this country, and even in this House. But I trust that the majority of this House are opposed to them. The great objection which gentlemen make to the inquiry is, that the letter is couched in too disrespectful terms. Will they please to bear in mind the charges made against the officer, and, viewing them, is it not a matter of astonishment that he is so mild? As the letter respects this House, it is remarkably respectful. Upon what ground, then, can the investigation be refused? If the charges made are true, the officer ought to be removed; if untrue, this House ought in justice to him whose character has been so assailed to declare that they are so. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. RANDOLPH) informed us yesterday that the Postmaster-General kept in his pay a jackall, who went prowling about this desolate city at midnight, when honest men ought to be asleep, offering bribes to the members. Sir, the gentleman must have keen optics to discover this jackall, when he is asleep; for he informs us that he only goes about when honest men ought to be asleep; and surely the gentleman is one of that description. Upon every view which I can take of this subject, I can see no objection to the inquiry, but the strongest reason in its favor; and justice demands that it should be made.

Mr. NELSON would offer a few remarks to the House, why he was opposed to the motion. He would not undertake to give an opinion as to the character of the Postmaster-General, or whether the charges made against him could be substantiated. His objection was, that the House had nothing to do with charges made by a member against any individual. If the charges were true, the President (and not the House) was the proper person to apply to, to remove the officer. But it had been said that the House had the power to impeach all civil officers, and, therefore, could impeach the Postmaster-General. But because the House was invested with that power, he asked whether they were bound to exercise it? Surely not. And he hoped they would not, when they could get rid of the officer by a more summary mode. Late experience had taught them the trouble and expense attendant on impeachments, and he trusted that no officer would ever be impeached that could be removed by the President. It would be better to let them remain in office, although guilty of misbehavior, than to spend so much time as they would be obliged to do in cases of impeachment. Suppose the motion should be agreed to, and the committee appointed, he asked what power they would possess? Were they to declare whether the charges were true or false? A determination either way would have no effect upon the House, because they could not, he trusted, impeach the officer. He was not disposed to do any thing to hurt the character of the Postmaster-General, but he would not give his sanction to a measure which would spend so much of the time of the House in deciding what he considered an affair of private honor and private feelings between two gentlemen. He also considered that the adoption of the resolution would pass a censure upon the gentleman who made the charges, and he asked whether the House were disposed to censure one of its members for any warm and unguarded expressions about an officer of the Government? He trusted not. How many times had charges been made in the House against the President of the United States; but that officer had never thought it proper to apply to the House for an inquiry into his conduct; nor did the House ever pass a vote of censure on the members who made them. He looked upon this as a question of dispute between two gentlemen, and no tribunal could be erected in the House to decide on it. He should, therefore, vote against the motion of the gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. VARNUM,) and hoped it would not prevail.

Mr. HUGER knew not what was the opinion of any gentleman as to the merits of the question, but he was satisfied that a calm decision of it could not take place at that time. They were about to establish a precedent, which might be of importance, and it ought to be done after the utmost deliberation. He called upon gentlemen to say, whether it was possible that a calm and impartial decision could be given after so much irritation had been displayed in the debate? In order to afford an opportunity to gentlemen to give the subject a cool and dispassionate investigation, he moved to postpone the further consideration thereof until Monday.

The question was taken thereon, and determined in the affirmative--yeas 93.

The resolution (Mr. Varnum’s motion to refer Mr. Granger’s letter to a select committee) was never after called up.

_Georgia Claims._

The unfinished business of yesterday on the Yazoo claims was resumed--the amendment offered by Mr. CLARK, under consideration.

Mr. HOLMES observed that as he was a member of the Committee of Claims, from whom the report under consideration emanated, he thought it his duty to state to the House the part he acted on that occasion. I was, said Mr. H., in all our deliberations upon this subject, decidedly opposed to the adoption of the report, and in every stage of its progression used all fair means in my power to produce a different result; in this, however, I was unsuccessful. My conduct was governed by a firm conviction that the present claimants had no right in law or equity to the lands in question, and that policy did not demand the interference of the National Legislature. Most of the arguments that operated upon my mind then, and will influence my vote now, have been adduced by gentlemen who preceded me. It is not my intention to detain the House with a repetition of them; one or two, however, have occurred to me as worthy of consideration, that have not been urged. This must be my apology for addressing you after the able and lengthy discussion the subject has received. I am of the opinion, Mr. Speaker, that the Legislature of Georgia, of 1795, were not authorized to dispose of the lands in question, even if they had been honestly inclined to do so.

Mr. MATTHEW LYON.--From the drift of the speeches delivered by the member from Virginia, from his call for the Postmaster-General’s report of a list of his contracts, and from the invitation he has given to an examination of that report, I am led to consider it a duty I owe to myself, in this House, and in the face of the world, to take up that report, and explain the nature of the contracts which there appear in my name. I find my name seven times mentioned in that report: the first is in the 12th page, for a contract for carrying the mail from Cincinnati to Detroit; the second in the same page, and is from Marietta to Cincinnati; these two contracts I never solicited or bid for, but the Postmaster-General having advertised for proposals, and having received none that he thought reasonable, they being new routes and to be let for one year only, he wrote to me offering the price they stand there at, and I undertook to get the business done. For the performance of the latter contract I gave every cent I received, and without saving one penny for a great deal of trouble, risk, and perplexity, I had taken upon myself to get it effected. From the other I saved a few dollars toward paying me for the care, trouble, and responsibility I had sustained on the occasion. Long before these contracts were out, I informed the Postmaster-General that I should take neither of them again, and the contract from Cincinnati to Detroit was let to another person at $105 60 more than was given to me; this may be seen in the 22d line of page 20 of the same report.

The third time my name is mentioned is in the same 12th page, and is from Hartford to Fort Massac, a distance of about 180 or 190 miles, for which $654 75 is paid; out of this $65 is to be paid for ferriage. For some parts of this route I am obliged to give much more than a proportionate share of what I receive; some other parts I give a trifle less; sometimes my own horses carry the mail. I cannot with precision tell what is lost or gained in it, but it cannot be $50 either way. The fourth contract is also in the same page, it is from Russelsville to Eddygrove, or, rather, Eddyville; it is 80 miles, for which $240 is paid; this is as low if not lower than the price given any where south or west of this place, and I give to the person who performs it the whole amount of what I receive. The fifth and sixth time my name is mentioned in that report is in the 28th page--those are merely a renewal of the two last-mentioned contracts, which had expired in 1803; all of those contracts were made before I was elected to my present seat in this House, before I had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with the present Postmaster-General, and before I ever spoke with him.

The seventh contract is noticed in the last page of the Postmaster-General’s report, which is from Massac to New Madrid, from Kaskaskias to Girardeau, from Cahoka to St. Louis, a distance of more than 200 miles, for $515, out of which more than $150 must be paid for ferriage, at the rate ferriages stood at the time of the contract.

This is the true history of the contracts by which it is insinuated that the Postmaster-General has bribed me. I never was bribed, sir; it is not all the lands and negroes my accuser owns that could tempt me to do a thing which honor or conscience dictated to me to avoid. I could, sir, if it was pertinent, show how the over-vigilance of the present Postmaster-General has deprived me of the benefit of the only profitable contract I ever made with the Government--a contract made with his predecessor which he very improperly, in my opinion, considered void on account of some words in it not being exactly consonant with the intention of the contracting parties; believing, however, that the Postmaster-General designed to do what he thought right, he has not lost my esteem, nor do I think his character can be injured by the braying of a jackall or the fulminations of a madman.[25]

Mr. J. CLAY.--It was not my intention to have troubled the House with any observations on the subject, but I think a view may be taken different from any exhibited by the gentlemen who have preceded me. Some of the gentlemen who have advocated the appropriation of the land to satisfy the New England Mississippi Land Company, have been content to rest the claim upon the ground of policy. They have said that if some mode should not be taken to satisfy the Yazoo speculators, they would be incessantly troubling Congress. If these men have any title, it must be by right of pre-emption; and yet that title it was not practicable for them to acquire, as the State of Georgia could not extinguish the Indian title. Notwithstanding, however, their imbecility, the Legislature of Georgia, of 1796, undertook to grant an estate in fee simple. It will require more time to examine this question, and perhaps more abilities than I possess; but I cannot conceive how Georgia had a pre-emption title to the land, while the Indian title still existed. The Congress of the United States possessed the sole power of extinguishing the Indian title to lands within their territories; no individual State has either the right or the power of extinguishing the Indian title to any lands they may claim. Of course, Georgia had no right to grant a title in fee simple.

We are told of the policy of compromising with these speculators, and that they are innocent purchasers. How are they so? Are they not the very men who purchased a fraudulent claim, and does not their deed carry on the face of it a proof that they knew it to be fraudulent? There is also a strange coincidence: These people’s deeds are dated February 13th, 1796, the very day that the rescinding act was passed, but these instruments were not all executed until May following. [Here Mr. J. Clay read several passages from the pamphlet published by the agents of the New England Yazoo Company, and compared them with the resolution of Congress passed on that subject, from which he inferred an acknowledgment of the present claimants, that they purchased a disputed title.] He went on to state that Governor Strong, who was at that time a Senator of the United States, was made acquainted with the whole transaction; and it could not but be presumed that he and the Massachusetts delegation communicated to their constituents the circumstance.

The general notoriety of the fraud, said Mr. CLAY, is such as to convince any man that the present claimants are not innocent purchasers. The very conditions under which they purchased, demonstrate this. They undertake to stand in the shoes of men who had defrauded the State of Georgia through a corrupt Legislature, and when they paid their money, they conditioned that it should not be repaid them, by reason of any defect in the title. The petitioners take it for granted, that, whatever was the fate of the original compact, though bottomed in fraud and consequently null, they have no other resource than in the mercy of this House. Why did they make that stipulation in their deed? Why not take a general warrantee? If the deeds had been executed in the usual manner, they could have recovered their money from the party who had practised upon them. But, notwithstanding that article, I still think they should have recourse to the original grantees; let them go to them, and a court of equity will do them justice.

I have no idea of supporting questions of property upon grounds of mere policy; I shall never be inclined to squander millions of the public money, because a gang of swindling speculators may enter this House and prove troublesome to its members. The agents of these men have accidentally acknowledged that they cannot extinguish the Indian title, and, therefore, they cannot get possession of the land. What is a man to get by a contract, when it is impossible to comply with the terms? I was in hopes, that the representation from the State of Pennsylvania would have been unanimous on this question: they ought to know, from the salutary experience of their own State respecting land speculations, whether it relates to the Connecticut, Susquehanna, or Delaware Companies, who have kept a part of our State in a continual broil for fifty years, while another set of men, under the garb of the Population and Holland companies, have thrown their warrants over the north-western corner of the State, and are likely to defeat the great objects which the Legislature had in view, when they disposed of the lands to actual settlers alone. I trust, however, that they will be defeated, and that the courts of justice will determine the case in the manner in which it was recently decided. I regret that the oldest member of Congress from our State, should, at this late hour, abandon those republican principles which he has so long and so ably maintained, to support a band of Yazoo speculators. For my part, I must be an altered man indeed, if I ever consent to a compromise with a gang of speculators holding a title founded in fraud and speculation.

The yeas and nays were then taken on the resolution of the Committee of Claims, and decided in the affirmative--yeas 63, nays 58, as follows:

YEAS.--Willis Alston, jun., Simeon Baldwin, Silas Betton, Phanuel Bishop, Adam Boyd, John Boyle, John Campbell, William Chamberlin, Martin Chittenden, Clifton Claggett, Jacob Crowninshield, Manasseh Cutler, Richard Cutts, Samuel W. Dana, John Davenport, John Dawson, John Dennis, William Dickson, Thomas Dwight, James Elliot, Ebenezer Elmer, William Eustis, William Findlay, John Fowler, Calvin Goddard, Gaylord Griswold, Roger Griswold, Seth Hastings, William Helms, John Hoge, James Holland, David Hough, Benjamin Huger, Samuel Hunt, John G. Jackson, Nehemiah Knight, Simon Larned, Joseph Lewis, jr., Henry W. Livingston, Thomas Lowndes, Matthew Lyon, Nahum Mitchell, Jeremiah Morrow, James Mott, Thomas Plater, Samuel D. Purviance, Erastus Root, Henry Southard, Joseph Stanton, William Stedman, James Stephenson, Samuel Taggart, Benjamin Tallmadge, Samuel Tenney, Samuel Thatcher, David Thomas, George Tibbits, Killian K. Van Rensselaer, Joseph B. Varnum, Peleg Wadsworth, Matthew Walton, Lemuel Williams, and Marmaduke Williams.

NAYS.--Isaac Anderson, David Bard, George Michael Bedinger, William Blackledge, Walter Bowie, Robert Brown, Joseph Bryan, William Butler, Levi Casey, Thomas Claiborne, Christopher Clark, Joseph Clay, Matthew Clay, John Clopton, Frederick Conrad, John B. Earle, John W. Eppes, Peterson Goodwyn, Andrew Gregg, Thomas Griffin, John A. Hanna, Josiah Hasbrouck, Joseph Heister, David Holmes, Walter Jones, William Kennedy, Michael Leib, John B. C. Lucas, Andrew McCord, David Meriwether, Nicholas R. Moore, Thomas Moore, Roger Nelson, Anthony New, Thomas Newton, jr., Joseph H. Nicholson, Gideon Olin, Beriah Palmer, John Randolph, Thomas M. Randolph, John Rea of Pennsylvania, Jacob Richards, Samuel Riker, Thomas Sammons, Thomas Sanford, Ebenezer Seaver, James Sloan, John Smilie, John Smith, Richard Stanford, John Stewart, Philip R. Thompson, Abram Trigg, Isaac Van Horne, John Whitehill, Alexander Wilson, Joseph Winston, and Thomas Wynns.

The resolution was of consequence agreed to.

Mr. J. RANDOLPH.--On this question I have nothing more to say than to congratulate my friends on the vote just taken. We are strong in the cause of truth, and gentlemen will find that truth will ultimately prevail. When I compare the votes of this session with some of the votes of the last, my objections to refer this subject are almost done away. In whatever shape the subject may be again brought before the House, it will be my duty, and that of my friends, to manifest the same firm spirit of resistance, and to suffer no opportunity to pass of defeating a measure so fraught with mischief.

[On a subsequent day, a bill was introduced for compromising the claims; but it was not acted upon by the House during the remainder of the session.][26]

WEDNESDAY, February 6.

_Post Roads._

The House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on a motion of the seventh of December last, respecting “the establishment of a post road from Knoxville, in the State of Tennessee, to the settlement on the Tombigbee River, in the Mississippi Territory, and from thence to New Orleans; also, for the establishment of a post road from Georgia to the settlements on the Tombigbee, to intersect the former road at the most convenient point between Knoxville and the Tombigbee;” to which Committee of the whole House were also referred on the tenth of the said month of December, and on the first instant, the report of a select committee, and a Message from the President of the United States, on the same subject.

Mr. G. W. CAMPBELL observed, that having introduced this resolution, he would very briefly state some of the reasons that induced him to do so, and the grounds upon which he expected the committee to adopt it. He stated the object of the measure to be two-fold: 1st. To obtain a direct route for the transportation of the mail from Knoxville, and also from Georgia, to the Tombigbee settlements, and thence to New Orleans, in order to facilitate the communication with those places by means of the mail. And 2d. To open a communication from East Tennessee to the same places for commercial purposes. This measure, he said, was important to the citizens of East Tennessee, in both those points of view. The mail was conveyed at present, he observed, by a circuitous route, from Knoxville to Nashville, two hundred miles, thence to Natchez, at least five hundred miles, and thence to New Orleans, nearly three hundred miles; making in the whole, from Knoxville to New Orleans, one thousand miles. Whereas the distance from Knoxville to New Orleans by the route proposed to be opened, would not much, if any, exceed five hundred. A gentleman of undoubted veracity, who resided some years in the country through which this road will pass, in the service of the Government, estimates this route in the following manner: From Knoxville to Tellico, thirty-three miles. This part of the route passes through a settled country, and is at present a good road. From Tellico, to a place called the Hickory Ground, in the Creek Nation, near the junction of the Coosa River with the Tallapoosa, where they form the Alabama and about twenty miles from the Tuckabatchee settlements, two hundred and twenty miles. From thence to Fort St. Stephen’s on the Tombigbee River, about one hundred miles; and thence to New Orleans, a direct course, about one hundred and fifty miles, making in all five hundred and three miles; and the largest calculations, as I had been informed, made by the Postmaster-General, of this road from Knoxville to New Orleans, was five hundred and fifty miles; making very little more than half the present route. Add to this the distance from Washington to Knoxville, according to the estimated post route, five hundred and forty-seven miles, and the whole distance from Washington to New Orleans, passing by Knoxville--and from thence the proposed route will be about one thousand and fifty miles. This saving of between four and five hundred miles, in transporting the mail from Knoxville to New Orleans, is certainly a very important object to all those who may communicate with the latter place, by means of this route. This road is still more necessary, for the purpose of affording a communication from East Tennessee to the settlement on the Tombigbee, or the eastern parts of the Mississippi Territory. The only mode of communication at present with that country, is by the post road already stated, by Nashville to Natchez, seven hundred--and thence to the Tombigbee, about two hundred; making nine hundred miles. Whereas the real distance along the proposed route, as has been stated, will not exceed three hundred and fifty, or at most between that and four hundred.

The effect of this circuitous route is, at present, to cut off the communication almost entirely with that country.

But the second object for which we wish this road opened, viz: for commercial purposes, is still more important to our citizens; and is essential for the prosperity of our country.

The only mode by which the people of that country can, at this time, convey their produce to market, is by boating it down the river Tennessee into the Ohio, then along that to the Mississippi, and down that river to New Orleans. Our boatmen employed in this trade are obliged to return by land, as the same boats that carry produce down those rivers, cannot ascend them, and there is but little navigation yet, in boats of any kind, up those waters into the State of Tennessee; and no boats of any considerable burden can pass up the river Tennessee, through the Muscle Shoals, to the eastern part of the State. The only route by which those boatmen can now return from New Orleans, is that already stated, on which the mail is conveyed, being between four and five hundred miles more than they would have to travel by the proposed route. The present road also passes over the Cumberland mountain, a part of which is very bad, and a wilderness at this part of the route, subject to the Indian claim, of between seventy and one hundred miles, without inhabitants. It also passes through another wilderness between Nashville and Natchez, subject to the Indian claim, of about four hundred miles, a considerable part of which is stated to be very bad road in winter, and that there are many large water courses to be passed. The difficulties are so great that few of our citizens are willing to embark in this trade, and our farmers, having no convenient vent for their surplus produce, have little or no inducement to industry beyond what may be necessary to produce the ordinary supplies of subsistence. This in a very great degree retards the progress of agriculture, and consequently the prosperity of our country. It is therefore hoped that this House will feel disposed to encourage the farming interests of our infant country by removing those obstacles to its progress that the State authority is incompetent to effect, and that prove so materially injurious to the interests of our citizens. Here it may be proper to remark that this proposed road, so far as it is desired to be established by this measure, passes through a country belonging entirely to the United States, except about sixty miles, and most of it subject to the claim of Indian tribes, being the Mississippi Territory until it enters West Florida, or Orleans Territory. This distance of about sixty miles alluded to, is from Tellico, on the frontiers of the settlements in East Tennessee, to a point beyond the south boundary of that State in the State of Georgia, and near the limits of the Mississippi Territory, being also subject to the Indian claim. A road has already been authorized to be opened in this direction; has been viewed and designated by commissioners appointed for that purpose from our State, at the expense of the State, and it is expected, by this time, has been opened, being designed to afford us a communication with the State of Georgia. This road will answer the proposed route--at least as far as the limits of our State--being, as before stated, about sixty or seventy miles from Tellico, and about one hundred from Knoxville. There will therefore remain only about one hundred miles (or very little more, if any) to be opened, to the point at which the road proposed from Georgia will intersect this route. From this view of the subject, it will appear we do not require the United States to be at any expense in opening a road within the limits of the State of Tennessee, but only to open it through a country belonging exclusively, except the Indian claim, to the United States. With regard to the roads proposed to be opened from Georgia to the Tombigbee settlements, so as to intersect the former road at the most convenient point between Tellico and the said settlements, what has been advanced to show the necessity of the former road will apply with equal force to this. The only route by which the people of Georgia can at present communicate with New Orleans, by means of the mail, or travel to that place along any authorized road, is that already stated, from Knoxville; thence by Natchez to New Orleans; and the people, even on the frontiers of that State, have to travel nearly three hundred miles to Knoxville to take this route, and are not then much, if any, nearer New Orleans than when they set out. This in a great degree cuts off this communication with that country. The road proposed to be opened from Georgia, according to the best information, will intersect the road from Knoxville, near the junction of Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers, and about two hundred miles, or somewhat more, from the latter place--of which, as already stated, one hundred miles at least are opened, and only about one hundred remain to be opened. The country through which the road from Knoxville will pass, is represented, by those who are acquainted with it, and who have resided many years among the Indian nations that inhabit it, to be a fine, open country, generally dry without being broken by any mountains, and very few streams of any considerable size to be crossed, and no large rivers until you arrive at the Tombigbee. It will pass along the high lands that lie between the waters falling into the Tennessee River, and those that are discharged into the Coosa and Alabama Rivers, and will require but little expense to be made a good road. We hope, therefore, upon viewing all those circumstances, Congress will agree to afford us the aid we require, and which is essentially necessary to enable us to resort to the only market that will compensate our farmers for their industry, encourage agriculture and commerce, and promote the prosperity of our country.

When Mr. W. had concluded, the committee rose, and had leave to sit again.

TUESDAY, February 12.

_Counting Electoral Votes._

On motion it was

_Resolved_, That a committee be appointed on the part of this House, to join such committee as may be appointed on the part of the Senate, to ascertain and report a mode of examining the votes for President and Vice President, and of notifying the persons who shall be elected, of their election; and to regulate the time, place, and manner of administering the oath of office to the President.

_Ordered_, That Mr. JOSEPH CLAY, Mr. VARNUM, Mr. DENNIS, Mr. THOMAS MOORE, and Mr. DICKSON, be appointed a committee, pursuant to said resolution; and that the Clerk of this House do carry the resolution to the Senate, and desire their concurrence.

A message from the Senate notified the House that the Senate will be ready to receive the House of Representatives in the Senate Chamber, on Wednesday, the thirteenth of February, at noon, for the purpose of being present at the opening and counting the votes for President and Vice President of the United States: That one person be appointed a teller on the part of the Senate to make a list of votes for President and Vice President of the United States, as they shall be declared, and that the result shall be delivered to the President of the Senate, who shall announce the state of the vote, which shall be entered on the Journals, and if it shall appear that a choice had been made agreeably to the constitution, such entry on the Journals shall be deemed a sufficient declaration thereof.

_Amy Dardin._

Mr. CLAIBORNE, from the committee appointed yesterday, presented a bill for the relief of Amy Dardin, and the legal representatives of David Dardin, deceased; which was read twice, and committed to a Committee of the whole House to-morrow.

WEDNESDAY, February 13.

_Counting Electoral Votes._

A message was received from the Senate informing the House that Mr. SMITH of Maryland has been appointed a teller of the votes of President and Vice President of the United States, on the part of the Senate, conformably with their vote of the twelfth instant, and are now ready, in the Senate Chamber, to proceed therein: Whereupon, Mr. SPEAKER, attended by the House, proceeded to the Senate Chamber, and took seats therein; when, both Houses being assembled, the PRESIDENT of the Senate, in the presence of both Houses, proceeded to open the certificates of the Electors of the several States, beginning with the State of New Hampshire; and as the votes were read, the tellers on the part of each House counted and took lists of the same; which, being compared, were delivered to the President of the Senate, and are as follows:

[Given in the Senate proceedings of the same day.]

The PRESIDENT of the Senate, in pursuance of the duty enjoined upon him, announced the state of the votes to both Houses, and declared that THOMAS JEFFERSON, of Virginia, having the greatest number, and a majority of the votes of the Electors appointed, was duly elected President of the United States, for the term commencing on the fourth day of March next; and that GEORGE CLINTON, of New York, having also the greatest number, and a majority of the votes of all the Electors appointed, was duly elected Vice President of the United States, for the term commencing on the fourth day of March next.

The two Houses then separated, and the House of Representatives being returned to their Chamber, Mr. SPEAKER resumed the Chair.

The list of the votes of the Electors for President and Vice President of the United States, as declared by the PRESIDENT of the Senate, and herein before recited, was read at the Clerk’s table.

THURSDAY, February 14.

A new member, to wit, GEORGE CLINTON, jr., returned to serve as a member of this House, for the State of New York, in the place of Samuel L. Mitchill, appointed a Senator of the United States, appeared, produced his credentials, was qualified, and took his seat in the House.

MONDAY, February 18.

_Ordered_, That Mr. ROGER GRISWOLD, Mr. J. CLAY, Mr. BLACKLEDGE, Mr. HUGER, and Mr. NICHOLAS R. MOORE, be appointed of the said committee, on the part of this House; and that the Clerk of this House do carry the said resolution to the Senate, and desire their concurrence.

The House proceeded to the further consideration of the bill authorizing the Secretary of War to issue military land warrants, and for other purposes, to which the Committee of the whole House, to whom it had been committed, reported no amendment, on the thirteenth instant; and the said bill being twice read and amended at the Clerk’s table, was, together with the amendments, ordered to be engrossed, and read the third time to-morrow.

The House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the bill for the relief of Philip Nicklin and Robert Eaglesfield Griffith; and, after some time spent therein, the committee rose, reported progress, and were discharged from the further consideration thereof, and the bill was recommitted to the Committee of Commerce and Manufactures.

TUESDAY, February 19.

_Richard Taylor._

The House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the report of the Committee of Claims, of the thirteenth instant, to whom was referred the memorial of Richard Taylor, of the State of Kentucky; and, after some time spent therein, the committee rose and reported a resolution thereupon; which was twice read, and agreed to by the House, as follows:

_Resolved_, That the prayer of the memorial of Richard Taylor is reasonable, and ought to be granted.

_Ordered_, That a bill, or bills, be brought in, pursuant to the said resolution; and that the Committee of Claims do prepare and bring in the same.

FRIDAY, March 1.

_Presidential Oath of Office._

The SPEAKER laid before the House a letter addressed to him signed, “Th. Jefferson,” notifying, that “he shall take the oath which the constitution prescribes to the President of the United States, before he enters on the execution of his office, on Monday, the fourth instant, at twelve o’clock, in the Senate Chamber.”

Ordered to lie on the table.

_Eodem Die, 4 o’clock, P. M._

_Removal of Federal Judges._

On a motion made by Mr. JOHN RANDOLPH, that the House do come to the following resolution:

_Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, two-thirds of both Houses concurring_, That the following article be submitted to the Legislatures of the several States, which, when ratified and confirmed by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the said States, shall be valid and binding, as a part of the Constitution of the United States:

The judges of the Supreme and all other Courts of the United States, shall be removed by the President, on the joint address of both Houses of Congress, requesting the same, any thing in the Constitution of the United States to the contrary notwithstanding:

A motion was made and seconded that the said proposed resolution be referred to the consideration of a Committee of the whole House; and the question being taken thereupon, it was resolved in the affirmative--yeas 68, nays 33, as follows:

YEAS.--Willis Alston, jr., Isaac Anderson, David Bard, William Blackledge, Walter Bowie, Adam Boyd, Robert Brown, Joseph Bryan, William Butler, Levi Casey, Thomas Claiborne, Joseph Clay, George Clinton, jun., John Clopton, Frederick Conrad, Jacob Crowninshield, Richard Cutts, John Dawson, John B. Earle, Peter Early, John W. Eppes, William Findlay, John Fowler, Peterson Goodwyn, Andrew Gregg, John A. Hanna, Josiah Hasbrouck, Jas. Holland, David Holmes, John G. Jackson, Walter Jones, Nehemiah Knight, Michael Leib, J. B. C. Lucas, Andrew McCord, William McCreery, Nicholas R. Moore, Thomas Moore, Jeremiah Morrow, Roger Nelson, Thomas Newton, jun., Joseph H. Nicholson, Gideon Olin, Beriah Palmer, Oliver Phelps, John Randolph, John Rea of Pennsylvania, John Rhea of Tennessee, Jacob Richards, Samuel Riker, Cæsar A. Rodney, Thomas Sammons, Ebenezer Seaver, James Sloan, John Smilie, Henry Southard, Richard Stanford, Joseph Stanton, John Stewart, David Thomas, Philip R. Thompson, Isaac Van Horne, Joseph B. Varnum, Matthew Walton, John Whitehill, Alexander Wilson, Richard Wynn, and Thomas Wynns.

NAYS.--Nathaniel Alexander, Simeon Baldwin, Silas Betton, William Chamberlin, Martin Chittenden, Clifton Claggett, Manasseh Cutler, Samuel W. Dana, John Davenport, Thomas Dwight, James Elliot, Ebenezer Elmer, Calvin Goddard, Gaylord Griswold, Roger Griswold, Seth Hastings, William Helms, John Hoge, Benj. Huger, Simon Larned, Thomas Lowndes, Nahum Mitchell, Erastus Root, William Stedman, Samuel Taggart, Benjamin Tallmadge, Samuel Tenney, Samuel Thatcher, George Tibbits, Killian K. Van Rensselaer, Peleg Wadsworth, Lemuel Williams, and Marmaduke Williams.

Another motion was made, and the question being put, that the said resolution be the order of the day for the first Monday in December next, it was resolved in the affirmative.

_Recall of Senators._

On a motion made by Mr. NICHOLSON,

_Resolved_, That the following article, when adopted by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, and by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the respective States, shall become a part of the Constitution of the United States, viz:

That the Legislature of any State may, whenever the said Legislature shall think proper, recall, at any period whatever, any Senator of the United States, who may have been elected by them; and whenever a vote of the Legislature of any State, vacating the seat of any Senator of the United States, who may have been elected by the said State, shall be made known to the Senate of the United States, the seat of such Senator shall thenceforth be vacated:

A motion was made and seconded, that the said proposed resolution be referred to the consideration of a Committee of the whole House; and the question being taken thereupon, it was resolved in the affirmative--yeas, 53, nays 46, as follows:

YEAS.--Willis Alston, junior, Isaac Anderson, David Bard, Walter Bowie, Robert Brown, Joseph Bryan, William Butler, Levi Casey, Thomas Claiborne, Joseph Clay, George Clinton, jun., John Clopton, Frederick Conrad, John Dawson, John B. Earle, Peter Early, J. W. Eppes, Peterson Goodwyn, Andrew Gregg, John A. Hanna, Josiah Hasbrouck, Joseph Heister, James Holland, David Holmes, Nehemiah Knight, Michael Leib, Andrew McCord, William McCreery, Nicholas R. Moore, Thomas Moore, Jeremiah Morrow, Roger Nelson, Anthony New, Thomas Newton, jun., Joseph H. Nicholson, Gideon Olin, Beriah Palmer, John Randolph, John Rea of Pennsylvania, John Rhea of Tennessee, Jacob Richards, Thomas Sammons, Ebenezer Seaver, James Sloan, Richard Stanford, Joseph Stanton, John Stewart, Philip R. Thompson, Abram Trigg, John Whitehill, Alexander Wilson, Richard Wynn, and Thomas Wynns.

NAYS.--Nathaniel Alexander, Simeon Baldwin, Silas Betton, William Blackledge, Adam Boyd, William Chamberlin, Martin Chittenden, Clifton Claggett, Jacob Crowninshield, Manasseh Cutler, Richard Cutts, John Davenport, Thomas Dwight, James Elliot, Ebenezer Elmer, William Findlay, John Fowler, Gaylord Griswold, Roger Griswold, Seth Hastings, William Helms, David Hough, Benjamin Huger, John G. Jackson, William Kennedy, Simon Larned, Thomas Lowndes, John B. C. Lucas, Nahum Mitchell, Oliver Phelps, Erastus Root, John Smilie, Henry Southard, William Stedman, Samuel Taggart, Benjamin Tallmadge, Samuel Tenney, Samuel Thatcher, David Thomas, George Tibbits, Killian K. Van Rensselaer, Joseph B. Varnum, Peleg Wadsworth, Lemuel Williams, and Marmaduke Williams.

Another motion was then made, and the question being put, that the said resolution be the order of the day for the first Monday in December next, it was resolved in the affirmative--yeas 70, nays 28.

SATURDAY, March 2.

The House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the bill, sent from the Senate, entitled “An act to amend an act, entitled ‘An act for imposing more specific duties on the importation of certain articles; and, also, for levying and collecting light money on foreign ships or vessels,’” to which the Committee of Ways and Means, to whom it had been referred, reported no amendment, on the eighteenth of January last; and, after some time spent therein, the Committee reported the same to the House without amendment.

The House then proceeded to consider the said bill: Whereupon a motion was made and seconded that the further consideration thereof be postponed until the first Monday in December next, and the question being put thereon, it passed in the negative--yeas 43, nays 46, as follows:

YEAS.--David Bard, Silas Betton, Adam Boyd, William Butler, John Campbell, William Chamberlin, Martin Chittenden, Clifton Claggett, Frederick Conrad, Samuel W. Dana, John Davenport, Thomas Dwight, James Elliot, Ebenezer Elmer, John W. Eppes, Calvin Goddard, Peterson Goodwyn, Andrew Gregg, Gaylord Griswold, Roger Griswold, John Hoge, David Hough, Benjamin Huger, Samuel Hunt, John G. Jackson, Thomas Lowndes, John B. C. Lucas, Nahum Mitchell, Beriah Palmer, Thomas Plater, John Rea of Pennsylvania, John Rhea of Tennessee, Thomas Sammons, Thomas Sanford, Henry Southard, Richard Stanford, William Stedman, John Stewart, Samuel Taggart, Benj. Tallmadge, Samuel Tenney, Samuel Thatcher, and George Tibbits.

NAYS.--Willis Alston, jun., Nathaniel Alexander, Isaac Anderson, William Blackledge, Walter Bowie, Robert Brown, Joseph Clay, Matthew Clay, John Clopton, Jacob Crowninshield, John Dawson, John Fowler, Josiah Hasbrouck, James Holland, David Holmes, William Kennedy, Nehemiah Knight, Simon Larned, Michael Leib, Matthew Lyon, Andrew McCord, William McCreery, Nicholas R. Moore, Thomas Moore, Jeremiah Morrow, Roger Nelson, Anthony New, Thomas Newton, jr., Joseph H. Nicholson, Gideon Olin, John Randolph, Thomas Mann Randolph, Jacob Richards, James Sloan, John Smilie, Joseph Stanton, Philip R. Thompson, Abram Trigg, Joseph B. Varnum, John Whitehill, Lemuel Williams, Alexander Wilson, Richard Wynn, Joseph Winston, and Thomas Wynns.

And then the main question being taken, that the said bill do pass, it was resolved in the affirmative.

An engrossed bill further to provide for the accommodation of the President of the United States, was read the third time, and passed.

A message from the Senate informed the House that the Senate have passed a bill, entitled “An act supplementary to an act, entitled ‘An act making an appropriation for carrying into effect the Convention between the United States of America and His Britannic Majesty;’” to which they desire the concurrence of this House.

_Eodem Die, 5 o’clock, P. M._

A message from the Senate informed the House that the Senate have passed the bill, entitled “An act supplementary to the act, entitled ‘An act making provision for the disposal of the public lands in the Indiana Territory, and for other purposes,’” with an amendment; to which they desire the concurrence of this House; also, the bill, entitled “An act further to alter and establish certain post roads, and for other purposes,” with several amendments; to which they desire the concurrence of this House.

The House proceeded to consider the amendment proposed by the Senate to the bill, entitled “An act supplementary to the act, entitled ‘An act making provision for the disposal of the public lands in the Indiana Territory and for other purposes:’” Whereupon,

_Resolved_, That this House doth agree to the said amendment.

SUNDAY, March 3.

_Importation of Slaves._

Mr. VARNUM, one of the members for the State of Massachusetts, presented to the House a letter from the Governor of the said State, enclosing an attested copy of two concurrent resolutions of the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Massachusetts, passed the fifteenth of February in the present year, “instructing the Senators and requesting the Representatives in Congress, from the said State, to take all legal and necessary steps, to use their utmost exertions, as soon as the same is practicable, to obtain an amendment to the Federal Constitution, so as to authorize and empower the Congress of the United States to pass a law, whenever they may deem it expedient, to prevent the further importation of slaves from any of the West India islands, from the coast of Africa, or elsewhere, into the United States, or any part thereof:” Whereupon, a motion was made and seconded, that the House do come to the following resolution:

_Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, two-thirds of both Houses concurring_, That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of the said Legislatures, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as a part of the said constitution, to wit:

“That the Congress of the United States shall have power to prevent the further importation of slaves into the United States and the Territories thereof.”

The said proposed resolution was read, and ordered to lie on the table.

_Commodore Preble._

The resolutions sent from the Senate, “expressive of the sense of Congress of the gallant conduct of Commodore Edward Preble, the officers, seamen, and marines, of his squadron,” together with the amendments agreed to this day, were read the third time; and on the question that the same do pass, it was unanimously resolved in the affirmative.

_Eodem Die, 5 o’clock, P. M._

A message from the Senate informed the House that the Senate insist on their amendments disagreed to by this House to the bill, entitled “An act making an appropriation for the payment of witnesses summoned on the part of the United States, in support of the impeachment of Samuel Chase,” and desire a conference with this House on the subject-matter of the said amendments; to which conference the Senate have appointed managers, on their part.

The Senate have agreed to the amendments proposed by this House to the resolutions “expressive of the sense of Congress of the gallant conduct of Commodore Edward Preble, the officers, seamen, and marines, of his squadron,” with amendments; to which they desire the concurrence of this House.

_Divorces._

The order of the day for the House to resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole on the bill to authorize the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia to decree divorces in certain cases, being called for, a motion was made, and the question being put, that the said order of the day be postponed until the first Monday in December next, it was resolved in the affirmative.

A motion was then made and seconded, that the House do come to the following resolutions:

_Resolved_, That the Clerk of this House be, and he is hereby, directed to pay out of the contingent fund of this House, to every witness summoned on behalf of the House of Representatives, to attend the Senate in support of the impeachment of Samuel Chase, for every day’s attendance, the sum of three dollars, and the further sum of twenty cents for each mile in coming from and returning to his place of abode.

_Resolved_, That the Clerk be likewise directed to pay, out of the said fund, any other expense incurred by order of the managers of the said impeachment, and certified by their chairman.

On which motion, various efforts were made to obtain a decision of the House on the previous question, “that the House do now proceed to consider the said motion;” but no result could, in any instance, be obtained for the want of a quorum.

_Adjournment._

After which, a quorum being present,

A message from the Senate informed the House, that the Senate have appointed a committee, on their part, jointly with such committee as may be appointed on the part of this House, to wait on the President of the United States, and notify him of the proposed recess of Congress.

The House proceeded to consider the foregoing message of the Senate, and

_Resolved_, That this House do agree to the same, and that Mr. JOHN RANDOLPH, Mr. HUGER, and Mr. NELSON, be appointed of the said committee, on the part of this House.

Mr. JOHN RANDOLPH, from the committee appointed on the part of this House, jointly with the committee appointed on the part of the Senate, to wait on the President of the United States, and notify him of the proposed recess of Congress, reported that the committee had performed that service; and that the President signified to them that he had no further communication to make during the present session.

A message from the Senate informed the House that the Senate, having finished the legislative business before them, are now ready to adjourn.

_Ordered_, That a message be sent to the Senate to inform them that this House, having completed the business before them, are now about to adjourn, without day; and that the Clerk of this House do go with the said message.

The Clerk, accordingly, went with the said message; and, being returned,

The SPEAKER adjourned the House, _sine die_.[27]

NINTH CONGRESS.--FIRST SESSION.

BEGUN AT THE CITY OF WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 2, 1805.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE.

LIST OF MEMBERS OF THE SENATE.

_New Hampshire._--William Plumer, Nathaniel Gilman.

_Vermont._--Stephen R. Bradley, Israel Smith.

_Massachusetts._--John Quincy Adams, Timothy Pickering.

_Rhode Island_.--James Fenner, Benjamin Howland.

_Connecticut._--James Hillhouse, Uriah Tracy.

_New York._--Samuel L. Mitchill, John Smith.

_New Jersey._--John Condit, Aaron Kitchel.

_Pennsylvania._--George Logan, Samuel Maclay.

_Delaware._--Samuel White, James A. Bayard.

_Maryland._--Samuel Smith, Robert Wright.

_Virginia._--Andrew Moore.

_North Carolina._--David Stone, James Turner.

_South Carolina._--Thomas Sumter, John Gaillard.

_Georgia._--Abraham Baldwin, James Jackson.

_Tennessee._--Daniel Smith, Joseph Anderson.

_Kentucky._--Buckner Thruston, John Adair.

_Ohio._--Thomas Worthington, John Smith.

MONDAY, December 2, 1805.

The first session of the Ninth Congress conformably to the Constitution of the United States, commenced this day, at the city of Washington, and the Senate assembled.

PRESENT:

WILLIAM PLUMER and NICHOLAS GILMAN, from New Hampshire.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS and TIMOTHY PICKERING, from Massachusetts.

JAMES HILLHOUSE and URIAH TRACY, from Connecticut.

JAMES FENNER, from Rhode Island.

STEPHEN R. BRADLEY and ISRAEL SMITH, from Vermont.

SAMUEL L. MITCHILL, from New York.

JOHN CONDIT and AARON KITCHEL, from New Jersey.

GEORGE LOGAN and SAMUEL MACLAY, from Pennsylvania.

SAMUEL WHITE, from Delaware.

SAMUEL SMITH, from Maryland.

DAVID STONE, from North Carolina.

THOMAS SUMTER and JOHN GAILLARD, from South Carolina.

ABRAHAM BALDWIN, from Georgia.

DAVID SMITH, from Tennessee.

THOMAS WORTHINGTON, from Ohio.

The VICE PRESIDENT being absent, the Senate proceeded to the election of a President _pro tem._, as the constitution provides, and the Honorable SAMUEL SMITH was appointed.

The credentials of the following Senators were read, viz:

Of ABRAHAM BALDWIN, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of Georgia, for the term of six years, from the 3d day of March last; of JAMES A. BAYARD, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of Delaware, for the term of six years, from the 3d day of March last; of JAMES FENNER, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of Rhode Island, for the term of six years, from the 3d day of March last; of NICHOLAS GILMAN, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of New Hampshire, for the term of six years, from the 3d day of March last; of AARON KITCHEL, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of New Jersey, to serve during the term limited by the constitution; of TIMOTHY PICKERING, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of Massachusetts, for the term of six years, to commence on the 4th day of March last; of DANIEL SMITH, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of Tennessee, for the term of six years, from the 3d of March last; and of BUCKNER THRUSTON, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of Kentucky.

The oath was administered by the President to the following Senators, as the law prescribes: Mr. BALDWIN, Mr. FENNER, Mr. GILMAN, Mr. KITCHEL, Mr. PICKERING, and Mr. SMITH of Tennessee; also, to Mr. SUMTER, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of South Carolina, for the term of six years, commencing on the 4th day of March last.

_Ordered_, That the Secretary wait on the President of the United States, and acquaint him that a quorum of the Senate is assembled, and that, in the absence of the Vice President, they have elected the Honorable SAMUEL SMITH President of the Senate _pro tempore_.

_Ordered_, That the Secretary make a like communication to the House of Representatives.

_Ordered_, That Messrs. SUMTER and MITCHILL be a committee, on the part of the Senate, with such committee as the House of Representatives may appoint on their part, to wait on the President of the United States and notify him that a quorum of the two Houses is assembled, and ready to receive any communication that he may be pleased to make to them.

TUESDAY, December 3.

JOSEPH ANDERSON, from the State of Tennessee; BUCKNER THRUSTON, from the State of Kentucky; and ROBERT WRIGHT, from the State of Maryland, attended.

A message from the House of Representatives informed the Senate that a quorum of the House of Representatives is assembled, and have appointed NATHANIEL MACON, Esq., one of the Representatives for North Carolina, their Speaker, and are ready to proceed to business. The House of Representatives have appointed a committee on their part, jointly with the committee appointed on the part of the Senate, to wait on the President of the United States, and notify him that a quorum of the two Houses is assembled, and ready to receive any communications that he may be pleased to make to them. The House of Representatives agree to the resolution of the Senate for the appointment of two Chaplains.

Mr. SUMTER reported, from the committee appointed yesterday to wait on the President of the United States, that they had performed the service, and that the President of the United States informed the committee that he would make his communications to the two Houses at twelve o’clock this day.

The oath prescribed by law was administered to Mr. THRUSTON.

The following message was received from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America_:

At a moment when the nations of Europe are in commotion, and arming against each other, and when those with whom we have principal intercourse are engaged in the general contest, and when the countenance of some of them towards our peaceable country threatens that even that may not be unaffected by what is passing on the general theatre, a meeting of the Representatives of the nation in both Houses of Congress has become more than usually desirable. Coming from every section of our country they bring with them the sentiments and the information of the whole, and will be enabled to give a direction to the public affairs, which the will and the wisdom of the whole will approve and support.

Since our last meeting the aspect of our foreign relations has considerably changed. Our coasts have been infested, and our harbors watched, by private armed vessels, some of them without commissions, some with illegal commissions, others with those of legal form, but committing piratical acts beyond the authority of their commissions. They have captured in the very entrance of our harbors, as well as on the high seas, not only the vessels of our friends coming to trade with us, but our own also. They have carried them off under pretence of legal adjudication; but, not daring to approach a court of justice, they have plundered and sunk them by the way, or in obscure places, where no evidence could arise against them; maltreated the crews, and abandoned them in boats in the open sea, or on desert shores, without food or covering. These enormities appearing to be unreached by any control of their sovereigns, I found it necessary to equip a force to cruise within our own seas, to arrest all vessels of these descriptions found hovering on our coasts, within the limits of the Gulf Stream, and to bring the offenders in for trial as pirates.

The same system of hovering on our coasts and harbors, under color of seeking enemies, has been also carried on by public armed ships, to the great annoyance and oppression of our commerce. New principles, too, have been interpolated into the law of nations, founded neither in justice nor the usage or acknowledgment of nations. According to these, a belligerent takes to itself a commerce with its own enemy which it denies to a neutral, on the ground of its aiding that enemy in the war. But reason revolts at such an inconsistency, and the neutral, having equal right with the belligerent to decide the question, the interests of our constituents, and the duty of maintaining the authority of reason, the only umpire between just nations, impose on us the obligation of providing an effectual and determined opposition to a doctrine so injurious to the rights of peaceable nations. Indeed, the confidence we ought to have in the justice of others still countenances the hope that a sounder view of those rights will, of itself, induce from every belligerent a more correct observance of them.

With Spain, our negotiations for a settlement of differences have not had a satisfactory issue. Spoliations during a former war, for which she had formally acknowledged herself responsible, have been refused to be compensated but on conditions affecting other claims in nowise connected with them. Yet the same practices are renewed in the present war, and are already of great amount. On the Mobile, our commerce passing through that river continues to be obstructed by arbitrary duties and vexatious searches. Propositions for adjusting amicably the boundaries of Louisiana have not been acceded to. While, however, the right is unsettled, we have avoided changing the state of things by taking new posts or strengthening ourselves in the disputed territories, in the hope that the other power would not, by a contrary conduct, oblige us to meet their example, and endanger conflicts of authority the issue of which may not be easily controlled. But in this hope we have now reason to lessen our confidence. Inroads have been recently made into the territories of Orleans and Mississippi, our citizens have been seized and their property plundered in the very parts of the former which had been actually delivered up by Spain, and this by the regular officers and soldiers of that Government. I have, therefore, found it necessary, at length, to give orders to our troops on that frontier to be in readiness to protect our citizens, and to repel by arms any similar aggressions in future. Other details, necessary for your full information of the state of things between this country and that, shall be the subject of another communication. In reviewing these injuries from some of the belligerent powers, the moderation, the firmness, and the wisdom, of the Legislature will all be called into action. We ought still to hope that time and a more correct estimate of interest, as well as of character, will produce the justice we are bound to expect. But should any nation deceive itself by false calculations, and disappoint that expectation, we must join in the unprofitable contest of trying which party can do the other the most harm.

Considerable provision has been made, under former authorities from Congress, of materials for the construction of ships of war of seventy-four guns. These materials are on hand, subject to the further will of the Legislature.

An immediate prohibition of the exportation of ammunition is also submitted to your determination.

Turning from these unpleasant views of violence and wrong, I congratulate you on the liberation of our fellow-citizens who were stranded on the coast of Tripoli and made prisoners of war. In a Government bottomed on the will of all, the life and liberty of every individual citizen become interesting to all. In the treaty, therefore, which has concluded our warfare with that State, an article for the ransom of our citizens has been agreed to. An operation by land, by a small band of our countrymen, and others engaged for the occasion, in conjunction with the troops of the ex-bashaw of that country, gallantly conducted by our late Consul Eaton, and their successful enterprise on the city of Derne, contributed, doubtless, to the impression which produced peace; and the conclusion of this, prevented opportunities of which the officers and men of our squadron, destined for Tripoli, would have availed themselves to emulate the acts of valor exhibited by their brethren in the attack of the last year. Reflecting with high satisfaction on the distinguished bravery displayed, whenever occasions permitted, in the late Mediterranean service, I think it would be a useful encouragement, as well as a just reward, to make an opening for some present promotion, by enlarging our peace establishment of captains and lieutenants.

With Tunis some misunderstandings have arisen, not yet sufficiently explained, but friendly discussions with their Ambassador, recently arrived, and a mutual disposition to do whatever is just and reasonable, cannot fail of dissipating these. So that we may consider our peace on that coast, generally, to be on as sound a footing as it has been at any preceding time. Still, it will not be expedient to withdraw, immediately, the whole of our force from that sea.

The law providing for a Naval Peace Establishment fixes the number of frigates which shall be kept in constant service in time of peace, and prescribes that they shall be manned by not more than two-thirds of their complement of seamen and ordinary seamen. Whether a frigate may be trusted to two-thirds only of her proper complement of men, must depend on the nature of the service on which she is ordered. That may sometimes for her safety, as well as to ensure her object, require her fullest complement. In adverting to this subject, Congress will, perhaps, consider whether the best limitation on the Executive discretion in this case, would not be by the number of seamen which may be employed in the whole service, rather than by the number of vessels. Occasions oftener arise for the employment of small than of large vessels, and it would lessen risk as well as expense, to be authorized to employ them of preference. The limitation suggested by the number of seamen would admit a selection of vessels best adapted to the service.

Our Indian neighbors are advancing, many of them, with spirit, and others beginning to engage in the pursuits of agriculture and household manufacture. They are becoming sensible that the earth yields subsistence with less labor and more certainty than the forest, and find it their interest, from time to time, to dispose of parts of their surplus and waste lands for the means of improving those they occupy, and of subsisting their families while they are preparing their farms. Since your last session, the northern tribes have sold to us the lands between the Connecticut Reserve and the former Indian boundary, and those on the Ohio, from the same boundary to the Rapids, and for a considerable depth inland. The Chickasaws and Cherokees have sold us the country between and adjacent to the two districts of Tennessee, and the Creeks the residue of their lands in the fork of Ocmulgee, up to the Ulcofauhatche. The three former purchases are important, inasmuch as they consolidate disjoined parts of our settled country, and render their intercourse secure; and the second particularly so, as, with the small point on the river, which we expect is by this time ceded by the Piankeshaws, it completes our possession of the whole of both banks of the Ohio, from its source to near its mouth, and the navigation of that river is thereby rendered for ever safe to our citizens settled and settling on its extensive waters. The purchase from the Creeks too has been for some time particularly interesting to the State of Georgia.

The several treaties which have been mentioned will be submitted to both Houses of Congress for the exercise of their respective functions.

Deputations, now on their way to the seat of Government, from various nations of Indians inhabiting the Missouri and other parts beyond the Mississippi, come charged with assurances of their satisfaction with the new relations in which they are placed with us, of their dispositions to cultivate our peace and friendship, and their desire to enter into commercial intercourse with us. A state of our progress in exploring the principal rivers of that country, and of the information respecting them hitherto obtained, will be communicated so soon as we shall receive some further relations which we have reason shortly to expect.

The receipts at the Treasury during the year ending on the 30th day of September last, have exceeded the sum of thirteen millions of dollars, which, with not quite five millions in the Treasury at the beginning of the year, have enabled us, after meeting other demands, to pay nearly two millions of the debt contracted under the British treaty and convention, upwards of four millions of principal of the public debt, and four millions of interest. These payments, with those which had been made in three years and a half preceding, have extinguished of the funded debt nearly eighteen millions of principal.

Congress, by their act of November 10, 1803, authorized us to borrow $1,750,000, towards meeting the claims of our citizens, assumed by the convention with France. We have not, however, made use of this authority; because, the sum of four millions and a half, which remained in the Treasury on the same 30th day of September last, with the receipts which we may calculate on for the ensuing year, besides paying the annual sum of eight millions of dollars, appropriated to the funded debt, and meeting all the current demands which may be expected, will enable us to pay the whole sum of three millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, assumed by the French convention, and still leave us a surplus of nearly a million of dollars at our free disposal. Should you concur in the provisions of arms and armed vessels, recommended by the circumstances of the times, this surplus will furnish the means of doing so.

On the first occasion of addressing Congress, since, by the choice of my constituents, I have entered on a second term of administration, I embrace the opportunity to give this public assurance, that I will exert my best endeavors to administer faithfully the Executive Department, and will zealously co-operate with you in every measure which may tend to secure the liberty, property, and personal safety, of our fellow-citizens, and to consolidate the republican forms and principles of our Government.

In the course of your session, you shall receive all the aid which I can give, for the despatch of public business, and all the information necessary for your deliberations, of which the interests of our own country, and the confidence reposed in us by others, will admit a communication.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 3, 1805.

The Message was read and three hundred copies thereof ordered to be printed for the use of the Senate.

WEDNESDAY, December 4.

_Chaplain._

The Senate proceeded to the election of a Chaplain, on their part, in pursuance of the resolution of the two Houses, and the ballots being collected, were, for Doctor GANTT, 15; Bishop CLAGGETT, 5; Mr. MCCORMICK, 2. So the Reverend Doctor GANTT was elected a Chaplain to Congress, on the part of the Senate, during the present session.

MONDAY, December 9.

JAMES JACKSON, from the State of Georgia, attended.

JOHN ADAIR, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of Kentucky, in place of John Breckenridge, Esq., resigned, produced his credentials, which were read; and the oath prescribed by law having been administered, he took his seat in the Senate.

A confidential Message was received from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, as follows:

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

The depredations which have been committed on the commerce of the United States during a preceding war, by persons under the authority of Spain, are sufficiently known to all. These made it a duty to require from that Government indemnifications for our injured citizens; a convention was accordingly entered into between the Minister of the United States at Madrid, and the Minister of that Government for Foreign Affairs, by which it was agreed that spoliations committed by Spanish subjects, and carried into ports of Spain, should be paid for by that nation; and that those committed by French subjects, and carried into Spanish ports, should remain for further discussion. Before this convention was returned to Spain with our ratification, the transfer of Louisiana by France to the United States took place; an event as unexpected as disagreeable to Spain. From that moment she seemed to change her conduct and dispositions toward us. It was first manifested by her protest against the right of France to alienate Louisiana to us; which, however, was soon retracted, and the right confirmed: then high offence was manifested at the act of Congress establishing a collection district on the Mobile, although, by an authentic declaration, immediately made, it was expressly confined to our acknowledged limits; and she now refused to ratify the convention signed by her own Minister, under the eye of his sovereign, unless we would consent to alterations of its terms, which would have affected our claims against her for the spoliations by French subjects carried into Spanish ports.

To obtain justice, as well as to restore friendship, I thought a special mission advisable; and accordingly appointed James Monroe, Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, to repair to Madrid, and, in conjunction with our Minister resident there, to endeavor to procure a ratification of the former convention, and to come to an understanding with Spain as to the boundaries of Louisiana. It appeared at once that her policy was to reserve herself for events, and, in the mean time, to keep our differences in an undetermined state. This will be evident from the papers now communicated to you. After nearly five months of fruitless endeavor to bring them to some definite and satisfactory result, our ministers ended the conferences, without having been able to obtain indemnity for spoliations of any description, or any satisfaction as to the boundaries of Louisiana, other than a declaration that we had no rights eastward of the Iberville, and that our line to the west was one which would have left us but a string of land on that bank of the river Mississippi. Our injured citizens were thus left without any prospect of retribution from the wrong-doer; and, as to boundary, each party was to take its own course. That which they have chosen to pursue, will appear from the documents now communicated. They authorize the inference that it is their intention to advance on our possessions, until they shall be repressed by an opposing force. Considering that Congress alone is constitutionally invested with the power of changing our condition from peace to war, I have thought it my duty to await their authority for using force in any degree which could be avoided. I have barely instructed the officers stationed in the neighborhood of the aggressions, to protect our citizens from violence, to patrol within the borders actually delivered to us, and not to go out of them, but, when necessary to repel an inroad, or to rescue a citizen or his property; and the Spanish officers remaining at New Orleans are required to depart without further delay. It ought to be noted here, that since the late change in the state of affairs in Europe, Spain has ordered her cruisers and courts to respect our treaty with her.

The conduct of France, and the part she may take in the misunderstandings between the United States and Spain, are too important to be unconsidered. She was prompt and decided in her declarations, that our demands on Spain for French spoliations carried into Spanish ports were included in the settlement between the United States and France: she took at once the ground that she had acquired no right from Spain, and had meant to deliver us none, eastward of the Iberville; her silence as to the western boundary, leaving us to infer her opinion might be against Spain in that quarter. Whatever direction she might mean to give to these differences, it does not appear that she has contemplated their proceeding to actual rupture, or that, at the date of our last advices from Paris, her Government had any suspicion of the hostile attitude Spain had taken here; on the contrary, we have reason to believe that she was disposed to effect a settlement on a plan analogous to what our ministers had proposed, and so comprehensive as to remove, as far as possible, the grounds of future collision and controversy on the eastern as well as western side of the Mississippi.

The present crisis in Europe is favorable for pressing such a settlement, and not a moment should be lost in availing ourselves of it. Should it pass unimproved, our situation would become much more difficult. Formal war is not necessary--it is not probable it will follow; but the protection of our citizens, the spirit and honor of our country, require that force should be interposed to a certain degree. It will probably contribute to advance the object of peace.

But the course to be pursued will require the command of means which it belongs to Congress exclusively to yield or to deny. To them I communicate every fact material for their information, and the documents necessary to enable them to judge for themselves. To their wisdom, then, I look for the course I am to pursue; and will pursue, with sincere zeal, that which they shall approve.

TH. JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 6, 1805.

The Message was read, and ordered to lie for consideration.

TUESDAY, December 10.

ANDREW MOORE, from the State of Virginia, attended.

MONDAY, December 16.

GEORGE CLINTON, Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate, attended.

JOHN SMITH, from the State of Ohio, also attended.

FRIDAY, December 20.

JOHN SMITH, from the State of New York, attended.

_Trade with St. Domingo._

Agreeably to notice given on the 18th instant, Mr. LOGAN asked leave to bring in a bill to suspend the commercial intercourse between the United States of America and the French island of St. Domingo.

Mr. L. observed that the attention of Congress had been called to this subject by the President of the United States, at the commencement of the last session of Congress, in the following words:

“While noticing the irregularities committed on the ocean by others, those on our own part should not be omitted, nor left unprovided for. Complaints have been received, that persons residing within the United States have taken on themselves to arm merchant vessels, and to force a commerce into certain ports and countries in defiance of the laws of those countries. That individuals should undertake to wage private war, independently of the authority of their country, cannot be permitted in a well-ordered society. Its tendency to produce aggressions on the laws and rights of other nations, and to endanger the peace of our own, is so obvious, that I doubt not you will adopt measures for restraining it effectually in future.”

Mr. L. observed that the commerce as carried on by the citizens of the United States is not only a violation of the law of nations, which the United States as an independent nation is bound to obey, but is in direct violation of a treaty made in 1800, between the United States and France--a treaty on the most liberal principles as to the rights of neutrals, and highly advantageous and honorable to both nations.

To remedy the evils complained of, a law was enacted during the last session of Congress to regulate the clearance of armed merchant vessels; this act has operated as a deception, as, since the publication of the law, the trade with St. Domingo has been carried on to as great if not greater extent than formerly. The only merit of the arming law is, that in a national view it removes the responsibility from the individual who may be engaged in the trade, to the Government by which it is authorized.

Mr. ADAMS.--Mr. President: Had the gentleman who asks leave to introduce this bill, assigned any new reasons as the foundation of his motion, whatever my opinion might have been upon their merits, I should not think it proper to combat them at this time; but the object of the bill is so simple, that its details are immaterial. Its purpose is totally to prohibit a branch of our commerce, which at the last session of the Legislature was proved to be of great importance to the country. Unless, therefore, a majority of the Senate should be of opinion that the bill ought to pass, it appears to me that the present is the stage at which it ought to be arrested: since the mere discussion of the question, and pendency of the measure before Congress, may have an unfavorable effect upon the commercial interest, or at least injuriously affect individual merchants, in the course of their affairs.

Mr. JACKSON seconded Mr. LOGAN’s motion, and in reply to Mr. ADAMS said, that he wished Mr. LOGAN to make it an annual motion, as Mr. Sawbridge had, in the Parliament of England, to reduce septennial Parliaments, but with more effect, until the trade so highly dishonorable to national character was annihilated. As to Mr. ADAMS’s observations that the bill was not allowed to be brought in last session, and that he had heard no new arguments, he would answer the gentleman by asking what new arguments had been advanced on the bill to prohibit the importation of slaves, when leave was given two days since to bring in the bill, and the same arguments had been rung in our ears by Quakers and others, ever since the constitution had been in operation, and not a new one had been produced. He said that the day would come when this dishonorable traffic would be rued by the United States; that day must arrive when a general peace would take place, when the present hostilities must cease; that it must and would then become the interest of every nation of Europe, having colonies in the West Indies, to extirpate this horde or ship them off to some other place. That the United States, by affording them succor, arms, ammunition, and provisions, must be considered by them as their allies--their supporters and their protectors. That he believed the United States would be viewed in this light by the French Government and by themselves, and that they would demand and expect us to grant them an asylum as allies and protectors, and send them to our coast. This was no novelty; and he had received information from a late celebrated French General, given in a public company at the city of Washington where he boarded, and the General was one who dined there, that arrangements had been made, if General Le Clerc had been victorious, to send those brigands to the Southern States. This was a melancholy subject for South Carolina and Georgia, and one of those brigands introduced into the Southern States was worse than a hundred importations of blacks from Africa, and more dangerous to the United States.

Mr. S. SMITH.--We are told that a celebrated French General, since here, has said, that had General Le Clerc succeeded, he meant to have landed all the blacks of St. Domingo on our southern shores. This may be--but, sir, it is not probable. If such, however, had been his intention, it could not have arisen from resentment on account of our commerce, for we had been of the greatest utility to him and his army, and had then carried on no commerce that was not fully sanctioned by France. Nay, I might say, that owing to the supplies from the United States, the colony of St. Domingo had been preserved to the mother country until the arrival of General Le Clerc. Unless, Mr. President, the honorable mover shall produce some new information, I shall be under the necessity of voting against leave to bring in this bill.

Mr. MITCHILL, in a speech of considerable length and detail, stated his objections to giving leave.

During the last session of Congress, the whole of the intercourse with St. Domingo had undergone a full investigation. While the bill regulating the clearance of armed merchant vessels was under discussion, that part of our foreign commerce had been minutely examined. It would be remembered that the bill had been committed, recommitted, amended, and modified, with the utmost labor and skill. Besides the talents which the Senate afforded, all the sources of Executive information had been drained, to aid their researches. And the letters of the British and French Ministers, complaining of the conduct of our merchants in forcing this trade, were opened to our view. The crude material of the bill had been hammered at and worked upon so elaborately, as to have at last received the complete burnish of a law. With all the knowledge that could be derived from so many quarters, the bill was at length passed to check the violence of our navigators, and to restrain the adventurous zeal of our merchants. The provisions of this law were such as it was deemed just and proper that a neutral nation should take. And this was a liberal condescension to the wishes of the two great maritime and belligerent powers, without forgetting the respect that we owed to our own. With both these he wished to cultivate peace and good understanding; but to neither of them would he consent to yield any portion of our neutral and national rights.

The difficulties exhibited in the ministerial correspondence, Mr. M. said, were thus removed. With a promptitude that deserved to be admired, Congress interposed its authority, for the purpose at once of doing justice to our neighbors, regulating our commerce, and tranquillizing the Mexican seas. With these salutary provisions, he believed the two complaining nations had been satisfied. At least we had done so much that they ought in all reason to be content. Congress had already manifested a due regard to all that France and Great Britain had offered upon the branch of West Indian commerce, and in the true spirit of good neighborhood, and correct principle, had modified and restricted the intercourse with Hayti. And so fully did the Europeans seem to acquiesce in our conduct, that he had not heard any further remonstrances made by either of them about it. He thought the observations of the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. ADAMS) very much in point. Under a conviction that we had done as much as public faith and national honor required, he had given his vote against the introduction of a similar bill during the last session. Nothing had occurred from that time to this day, to alter the circumstances of the case, or to make it necessary for him to change his conduct.

For my own part, said Mr. M., I think the St. Domingo commerce is no great thing in itself. We might do exceedingly well without it; and I am very far from approving the means by which it has been carried on; but I dislike the idea of forbidding it, at the mandate of a foreign power. Like our Revolutionary patriots, let us put our foot here, and hence refuse to budge. It is not for us to legislate at the nod or bidding of any nation. I hope we understand our business better than to register edicts for them; while we pay due respect to others, it becomes us also to respect ourselves. The precedent is a dangerous one. If we agree to interdict this intercourse, we may, at the next session, be informed that we ought to withdraw from some other important port or region. When we are found to be so complying to one nation, we shall be subjected to a like request or menace from another, until, sir, our flag shall be furled in one foreign port after another, and nothing be left us but the coasting trade at home. The sad consequences have been ably portrayed by the gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. SAMUEL SMITH.)

Mr. HILLHOUSE said, he hoped the question would be taken by yeas and nays, because he confidently expected there would be a great majority of the Senate opposed to giving leave to bring in the bill, for he considered the measure not only as improper, but as ill-timed.

The gentleman from Georgia has told us that the conflict in St. Domingo is that of masters attempting to reclaim their slaves, and that if the United States suffer the trade to be carried on, we shall be considered as aiding and upholding those slaves, and give offence to France. And that when peace shall take place in Europe, the French will transport those negroes by thousands to the shores of South Carolina and Georgia, to the endangering the lives of the citizens of those States. This Mr. H. considered as a bugbear, with which we ought not to be frightened, for, as to the warfare in St. Domingo being a mere conflict between master and slave, it will be well remembered that the French Republic long ago liberated all the slaves in that island, and declared them free. As to the citizens of the United States carrying arms and military stores to the enemies of France, the law of nations has declared the penalty, which is a forfeiture of the property, and the United States can in no way be implicated thereby. And as to France landing those negroes on our shores, he said there was power, and he believed there would be found a disposition in the people of the United States to repel such an insult; for if we cannot prevent France or any other power from invading our territory and insulting our national honor, by landing their outcasts upon our shores, we shall no longer deserve the name of an independent nation.

Mr. JACKSON, in reply to Mr. SMITH and Mr. MITCHILL, confessed he had seen no official document, other than what the honorable mover had read, but he had seen at Newcastle, in Delaware, a whole fleet bound to St. Domingo, to force a trade which even captains of vessels, true Americans, cried shame on. That the honorable gentleman had called out, why had not the mover brought forward a resolution against Britain or some other power who had committed depredations on our commerce! Mr. J. said he wished to begin here, by preventing our own merchants from doing injury to other nations, and then to strike at those who insulted us. He for himself was prepared and willing to attack the first power who had insulted us with far more superior weapons than arming our ships. He was an agricultural man, and would suffer with the flour-makers; but he would call on the honorable gentleman either from Maryland, from New York, from Massachusetts, or Connecticut, to strike at Great Britain or any other nation who had injured us, by a resolution of prohibition of trade or intercourse, and he was the man who would second it and keep it on till the injuring nation should cry _peccavi_--keep it on one twelvemonth, and you would see them all at your feet. Look at the Legislature of Jamaica petitioning their Governor from time to time for American intercourse. Look at Trinidad, the same, in a state of famine. Sir, we have no favors to ask the nations of the earth; they must ask them of us, or their West India colonies must starve.

That, however, with respect to documents, he would inform the gentleman from Maryland, that he had seen, though not official, a letter from General Ferrand, Governor of St. Domingo, and which was published in all the principal newspapers of the United States, complaining to the French Government on this subject, and laying all the blame to the American Government, if not in direct, in the most severe indirect terms. That as to the total separation of the self-created Emperor and nation of Hayti, and its independence of the parent country, and under which gentlemen declared our rights of trade founded on the laws of nations--the late attack on that General by the Emperor proved it did not exist; he was defeated, his army scattered and driven to the mountains; that Ferrand held the island as French Governor for the French nation, and the separation was not such as to warrant the arguments used for a right to trade. It would be a fatal argument used against us as respected our Southern States by other powers. On the same grounds, a parcel of runaways and outcasts from South Carolina and Georgia, to the amount of some hundreds, now collected on or near the Okefonokee[28] swamp in Georgia, might be termed an independent society; or if an insurrection took place in those States, the rebellious horde, on creating an emperor, be supplied with arms and ammunition, as a separate and independent nation. This, as the honorable gentleman from Connecticut had been pleased to term his fears bugbears, might be no bugbear to him, safe and remote from the scene of action, near New Haven; but it was a serious bugbear to him, and would be to the whole southern country, where the horrid scenes of that island would be reacted, their property destroyed, and their families massacred.

After a few replicatory remarks from Mr. LOGAN, the consideration of the subject was postponed to Monday.

TUESDAY, January 7, 1806.

JAMES TURNER, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of North Carolina, for the term of six years, from the third of March, 1805, produced his credentials, which were read, and the oath prescribed by law having been administered, he took his seat in the Senate.

MONDAY, January 13.

_Hamet Caramalli, ex-Bashaw of Tripoli._

The following Message was received from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:_

I lay before Congress the application of Hamet Caramalli, elder brother of the reigning Bashaw of Tripoli, soliciting from the United States attention to his services and sufferings in the late war against that State. And, in order to possess them of the ground on which that application stands, the facts shall be stated according to the views and information of the Executive.

During the war with Tripoli, it was suggested that Hamet Caramalli, elder brother of the reigning Bashaw, and driven by him from his throne, meditated the recovery of his inheritance, and that a concert of action with us was desirable to him. We considered that concerted operations by those who have a common enemy were entirely justifiable, and might produce effects favorable to both without binding either to guarantee the objects of the other. But the distance of the scene, the difficulties of communication, and the uncertainty of our information, inducing the less confidence in the measure, it was committed to our agents as one which might be resorted to, if it promised to promote our success.

Mr. Eaton, however, (our late Consul,) on his return from the Mediterranean, possessing personal knowledge of the scene, and having confidence in the effect of a joint operation, we authorized Commodore Barron, then proceeding with his squadron, to enter into an understanding with Hamet, if he should deem it useful; and as it was represented that he would need some aids of arms and ammunition, and even of money, he was authorized to furnish them to a moderate extent, according to the prospect of utility to be expected from it. In order to avail him of the advantages of Mr. Eaton’s knowledge of circumstances, an occasional employment was provided for the latter as an agent for the Navy in that sea. Our expectation was, that an intercourse should be kept up between the ex-Bashaw and the Commodore, that while the former moved on by land, our squadron should proceed with equal pace, so as to arrive at their destination together, and to attack the common enemy by land and sea at the same time. The instructions of June 6th to Commodore Barron show that a co-operation only was intended, and by no means a union of our object with the fortune of the ex-Bashaw; and the Commodore’s letters of March 22d and May 19th, prove that he had the most correct idea of our intentions. His verbal instructions, indeed, to Mr. Eaton and Captain Hull, if the expressions are accurately committed to writing by those gentlemen, do not limit the extent of his co-operation as rigorously as he probably intended; but it is certain, from the ex-Bashaw’s letter of January 3d, written when he was proceeding to join Mr. Eaton, and in which he says, “your operations should be carried on by sea, mine by land,” that he left the position in which he was, with a proper idea of the nature of the co-operation. If Mr. Eaton’s subsequent convention should appear to bring forward other objects, his letter of April 29th and May 1st, views this convention but as provisional; the second article, as he expressly states, guarding it against any ill effect, and his letter of June 30th confirms this construction.

In the event it was found, that, after placing the ex-Bashaw in possession of Derne, one of the most important cities and provinces of the country, where he had resided himself as governor, he was totally unable to command any resources, or to bear any part in co-operation with us. This hope was then at an end, and we certainly had never contemplated, nor were we prepared to land an army of our own, or to raise, pay, or subsist, an army of Arabs to march from Derne to Tripoli, and to carry on a land war at such a distance from our resources. Our means and our authority were merely naval, and that such were the expectations of Hamet, his letter of June 29th is an unequivocal acknowledgment. While, therefore, an impression from the capture of Derne might still operate at Tripoli, and an attack on that place from our squadron was daily expected, Colonel Lear thought it the best moment to listen to overtures of peace, then made by the Bashaw. He did so, and while urging provisions for the United States, he paid attention also to the interests of Hamet, but was able to effect nothing more than to engage the restitution of his family, and even the persevering in this demand, suspended for some time the conclusion of the treaty.

In operations at such distance, it becomes necessary to leave much to the discretion of the agents employed, but events may still turn up beyond the limits of that discretion. Unable in such a case to consult his government, a zealous citizen will act as he believes that would direct him, were it apprised of the circumstances, and will take on himself the responsibility. In all these cases the purity and patriotism of the motives should shield the agent from blame, and even secure a sanction where the error is not too injurious. Should it be thought by any, that the verbal instructions said to have been given by Commodore Barron to Mr. Eaton amount to a stipulation that the United States should place Hamet Caramalli on the throne of Tripoli, a stipulation so entirely unauthorized, so far beyond our views, and so onerous, could not be sanctioned by our Government, or should Hamet Caramalli, contrary to the evidence of his letters of January 3d and June 29th, be thought to have left the position which he now seems to regret, under a mistaken expectation that we were at all events to place him on his throne, on an appeal to the liberality of the nation, something equivalent to the replacing him in his former situation might be worthy its consideration.

A nation, by establishing a character of liberality and magnanimity, gains in the friendship and respect of others more than the worth of mere money. This appeal is now made by Hamet Caramalli to the United States. The ground he has taken being different, not only from our views, but from those expressed by himself on former occasions, Mr. Eaton was desired to state whether any verbal communications passed from him to Hamet, which had varied what he saw in writing. His answer of December 5th, is herewith transmitted, and has rendered it still more necessary, that, in presenting to the Legislature the application of Hamet, I should present them at the same time an exact statement of the views and proceedings of the Executive, through this whole business, that they may clearly understand the ground on which we are placed. It is accompanied by all the papers which bear any relation to the principles of the co-operation, and which can inform their judgment in deciding on the application of Hamet Caramalli.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 13, 1806.

The Message and documents therein referred to were read, and ordered to lie for consideration,

And on motion, the House adjourned.

TUESDAY, January 14.

_Inhabitants of Galliopolis._

Mr. WORTHINGTON presented the petition of a number of French settlers of Galliopolis, grantees, on the 3d of March, 1795, of 20,000 acres of land, situated on the Ohio River, and nearly opposite the mouth of Little Sandusky, on condition that they settle the same within five years from the date of the letters patent, and stating that they, being ignorant of this condition, are liable to lose their lands, although for the space of four years they have paid the taxes thereon, and praying the interposition of Congress in their behalf; and the petition was read and referred to Messrs. WORTHINGTON, SMITH of Tennessee, and ADAIR, to consider and report thereon.

FRIDAY, January 17.

_Aggressions on Commerce._

On motion, the galleries were cleared, and the doors of the Senate Chamber were closed; and, after the considerations of the confidential business,

The following Message was received from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

In my Message to both Houses of Congress at the opening of their present session, I submitted to their attention, among other subjects, the oppression of our commerce and navigation by the irregular practices of armed vessels, public and private; and by the introduction of new principles, derogatory of the rights of neutrals, and unacknowledged by the usages of nations.

The memorials of several bodies of merchants of the United States are now communicated, and will develop these principles and practices, which are producing the most ruinous effects on our lawful commerce and navigation.

The right of a neutral to carry on commercial intercourse with every part of the dominions of a belligerent, permitted by the laws of the country, (with the exception of blockaded ports and contraband of war,) was believed to have been decided between Great Britain and the United States, by the sentence of their commissioners mutually appointed to decide on that and other questions of difference between the two nations, and by the actual payment of the damages awarded by them against Great Britain for the infractions of that right. When, therefore, it was perceived that the same principle was revived, with others more novel, and extending the injury, instructions were given to the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at the Court of London, and remonstrances duly made by him on the subject, as will appear by documents transmitted herewith. These were followed by a partial and temporary suspension only, without any disavowal of the principle. He has, therefore, been instructed to urge this subject anew, to bring it more fully to the bar of reason, and to insist on rights too evident and too important to be surrendered. In the mean time the evil is proceeding, under adjudications founded on the principle which is denied. Under these circumstances the subject presents itself for the consideration of Congress.

On the impressment of our seamen, our remonstrances have never been intermitted. A hope existed at one moment of an arrangement which might have been submitted to, but it soon passed away, and the practice, though relaxed at times in the distant seas, had been constantly pursued in those in our neighborhood. The grounds on which the reclamations on this subject have been urged, will appear in an extract from instructions to our minister at London now communicated.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 17, 1806.

The message and document therein referred to were in part read, and ordered to lie for consideration.

_Purchase of Florida._

A confidential message from the House of Representatives, by Messrs. BIDWELL and EARLY, two of their members, as follows:

Mr. PRESIDENT: We are directed by the House of Representatives, in confidence, to bring to the Senate a bill, entitled “An act making provision for defraying any extraordinary expenses attending the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations;” in which they request the concurrence of the Senate.

The bill was read and passed to the second reading.

_Ordered_, That the message and bill last read, be considered confidential, and that secrecy be observed by the members and officers of the Senate.

FRIDAY, January 24.

JAMES A. BAYARD, appointed a Senator for the State of Delaware, for the term of six years, commencing on the fourth of March last, produced his credentials, which were read; and, the oath prescribed by law having been administered, he took his seat in the Senate.

FRIDAY, January 31.

_Purchase of Florida._

The third reading of the bill, entitled “An act making provision for defraying any extraordinary expenses attending the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations,” was resumed; and, on the question to amend the bill, as follows: After the words “United States,” sec. 1, insert “for the purpose of obtaining by negotiation, or otherwise, as he may deem most expedient, the free navigation of the river St. Lawrence, as His Britannic Majesty’s territory, lying south and east thereof, or any other territory lying east of the Mississippi, and south of the aforesaid river St. Lawrence not owned or possessed by citizens of the United States.”

It was determined in the negative--yeas 10, nays 21, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adams, Bayard, Bradley, Hillhouse, Pickering, Plumer, Smith of Vermont, Tracy, White, and Wright.

NAYS.--Messrs. Adair, Anderson, Baldwin, Condit, Fenner, Gaillard, Gilman, Howland, Kitchel, Logan, Maclay, Mitchill, Moore, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Smith of Ohio, Smith of Tennessee, Sumter, Thruston, Turner, and Worthington.

WEDNESDAY, February 5.

The PRESIDENT laid before the Senate the report of the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund, stating that the measures which have been authorized by the Board subsequent to their report of 5th February, 1805, so far as the same have been completed, are fully detailed in the report of the Secretary of the Treasury to the Board, dated the 4th of the present month; and in the statements therein referred to, which are herewith transmitted, and prayed to be considered as part of the report. And the report was read, and ordered to lie for consideration.

Mr. SMITH of Maryland, from the committee appointed the 15th of January last, on that part of the Message of the President of the United States which relates to the spoliation of our commerce on the high seas, and informs us of new principles assumed by the British Courts of Admiralty, as a pretext for the condemnation of our vessels in their prize courts, made report, and the report was read, and ordered to lie for consideration.

The motion, that it be

_Resolved_, That a committee be appointed to inquire why the expenditures in the Navy Department, for the year 1805, have so far exceeded the appropriations for the same, and report thereon to the Senate;

was resumed and adopted; and ordered that it be referred to the committee appointed on the 28th January last, to make inquiry into the specific expenditures of the respective departments, to report thereon.

The bill making provision for the compensation of witnesses who attended the trial of the impeachment of Samuel Chase, was read the second time, and ordered to the third reading.

THURSDAY, February 6.

_Purchase of Florida._

The Senate resumed the third reading of the bill, entitled “An act making provision for defraying any extraordinary expenses attending the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations;” and,

On motion that the bill, and message from the House of Representatives accompanying the same, be referred to a select committee, with instructions to inquire and report to the Senate their opinion, whether West Florida was or was not included in the cession of Louisiana to the United States by the treaty with France, concluded on the 30th of April, 1803, together with the evidence upon which such an opinion may be supported; it was determined in the negative--yeas 8, nays 23, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adair, Adams, Bayard, Hillhouse, Pickering, Plumer, Tracy, and White.

NAYS.--Messrs. Anderson, Baldwin, Bradley, Condit, Fenner, Gaillard, Gilman, Howland, Kitchel, Logan, Maclay, Mitchill, Moore, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Smith of Tennessee, Smith of Vermont, Stone, Sumter, Thruston, Turner, Worthington, and Wright.

On motion to postpone the further consideration of the bill at this time, and to take up the following resolution:

_Resolved_, That the President be requested to lay before the Senate the instructions given to Messrs. Monroe and Pinckney, late Ministers of the United States to the Court of Spain, together with the facts and arguments exhibited by them, in their negotiation, in support of their claims to territories eastward of the Mississippi, as far as the river Perdido, and of territory on the western side of the Mississippi, as far as the Rio Bravo; the essay of Mr. Cevallos, the Minister of His Catholic Majesty, in answer to our Ministers, in relation to the western limits; and any other documents in his possession, tending to establish the rightful boundaries of Louisiana:

It passed in the negative.

FRIDAY, February 7.

_Purchase of Florida._

The Senate resumed the third reading of the bill, entitled “An act making provision for defraying any extraordinary expenses attending the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations;” and,

On motion to postpone the further consideration of the bill at this time, and take up the following resolution:

_Resolved_, That the President of the United States be requested to renew our negotiations with the Spanish Government, in such a manner as may bring every subject in controversy between the two countries to a speedy termination, equally advantageous to both:

It passed in the negative.

On motion to strike out of the bill the words “two millions,” section one, and in lieu thereof, insert “one million;” a division was called for, and the question on striking out was determined in the negative--yeas 13, nays 18, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adair, Adams, Bayard, Bradley, Gilman, Hillhouse, Logan, Mitchill, Pickering, Plumer, Stone, Tracy, and White.

NAYS.--Messrs. Anderson, Baldwin, Condit, Fenner, Gaillard, Howland, Kitchel, Maclay, Moore, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Smith of Tennessee, Smith of Vermont, Sumter, Thruston, Turner, Worthington, and Wright.

On motion to amend the bill by inserting after the word “applied,” in the first section, the words “for the purchase from the Spanish Government of their territories lying on the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, and eastward of the river Mississippi,” it passed in the negative--yeas 9, nays 20, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adair, Adams, Bayard, Gilman, Hillhouse, Pickering, Plumer, Tracy, and White.

NAYS.--Messrs. Anderson, Baldwin, Bradley, Condit, Fenner, Gaillard, Howland, Kitchel, Maclay, Moore, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Smith of Tennessee, Smith of Vermont, Stone, Sumter, Thruston, Turner, Worthington, and Wright.

On motion to postpone the consideration of the bill until Monday next, it passed in the negative.

On motion to agree to the final passage of the bill, it passed in the affirmative--yeas 17, nays 11, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Anderson, Baldwin, Condit, Fenner, Gaillard, Howland, Kitchel, Maclay, Moore, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Smith of Tennessee, Smith of Vermont, Thruston, Turner, Worthington, and Wright.

NAYS.--Messrs. Adair, Adams, Bayard, Gilman, Hillhouse, Pickering, Plumer, Stone, Sumter, Tracy, and White.

So it was _Resolved_, That this bill pass.[29]

MONDAY, February 10.

The Senate resumed, as in Committee of the Whole, the consideration of the amendments reported to the bill to suspend the commercial intercourse between the United States and the French island of St. Domingo; and, having amended the report, it was in part adopted, and the bill was reported to the House accordingly; and the bill having been further amended,

_Ordered_, That it pass to the third reading as amended.

A message from the House of Representatives informed the Senate that the House have passed a bill, entitled “An act declaring the assent of Congress to an act of the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina;” a bill, entitled “An act declaring the consent of Congress to an act of the State of South Carolina, passed on the 21st day of December, 1804, so far as the same relates to authorizing the City Council of Charleston to impose and collect a duty on the tonnage of vessels from foreign ports;” also, a bill, entitled “An act to regulate and fix the compensation of officers of the Senate and House of Representatives;” in which bills they desire the concurrence of the Senate.

The bills brought up for consideration were read, and ordered to the second reading.

Mr. WRIGHT, from the committee to whom was referred, on the 31st of January last, the bill for the protection and indemnification of American seamen, reported it without amendment.

Mr. THRUSTON, from the committee to whom was referred, on the 5th instant, the bill, entitled “An act for altering the time for holding the circuit court in the district of North Carolina,” reported the bill with amendments; which were read, and ordered to lie for consideration.

WEDNESDAY, February 12.

_British Aggressions._

The Senate resumed the report of the committee, of the fifth instant, on that part of the Message of the President of the United States, which relates to the spoliation of our commerce on the high seas, and of the new principles assumed by the British Courts of Admiralty, as a pretext for the condemnation of our vessels, in their prize courts, to wit:

1. _Resolved_, That the capture and condemnation, under the orders of the British Government, and adjudications of their Courts of Admiralty, of American vessels and their cargoes, on the pretext of their being employed in a trade with the enemies of Great Britain, prohibited in time of peace, is an unprovoked aggression upon the property of the citizens of these United States, a violation of their neutral rights, and an encroachment upon their national independence.

2. _Resolved_, That the President of the United States be requested to demand and insist upon the restoration of the property of their citizens, captured and condemned on the pretext of its being employed in a trade with the enemies of Great Britain, prohibited in time of peace; and upon the indemnification of such American citizens, for their losses and damages sustained by these captures and condemnations; and to enter into such arrangements with the British Government, on this and all other differences subsisting between the two nations, and particularly respecting the impressment of American seamen, as may be consistent with the honor and interests of the United States, and manifest their earnest desire to obtain for themselves and their citizens, by amicable negotiation, that justice to which they are entitled.

3. _Resolved_, That it is expedient to prohibit by law the importation into the United States of any of the following goods, wares, or merchandise, being the growth, produce, or manufacture, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or the dependencies thereof, that is to say: woollens, linens, hats, nails, looking glasses, rum, hardwares, slate, salt, coal, boots, shoes, ribbons, silks, and plated and glass wares. The said prohibition to commence from the ---- day of ----, unless previously thereto equitable arrangements shall be made between the two Governments, on the differences subsisting between them; and to continue until such arrangements shall be agreed upon and settled.

And, on the question to adopt the first resolution, as reported by the committee, it was determined unanimously in the affirmative--yeas 28.

THURSDAY, February 13.

_British Aggressions._

The report of the committee, made on the 5th instant, on that part of the Message of the President of the United States which relates to the spoliation of our commerce, and of the new principles assumed by the British Courts of Admiralty, was resumed.

Mr. ISRAEL SMITH said that he was extremely sorry that he could not bring his mind to assent to the second resolution; because he viewed it of great importance that there should be unanimity upon a subject of this nature. He was not opposed to it from any constitutional objection, arising from a belief that the Senate had no right to give their advice and consent to the Executive as to the course and conditions upon which they desired that an accommodation might be brought about; but he was opposed to it from the peculiar impropriety of so doing, deduced from the whole circumstances of the case, as it now presented itself for consideration. It would be recollected by the Senate, that many of our complaints against the British Government were of long continuance; that they had been the subject of our pointed and repeated remonstrances, and in a particular manner, the impressment of American seamen; that, on a former occasion, they had committed vast spoliations on our commerce, not under the sanction of the laws of nations, as their subsequent transactions with our Government have acknowledged; but under the authority of the particular orders of their Government, thereby subjecting the property of our merchants upon the high seas, not only to the restrictions and forfeitures incurred by the law of nations, but also exposing it to all the vexations and forfeitures growing out of the caprice of British orders of capture. The late encroachments on our rights as a neutral nation, and which are now the subject of consideration, are of a nature similar to those we have before experienced, and proceed from the same unwarrantable cause; and, further, are continued in full force and operation at the very moment our Government is pressing upon their consideration the injustice of their proceedings, by argument too strong and convincing to admit of doubt. And how are they answered? By procrastination, and hints that the necessity of the case is a sufficient justification. The Executive, indignant at this evasion, and despairing of redress by any further appeal to their justice and magnanimity, has turned to the National Legislature, and informed them that what remained to be done on this interesting subject must rest on the wisdom and firmness of Congress.

Mr. ANDERSON.--Mr. President: In discussing the merits of the resolution now under consideration, it will be necessary that we keep constantly in view the great principle of the one which has already passed this House by a unanimous vote, because this second resolution is predicated upon the principle of the first. In the first we declare, that the capture and condemnation, under the orders of the British Government, and adjudication of their Courts of Admiralty, of American vessels and their cargoes, on the pretext of their being employed in a trade with the enemies of Great Britain, prohibited in time of peace, is an unprovoked aggression upon the property of the citizens of the United States, a violation of their neutral rights, and an encroachment upon their national independence.

In order to show that the ground we have taken is correct, I will take leave to refer to a book (entitled An Examination of the British Doctrine which subjects to capture a neutral trade, not open in time of peace) ascribed to a gentleman high in office, who has deservedly acquired great celebrity in the political world. It will be found that the principle contended for in the resolution I have cited, obtained as early as the first rise of regular commerce, and was even reduced to system as early as 1338. To this doctrine Great Britain acceded by treaty with Sweden, in 1655, and afterwards, in 1674, she actually claimed and enjoyed the benefit of a free trade, she being at that time in peace and the Dutch in war with France. With what kind of pretext can Great Britain pretend to deprive us of the exercise of the very rights which she herself has claimed and exercised, upon precisely the same principles? Besides, those neutral rights have, by constant and very long usage, become the established law of nations, and have from time to time been ingrafted into many treaties even where Great Britain was herself a party. Upon this doctrine, thus sustained, we request the President to demand and insist upon the restoration of the property of our citizens, captured and condemned on the pretext of its being employed in a trade with the enemies of Great Britain, prohibited in time of peace, and upon the indemnification of such American citizens for their losses and damages sustained by these captures and condemnations.

It has been objected that the language of this resolution is too strong, that the words _demand_ and _insist_ go too far; and that the absolute restoration of our vessels, &c., will, by these words being retained, be made _sine qua non_ of an accommodation with Great Britain. If, sir, we were to express ourselves in less forcible language, we should, in my opinion, subvert our own principles, and recede from the high ground we have taken, which might eventually radically destroy our neutral rights, and completely paralyze our commerce.

The words _demand_ and _insist_ are diplomatic, and as such most proper to be used, and the more so, as they seem to be appropriate to the principle of the first resolution. But, Mr. President, the latter part of this resolution, by which indemnification may be made, and new arrangements entered into with Great Britain, so far ameliorates those precedent words that the President will possess ample powers, according to a true exposition of the whole taken together, and he will not, in my opinion, be trammelled in the manner the gentleman from Ohio conceives. In settling national differences, it has ever been necessary in some points to give a little, and in others to take, according to the peculiar circumstances upon which the negotiation might happen to turn; either upon a point of national honor, or an interesting point of national commerce, or both so connected as not well to be severed.

Mr. MITCHELL said he hoped the resolution would be adopted in its full extent. On this subject he differed wholly from the honorable gentleman from Vermont, (Mr. ISRAEL SMITH.)

As the proposition recommended to the Senate by the select committee was now before them in its most broad and extensive sense, he should apply his remarks to the principle, rather than to the form of the resolution under debate.

Toward the end of 1803, more than half the articles of the treaty between our Government and that of Great Britain had ceased. Since that event commercial intercourse had been carried on by the two nations, under their respective laws, without any convention or pact between them. Inconveniences had been experienced in various ways from that time to the present. An attempt indeed had been made two years ago to remove a considerable part of them by a repeal of the countervailing duties; but that effort not corresponding with the feelings of the nation, had been relinquished.

The war which was rekindled in Europe soon after the expiration of the temporary articles of the treaty had embarrassed the commerce of the great maritime powers, and thrown into the hands of neutrals an extraordinary proportion of the colonial and carrying trade. The citizens of the United States, among others, had profited by the opportunity, and engaged extensively in this neutral commerce. But it had been the policy of Great Britain, the strongest maritime nation among the belligerents, to interrupt this intercourse of neutrals with the colonies of her colonies, as if they had been her own colonies. A series of outrageous proceedings had been the result; such as had excited the most lively indignation against them from Maine to Georgia, and roused the nation with one voice to resist and repel them.

Mr. BAYARD.--Mr. President, if there be any objection to the resolution now before us, it is that it shelters the Executive Government from that responsibility as to its measures which properly ought to attach to it. The duty prescribed by the resolution is of an Executive nature, and the President is charged with the care of those interests for which the resolution provides. By prescribing a course of conduct to the Executive, we release that branch of Government from responsibility as to the event, and take it upon ourselves. But, sir, though I feel this objection, yet at the present moment it is outweighed by other considerations. The state of our public affairs is critical, and at such a time I think it becomes every branch and member of the Government to co-operate with cordiality and zeal in support of each other, and to strive to do more rather than less than their respective duty.

The design of this resolution, sir, presents itself to my mind in a very different point of view from that in which it appears to the gentleman from Vermont, (Mr. SMITH.) That honorable member is opposed to it, because he thinks it gives just cause of offence to the President: that we prescribe to the President a duty which he ought certainly to perform without our injunction, and of consequence we betray doubts that he will do what belongs to his office without our interference.

For my part, sir, I do not consider the resolution as intended in any degree for the President, but as designed for the British Government. I suppose without the resolution the President would take the course which it marks out. But we intend to manifest by it, that it is not simply the opinion of the President that specific redress should be granted for the wrongs we have suffered, but that it is the concurrent sense of this branch of the Government, that such redress should be insisted on. I do not mean that we should be considered as offering an empty menace to the British cabinet, but a demonstration of the union of different branches of our Government in demanding satisfaction for the wrongs done us. Foreign Governments calculate much on our divisions, our union will disappoint those calculations.

On motion, the Senate now adjourned.

FRIDAY, February 14.

_British Aggressions._

The Senate resumed the consideration of the report of the committee, made on the 5th instant, on that part of the Message of the President of the United States which relates to the violation of neutral rights, and the impressment of American seamen.

The second resolution being still under consideration, as follows:

“2. _Resolved_, That the President of the United States be requested to _demand and insist upon the restoration of the property of their citizens, captured, and condemned, on the pretext of its being employed in a trade with the enemies of Great Britain, prohibited in time of peace: and upon the indemnification of such American citizens, for their losses and damages sustained by those captures and condemnations: and to_ enter into such arrangements with the British Government, on this and all other differences subsisting between the two nations, (and particularly respecting the impressment of American seamen,) as may be consistent with the honor and interest of the United States, and manifest their earnest desire to obtain for themselves and their citizens, by amicable negotiation, that justice to which they are entitled.”

Mr. WORTHINGTON.--On further consideration of the resolution now before the Senate I confess I feel more opposed to it, and do believe, on the whole, it will be best not to pass it in its present form. The resolution must mean something, or it must mean nothing. It must intend to convey to the President the opinions and advice of this body, or not to convey it. Now, sir, if it is intended to convey to the President the opinion and advice of the Senate, which is certainly my understanding of it, I beg gentlemen to reflect a little before they adopt it. The advice of this Senate I trust will never be given to the President without having the desired effect; and let me add, sir, that from the intimate connection which exists between this and the Executive branch of the Government, I must believe that the President would not feel himself justified, nor would he be willing to take so much responsibility on himself as entirely to reject it. Sir, I could not justify him if he did. We are equally responsible with him in our executive capacity, and can we for a moment believe that he would act contrary to the decided opinion of the Senate, who can at all times control or defeat him by rejecting a treaty made contrary to their advice and opinions? What, sir, is the object of the resolution?

We request the President “to demand and insist upon the restoration of the property of their citizens, captured and condemned on the pretext of its being employed in a trade with the enemies of Great Britain, prohibited in time of peace; and upon the indemnification of such American citizens for their losses and damages sustained by these captures and condemnations:” and afterwards “to enter into such arrangements with the British Government, on this and all other differences subsisting between the two nations, (and particularly respecting the impressment of American seamen,) as may be consistent with the honor and interests of the United States, and manifest their earnest desire to obtain for themselves and their citizens, by amicable negotiation, that justice to which they are entitled.”

Mr. ADAIR.--Mr. President, the motion before the Senate is to recommit the resolution to a special committee. Gentlemen in favor of the resolution as it stands, have called upon us to point out the alterations we wish to make in it, as a cause of commitment; I will do so by stating my objections to it in its present shape. The first resolution on the paper which I hold in my hand, and which met with a unanimous vote of the Senate two days past, contains a mere declaration of their opinion on an abstract principle; to this resolution I fully and freely assent, although I did not vote for it, being that day unwell and absent. But this second resolution, if it is to have any effect at all, is meant to convey an instruction to the President of the United States. It contains a request to him, not only that he will endeavor to obtain an adjustment of our differences by treaty, but that prior to this he will “demand and insist upon the restoration of the property of our citizens captured and condemned on the pretence of its being employed in a trade with the enemies of Great Britain, prohibited in time of peace; and upon the indemnification of such American citizens for their losses and damages sustained by these captures and condemnations;” that he will enter into arrangements, &c. This, Mr. President, is the part of the resolution I object to. It is going too far. It is circumscribing the powers of the President, and tying him down to a particular point. It is making that the _sine qua non_, the basis on which alone he is to treat; at least it is doing this so far as an opinion of the Senate, expressed in this way, can do it. It really looks to me, as if, on this particular point of the restitution, we were afraid to trust our Chief Magistrate. I presume there is not a member who hears me, who does not fully believe the captures and condemnations alluded to in the resolution were unjust; that they are an infringement of our rights; and that we are entitled to restitution. But let it be remembered that these condemnations are the solemn decisions of a court of very high authority in Great Britain; a court that, it is well known, acts under the counsels (if not the control) of the cabinet. May we not then reasonably suppose that the British Government are as fully assured (in their own minds) that these condemnations are just and warranted, under the law of nations, as we are that they are unjust and unwarranted; and that they will be as unwilling to acknowledge in the face of the whole world that they have been wantonly robbing us of our property, as we will be to acknowledge that we have paid so much without a cause? It has been well observed by an honorable member from Tennessee, that in forming commercial treaties of this kind, there will be various points to consider, and it may not be necessary to contend for strict justice in every punctilio; arrangements or treaties, when there are existing differences to settle, must always be a bargain of compromise and forbearance; in one point we may give a little, that we may obtain an equivalent in another. So it may turn out in settling our disputes with Great Britain. Why then are we not satisfied with expressing our opinion on the great principle of right; and leave it altogether with our Chief Magistrate to enter into and point out the details?

Messrs. J. QUINCY ADAMS, SAMUEL SMITH, PICKERING, TRACY, and MACLAY, delivered their sentiments.

The motion to recommit the resolution for the purpose of amending it, was lost--yeas 15, nays 16.

Mr. WORTHINGTON then moved to strike out the words in _italics_, from the second to the eleventh line.

Messrs. S. SMITH, and WHITE, opposed the motion, which was disagreed to--yeas 13, nays 16, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adair, Baldwin, Bradley, Gaillard, Howland, Logan, Maclay, Moore, Plumer, Smith of Vermont, Sumter, Turner, and Worthington.

NAYS.--Messrs. Adams, Anderson, Bayard, Gilman, Hillhouse, Kitchel, Mitchill, Pickering, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Smith of Ohio, Smith of Tennessee, Thruston, Tracy, White, and Wright

Mr. THRUSTON moved to postpone the resolution, for the purpose of previously taking up and acting upon the third, which prohibits the importation into the United States of a variety of articles, the growth, produce, or manufactures of Great Britain, after the ---- day of ---- next, unless equitable arrangements shall be made between the United States and Great Britain.

This motion was lost--yeas 13.

Messrs. ISRAEL SMITH and BRADLEY then spoke against agreeing to the resolution. The principal ground taken by them was that it became the Senate to take stronger ground, and to adopt vigorous measures, before they requested the Executive to resume negotiation.

Mr. TRACY advocated the resolution. He did not think negotiation exhausted. He thought it became the Senate to make one further attempt towards negotiating our differences, before a resort was had to warlike measures. The President would be enabled to take this step, by the Senate, who were a branch of the war-declaring power, expressing their support of the measures he had taken, at the same time that they requested a renewal of the negotiation.

Mr. MOORE moved to strike out the words “and insist;” which motion prevailed.

Mr. WORTHINGTON said that, so modified, he should vote for the resolution.

Mr. KITCHEL observed that he was sorry to intrude upon the patience of the Senate at that late hour; but the observations of the gentleman who had just sat down induced him to beg their indulgence for a few moments. The gentleman, in the course of his observations, seems to have made two propositions as the ground of his objection, viz: that the resolution now under consideration contains a censure upon the President, as not having done his duty in negotiating; and that by passing it we are going to sacrifice the honor and interests of the United States and its citizens.

Mr. President, I would ask in what manner we shall do either? How shall we censure the President? He has negotiated until there appears no prospect of obtaining that justice to which we are entitled; and he has now submitted the matter to Congress to pursue such measures as shall appear to them prudent.

And what are we about to do? Sir, we have already unanimously passed one resolution, in which we say that the capture and condemnation of the vessels and cargoes of our citizens is an unprovoked violation of our independence, and an aggression upon the property of our citizens. And if that declaration is correct what are we to do further? Are we, upon the strength of that declaration, to sit down and fold our hands together, and expect Britain to do us justice, or are we to declare war? Sir, are we prepared at this moment to declare war? Will it be wise? Will it be prudent, without one effort to avoid it, with all its horrors of blood and destruction? Are the people now prepared to meet it, without our making one more attempt to negotiate? Will they say we have acted wisely? I believe not. Sir, we are one component part of Congress, who have the sole power of declaring war; and by this resolution we are going to say to Britain--not by ourselves, for we are not by the constitution authorized to speak to foreign nations in this way; but we are about to request the President, in our behalf, and in our name, and in the name of the whole people of the United States, to say to Britain--you have injured us by your unprovoked aggressions, and we demand satisfaction. We can bear these insults no longer; therefore, make us compensation for past injuries, and do us justice in future; and we are willing still to be friends. Wherein does this censure the President? He has pursued negotiation until he finds it unavailing. We now ask of him to make one last effort in our behalf, before we appeal to the last resort of war, and I trust we shall arm him with power that will give energy to this last negotiation. And wherein are we going to sacrifice the honor of the United States or the interests of the citizens? Does it sacrifice our honor to endeavor to settle our differences in an amicable way, rather than to fly to arms and deluge the earth with blood? Will it fix a stigma upon us in the eyes of any rational men or nations? I believe not. And how are we going to sacrifice the interests of our citizens? Do we do it by demanding justice for them of Britain? I believe that they themselves will not view it in that light, when they see it followed by the third resolution, which I hope will be passed. And, indeed, had it not have been for the expectations of that resolution being carried into effect, in such a manner as to give energy to this, I should have withheld my vote from the first. But, under the full expectation that the third resolution will pass, and as I do not believe it contains any censure upon the President, and as I believe it will do honor to the United States and will have a tendency to secure reparation to our citizens, I shall cheerfully give it my vote.

Messrs. LOGAN and PICKERING spoke in favor of the resolution, and Mr. ISRAEL SMITH against it; when, after some verbal amendments, the question was taken upon it, by yeas and nays, and the resolution carried--yeas 23, nays 7, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adams, Anderson, Baldwin, Bayard, Gaillard, Gilman, Hillhouse, Howland, Kitchel, Logan, Maclay, Mitchill, Moore, Pickering, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Smith of Ohio, Smith of Tennessee, Tracy, Turner, White, Worthington, and Wright.

NAYS.--Messrs. Adair, Bradley, Plumer, Smith of Vermont, Stone, Sumter, and Thruston.

So it was _Resolved_, That the President of the United States be requested to demand the restoration of the property of their citizens captured and condemned on the pretext of its being employed in a trade with the enemies of Great Britain, prohibited in a time of peace; and the indemnification of such American citizens, for their losses and damages sustained by these captures and condemnations; and to enter into such arrangements with the British Government, on this and all other differences subsisting between the two nations, (and particularly respecting the impressment of American seamen,) as may be consistent with the honor and interests of the United States, and manifest their earnest desire to obtain for themselves and their citizens, by amicable negotiation, that justice to which they are entitled.

WEDNESDAY, February 19.

_Lewis and Clarke’s Expedition._

The following Message was received from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

In pursuance of a measure proposed to Congress, by a Message of January 18th, 1803, and sanctioned by their approbation, for carrying it into execution, Captain Meriwether Lewis, of the first regiment of infantry, was appointed, with a party of men, to explore the river Missouri from its mouth to its source, and crossing the high lands by the shortest portage, to seek the best water communication thence to the Pacific Ocean; and Lieutenant Clarke was appointed second in command. They were to enter into conference with the Indian nations on their route, with a view to the establishment of commerce with them. They entered the Missouri, May 14, 1804, and on the 1st of November, took up their winter quarters near the Mandan towns, sixteen hundred and nine miles above the mouth of the river, in latitude 47° 21´ 47´´ north, and longitude 99° 24´ 45´´ west, from Greenwich. On the 8th of April, 1805, they proceeded up the river in pursuance of the objects prescribed to them. A letter of the preceding day, April 7, from Captain Lewis, is herewith communicated. During his stay among the Mandans, he has been able to lay down the Missouri, according to courses and distances taken on his passage up it, corrected by frequent observations of longitude and latitude, and to add to the actual survey of this portion of the river, a general map of the country between the Mississippi and Pacific, from the 34th to the 54th degrees of latitude. These additions are from information collected from Indians, with whom he had opportunities of communicating during his journey, and residence with them. Copies of this map are now presented to both Houses of Congress. With these, I communicate, also a statistical view, procured and forwarded by him, of the Indian nations inhabiting the Territory of Louisiana and the countries adjacent to its northern and western borders, and of other interesting circumstances respecting them.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 19, 1806.

THURSDAY, February 20.

_Trade with St. Domingo._

The Senate resumed the third reading of the bill to suspend the commercial intercourse between the United States and the French island of St. Domingo.

Mr. WHITE.--Mr. President, it will be recollected that the bill, as originally introduced on this subject by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. LOGAN,) was variant in every shape and feature from that now before us. The first bill I considered altogether impotent, and had little or no concern as to its fate; but that now under consideration, as presented by the committee, is of a very different complexion, and goes the full length of interdicting all commerce between this country and the island of St. Domingo.

Our local situation, Mr. President, gives to us advantages in the commerce of the West Indies over all the nations of the world; and it is not only the right and the interest, but it is the duty of this Government, by every fair and honorable means, to protect and encourage our citizens in the exercise of those advantages. If, in other respects, we pursue a wise policy, and remain abstracted from the convulsions of Europe, that for many years to come are not likely to have much interval; enjoying, as we shall, all the advantages of peace-wages, peace-freight, peace-insurance, and the other peace privileges of neutral traders, we must nearly acquire a monopoly of this commerce. We can make usually a treble voyage; that is, from this continent to the West Indies, thence to Europe, and back to America again, in the time that the European vessels are engaged in one West India voyage. This circumstance of itself, properly improved, at a period perhaps not very remote, whenever others of those islands may be released from, or refuse longer submission to their present colonial restrictions upon commerce, will enable us to rival even the British in transporting to the markets of Europe the very valuable productions of the West Indies, such as sugar, molasses, coffee, spirits, &c. Again, sir, I state nothing new when I say that the produce of this country is essential to the West India islands, and the facility with which we can convey it to them, must at all times enable us to furnish them much cheaper than they can be furnished by any other people. It requires not indeed the spirit of prophecy to foretell, that the time must come when the very convenient and commanding situation we occupy, in every point of view, relative to the most valuable of those islands, will place in our hands the entire control of their trade; that is, if we pursue a wise and politic system of measures in relation to them; holding fast upon all the great advantages nature has given us, and promptly availing ourselves of such others as circumstances may throw in our way. As a source of public revenue; as a means of increasing our national capital; and, though last, not least, as a nursery for our seamen, the importance of this commerce to the United States is incalculable, and should be guarded with a jealous eye; we should never suffer our rightful participation in it to be diminished by others, much less have the folly to diminish it ourselves. Those islands are situated in our very neighborhood, and but for the arbitrary colonial restrictions upon commerce, to which they are now subject, no other nation could hold a successful competition with us in their markets, unless some such ill-judged, baleful, anti-commercial measure, as has now fallen to the genius of the gentleman from Pennsylvania to contrive, should enable them to do so.

I will now, sir, notice the relative hostile situations of France and St. Domingo, and see how far gentlemen are borne out in their positions--that the people of St. Domingo can be considered only as revolted slaves, or, at best, as French subjects now in a state of rebellion; that they are nationally in no respect separated from France; that to trade with them is a violation of the laws of nations, and that we have no right to do so. This, so far as I could understand them, forms a summary of the points that have been urged in support of the present measure, and in opposition to the trade; each of which deserves some attention. If I am wrong in these points, the friends of the bill will please now to correct me; and I hope gentlemen will become convinced during the discussion, that the case which so many of them have stated, of any foreign power succoring and protecting the revolted slaves of the Southern States, is not the parallel of that before us. As to the first point, it is to be recollected, that some years past, to quote from high authority, “during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long lost liberties,” when our enlightened sister Republic of France was, in her abundant kindness, forcing liberty upon all the world, and propagating the rights of man at the point of the bayonet, in one of her paroxysms of philanthropy, she proclaimed, by a solemn decree of her Convention, the blessings of liberty and equality to the blacks of St. Domingo too; invited them to the fraternal embrace, and to the honors of a Conventional sitting. The wisdom or the policy of this proceeding, it is not my business to inquire into, but it certainly affords some excuse, if any be necessary, for the subsequent conduct of those unfortunate people. The decree abolishing for ever slavery in the West Indies, (French,) and extending all the blessings of citizenship and equality to every human creature, of whatever grade or color, then under the Government of France, passed the Convention in February, seventeen hundred and ninety-four. The existence of such a paper I did not expect would have been doubted here till the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Kitchel) actually denied it. In the new Annual Register, of ninety-four, is the following account of it, page 347: “La Croix rose to move the entire abolition of slavery in the dominions of France. The National Convention rose spontaneously to decree the proposition of La Croix. On motion of Danton, on the 5th, the Convention resolved to refer to the Committee of Public Safety the decree of emancipation, in order that they might provide the most effectual and safest means of carrying it into effect.” But here is the decree itself, as taken from the Gentleman’s Magazine, and furnished to me by a friend: “National Convention, 1794, February 4th. The National Convention decrees that slavery is abolished in all the French colonies. It decrees in consequence that all the inhabitants of the French colonies, of whatever color, are French citizens, and from this day forward shall enjoy those rights which are secured to them by the declaration of rights, and by the constitution.” And this same principle the Convention frequently recognized, by receiving at their bar, in the most complimentary manner, various deputations of blacks from the West Indies, thanking them for the boon conferred upon them. One of these instances, among many others, I will submit, as a curiosity in legislative proceedings, to the Senate: “National Convention. Order of the day. A band of blacks of both sexes, amidst the sound of martial music; and escorted by a great band of Parisians, came into the hall to return thanks to the Legislature for having raised them to the rank of men. The President gave the fraternal kiss to an old negress, 114 years old, and mother of eleven children. After which she was respectfully conducted to an armed chair and seated by the side of the President, amid the loudest bursts of applause.” By the original decree, the liberty of the blacks was established. This ceremony, it seems, was only to show their equality; and certainly, sir, the President could not have given a much stronger, or a much kinder evidence of it to the old lady. But, Mr. President, the claim of those people to freedom does not rest here. I have in my hand a document of much more recent date, and even more to be relied upon. It is the proclamation of the then First Consul, now the Emperor and King, to the people of St. Domingo, when General Le Clerc went there, in the winter of 1801, at the head of the French forces, which I will read. First, a short proclamation of General Le Clerc’s:

LIBERTY. EQUALITY.

PROCLAMATION.

On board the Ocean, off the Cape, the 15th of Pluviose, 10th year of the French Republic, (Feb. 6, 1802.)

_Le Clerc, General-in-chief of the Army of St. Domingo, Captain General of the Colony, to the inhabitants of St. Domingo_:

Inhabitants of St. Domingo! Read the proclamation of the First Consul of the Republic. It assures to the blacks that liberty for which they have so long fought; to commerce and to agriculture that prosperity without which there can be no colonies. His promises will be faithfully fulfilled; to doubt it would be a crime.

The General-in-chief,

LE CLERC, _Captain General_.

By order of the General-in-chief,

LENOIR.

* * * * *

Extract from the Register of the Deliberations of the Consuls of the Republic, Paris, the 17th Brumaire, 10th year of the French Republic, one and indivisible, (November 8, 1801.)

PROCLAMATION.

_The Consuls of the Republic to the Inhabitants of St. Domingo._

Inhabitants of St. Domingo! Whatever may be your origin and your color, ye are all Frenchmen; ye are all free, and all equal before God and the Republic.

France, like St. Domingo, has been a prey to factions, and torn by civil and foreign wars. But all is changed! Every people have embraced Frenchmen, and have sworn to them peace and friendship! All Frenchmen have likewise embraced each other, and have sworn to be all friends and brothers. Come ye, also, and embrace Frenchmen, and rejoice to see your friends and your brothers of Europe.

The Government sends you the Captain General, Le Clerc. He carries with him great forces to protect you against your enemies, and against the enemies of the Republic. If it should be told you these forces are intended to tear from you your liberty, answer, the Republic has given us liberty. The Republic will not suffer that it should be taken from us. Rally round the Captain General; he restores you abundance and peace. Rally round him; he who shall dare to separate himself from the Captain General will be a traitor to his country, and the vengeance of the Republic shall devour him as fire devours your dried canes.

Given at Paris, in the palace of Government, the 17th Brumaire, 10th year of the French Republic.

BONAPARTE.

By the First Consul,

H. B. MARET, _Secretary_.

A true copy,

LE CLERC, _Captain General_.

This, sir, is proof irresistible; after which it can never be said that the liberation of those people has been the rash act, or the mere ebullition, of the heat and convulsion of a revolution. We have here their liberty solemnly recognized and proclaimed to the world eight years afterwards by the man who was then and still is at the head of the French Government; or rather, who is now the Government itself. I cite these papers to show that the French have now no claim, either in right, in justice, or in law, to any portion of the people of St. Domingo as slaves; that they are individually free, if the highest authorities in France could constitute them so, which will surely not be questioned; and in order to rebut a fallacious idea that has been taken up, and urged by some, that our merchants are conducting this commerce with slaves, the property of freemen, and not with freemen themselves, thus ingeniously endeavoring to draw a distinction between the situation of St. Domingo and that of any other colony that has ever heretofore attempted to separate itself from the mother country; to make theirs, according to the language of the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. MOORE,) a totally new, unprecedented case, and in this manner to take them out of the humane provisions of the laws of nations. I grant, sir, their case does form a distinction from any other, and in this it consists: the people of St. Domingo are fighting to preserve not only their independence as a community, but their liberty as individuals; to prevent a degradation from the exalted state of freemen to the debased condition of slaves, struggling against the manacles that have been forged for them by the lawless ambition of power. We are told, however, they are at least not free as a people, as a body politic; but in such a state of rebellion that no nation has a right to trade with them.

Let us now, Mr. President, attend to the present state of St. Domingo; but first to the circumstances that have led to it, and see how far this doctrine will apply. After the bands of the political society that had connected France and her colonies together were broken asunder; when the old Government of that country was completely dissolved, and one usurpation succeeded day after day to the places and to the vices of another; when the axe of the guillotine had extinguished the magic lustre of royalty, and even that grace and beauty, [a very superb likeness of the late Queen of France was hanging directly before him,] that had reigned so long unrivalled, the pride and idol of the nation, had to yield herself to the rudeness of a common executioner, and was humbled in death before a scoffing multitude; when the constitution that had been recently established by the voice of the nation, and under which it was hoped they would flourish and be happy, had fallen into the ruthless fangs of the Jacobins, and the patriots who supported it had found refuge in exile, or mingled their blood upon the scaffold; when all rightful, civil, and legal authority was at an end, and the Revolutionary sabre alone gave law, the people of St. Domingo, as did the people of these States under other circumstances, declared themselves free and independent, determined to take their stand among the nations of the world, and now refuse allegiance to any foreign power. They have organized a Government for themselves; they are _de facto_ the governors of the country, and in every respect act as an independent people. They have waged, and carried on with France, for many years, a most serious war, in defence of what they say are their rights; and the French, by force of arms, have been endeavoring to subjugate them. And now let me ask if the United States, or any other power upon earth, is competent to decide this great controversy between them? They each claim to be free and independent, and therefore acknowledge no superior; the struggle is between themselves, and no other nation has a right to interfere by direct acts of hostility, or by any commercial restrictions that can go to effect injuriously either of the parties, and to do so is a departure from neutral ground, and an infraction of the laws of nations, as I think will be within my power to show from the most incontestable authorities. For this purpose I will advert again to _Vattel_.

_Vattel_, b. 2, ch. 4, sec. 56, says: “When the bands of the political society are broken, or at least suspended between the sovereign and his people, the contending parties may then be considered as two distinct powers; and since they are both equally independent of all foreign authority, nobody has a right to judge between them. Either may be in the right.” B. 3, ch. 15, sec. 295, says: “When a nation becomes divided into two parties absolutely independent, and no longer acknowledging a common superior, the State is dissolved, and the war between the two parties stands on the same ground in every respect as a public war between two different nations.” Again, sir, section 293 of the same book and chapter says: “A civil war breaks the bands of society and Government, or at least suspends their force and effect. It produces in the nation two independent parties, who consider each other as enemies, and acknowledge no common judge. Those two parties, therefore, must necessarily be considered as thenceforward constituting, at least for a time, two separate bodies, two distinct societies. Though one of the parties may have been to blame in breaking the unity of the State, and resisting the lawful authority, they are not the less divided in fact. Besides, who shall judge them? Who shall pronounce on which side the right or the wrong belongs? On earth they have no common superior. They stand, therefore, in precisely the same predicament as two nations who engage in a contest, and, being unable to come to an agreement, have recourse to arms.”

We have been exultingly told by Mr. Talleyrand, and it has been echoed from this Chamber by the gentleman from New York, (Mr. MITCHILL,) that even the British consider St. Domingo a colony of France, and upon this principle condemn our vessels for trading there. I grant that such a pretext, among many others, has been resorted to in order to destroy our commerce; I grant that such an infringement of our neutral rights has been committed, and the reasons that have induced it must be obvious to the most superficial observer. The British, with a monopoly of this commerce themselves, and those same Englishmen who now condemn our vessels for trading to St. Domingo, upon the ground of its being a French colony, heretofore, when it suited their purposes, so far acknowledged the independence of those very people as to enter into a Commercial Treaty with them, and are now not only in the constant practice of trading there themselves, but of granting licenses to others to do so. I hope, however, the day has not come when our commerce is to be under the control of the Lords of the Admiralty, or our national rights dependent upon the judicial opinions of Sir William Scott; and the learned gentleman from New York must indeed have been pressed with the barrenness of his case when he had to resort to such an argument, derived from such a source. The gentleman from New Jersey, (Mr. KITCHEL,) I must in candor say, has, in support of the present measure, assumed premises totally new and different. His reasons, like most of those we have been accustomed lately to hear, were in the true style of modern legislation, enveloped in all the mysteries of secrecy. He tells us that we had better give up this commerce, because it is not valuable. Where the gentleman obtained this piece of information is utterly beyond the comprehension of my understanding: none such, certainly, has ever been laid before us; nor did he condescend to give us a clue to its source; but as if sufficient to urge it upon our faith with all the confidence of apostolic inspiration--to us who doubted, he refused even an opportunity of acquiring knowledge through any other channel; voted against the propositions of my friend and colleague, which went to ask of the Executive the actual state of this commerce, and to ascertain its real value. To do strict justice to the gentleman’s argument, it is simply this, that whenever any foreign power may please to demand of us the surrender of a right, however just and honest it may be; however it may comport with the dignity of the Government to preserve it; if, in a pecuniary point of view, if upon a cool peddling calculation of risk, profit, and loss, it cannot be deemed of high value, we are at once to give it up. This argument, I will confess, is worthy of the bill. So striking, and of such a kind is their affinity, that they seem peculiarly calculated to expose each other, and to excite in every mind valuing the honor, the dignity, and the character of the nation, like sentiments of disgust. The case cited by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. MACLAY,) of the Indians, I think in 1755, under the avowed authority, direction, and support of the French Government, ravaging our frontiers, surely can have no relation to the question before us. Has this Government ever furnished arms and ammunition, or done any other act in order to assist and encourage the people of St. Domingo in attacking the countries of their neighbors? I cannot conceive what subject that might have been before Congress during our present session, the gentleman must have had in his mind, to which he supposed this case could apply; certainly not the present; it is infinitely more distant in point of analogy than of date. I have been exerting my imagination to discern any object or bearing it can have, that I might endeavor to meet it, but the total impossibility of the one, will save me the trouble of the other.

I rejoice that the President has expressed, in his late Message, a disposition to take into the protection of the Government the commerce of the United States, though little has yet been done, or attempted. This project of the gentleman from Pennsylvania I hope forms no part of the new system, and he would have acted wisely before he submitted it to have examined better its consequences, and to have looked for a moment at the present condition of our commerce. What is it? Plundered upon every coast and in every sea, your flag, instead of being a protection against insult, seems to have become an invitation to injury. The British, the French, and the Spaniards, in the ratio of their force, treat us with like indignities; this is the only point in which they can agree. The former have adopted, and openly avow a system of measures that, if not counteracted, must go to deprive us of the most important of our neutral rights; while the two latter are anxiously rivalling each other in the most lawless and piratical depredations upon our defenceless trade; even the commissioned vessels of our Government have not been suffered to pass the high seas without insult and violence. The British and the French, whenever it suits their views, blockade our very ports; the British take their position off New York, so as to be convenient to the courts of Halifax; and our friends, the French, to whom the gentleman from Pennsylvania has told us we should be so particularly civil, take occasionally into their holy keeping, the commerce of Charleston and New Orleans, so as to be at a convenient distance from the British. Our trade with St. Domingo, indeed, the French have not been able to stop, nor have even the British yet assumed to themselves this maritime right; but the gentleman from Pennsylvania, in his great good faith and abundant charity, will now anticipate their wishes, and do it for them. This, indeed, surpasses even Christian meekness; it is not only, when smitten upon one cheek, turning the other also, but chastening ourselves with more than monkish severity, in the most vulnerable part.

On motion, by one of the majority, to reconsider the fourth section which restricts the operation of the law to one year, it passed in the negative.

On motion, to agree to the final passage of the bill, it was determined in the affirmative--yeas 21, nays 8, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Anderson, Baldwin, Bradley, Condit, Fenner, Gaillard, Gilman, Howland, Kitchel, Logan, Maclay, Mitchill, Moore, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Smith of Ohio, Smith of Tennessee, Sumter, Turner, Worthington, and Wright.

NAYS.--Messrs. Adams, Bayard, Hillhouse, Pickering, Plumer, Stone, Tracy, and White.

So it was _Resolved_, That this bill pass, that it be engrossed, and that the title thereof be “An act to suspend the commercial intercourse between the United States and certain parts of the island of St. Domingo.”

MONDAY, March 3.

_Privileges of Foreign Ministers._

The Senate resumed, as in Committee of the Whole, the amendment reported by the select committee to the bill to prevent the abuse of the privileges and immunities enjoyed by foreign Ministers within the United States.

Mr. ADAMS.--There are two points of view, Mr. President, in which it appears to me to be important that the provisions of this bill should be considered--the one as they relate to the laws of nations, and the other as they regard the Constitution of the United States. From both these sources have arisen inducements combining to produce conviction upon my mind of the propriety, and indeed the necessity of some measure similar in principle to that which I have had the honor to propose. I shall take the liberty to state them in their turns, endeavoring to keep them as distinct from each other as the great and obvious difference of their character requires, and that their combination on this occasion may appear in the striking light which may render it the most effectual.

By the laws of nations, a foreign Minister is entitled, not barely to the general security and protection which the laws of every civilized people extend to the subjects of other nations residing among them. He is indulged with many privileges of a high and uncommon nature--with many exemptions from the operation of the laws of the country where he resides, and among others, with a general exemption from the jurisdiction of the judicial courts, both civil and criminal. This immunity is, in respect to the criminal jurisdiction, without limitation; and an Ambassador, though guilty of the most aggravated crimes of which the heart of man can conceive or his hand commit, cannot be punished for them by the tribunals of the Sovereign with whom he resides. Should he conspire the destruction of the constitution or government of the State, no jury of his peers can there convict him of treason. Should he point the dagger of assassination to the heart of a citizen, he cannot be put to plead for the crime of murder. In these respects he is considered as the subject, not of the State to which he is sent, but of the State which sent him, and the only punishment which can be inflicted on his crimes is left to the justice of his master.

In a republican government, like that under which we have the happiness to live, this exemption is not enjoyed by any individual of the nation itself, however exalted in rank or station. It is our pride and glory, that all are equal in the eyes of the law; that, however adorned with dignity, or armed with power, no man owing allegiance to the majesty of the nation can screen himself from the vindictive arm of her justice; yet even the nations whose internal constitutions are founded upon this virtuous and honorable principle of equal and universal rights, have, like all the rest, submitted to this great and extraordinary exception. In order to account for so singular a deviation from principles in every other respect deemed of the highest moment and of the most universal application, we must inquire into the reasons which have induced all the nations of the civilized world to this broad departure from the fundamental maxims of their government.

The most eminent writers on the laws of nations have at different times assigned various reasons for this phenomenon in politics and morals. It has sometimes been said to rest upon _fictions_ of law. The reasoning has been thus: every Sovereign Prince is independent of all others, and as such cannot, even when personally within the territories of another, be amenable to his jurisdiction. An ambassador represents the person of his master, and therefore must enjoy the same immunities. But this reasoning cannot be satisfactory; for, in the first place, a foreign Minister does not necessarily represent the person of his master--he represents him only in his affairs; and besides representing him he has a personal existence of his own, altogether distinct from his representative character, and for which, on the principles of common sense, he ought, like every other individual, to be responsible. At other times, another fiction of law has been alleged, in this manner; the foreign Minister is not the subject of the State to which he is sent, but of his own Sovereign: he is therefore to be considered as still residing within the territories of his master, and not in those of the Prince to whom he is accredited. But this fiction, like the other, forgets the personal existence of the Minister. It is dangerous, at all times, to derive important practical consequences from fictions of law, in direct opposition to the fact. If the principle of personal representation, or that of _exterritoriality_ annexed to the character of a foreign Minister be admitted at all, it can in sound argument apply only to his official conduct--to his acts in the capacity of a Minister, and not to his private and individual affairs. The Minister can represent the person of the Prince, no otherwise than as any agent or factor represents the person of his principal; and it would be an ill compliment to a Sovereign Prince to consider him as personally represented by his Minister in the commission of an atrocious crime. Another objection against this wide-encroaching inference from the doctrine of personal representation, is, that it is suitable only to Monarchies. The Minister of a King may be feigned to represent in all respects the person of his master, but what person can be represented by the Ambassador of a Republic? If I am answered, the _moral person_ of the nation, then I reply, _that_ can be represented by no individual, being itself a fiction in law, incapable of committing any act, and having no corporeal existence susceptible of representation. I have said thus much on this subject, because I have heard in conversation these legal fictions alleged against the adoption of the bill on your table, and because they may perhaps be urged against it here.

But it is neither in the fiction of _exterritoriality_, nor in that of personal representation, that we are to seek for the substantial reason upon which the customary law of nations has founded the extraordinary privileges of ambassadors; it is in the nature of their office, of their duties, and of their situation.

By their office, they are intended to be the mediators of peace, of commerce, and of friendship, between nations; by their duties they are bound to maintain with firmness, though in the spirit of conciliation, the rights, the honor, and the interests of their nation, even in the midst of those who have opposing interests, who assert conflicting rights, and who are guided by an equal and adverse sense of honor; by their situation they would, without some extraordinary provision in their favor, be at the mercy of the very Prince against whom they are thus to maintain the rights, the honor, and the interest of their own. As the ministers of peace and friendship, their functions are not only of the highest and most beneficial utility, but of indispensable necessity to all nations having any mutual intercourse with each other. They are the only instruments by which the miseries of war can be averted when it approaches, or terminated when it exists. It is by their agency that the prejudices of contending nations are to be dissipated--that the violent and destructive passions of nations are to be appeased--that men, as far as their nature will admit, are to be converted from butchers of their kind, into a band of friends and brothers. It is this consideration, sir, which, by the common consent of mankind, has surrounded with sanctity the official character of Ambassadors; it is this which has enlarged their independency to such an immeasurable extent; it is this which has loosed them from all the customary ties which bind together the social compact of common rights and common obligations.

But immunities of a nature so extraordinary cannot, from the nature of mankind, be frequently conferred, without becoming liable to frequent abuse. Ambassadors are still beings subject to the passions, the vices, and infirmities of man. However exempted from the danger of punishment, they are not exempt from the commission of crimes. Besides their

## participation in the imperfections of humanity, they have temptations

and opportunities peculiar to themselves, to transgressions of a very dangerous description, and a very aggravated character. While the functions of their office place in their hands the management of those great controversies, upon which whole nations are wont to stake their existence; while their situations afford them the means, and stimulate them to the employment of the base but powerful weapons of faction, of corruption, and of treachery, their very privileges and immunities concur in assailing their integrity by the promise of security, even in case of defeat--of impunity, even after detection.

The experience of all ages and of every nation has therefore pointed to the necessity of erecting some barrier against the abuse of those immunities and privileges, with which foreign Ministers have at all times and every where been indulged. In some aggravated instances the rulers of the State where the crime was committed have boldly broken down the wall of privilege under which the guilty stranger would fain have sheltered himself, and in defiance of the laws of nations have delivered up the criminal to the tribunals of the country for trial, sentence, and execution; at other times the popular indignation, by a process still more irregular, has, without the forms of law, wreaked its vengeance upon the perpetrators of those crimes, which otherwise must have remained unwhipped of justice. Cases have sometimes occurred when the principles of self-preservation and defence have justified the injured Government, endangered in its vital parts, in arresting the person of such a Minister during the crisis of danger, and confining him under guard until he could with safety be removed. But the practice which the reason of the case and the usage of nations has prescribed and recognized, is, (according to the aggravation of the offence,) to order the criminal to depart from the territories whose laws he has violated, or to send him home, sometimes under custody, to his Sovereign; demanding of him that justice, reparation, and punishment, which the nature of the case requires, and which he alone is entitled to dispense. This power is admitted by the concurrent testimony of all the writers on the laws of nations, and has the sanction of practice equally universal. It results, indeed, as a consequence absolutely necessary from the independence of foreign Ministers on the judicial authority, and is perfectly reconcilable with it. As respects the offended nation, it is a measure of self-defence, justified by the acknowledged destitution of every other remedy. As respects the offending Minister, it is the only means of remitting him for trial and punishment to the tribunals whose jurisdiction he cannot recuse; and as respects his Sovereign, it preserves inviolate his rights, and at the same time manifests that confidence in his justice which civilized nations living in amity are bound to place in each other.

On these principles, thus equitable and moderate in themselves, and thus universally established, is founded every provision of the bill before you, so far as it implicates the law of nations. I have been fully aware that, although by the Constitution of the United States Congress are authorized to define and punish offences against the law of nations, yet this did not imply a power to innovate upon those laws. I could not be ignorant that the Legislature of one individual in the great community of nations has no right to prescribe rules of conduct which can be binding upon all; and therefore, in the provisions of this bill, it was my primary object not to deviate one step from the worn and beaten path--not to vary one jot or one tittle from the prescriptions of immemorial usage and unquestioned authority.

In consulting for this purpose the writers, characterized by one of our own statesmen in a pamphlet recently laid on our tables, as “the luminaries and oracles to whom the appeal is generally made by nations who prefer an appeal to law rather than to power,” I found that they distinguished the offences which may be committed by foreign Ministers into two kinds--the one against the municipal laws of the country where they reside, and the other against the Government or State to which they are accredited; and that they recommended a correspondent modification of the manner in which they are to be treated by the offended Sovereign. The first section of the bill therefore directs the mode of treatment towards foreign Ministers guilty of heinous offences against the municipal laws; for, as to those minor transgressions which are usually left unnoticed by other States, I have thought no provision necessary for them. The section points out the mode by which the insulted State or injured individual may apply to the Chief Magistrate of the Union for redress, and by what process the President may obtain reparation from the offender’s Sovereign, or, in case of refusal, dismiss the offender from the territories of the United States.

The second section provides for the case of offences against the Government of the nation. If the insult is direct upon the President of the United States himself, it authorizes him at once to discard the offender; if the injury be against the nation, by any conspiracy or other act of hostility, it offers the means of removing at once so dangerous a disturber of the public tranquillity. This also will be found exactly conformable to the directions in _Vattel_.

The third section brings me to the consideration of the relation which the bill bears to the Constitution of the United States. It contains a regulation, the object of which is at once to prevent all misunderstanding by the offending Minister’s Sovereign of the grounds upon which he should be ordered to depart or sent home, and to mark by a strong line of discrimination the cases when a foreign Minister is dismissed for misconduct, from those when he is expelled on account of national differences. In this latter case, by the general understanding and usage of nations, an order to depart given to a foreign Minister is equivalent to a declaration of war. In the European Governments, where the power of declaring war and that of negotiating with foreign States are committed to the same hands, this nice discrimination of the specific reasons for which a Minister may be dismissed is far less important than with us. The power of declaring war is with us exclusively vested in Congress; and as the order to depart, when founded on national disputes, amounts to such a declaration, it appears to me, by fair inference, that for such cause the President of the United States cannot issue such an order without the express request or concurrence of Congress to that effect. It was from this view of the subject that, in the present bill, the power vested in the President to send home a culpable Minister is so precisely limited to the cases when the Minister shall have deserved that treatment by his personal misconduct. This distinction between the causes for which a foreign Minister may be sent home has been solemnly recognized in a remarkable manner by this Government in the treaty with Great Britain of the 19th November, 1794, in the twenty-sixth article.

Here, sir, the sending home a Minister for national causes is recognized to be the very test of a rupture, and exactly tantamount to a declaration of war. But the same act, done for the Minister’s personal misconduct, is acknowledged to be a right of both parties, which they agree to retain; and it is stipulated that it shall not in that case be deemed equivalent to a rupture. The expressions used imply that the parties did not consider themselves as introducing in this part of the article a new law, but as explaining the old. It is merely declaratory, “for greater certainty,” and the previous existence of the right is recognized by the stipulation that both parties shall retain it. This is one of the articles of the treaty which have expired; but as expressing the sense both of our own nation and of Great Britain upon the subject to which it relates, it is as effectual as it ever could be. Its provisions are still binding upon both parties as part of the law of nations, though they have ceased to be obligatory as positive stipulations.

It may now perhaps be expected, sir, that I should give some explanation of the more immediate circumstances in which the bill originated. And here I am sensible that I tread upon delicate ground. So highly honorable and respectable is the office of a foreign Minister, that to treat him with disrespect in common discourse, and still more in legislative deliberation, would be without excuse, were his own conduct altogether unexceptionable. Should the occasion ever happen that a foreign Minister by his own violation of all the common decencies of social intercourse towards the Government to which he was accredited, should forfeit every right to personal respect or esteem, still I hope, sir, I should not forget the consideration due to the credentials of his Sovereign; still I should think myself bound to observe all that moderation of expression which can be consistent with the sentiments of indignation involuntarily excited in my breast by an insult upon the Government of my country.

Within a few days after the Message of the President at the commencement of the present session of Congress was made public, the Spanish Minister[30] addressed to the Secretary of State a letter couched in terms which it cannot be necessary for me to particularize, and containing, not only strictures of the most extraordinary nature upon all the parts of that Message respecting Spain, but complaints no less extraordinary at what it did not contain. Consider this procedure in its real light, sir, and what is it? A foreign Minister takes to task the President of the United States for the manner in which he has executed one of the most important functions enjoined upon him by the constitution. He not only charges him with misrepresentation in what he did say, but he presumes to dictate to him what he should have said. I forbear all comment upon this conduct as it relates to the present Chief Magistrate. I ask you, sir, and I entreat every member of this Senate to ask himself, What is its tendency as it relates to our country? The Constitution of the United States makes it one of the President’s most solemn duties to communicate to Congress correct information relating to the state of our public affairs. In every possible case of disputes and controversies of right between the United States and any foreign nation, the Minister of that nation must have an interest--and the strongest interest, to give a gloss and coloring to the objects in litigation--opposite to the interest of our country. If, whenever the President of the United States, upon the high and solemn responsibility which weighs upon every act of his official duty, gives to Congress that account of our foreign relations which is necessary to enable them to adapt their measures to the circumstances for the general welfare of the Union, a foreign Minister, under color of his official privileges, is to contradict every part of his statements, to impeach the correctness of his facts, and to chide him even for his omissions, to what an abyss of abasement is the Chief Magistrate of this Union to be degraded! The freedom which a Spanish Minister, unreproved, can take to-day, a French Minister would claim as a right to-morrow, and a British Minister would exercise without ceremony the next day. A diplomatic censorship would be established over the Supreme Executive of this nation, and the President would not dare to exhibit to Congress the statement of our national concerns, without previously submitting his Message for approbation to a Cabinet Counsel of foreign Ministers. Under the British Constitution, the speeches of the Sovereign to his Parliament are all settled in his Privy Council, and the Royal lips are understood to give utterance only to the words of the Minister. The reason of this is, that by the forms of their constitution the Sovereign himself is above all responsibility, and the Minister is the person accountable to the nation for the substance of the discourse delivered by his master. In their practice, therefore, the speech is made by him on whom the responsibility rests. But if this new assumption of the Spanish Minister is submitted to, our practice will be an improvement on the British theory of a singular cast indeed; for, while the responsibility will rest upon the President who delivers the Message, its contents will be dictated by persons not only loosed from all responsibility to our country, but bound in allegiance, in zeal, in duty, to the very Princes with whom we have to contend. The same control which by this measure is attempted to be usurped over the acts of the President, will at the next step, and by an easy transition, be extended to the Legislature; and, instead of parcelling out the Message among several committees for their consideration, we shall have to appoint committees upon every part of the Message relating to any foreign Power to wait upon the Minister of that Power, and inquire what it is the pleasure of his master that we should do.

That such is the inevitable tendency and the real intention of the proceeding will appear, not only from a due consideration of the act itself, but from a proper estimate of its avowed motive, and from the subsequent conduct of the same Minister. He addressed this letter to the Secretary of State, not for the purpose of asking any explanation--not for the purpose of giving any satisfaction--not for any of the usual and proper purposes of a diplomatic communication--but (as he himself declares) for our Government to publish, with a view to counteract the statements of the President’s Message. It was a challenge to the President to enter the lists of a pamphleteering war against him, for the instruction of the American people and the amusement of foreign Courts; and having failed in this laudable project, he addresses, after the expiration of forty days, a circular letter to the other foreign Ministers residing in the United States, with copies of his letter to the Secretary of State, as if these foreign Ministers were the regular umpires between him and our Government. Not content however with this appeal, he authorizes them to give copies of his letters to ensure that publication with which our Government had not gratified him, and calls at once upon the American people, and upon the European Courts, to decide between the President and him. Here, too, sir, I beg gentlemen to abstract the particular instance from the general principle of this transaction. The same act which under one set of circumstances can only excite contempt, under another becomes formidable in the extreme. Of the newspaper appeal to the people I say nothing. The people of this country are not so dull of understanding or so depraved in vice as to credit the assertions of a foreigner, bound by no tie of duty to them--the creature and agent of their adversary--in contradiction to those of their own officer, answerable to them for his every word, and stationed at the post of their highest confidence. But the circular to the other foreign Ministers is a species of appeal hitherto unprecedented in the United States. And what is its object? The information of their Courts; that the Governments of France and Great Britain may learn from him the justice and generosity of his master.

It is probable that both those nations--the ally and the enemy of Spain--have much better materials for estimating the justice and generosity of His Catholic Majesty; but what have they to do in the case? By an anonymous newspaper publication, the idiom of which discovers its origin, a precedent is alleged in justification of this extraordinary step, and the reciprocal communication of diplomatic memorials concerning the affair of Holland in the years 1786 and 1787, between the Ministers of Great Britain, France, and Prussia, at the Hague, is gravely adduced as warranting this innovation of the Spanish Minister here. The very reference to that time, place, and occasion, would of itself be a sufficient indication of the intent at this time. In the years 1786 and 1787, the three Powers I have just mentioned undertook, between them, not only to interfere in the internal government of Holland, but to regulate and control it according to a plan upon which they were endeavoring to agree. Their Ministers, therefore, very naturally communicated to each other the memorials which they presented to the Dutch Government. And what was the result? Two of those three Powers fixed between themselves the doom of Holland--raised a tyrannical faction upon the ruins of that country’s freedom, and marched the Duke of Brunswick, at the head of thirty thousand men, into Amsterdam, to convince the Hollanders of the King of Prussia’s _justice_ and _generosity_.

This, sir, is the precedent called to our recollection for the purpose of reconciling us to the humiliation of our condition. We are patiently to behold a Spanish Minister insulting the President of the United States--dictating to him _his_ construction of our constitution--calling upon other foreign Ministers to countenance his presumption--and intrenching himself behind the example of another nation, once made the victim of a like usurpation! The resemblance is but too strong, and will, I hope, not be forgotten by us. If the constitutional powers of a Dutch Stadtholder were prescribed and moulded according to the pleasure and by the interference of foreign Powers, (as undoubtedly they were,) let us remember the fact with a determination never to be so controlled ourselves. It is held up to us as an example: let us take it as warning.

The subsequent proceedings of the Spanish Minister have been all in the same spirit with that under which he presumed to call upon the President to enter the lists of altercation with him before the people of this country. They manifest pretensions to which we ought not to submit--which we ought vigorously to resist. In his last letter to the Secretary of State, he tells him that he will receive no orders but from his own master. Now, if this has any meaning, it must be to deny the United States the right of ordering him away: that is one of the most indisputable rights of every Sovereign Power. When pretensions so destitute of all foundation are advanced, it becomes us immediately to show our sense of them: not to resist them might be construed into acquiescence. It is a virtual dereliction of our rights not to defend them when they are assailed.

I am indeed fully sensible that the operation of the bill I have proposed, should it meet the sanction of Congress, will not be retrospective--that to what has passed no remedy which can now be provided will apply--but we may prevent in future occurrences of a like character, and much more dangerous consequence. We may prevent the spreading of an evil which threatens the dearest interests of the nation; we may prevent even the repetition of insults and injuries, which, but for the want of the regulations now proposed, in all probability never would have been offered. In my own opinion, the necessity for some legislative provision upon this subject will force itself upon this Government with additional pressure, from year to year, until it can no longer be resisted. If foreign Ministers are to possess in the United States an unbounded independence of all the tribunals of justice, while the United States on their part are to be deprived of the ordinary means of self-defence, enjoyed and exercised by all other Sovereigns, to check the abuse of those formidable privileges, the course of events will, in my belief, at no very distant day, bring us into that unhappy dilemma which will leave no other alternative than to infringe the laws of nations or to sacrifice our constitution--to commit violent outrage upon the rights of others, or to make a dastardly surrender of our own.

The amendment was adopted, and the bill ordered to a third reading.

FRIDAY, March 7.

_Privileges of Foreign Ministers._

The Senate resumed the third reading of the bill to prevent the abuse of the privileges and immunities enjoyed by foreign Ministers within the United States.

A motion was made to strike out the first, second, and third sections of the bill. Whereupon, a division of the question was called for; and on the question to strike out the first section, it was determined in the affirmative--yeas 23, nays 7, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adair, Anderson, Baldwin, Bayard, Bradley, Condit, Gaillard, Gilman, Hillhouse, Howland, Kitchel, Logan, Maclay, Moore, Pickering, Smith of Maryland, Smith of Ohio, Smith of Tennessee, Smith of Vermont, Stone, Sumter, Thruston, and White.

NAYS.--Messrs. Adams, Mitchill, Plumer, Smith of New York, Tracy, Turner, and Worthington.

And on the question to strike out the second section of the bill, it was determined in the affirmative--yeas 21, nays 9, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Anderson, Baldwin, Bayard, Bradley, Condit, Gaillard, Gilman, Hillhouse, Howland, Kitchel, Logan, Maclay, Moore, Pickering, Smith of Maryland, Smith of Ohio, Smith of Tennessee, Smith of Vermont, Stone, Sumter, and Thruston.

NAYS.--Messrs. Adair, Adams, Mitchill, Plumer, Smith of New York, Tracy, Turner, White, and Worthington.

And on the question to strike out the third section of the bill, it was determined in the affirmative--yeas 27, nays 3, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adair, Adams, Anderson, Baldwin, Bayard, Bradley, Condit, Gaillard, Gilman, Hillhouse, Howland, Kitchel, Logan, Maclay, Moore, Pickering, Plumer, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Smith of Ohio, Smith of Tennessee, Smith of Vermont, Stone, Sumter, Thruston, Turner, and White.

NAYS.--Messrs. Mitchill, Tracy, and Worthington.

And the bill having been further amended, on the question, Shall this bill pass? it was determined in the negative--yeas 4, nays 24, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adams, Plumer, Smith of Ohio, and Thruston.

NAYS.--Messrs. Adair, Anderson, Baldwin, Bayard, Bradley, Condit, Gaillard, Gilman, Hillhouse, Howland, Kitchel, Logan, Maclay, Moore, Pickering, Smith of New York, Smith of Tennessee, Smith of Vermont, Stone, Sumter, Tracy, Turner, White, and Worthington.

So the bill was lost.

MONDAY, March 10.

_British Aggressions._

The Senate resumed the consideration of the third resolution reported by the committee, on the 5th of February last, to whom was referred that part of the Message of the President of the United States, at the opening of the session, which relates to the spoliations of our commerce.

Mr. S. SMITH.--Mr. President: The subject now before the Senate is, the third resolution reported by your committee on that part of the Message which relates to British spoliations. The first resolution is a declaration of our neutral rights, and has passed the Senate unanimously. The second requests the President to send a special mission to Great Britain to demand restoration of property unlawfully taken from our merchants, and, by a peaceful arrangement, to adjust all differences subsisting between that nation and the United States. The third is now before us. I will take leave to read it.

3. _Resolved_, That it is expedient to prohibit, by law, the importation into the United States of any of the following goods, wares, or merchandise, being the growth, produce, or manufactures of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, or the dependencies thereof, that is to say: woollens, linens, hats, nails, looking-glasses, rum, hardwares, slate, salt, coal, boots, shoes, ribbons, silks, and plated and glass wares. The said prohibition to commence from the ---- day of ----, unless, previously thereto, equitable arrangements shall be made between the two Governments, on the differences subsisting between them; and to continue until such arrangements shall be agreed upon and settled.

This resolution is intended, Mr. President, to afford aid to the negotiation recommended in the second. Without this aid, or something similar, I doubt whether Great Britain would not calculate, as heretofore, on an indecisive character in our Government--on its indisposition to lend any aid or protection to commerce; and reasoning thus, whether her Minister might not be induced to believe that he could proceed in safety to the destruction of every part of our commerce with her enemies and their dependencies. This measure, Mr. President, is called a war measure. Is it so? If it is, then does Great Britain maintain a constant war measure against the United States, for she, at all times, prohibits the importation, into her ports, of every article manufactured within our country. She even prohibits our provisions from being consumed in her kingdoms, except when her wants compel her to admit them. If, then, she has set us the example, and has, by her laws, prohibited every article of our manufacture from being admitted into her kingdoms, how can our prohibiting a part of her manufactures from being imported into the United States, be considered as a war measure? This measure is not intended to take effect immediately. The first of November next is contemplated; which will give full time for negotiation, and for Great Britain to reflect on her cruel and unprovoked conduct towards us--a conduct that has been highly reprobated in England--a conduct that, when examined, has but too much the appearance of a determination to benefit by the plunder of our property, without the authority of law, and directly contrary to the public sanction given to our neutral trade in a correspondence held between Lord Hawkesbury and Mr. King, in 1801.

FRIDAY, March 14.

_Captain Peter Landais._

The bill, entitled “An act for the relief of Peter Landais,” was read the third time; and, on motion to strike out the word “six,” and in lieu thereof to insert the word “three,” thereby to reduce the sum proposed for his relief to three thousand dollars, it passed in the negative.

On motion, by one of the majority, it was agreed to reconsider the last vote, and to strike out the word “six.”

On motion, to fill the blank with the word “five,” it passed in the negative; and, on motion, it was agreed to fill the blank with the word “four.”

On the question, shall the bill pass as amended? it was determined in the affirmative--yeas 19, nays 10, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adair, Adams, Anderson, Bayard, Condit, Gilman, Howland, Kitchel, Maclay, Mitchill, Smith of Maryland, Smith of Ohio, Smith of Tennessee, Smith of Vermont, Thruston, Turner, White, Worthington, and Wright.

NAYS.--Messrs. Baldwin, Bradley, Gaillard, Hillhouse, Moore, Pickering, Plumer, Smith of New York, Sumter, and Tracy.

So it was _Resolved_, That this bill pass as amended.

MONDAY, March 17.

_Ex-Bashaw of Tripoli._

Mr. BRADLEY, from the committee appointed on the 16th of January last, to consider the Message of the President of the United States of the 13th of January, respecting the application of Hamet Caramalli, made the following report:

The ex-Bashaw founds his claim on the justice of the United States, from his services and suffering in their cause, and from his having been deceived and amused with the prospect of being placed on his throne, as legitimate Sovereign of Tripoli, and frequently drawn from eligible situations for the purpose of being made the dupe and instrument of policy, and finally sacrificed to misfortune and wretchedness. The committee, from a full investigation of the documents which have been laid before Congress, with other evidence that has come within their knowledge, are enabled to lay before the Senate a brief statement of facts in relation to the ex-Bashaw, and the result of their deliberations thereon.

This unfortunate prince, by the treason and perfidy of his brother, the reigning Bashaw, was driven from his throne, an exile, to the Regency of Tunis, where the agency of the United States, in the Mediterranean, found him; and as early as August, eighteen hundred and one, entered into a convention to co-operate with him, the object of which was to obtain a permanent peace with Tripoli, to place the ex-Bashaw on his throne, and procure indemnification for all expense in accomplishing the same. This agreement was renewed in November following, with encouragement that the United States would persevere, until they had effected the object; and in eighteen hundred and two, when the reigning Bashaw had made overtures to the ex-Bashaw to settle on him the two provinces of Derne and Bengazi, and when the ex-Bashaw was on the point of leaving Tunis, under an escort furnished him by the reigning Bashaw, the agents of the United States prevailed on him to abandon the offer, with assurance that the United States would effectually co-operate, and place him on the throne of Tripoli.

The same engagements were renewed in eighteen hundred and three, and the plan of co-operation so arranged, that the ex-Bashaw, by his own exertions and force, took possession of the province of Derne; but the American squadron, at that time under the command of Commodore Morris, instead of improving that favorable moment to co-operate with the ex-Bashaw, and to put an end to the war, unfortunately abandoned the Barbary coast, and left the ex-Bashaw to contend solely with all the force of the reigning Bashaw, and who in consequence was obliged, in the fore part of the year eighteen hundred and four, to give up his conquest of Derne, and fly from the fury of the usurper into Egypt. These transactions were, from time to time, not only communicated by our agents to Government, but were laid before Congress in February, eighteen hundred and four, in the documents accompanying the report of the Committee of Claims on the petition of Mr. Eaton, late Consul at Tunis, which committee expressed their decided approbation of his official conduct, and to which report the committee beg leave to refer.

In the full possession of the knowledge of these facts, the Government of the United States, in June, eighteen hundred and four, despatched Commodore Barron, with a squadron, into the Mediterranean, and in his instructions submitted to his entire discretion the subject of availing himself of the co-operation of the ex-Bashaw, and referring him to Mr. Eaton as an agent sent out by Government for that purpose.

After Commodore Barron had arrived on the station, in September, eighteen hundred and four, he despatched Mr. Eaton and Captain Hull into Egypt, to find the ex-Bashaw, with instructions to assure him that the Commodore would take the most effectual measures with the forces under his command, to co-operate with him against the usurper, his brother, and to establish him in the Regency of Tripoli. After encountering many difficulties and dangers, the ex-Bashaw was found in Upper Egypt with the Mamelukes, and commanding the Arabs; the same assurances were again made to him, and a convention was reduced to writing, the stipulations of which had the same objects in view; the United States to obtain a permanent peace and their prisoners, the ex-Bashaw to obtain his throne. Under these impressions, and with the fullest confidence in the assurances he had received from the agents of the United States, and even from Commodore Barron himself, by one of his (the Bashaw’s) secretaries, whom he had sent to wait on the Commodore for that purpose, he gave up his prospects in Egypt, abandoned his property in that country, constituted Mr. Eaton general and commander-in-chief of his forces, and with such an army as he was able to raise and support, marched through the Libyan desert, suffering every hardship incident to such a perilous undertaking; and with his army, commanded by General Eaton, aided by O’Bannon and Mann, three American officers, who shared with him the dangers and hardships of the campaign, and whose names their country will for ever record with honor, attacked the city of Derne in the Regency of Tripoli, on the twenty-seventh day of April, one thousand eight hundred and five, and, after a well-fought battle, took the same; and for the first time planted the American colors on the ramparts of a Tripolitan fort. And in several battles afterwards, one of which he fought without the aid of the Americans, (they having been restrained by orders, not warranted by any policy, issued as appears by Mr. Lear, the American Consul,) defeated the army of the usurper with great slaughter, maintained his conquest, and, without the hazard of a repulse, would have marched to the throne of Tripoli, had he been supported by the co-operation of the American squadron, which in honor and good faith he had a right to expect. The committee would here explicitly declare, that, in their opinion, no blame ought to attach to Commodore Barron. A wasting sickness, and a consequent mental as well as bodily debility, had rendered him totally unable to exercise the duties of commanding the squadron, previously to this momentous crisis, and from which he has never recovered; and to this cause alone may be attributed the final failure of the plan of co-operation which appears to have been wisely concerted by the Government, and hitherto bravely executed by its officers.

But, however unpleasant the task, the committee are compelled, by the obligations of truth and duty, to state further that Mr. Lear, to whom was intrusted the power of negotiating the peace, appears to have gained a complete ascendency over the Commodore, thus debilitated by sickness; or rather, having assumed the command in the name of the Commodore, to have dictated every measure; to have paralyzed every military operation by sea and land; and finally, without displaying the fleet or squadron before Tripoli, without consulting even the safety of the ex-Bashaw or his army, against the opinion of all the officers of the fleet, so far as the committee have been able to obtain the same, and of Commodore Rodgers, (as appears from Mr. Lear’s letter to the Secretary of State, dated Syracuse harbor, July 5th, 1805,) to have entered into a convention with the reigning Bashaw, by which, contrary to his instructions, he stipulated to pay him sixty thousand dollars, to abandon the ex-Bashaw, and to withdraw all aid and assistance from his army. And although a stipulation was made that the wife and children of the ex-Bashaw should be delivered to him on his withdrawing from the territories of Tripoli, yet that stipulation has not been carried into execution, and it is highly probable was never intended to be. The committee forbear to make any comment on the impropriety of the orders issued to General Eaton to evacuate Derne, five days previous to Mr. Lear’s sailing from Malta for Tripoli, to enter on his negotiation; and the honor of the nation forbids any remarks on the unworthy attempt to compel the ex-Bashaw and General Eaton to give up and abandon their conquest, by withholding supplies from the army at Derne, eight days previous to the commencement of the negotiation; nor will the committee condescend to enter into a consideration of pretended reasons, assigned by Mr. Lear to palliate his management of the affairs of the negotiation; such as, the danger of the American prisoners in Tripoli, the unfitness of the ships for service, and the want of means to prosecute the war; they appear to the committee to have no foundation in fact, and are used rather as a veil to cover an inglorious deed, than solid reasons to justify the negotiator’s conduct. The committee are free to say, that, in their opinion, it was in the power of the United States, with the force then employed, and a small portion of the sixty thousand dollars, thus improperly expended, to have placed Hamet Caramalli, the rightful sovereign of Tripoli, on his throne; to have obtained their prisoners in perfect safety, without the payment of a cent, with assurance, and probable certainty, of eventual remuneration for all expenses; and to have established a peace with the Barbary Powers, that would have been secure and permanent, and which would have dignified the name and character of the American people.

Whatever Hamet, the ex-Bashaw, may have said, in his letter of June 29th, 1805, to palliate the conduct which first abandoned and then ruined him, the Senate cannot fail to discern that he was then at Syracuse, in a country of strangers to his merits, and hostile to his nation and religion, and where every circumstance conspired to depress him, which, together with the fear of starving, left him scarcely a moral agent.

Upon these facts, and to carry into effect the principle of duty arising out of them, the only remuneration now left in the power of the United States to make, the committee herewith present a bill for the consideration of the Senate. The committee are confident that the legislature of a free and Christian country can never leave it in the power of a Mahometan to say that they violate their faith, or withhold the operations of justice from one who has fallen a victim to his unbounded confidence in their integrity and honor.

The report was ordered to lie for consideration.

Mr. BRADLEY, from the same committee, also reported a bill “for the relief of Hamet Caramalli, ex-Bashaw of Tripoli;” and the bill was read, and ordered to the second reading.

TUESDAY, March 18.

_Thanks to General Eaton, and his Companions._

Mr. Bradley submitted the following resolutions for consideration, which were read:

“_Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled_, That Congress entertain a high sense of the patriotism, intrepidity, and valor, of William Eaton, late General-in-chief of the army of the ex-Bashaw of Tripoli, and of Priestly N. O’Bannon, and George Washington Mann, three American officers, who, with a small number of American marines and the forces of the ex-Bashaw, composed of Greeks and Arabs, courageously marched through the Libyan desert, defeated the Tripolitan army near Derne, and took that city on the twenty-seventh day of April, eighteen hundred and five, and for the first time spread the American eagle in Africa, on the ramparts of a Tripolitan fort, and thereby contributed to release three hundred American prisoners from bondage in Tripoli.

“_Resolved_, As a further testimony of the gratitude of their country, that the President of the United States be requested to cause to be surveyed, within the limits of the public lands of the United States now open for sale, as the said William Eaton shall elect, a township of six miles square, to be called Derne, as a memorial of the conquest of that city, for ever; and to cause to be laid out, surveyed, and granted, to the said William Eaton, in one entire tract, within the said township, ---- thousand acres; and to Priestly N. O’Bannon and George Washington Mann, each ---- thousand acres; and to Arthur Campbell, Bernard O’Brian, David Thomas, and James Owen, the only surviving marines who served as volunteers in that expedition, three hundred and twenty acres each; to be granted to them, respectively, their heirs, and assigns, for ever.”

WEDNESDAY, March 19.

_Death of Senator Jackson._

The Senate were informed that JAMES JACKSON, one of their members, from the State of Georgia, had deceased the last night, whereupon,

_Resolved_, That a committee be appointed to take order for superintending the funeral of JAMES JACKSON, and that the Senate will attend the same; and that notice of the event be given to the House of Representatives; and,

_Ordered_, That this committee consist of Messrs. ANDERSON, SUMTER, and WRIGHT.

_Resolved, unanimously_, That the members of the Senate, from a sincere desire of showing every mark of respect due to the memory of JAMES JACKSON, deceased, late a member thereof, will go into mourning for him one month, by the usual mode of wearing a crape round the left arm.

The Senate adjourned.

THURSDAY, March 20.

A message from the House of Representatives informed the Senate that the House will attend the funeral of JAMES JACKSON, Esquire, late a Senator of the United States. They have also determined to wear mourning on the left arm, for the space of one month, in testimony of their respect for the memory of that distinguished Revolutionary patriot.

TUESDAY, April 1.

_Ex-Bashaw of Tripoli._

The bill for the relief of Hamet Caramalli, ex-Bashaw of Tripoli, being under consideration, on the question, Shall this bill pass? Mr. BRADLEY having finished his remarks in support of the bill--

Mr. ADAMS said: Mr. President, when the question was yesterday stated from the Chair, on the final passage of this bill, and I found myself called on to record my assent to or dissent from it, I felt myself bound in duty to call upon the committee by whom it was reported, for the evidence upon which they had rested the claim of Hamet Bashaw to the grant of money which is proposed by the bill to be made to him. Together with the bill the committee had reported what they term “a brief statement of facts;” upon which they declare the bill itself to be founded, and wherein they consider his claim, not on the generosity, but on the justice of the United States, from his service and sufferings in their cause, and from his having been deceived and amused with the prospect of being placed on his throne, as legitimate sovereign of Tripoli, and frequently drawn from eligible situations for the purpose of being made the dupe or instrument of policy, and finally sacrificed to misfortune and wretchedness. The bill accordingly makes the grant, expressly in consideration of his services and sufferings in our cause; and, in voting for the bill as it now stands, I should consider myself as sanctioning, as far as my vote would go, the report of the committee, upon which the bill is founded. This I could not do without further information. I thought, sir, and have thought, from the moment when I first saw the report, that the statement it contained, far from being supported by the voluminous documents which have been, in the course of the session, communicated to the Senate, respecting all our transactions with Tripoli, was in many respects contradictory to the whole tenor of those documents; my recollection of the documents was, indeed, only of their general tenor; for, amidst the pressure of the various other important business which we have had before us, I had not found time for a reperusal of them since I had heard them read at your table. But, of their general complexion, my mind had received a clear and very decided impression, with which I found it impossible to reconcile any part of the committee’s report. I presumed, however, that the committee were possessed of evidence, not yet communicated to the Senate, which warranted them in those assertions, which all the papers with which I had been made acquainted tended rather to disprove than to confirm. The chairman of the committee has this day informed the Senate of the grounds upon which the report was drawn up, and has communicated what he considers as the additional evidence in its support. He has also favored us with the arguments upon which he thinks the views of the subject, taken in the report, are fully substantiated. I regret, sir, that neither his arguments nor his evidence have been satisfactory to my mind; but that, after giving them what I deem their full share of weight, I still remain convinced that the report is founded upon a supposed state of facts altogether erroneous, and a view of the whole subject altogether incorrect.

The merits of Hamet Bashaw’s claim upon the United States must depend upon the nature of the engagements contracted between the United States and him, and upon the transactions under those engagements. With respect to the nature of the engagements, there is a very striking difference between the statement of the committee and the statement of the President of the United States in his Message of the 13th of January last. The statement of the committee is as much at variance with the ideas of Hamet Bashaw himself as with those of the President, and equally in opposition to those of Commodore Barron and Mr. Lear, as they appear in the printed papers.

With regard to the facts material to constitute the peculiar character of the ex-Bashaw’s claim, the statement of the committee is no less in flat contradiction to the statements of the President, to the acknowledgments of Hamet Bashaw, and to the tenor of the most substantial documents.

As to the nature of the engagements, the committee represent Hamet Bashaw as having been inveigled, deceived, amused with promises to place him on his throne, and finally betrayed and sacrificed. They appear to think the United States were bound, at all events, and, by their exclusive exertions, to restore him to his dignity, and that the mere act of withdrawing their aid, without accomplishing that object, was a treacherous violation of their faith plighted to him.

Let us now see what was the real nature of those magnificent offers of the reigning Bashaw to his brother--the armed escort, and the two provinces--upon the abandonment of which, under the influence of our agents, the report raises such a fund of merit and sacrifice on the part of Hamet. The committee take this circumstance from a statement made by Mr. Eaton to the Committee of Claims, in February 7, 1804, printed among the documents of that season. Largely as the chairman of the committee has drawn from that statement in making his report, it is singular that the following passage in it, page 16, has escaped his attention:

“Meantime, I had wrought upon the Bey’s Minister to countenance and aid my project, in consideration of my promise to give him $10,000, on condition of his fidelity, and in case of its success. I thought it good policy to secure the Minister; not so much for the service he would render, as to check the mischief which seemed impending. He confessed it was the intention of the enemy Bashaw, by this illusive overture, to get possession of the rival brother in order to destroy him; and he permitted my dragoman, under an injunction of secrecy, to communicate the design to Hamet Bashaw. This determined him to go to Malta, under a pretext to his people of evading the Swedish and American cruisers.”

And are these the overtures? Is this the eligible situation, of such precious value to the ex-Bashaw, that this nation, or its Government, is to be charged with perfidy and treachery because our agents prevailed upon him to abandon them? Even so! The reigning Bashaw sends an escort of forty men, with offers of two provinces, to his exiled brother, for the sole purpose of getting him into his possession to destroy him. Our agents discover the project; apprise the destined victim of his intended fate; rescue him from inevitable destruction--and now, we are to be told, that by this act, we were not conferring, but receiving an obligation, which bound us in honor and duty to restore him to his throne.

Thus much, sir, for the nature of the transactions between the agents of the United States and the ex-Bashaw, prior to the year 1804, when Commodore Barron with his squadron were sent into the Mediterranean, and when he was vested with discretionary powers to avail himself of Hamet’s co-operation, and referred to Mr. Eaton as an agent sent out by Government for that purpose.

This discretionary power of Commodore Barron, the chairman of the committee has this day strongly contended was altogether unlimited, and such is the idea given of it in the report; but this I apprehend to be a mistake of the utmost importance. It is in direct contradiction to the statement of the President’s Message, and to the testimony of Commodore Barron himself. The President’s Message says:

“We authorized Commodore Barron, then proceeding with his squadron, to enter into an understanding with Hamet, if he should deem it useful; and as it was represented that he would need some aid of arms and ammunition, and even of money, he was authorized to furnish them to a moderate extent, according to the prospect of utility to be expected from it. The instructions of June 6th, to Commodore Barron, show that a co-operation only was intended, and by no means a union of our object with the fortunes of the ex-Bashaw; and the Commodore’s letters of March 22, and May 19, prove that he had the most correct idea of our intentions.”

Thus, sir, the discretionary power of Commodore Barron, to avail himself of Hamet’s co-operation, was not unlimited--neither by the intention of the Executive, nor in his own understanding. It was limited both as to the nature of the engagement he was to contract, and as to the sum appropriated for the purpose; co-operation is a term of reciprocal import--it certainly means that there should be some operation on both sides. The operation in this case by sea, was to be conducted entirely and exclusively by the squadron of the United States. Hamet Bashaw could contribute, and was expected to contribute, nothing to that. His operation was to be by land; and, upon principles of ordinary reciprocity, it might have been required that this also should be exclusively at his expense. The Government, however, were willing to furnish him some aid even there. And the sum of twenty thousand dollars had been appropriated for that purpose. This was going as far as prudence would warrant, or as good faith could require. Hamet himself could have entertained no other expectation, since, in his letter to Mr. Eaton, of 3d January, he says: “Your operations should be carried on by sea; mine by land.” And even after the peace was made, in his letter to Mr. Eaton, of 20th June, he acknowledges, as clearly as language can express it, that the failure of co-operation was not on our part, but his own; that his means had not been found to answer our reasonable expectations; and that he was “satisfied with all our nation has done concerning him.”

If Hamet, after the capture of Derne, was totally unable to command any resources, or bear any part in co-operation with us, how can it be said that he would, without the hazard of a repulse, have marched to the throne of Tripoli, had he been supported by the co-operation of our squadron? But, further, I ask what were the means, what were the resources, of this sovereign prince, from the hour when Mr. Eaton received his orders to withdraw from him? The event, sir, is worth a thousand arguments. He could not support himself a day. He was compelled to take instantaneous refuge on board our vessels, and was saved from destruction only by being brought away. Does this look like marching to the throne of Tripoli?

I am aware, sir, that the report has very explicitly declared that no blame ought to attach to Commodore Barron; but it has also declared that a wasting sickness, and consequent mental as well as bodily debility, had rendered him totally unable to command the squadron; that to this cause alone may be attributed the final failure of the plan of co-operation; that Mr. Lear appears to have gained a complete ascendency over him, thus debilitated by sickness; or rather that Lear, having assumed the command, in the name of the Commodore, paralyzed every military operation by sea and land; and they go so far as to impute to Mr. Lear all the letters of Commodore Barron, subsequent to that of 21st of March, 1805. If the gentleman from Maryland considers all this, sir, as perfectly respectful to the Commodore, I can only say that it appears in a different light to me, nor do I imagine it will bear that complexion to the person immediately interested in it. But the chairman of the committee has gone yet further. He has told you, in so many words, that the Commodore was reduced to a state of perfect childhood; has represented him as equally incapable of thought and of action; in a mere state of dotage. And all this upon what evidence? Why, because, in one of his letters, Commodore Barron says he is unable to write with his own hand; and because, from the 19th to the 22d of May, there appear among the documents, five letters, long letters, says the gentleman, and yet the Commodore’s secretary had an inflammation in his eyes.

MONDAY, April 7.

The bill, entitled “An act further to alter and establish certain post roads, and for other purposes,” was read the second time, and referred to Messrs. ANDERSON, WHITE, and STONE, to consider and report thereon.

_Importation of Slaves._

Mr. WRIGHT communicated a resolution of the Legislature of the State of Maryland instructing their Senators and Representatives in Congress to use their utmost exertions to obtain an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to prevent the further importation of slaves; whereupon, Mr. WRIGHT submitted the following resolutions for the consideration of the Senate:

_Resolved, &c._ That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of the said Legislatures, shall be valid as a part of the said constitution, to wit:

_Resolved_, That the migration or importation of slaves into the United States, or any territory thereof, be prohibited after the first day of January 1808.

THURSDAY, April 10.

_Non-Importation Act._

The Senate took into consideration, in Committee of the Whole, (Mr. ANDERSON having been requested by the PRESIDENT to take the Chair,) the amendments reported by the select committee to the bill, entitled “An act to prohibit the importation of certain goods, wares, and merchandise.” And, after debate, the PRESIDENT resumed the Chair, and Mr. ANDERSON, from the Committee of the Whole, reported that they had disagreed to the amendments of the select committee, but had agreed to an amendment to the bill; which was read, and the bill was amended accordingly; and, on the question, Shall the bill pass to the third reading, as amended? it passed in the affirmative--yeas 19, nays 9, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adams, Anderson, Baldwin, Condit, Gaillard, Gilman, Howland, Kitchel, Maclay, Mitchill, Moore, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Smith of Ohio, Smith of Tennessee, Smith of Vermont, Thruston, Turner, and Wright.

NAYS.--Messrs. Adair, Bradley, Hillhouse, Pickering, Plumer, Stone, Sumter, Tracy, and White.

FRIDAY, April 11.

_Potomac Bridge._

The bill, entitled “An act authorizing the erection of a bridge over the river Potomac, within the District of Columbia,” was read the third time; and, on motion to postpone the further consideration thereof until the first Monday in December next, it passed in the affirmative--yeas 19, nays 10, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adair, Adams, Anderson, Baldwin, Gilman, Hillhouse, Howland, Kitchel, Maclay, Mitchill, Pickering, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Stone, Sumter, Thruston, Tracy, Worthington, and Wright.

NAYS.--Messrs. Bradley, Condit, Gaillard, Moore, Plumer, Smith of Ohio, Smith of Tennessee, Smith of Vermont, Turner, and White.

So the bill was postponed.

SATURDAY, April 12.

_Exclusion of Army and Naval officers from civil appointments._

The bill, entitled “An act to prohibit the officers of the Army and Navy from holding or exercising any civil office,” was read the second time; and on motion to postpone this bill to the first Monday in December next, it passed in the affirmative--yeas 17, nays 10, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adair, Adams, Baldwin, Condit, Gilman, Howland, Kitchel, Logan, Mitchill, Plumer, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Smith of Tennessee, Smith of Vermont, Tracy, White, and Wright.

NAYS.--Messrs. Anderson, Gaillard, Hillhouse, Maclay, Moore, Pickering, Stone, Sumter, Turner, and Worthington.

So the bill was postponed.

MONDAY, April 14.

_Tunisian Demand and Threat._

The following Message was received from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, which was read, and ordered to lie for consideration:

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

During the blockade of Tripoli by the squadron of the United States, a small cruiser, under the flag of Tunis, with two prizes (all of trifling value) attempted to enter Tripoli, was turned back, warned, and attempting again to enter, was taken and detained as prize by the squadron. Her restitution was claimed by the Bey of Tunis, with a threat of war, in terms so serious that, on withdrawing from the blockade of Tripoli, the commanding officer of the squadron thought it his duty to repair to Tunis with his squadron, and to require a categorical declaration, whether peace or war was intended. The Bey preferred explaining himself by an Ambassador to the United States, who, on his arrival, renewed the request that the vessel and her prizes should be restored. It was deemed proper to give this proof of friendship to the Bey, and the Ambassador was informed the vessels would be restored. Afterwards he made a requisition of naval stores to be sent to the Bey, in order to secure a peace for the term of three years, with a threat of war, if refused. It has been refused, and the Ambassador is about to depart without receding from his threat or demand.

Under these circumstances, and considering that the several provisions of the act of March 25th, 1804, will cease, in consequence of the ratification of the treaty of peace with Tripoli, now advised and consented to by the Senate, I have thought it my duty to communicate these facts, in order that Congress may consider the expediency of continuing the same provisions for a limited time, or making others equivalent.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 14, 1806.

TUESDAY, April 15.

_Non-Importation Act._

The bill, entitled “An act to prohibit the importation of certain goods, wares, and merchandise,” was read the third time; and the amendment adopted was again considered and rejected.

A motion was made to postpone the bill for the purpose of considering the following resolution:

_Resolved_, That, in consequence of a more favorable course of conduct on the part of Great Britain, in respect to the disturbance of the trade of the United States; and entertaining a hope that the British Ministry, lately established, will be disposed to a reasonable arrangement of all affairs of difference between the two nations, the Senate do hereby postpone the further consideration of the bill, entitled “An act to prohibit the importation of certain goods, wares, and merchandise,” to the first Monday in November next.

And, on the question to agree to this motion, it passed in the negative--yeas 9, nays 19, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adair, Adams, Hillhouse, Logan, Pickering, Plumer, Sumter, Tracy, and White.

NAYS.--Messrs. Anderson, Baldwin, Condit, Gaillard, Gilman, Howland, Kitchel, Maclay, Mitchill, Moore, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Smith of Ohio, Smith of Tennessee, Smith of Vermont, Stone, Thruston, Worthington, and Wright.

And on the question, Shall this bill pass? it was determined in the affirmative--yeas 19, nays 9, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adams, Anderson, Baldwin, Condit, Gaillard, Gilman, Howland, Kitchel, Maclay, Mitchill, Moore, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Smith of Ohio, Smith of Tennessee, Smith of Vermont, Thruston, Worthington, and Wright.

NAYS.--Messrs. Adair, Hillhouse, Logan, Pickering, Plumer, Stone, Sumter, Tracy, and White.

So it was _Resolved_, That this bill pass.

FRIDAY, April 18.

_Demand and Threat of Tunis._

The following Message was received from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In compliance with the request of the Senate, of yesterday’s date, I now communicate the entire correspondence between the Ambassador of Tunis and the Secretary of State; from which the Senate will see, that the first application by the Ambassador for restitution of the vessels taken in violation of blockade, having been yielded to, the only remaining cause of difference brought forward by him, is the requisition of a present of naval stores, to secure a peace for three years; after which, the inference is obvious, that a renewal of the presents is to be expected, to renew the prolongation of peace for another term. But this demand has been pressed in verbal conferences, much more explicitly and pertinaciously than appears in the written correspondence. To save the delay of copying, some originals are enclosed, with a request that they be returned.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 18, 1806.

SATURDAY, April 19.

The bill for the relief of Hamet Caramalli was read the third time.

_Resolved_, That this bill pass, that it be engrossed, and that the title thereof be, “An act for the temporary relief of Hamet Caramalli.”

MONDAY, April 21.

_Adjournment._

On motion, it was

_Resolved_, That Messrs. WHITE and ADAMS be a committee on the part of the Senate, with such as the House of Representatives may join, to wait on the President of the United States and notify him that, unless he may have any further communications to make to the two Houses of Congress, they are ready to adjourn.

_Expunging the Journal._

On motion, that every thing in the Journal relative to the memorials of S. G. Ogden and William Smith be expunged therefrom, it passed in the affirmative--yeas 13, nays 8, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Adair, Condit, Gilman, Kitchel, Logan, Mitchill, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Stone, Thruston, Turner, Worthington, and Wright.

NAYS.--Messrs. Adams, Baldwin, Hillhouse, Pickering, Plumer, Smith of Ohio, Tracy, and White.[31]

_Ordered_, That the Secretary inform the House of Representatives that the Senate, having finished the business before them, are about to adjourn.

Whereupon, the Senate adjourned without day.

NINTH CONGRESS.--FIRST SESSION.

PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

LIST OF REPRESENTATIVES.

_New Hampshire._--Silas Betton, Caleb Ellis, David Hough, Samuel Tenney, and Thomas W. Thompson.

_Massachusetts._--Joseph Barker, Barnabas Bidwell, Phanuel Bishop, John Chandler, Orchard Cook, Jacob Crowninshield, Richard Cutts, William Ely, Isaiah L. Green, Seth Hastings, Jeremiah Nelson, Josiah Quincy, Ebenezer Seaver, William Stedman, Samuel Taggart, Joseph B. Varnum, and Peleg Wadsworth.

_Rhode Island._--Nehemiah Knight, and Joseph Stanton.

_Connecticut._--Samuel W. Dana, John Davenport, jr., Jonathan O. Mosely, Timothy Pitkin, jr., John Cotton Smith, Lewis B. Sturges, and Benjamin Tallmadge.

_Vermont._--Martin Chittenden, James Elliot, James Fisk, and Gideon Olin.

_New York._--John Blake, jr., Philip Van Cortlandt, George Clinton, Silas Halsey, Josiah Masters, Henry W. Livingston, Gurdon S. Mumford, John Russell, Peter Sailly, Thomas Sammons, Martin G. Schuneman, David Thomas, Uri Tracy, Killian K. Van Rensselaer, Nathan Williams, Eliphalet Wickes, and Daniel C. Verplanck.

_New Jersey._--Ezra Darby, Ebenezer Elmer, John Lambert, James Sloan, Henry Southard, and William Helms.

_Pennsylvania._--Isaac Anderson, David Bard, Robt. Brown, Joseph Clay, Frederick Conrad, Wm. Findlay, Andrew Gregg, James Kelly, Michael Leib, John Pugh, John Hamilton, John Rea, Jacob Richards, John Smilie, Samuel Smith, John Whitehill, and Robert Whitehill.

_Delaware._--James M. Broom.

_Maryland._--John Archer, John Campbell, Leonard Covington, Charles Goldsborough, Patrick Magruder, Roger Nelson, William McCreery, Nicholas R. Moore, and Joseph B. Nicholson.

_Virginia._--Burwell Basset, Matthew Clay, John Claiborne, John Clopton, Christopher Clark, John Dawson, John W. Eppes, James M. Garnett, Peterson Goodwyn, Edwin Gray, David Holmes, John G. Jackson, Walter Jones, Joseph Lewis, Jr., John Morrow, Thomas Newton, jr., John Randolph, Thomas Mann Randolph, John Smith, Philip R. Thompson, Abram Trigg, and Alexander Wilson.

_Kentucky._--Geo. Michael Bedinger, John Fowler, Thos. Sanford, John Boyle, Matthew Lyon, and Matthew Walton.

_North Carolina._--Nathaniel Alexander, Willis Alston, jr., William Blackledge, Thomas Blount, Evans Alexander, James Holland, Thomas Keenan, Nathaniel Macon, Duncan MacFarland, Richard Stanford, Marmaduke Williams, Joseph Winston, and Thomas Wynns.

_Tennessee._--Wm. Dickson, John Rhea, G. W. Campbell.

_South Carolina._--Levi Casey, William Butler, Elias Earle, Thomas Moore, Robert Marion, David R. Williams, O’Brien Smith, and Richard Wynn.

_Georgia._--Peter Early, Joseph Bryan, Cowles Mead, and David Meriwether.

_Ohio._--Jeremiah Morrow.

_Mississippi Territory._--Delegate: William Lattimore.

_Indiana Territory._--Delegate: Benjamin Parke.

MONDAY, December 2, 1805.

This being the day appointed by the constitution for the annual meeting of Congress, the following members of the House of Representatives appeared, produced their credentials, and took their seats, to wit:

_From New Hampshire_--Silas Betton, Caleb Ellis, David Hough, Samuel Tenney, and Thomas W. Thompson.

_From Massachusetts_--Joseph Barker, Barnabas Bidwell, Phanuel Bishop, John Chandler, Orchard Cook, Jacob Crowninshield, Richard Cutts, William Ely, Isaiah L. Green, Jeremiah Nelson, Josiah Quincy, Ebenezer Seaver, Samuel Taggart, Joseph B. Varnum, and Peleg Wadsworth.

_From Rhode Island_--Nehemiah Knight and Joseph Stanton.

_From Connecticut_--Samuel W. Dana, John Davenport, jr., Jonathan O. Mosley, John Cotton Smith, Lewis B. Sturges, and Benjamin Tallmadge.

_From Vermont_--Martin Chittenden, James Elliot, James Fisk, and Gideon Olin.

_From New York_--John Blake, jr., Silas Halsey, Josiah Masters, Gurdon S. Mumford, John Russell, Peter Sailly, Thomas Sammons, Martin G. Schuneman, David Thomas, Uri Tracy, Killian K. Van Rensselaer, and Nathan Williams.

_From New Jersey_--Ezra Darby, Ebenezer Elmer, John Lambert, James Sloan, and Henry Southard.

_From Pennsylvania_--Isaac Anderson, David Bard, Robert Brown, Joseph Clay, Frederick Conrad, William Findlay, Andrew Gregg, Michael Leib, John Pugh, John Rea, Jacob Richards, John Smilie, Samuel Smith, John Whitehill, and Robert Whitehill.

_From Maryland_--John Campbell, Leonard Covington, Charles Goldsborough, Patrick Magruder, William McCreery, Nicholas R. Moore, and Joseph H. Nicholson.

_From Virginia_--Burwell Bassett, John Claiborne, John Clopton, John Dawson, John W. Eppes, James M. Garnett, Peterson Goodwyn, David Holmes, John G. Jackson, Joseph Lewis, jun., John Morrow, Thomas Newton, jr., John Randolph, Thomas M. Randolph, John Smith, Philip R. Thompson, and Alexander Wilson.

_From Kentucky_--George Michael Bedinger, and Thomas Sanford.

_From North Carolina_--Willis Alston, jun., Thomas Blunt, James Holland, Thomas Keenan, Nathaniel Macon, Richard Stanford, Marmaduke Williams, Joseph Winston, and Thomas Wynns.

_From Tennessee_--William Dickson, and John Rhea.

_From South Carolina_--Levi Casey, Elias Earle, Thomas Moore, and David R. Williams.

_From Georgia_--Peter Early, Cowles Mead, and David Meriwether.

_From Ohio_--Jeremiah Morrow.

_Delegate from the Mississippi Territory_--William Lattimore.

And a quorum, consisting of a majority of the whole number, being present, the House proceeded, by ballot, to the choice of a Speaker; and, upon examining the ballots, a majority of the votes of the whole House was found in favor of NATHANIEL MACON, one of the Representatives for the State of North Carolina: whereupon Mr. MACON was conducted to the Chair, from whence he made his acknowledgments to the House as follows:

“_Gentlemen_: Accept my sincere thanks for the honor you have conferred on me. Permit me to assure you, that my utmost endeavors will be exerted to discharge the duties of the Chair with fidelity, impartiality, and industry; and that I shall rely with confidence on the liberal and candid support of the House.”

The House proceeded in the same manner to the appointment of a Clerk; and, upon examining the ballots, a majority of the votes of the whole House was found in favor of JOHN BECKLEY.

The oath to support the Constitution of the United States, as prescribed by the act, entitled “An act to regulate the time and manner of administering certain oaths,” was administered by Mr. NICHOLSON, one of the Representatives for the State of Maryland, to the Speaker; and then the same oath of affirmation was administered by Mr. SPEAKER to all the members present.

The same oath, together with the oath of office prescribed by the said recited act, were also administered by Mr. SPEAKER to the Clerk.

_Ordered_, That a message be sent to the Senate to inform them that a quorum of this House is assembled, and have elected NATHANIEL MACON, one of the Representatives for North Carolina, their Speaker; and that the Clerk of this House do go with the said message.

A message from the Senate informed the House that a quorum of the Senate is assembled and ready to proceed to business; and that, in the absence of the VICE PRESIDENT of the United States, the Senate have elected the Honorable SAMUEL SMITH their President _pro tempore_: the Senate have resolved that two Chaplains, of different denominations, be appointed to Congress, for the present session, one by each House, who shall interchange weekly. The Senate having appointed a committee on their part, jointly with such committee as may be appointed on the part of this House, to wait on the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, and inform him that a quorum of the two Houses is assembled, and ready to receive any communication that he may be pleased to make to them.

_Resolved_, That Mr. JOHN RANDOLPH, Mr. CAMPBELL of Maryland, and Mr. CROWNINSHIELD, be appointed a committee on the part of this House, jointly, with the committee on the part of the Senate, to wait on the President of the United States, and inform him that a quorum of the two Houses is assembled, and ready to receive any communication that he may be pleased to make to them.

The House then proceeded, by ballot, to the appointment of a Sergeant-at-Arms to this House; and, upon examining the ballots, a majority of the votes of the whole House was found in favor of JOSEPH WHEATON.

_Resolved_, That THOMAS CLAXTON be appointed Doorkeeper, and THOMAS DUNN Assistant Doorkeeper of this House.

_Resolved_, That the Rules and Orders established by the late House of Representatives, shall be deemed and taken to be the Rules and Orders of proceeding to be observed in this House, until a revision or alteration of the same shall take place.

Mr. JOHN RANDOLPH, from the joint committee appointed to wait on the President of the United States, and notify him that a quorum of the two Houses is assembled, reported that the committee had performed that service; and that the President signified to them that he would make a communication to this House to-morrow, at twelve o’clock, by way of message.

TUESDAY, December 3.

Several other members, to wit: ABRAM TRIGG, from Virginia; GEORGE W. CAMPBELL, from Tennessee; and ROBERT MARION, from South Carolina, appeared, produced their credentials, and took their seats in the House.

_President’s Message._

A Message was received from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, which was read, and referred to the consideration of a Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union. [For this Message see Senate proceedings of this day’s date, _ante_, page 346.]

WEDNESDAY, December 4.

Two other members, to wit: JOHN ARCHER, from Maryland, and WILLIAM BUTLER, from South Carolina, appeared, produced their credentials, and took their seats in the House.

THURSDAY, December 5.

Another member, to wit: JAMES KELLY, from Pennsylvania, appeared, produced his credentials, and took his seat in the House.

FRIDAY, December 6.

_Army Rules, &c._

Mr. VARNUM said it would be recollected that the rules and regulations for the government of the Army had never been revised since the era of the present Government; and that consequently the rules and regulations established during the Revolutionary war still continued in force, though our circumstances had materially changed. From the present aspect of affairs, he thought it became necessary that a revision should take place, that they might be adapted to the provisions under the present Government. An attempt to this effect had been made during the two last sessions; and in this House a bill had passed, which had been rejected in the Senate. He was of the opinion that it became the House, by again attending to the subject, to do their duty; and if neglect should attach any where, it should be at the proper door. He, therefore, moved the following resolution:

_Resolved_, That a committee be appointed to prepare rules and regulations for the government of the Army of the United States, and that they have leave to report by bill or otherwise.

Agreed to, and a committee of seven members appointed.

_Yazoo Claims._

Mr. GREGG said he wished to submit to the House a resolution on a subject of considerable importance, which had engaged the House at several of its previous sessions, and which was generally known by the name of the Yazoo claims. The discussions on this subject had occupied much time, and had excited greater irritation than any other subject within these walls. He supposed there was no probability that the subject would be permitted, by the claimants, to sleep, while the act appropriating five millions was permitted to remain in force. His object was, to repeal that act. By this step the claimants would not be placed in a worse situation, as the courts of justice would be open to them. Mr. G. said he did not expect the House immediately to act on this resolution, though he was prepared, at once, to go into it. But as it was important, and related to a subject on which the papers were voluminous, he would be satisfied that it should lie for some time on the table, the more especially that new members might become acquainted with it. He then offered the following resolution:

_Resolved_, That so much of an act, entitled “An act regulating the grants of land, and providing for the disposal of the lands of the United States south of the State of Tennessee,” as appropriates any portion of the said lands for the purpose of satisfying, quieting, or compensating any claims to the said lands, derived from any act, or pretended act of the State of Georgia, and neither recognized by the articles of agreement and cession between the United States and the State of Georgia, nor embraced by the two first sections of the above-mentioned act, be repealed.

Ordered to lie on the table.

_Executive Documents._

A Message was delivered from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, by Mr. COLES, his Secretary, as follows:

“_Mr. Speaker_: I am directed by the President of the United States to deliver you a Message in writing.”

The SPEAKER having received and opened a packet of considerable size, observed that the Message was confidential, and thereupon ordered the galleries to be cleared.

In about one hour and a half, the doors were opened, when it appeared that part of the communications made by the President were confidential, and that the members of the House remained under an injunction of secrecy with regard to them; and that another part was not confidential. This part embraces, among others, the following documents:

1. A letter from Governor Claiborne to the Secretary of State, dated October 24, 1805, in which, after stating the preparations making by the Spaniards at Pensacola and other places, he says: “I flatter myself that hostilities between the United States and Spain may be avoided, and that an honorable adjustment of our differences may ensue. But I am inclined to think that the Spanish agents calculate on a speedy rupture, and are making all the preparations that their means permit to commence the war in this quarter.”

2. Statements respecting the detention of the American gunboats.

3. Correspondence between Governor Claiborne and the Marquis de Casa Calvo, on exempting the Spanish officers from municipal taxes.

4. Correspondence between Governor Williams, of the Mississippi Territory, and Governor Grandpre, with sundry communications to the Secretary of State on outrages committed in the Mississippi Territory.

5. Documents to show that the settlement of Bayou Pierre, on the Red River, at which a principal aggression took place, was originally made by France while possessing Louisiana, and came to the possession of Spain only by the general delivery of Louisiana to her, and as a part of it.

6. Extract of a letter from C. Pinckney, dated August 1805, as well as one dated September 22, 1805, respecting Spanish spoliations.

7. Communications from Gov. Claiborne, dated October 24, 1805, respecting obstructions on the Mobile.

8. Copy of a letter from the commandant of the ship Huntress to the Secretary of the Navy.

MONDAY, December 9.

Several other members, to wit, from Virginia, EDWIN GRAY, and WALTER JONES; from New York, HENRY W. LIVINGSTON and ELIPHALET WICKES; and from Georgia, JOSEPH BRYAN; appeared, produced their credentials, were qualified, and took their seats in the House.

Mr. LEIB presented a petition of the late crew of the frigate Philadelphia, representing that they have been advised that under the maritime regulations of the United States, persons taken by the Barbary Powers are allowed on their release a pecuniary compensation for clothing received during their captivity, and some small sum for tobacco and other articles, usually called jail-money, for which they have received no compensation; but that these extraordinary expenses have been deducted from their pay, and praying relief.--Referred to the Committee of Claims.

TUESDAY, December 10.

Several other members, to wit, from Kentucky, JOHN BOYLE; from New Jersey, WILLIAM HELMS; from Connecticut, TIMOTHY PITKIN, junior; and from New York, PHILIP VAN CORTLANDT, appeared, produced their credentials, were qualified, and took their seats in the House.

_Exportation of Arms, &c._

The House took into consideration the amendments of the Committee of the Whole to the bill prohibiting, for a limited time, the exportation of arms and ammunition from the United States; in all of which they concurred.

Mr. COOK moved to substitute “five hundred dollars” in the room of “one hundred;” the sum for exporting prohibited articles beyond which is followed by the forfeiture of the vessel--under the impression that the provision was too rigorous.

This amendment was supported by Mr. CROWNINSHIELD, and opposed by Mr. DAWSON, and lost--77 members concurring in the report of the Committee of the Whole.

On motion of Mr. OLIN, “cannon balls and mortars” were added to the list of prohibited articles.

On motion of Mr. DAWSON, an amendment was introduced, applying the penalties of the bill to the exportation of the prohibited articles by land.

On motion of Mr. NICHOLSON the provisions of the bill were extended to the Territories of the United States.

Mr. GREGG said he understood the bill under consideration was only a report in part. He had no disposition to oppose its passage. He only rose to express his hope that when the committee made a further report, they would lay before the House the information necessary to enable them to act intelligently. It had, from the commencement of the Government, been the practice of the House to call on the Secretary of War to state the amount of military stores on hand, accompanied by his opinion of the further supplies deemed necessary. No such thing had yet been done this session. The House neither knew the quantity of military stores on hand, nor could calculate the effects of the bill. They did not know what was the quantity of sulphur and saltpetre on hand, or whether there was a sufficiency of those important raw materials, in case we should be embroiled in a war--

The SPEAKER here interrupted Mr. GREGG by observing that there was no motion before the House.

After a few remarks from Mr. NICHOLSON and Mr. GREGG, on the details of the bill, it was ordered, on the motion of the former, to be recommitted to the committee who introduced it, for amendment.

WEDNESDAY, December 11.

Another member, to wit, DANIEL C. VERPLANCK, from New York, appeared, produced his credentials, and took his seat in the House.

_Sword to General Eaton._

Mr. BIDWELL said that, in the late war between the United States and Tripoli, distinguished services had been rendered by Mr. Eaton, which had contributed to the peace lately made with that power. Intimation of this fact was not only derived from its public notoriety, but likewise from the President of the United States. He thought these services worthy the notice of Congress. He therefore submitted the following resolution:

_Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled_, That the President of the United States be requested to present a sword, in the name of Congress, to William Eaton, Esq., as a testimony of the high sense entertained of his gallantry and good conduct in leading a small band of our countrymen, and others, through the desert of Libya, on an expedition against Tripoli, in conjunction with the ex-Bashaw of that Regency; defeating the Tripolitan army at Derne, with the assistance of a small part of the naval force of the United States, and contributing thereby to a successful termination of the war, and the restoration of our captive fellow-citizens to liberty and their country.

Referred, on the motion of Mr. VARNUM, to a Committee of the Whole to-morrow.

_French Spoliations._

Mr. J. RANDOLPH observed that, at the first session of the eighth Congress, there had been an appropriation of $3,750,000 for the purpose of paying American claims for spoliations committed by the people of France, which had been assumed in the convention that transferred to the United States the sovereignty of Louisiana; that bills, in satisfaction of these claims, were daily presented for payment at the Treasury; but, that, on the 31st of this month, the appropriation would cease, when the sum remaining unexpended would be carried to the credit of the surplus fund. The Committee of Ways and Means had received a letter, representing the circumstances, from the Secretary of the Treasury, which had induced them to come to a resolution to ask leave to present a bill on the subject.

Leave having been granted--

Mr. J. RANDOLPH made a report, consisting of a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, representing the facts stated by him, and a bill, supplementary to the act making provision for the payment of claims of citizens of the United States, on the Government of France, the payment of which has been assumed by the United States, by virtue of the convention of the 30th of April, 1803, between the United States and the French Republic.

The bill provides that the balance of the $3,750,000 remaining unexpended on the 31st of December next, shall not be carried to the surplus fund, but shall continue applicable to the satisfaction of the claims until they shall be satisfied.--Referred to the Committee of the Whole on Monday next.

THURSDAY, December 12.

Another member, to wit, JOHN HAMILTON, from Pennsylvania, appeared, produced his credentials, was qualified, and took his seat in the House.

BENJAMIN PARKE having also appeared as a Delegate from the Indiana Territory of the United States, the said oath was administered to him by the SPEAKER, and he took his seat in the House accordingly.

_General Eaton._

On the motion of Mr. BIDWELL, the House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the resolution offered yesterday, relative to William Eaton.

The Chairman read the resolution as follows:

“_Be it enacted, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled_, That the President of the United States be requested to present a sword, in the name of Congress, to William Eaton, Esq., as a testimony of the high sense entertained of his gallantry and good conduct in leading a small band of our countrymen and others through the desert of Libya, on an expedition against Tripoli, in conjunction with the ex-Bashaw of that Regency; defeating the Tripolitan army at Derne, with the assistance of a small part of the naval force of the United States, and contributing thereby to a successful termination of the war, and the restoration of our captive fellow-citizens to liberty and their country.”

Mr. BIDWELL moved to amend the resolution by striking out the word “sword,” and by inserting in lieu thereof the words, “a medal of gold, with proper devices.”

Mr. J. CLAY wished the gentleman from Massachusetts would let the word “sword” stand in the resolution. It was only on extraordinary occasions, he believed, that a medal was awarded. He was very willing to vote for presenting a sword on this occasion; but, if a medal was insisted upon, he should be compelled to vote against the resolution.

Mr. ELLIOT requested that the resolution passed at the last session, relative to Commodore Preble, and the officers and marines under his command, might be read.

The resolution was accordingly read, which ordered a medal to be struck, and a sword to be given to each of the officers.

Mr. E. said, that the objection of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. J. CLAY) to the amendment offered by the gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. BIDWELL,) substituting a gold medal in the room of a sword, appeared to be founded on the idea that a medal would be a meed disproportionate to the importance of the services, or the official rank of the gentleman who was the object of the resolution; in other words, that it would be too great a reward. I did not, said Mr. E., anticipate the objection from any quarter of the House, and regret extremely that it has arisen. From the peculiar character with which the gentleman who is intended to be honored by the resolution, was invested by the Government, it becomes a point of no small delicacy, and even of some difficulty, to debate the question at all. We are, indeed, told in the President’s Message, that the important services of our gallant countryman undoubtedly contributed to the impression which produced peace with Tripoli. It was proper for the President to say this, and to say no more; but, in order to enable us to pay a proper tribute on our part to merit so conspicuous, it becomes necessary to avail ourselves of information derived from unofficial sources. In every thing which we can do upon this subject, we are anticipated by the loud voice of fame, and this consideration has induced me sometimes to doubt the propriety of doing any thing whatever. It has, however, always been deemed policy, and even duty, in free governments, to distinguish by national honors those citizens who have performed important national services. It is perfectly understood that our brave countryman commanded, in conjunction with the ex-Bashaw of Tripoli, a force sufficiently respectable to be considered as an army, and of course that the popular appellation of General Eaton had been conferred upon good grounds. In that strong point of view in which the subject will be seen by liberal minds, inadequacy of force and means, compared with the greatness of the object and the event, will give greater honor to the achieving of the enterprise. If we act at all, we ought to bestow a mark of distinction suitable for a general officer, or an officer of distinguished rank, to accept. Shall we refuse a medal, the appropriate reward of the brave Preble, and offer a sword, which was given to the subordinate naval officers, when the services of Preble, however meritorious, and greatly meritorious they were, failed of effecting the object which the world believes that Eaton has accomplished? By the modern notions of martial etiquette and honor, a sword is the appropriate token of distinction and reward for officers of subordinate rank. It is believed that a simple and concise vote of thanks, by the Representatives of a free people, is the noblest meed of exalted merit and patriotism.

An army, composed in part of Americans, but chiefly of the descendants of the ancient Grecians, Egyptians and Arabians; in other words, an army collected from the four quarters of the globe, and led by an American commander to conquest and glory, is a phenomenon in military history calculated to attract the attention of the world, not only by its novelty, but by its real influence and consequence. It ought to be considered, too, that this army, notwithstanding the singularity of its organization and character, and the smallness of its numbers and its means, acted in a cause which might be thought to affect, at least in some remote degree, the general interest of mankind. Since the destruction of Cato, and his little senate at Utica, the banner of freedom had never waved in that desert and barbarous quarter of the globe; and he who carried it so nobly, in the language of the resolution, through the desert of Libya, and placed it so triumphantly upon the African shore of the Mediterranean, deserves to be honorably distinguished by that country and that Government, to which the enterprise has added lustre. I repeat it, Mr. Chairman, we can do nothing in which we are not anticipated by fame. Fame has already devoted to the name which we are laboring to celebrate, the _monumentum ære perennius_, the imperishable column of glory, which is the just reward of patriots only, and which impartial history denies to the mere conquerors and robbers of mankind.

Mr. SMILIE remarked, that it added to the value of an honor conferred, to have it bestowed by a unanimous vote. It was not, however, his purpose to trouble the House with a speech. He should confine himself to making one or two remarks. He considered it correct that honors conferred should be apportioned to merit. It was not so important whether the man on whom they were bestowed, was the commander of an army, or whether he filled an inferior station. Whatever his station might be, he who conducted himself well in the service of his country, was entitled to her thanks. Mr. S. said he would next examine the advantages which the services of Mr. Eaton had gained to his country, and see whether they were equal to those which we had derived from the services of other great men. From his impression, he thought they had been highly advantageous, and equally so with those rendered by Commodore Preble and his brave associates, whose conduct he highly approved. He believed that the expedition of Mr. Eaton had greatly contributed to a peace; and if this were so, he did not know a more essential service he could have rendered. For these reasons he was in favor of awarding a medal in preference to a sword.

Mr. QUINCY hoped the House would bestow a medal instead of a sword. He would say that, on such an occasion, a medal was more proper than a sword. When the resolution was offered, he had a solid objection to it, which had, in some measure, been removed by the proposed amendment. A sword was not an appropriate reward for the service rendered on this occasion. It was a reward for valor, and mere valor. In this case he considered the valor displayed as a very small part of the distinction of Mr. Eaton. He wished that the motion had been submitted to a select committee, that not only the nature of the compliment, but likewise the form of the expression, might have been better adapted to what he conceived to be the character of the service rendered. He did not think the circumstances stated in the resolution were those which were the most appropriate. He did not consider the leading a small band through the desert of Libya, the defeating the Tripolitan army at Derne, the contributing to a peace, and the liberation of our countrymen, as characteristic of the services rendered. The peculiar character of those services was this: that Mr. Eaton, being a private citizen, and called upon by no official station or duty, had the greatness of mind to plan a scheme by which the dethronement of a usurper, the restoration of the lawful heir, and the release of our captive countrymen were to have been effected. A conception of this kind belonged only to great and superior minds; and what was sufficient to fill the minds of most men, the machinery for effecting this plan, was to him but of a secondary nature. He believed it would be for the reputation of the United States to give some select and appropriate reward, such as a man like Eaton ought to receive, and such as it would be to the honor of our country to give.

The question was then taken on Mr. BIDWELL’s amendment, which was carried by a considerable majority.

Mr. JACKSON said, he entertained a high sense of the extraordinary merit of the officer who was the object of the resolution under consideration, and was of opinion that the House should express their highest sentiment of approbation. To do this, he thought the phraseology of the resolution ought to be changed in conformity to the ideas of the gentleman from Massachusetts. He would, therefore, with this view, move that the committee should rise, with the intention of moving in the House the reference of the resolution to a select committee for such alteration.

The question was taken on the rising of the committee--yeas 52, nays 54.

Mr. QUINCY suggested the propriety of substituting Barca in the room of Libya, as the latter was an antiquated word, not to be found in modern maps.

Mr. BIDWELL observed, that he was not tenacious of the particular form of the expression. If that suggested by his colleague was deemed most correct, he had no objection to it. He would, however, remark, that the word Libya was taken from an expression used by Mr. Eaton in one of his letters. It was certainly a word used in modern times, although it might not be in general use.

As to the general question, Mr. B. hoped that, as some gentlemen thought the resolution went too far, while others thought it did not go far enough, and, as the general sentiment was, that something ought to be done by the House, it would be considered that a middle course between the two Extremes was the fittest, and that there would be a sufficient magnanimity to give a unanimous vote in favor of the resolution. For himself, he was willing to have it varied so as to make it conform to the general sense of the committee, for the purpose of insuring unanimity.

Mr. QUINCY said he was not particularly tenacious of the form of expression used. He had only risen to state his knowledge as far as it went. Libya was a word in use among classical men, among poets, but not among men of business.

The question was put on substituting Barca in the room of Libya, and passed in the negative by a considerable majority. The resolution, as amended, was then agreed to without a division.

The committee rose and reported it to the House, who immediately took it into consideration.

The amendment for substituting “a gold medal with proper devices,” in the room of “a sword,” being under consideration,

Mr. J. CLAY said, as the Committee of the Whole had reported their agreement to the amendment, and as a desire had been expressed that there might be a unanimous vote on the occasion, he wished more information on the subject than he possessed before he could act upon it. After having obtained this, he might very probably vote for the amendment. He, therefore, moved a reference of the resolution to a select committee, who might obtain the information required from the Secretary of the Navy.

Mr. JACKSON observed, that the names of other gentlemen, who were before the walls of Derne, had been announced in the newspapers, as having assisted in the achievements that were the object of the resolution under consideration. It was not improper to inquire whether they ought to be associated in the honors awarded by Congress. To ensure, therefore, unanimity, and bestow proper praise, he hoped the course pointed out by the gentleman from Pennsylvania would be pursued.

The motion to refer the resolution to a select committee was carried--yeas 69; and Messrs. BIDWELL, J. CLAY, THOMPSON, of New Hampshire, MASTERS, GRAY, ARCHER, and CASEY, were appointed a committee.

FRIDAY, December 13.

Two other members, to wit: from Delaware, JAMES M. BROOM, and from Kentucky, JOHN FOWLER, appeared, produced their credentials, were qualified, and took their seats in the House.

MONDAY, December 16.

Two other members, to wit: from South Carolina, O’BRIEN SMITH, and from New York, GEORGE CLINTON, junior, appeared, produced their credentials, were qualified, and took their seats in the House.

TUESDAY, December 17.

Two other members, to wit: from Virginia, MATTHEW CLAY, and from Kentucky, MATTHEW WALTON, appeared, produced their credentials, and took their seats in the House.

WEDNESDAY, December 18.

_Indiana Territory--Slaves--Salt Springs--State Government._

_Ordered_, that the report of a select committee, made the 17th of February, 1804, on a letter of William H. Harrison, President of a Convention held at Vincennes, in the Indiana Territory, declaring the consent of the people of the said Territory to a suspension of the sixth article of compact between the United States and the said people; also, on a memorial and petition of the inhabitants of the said Territory; be referred to Mr. GARNETT, Mr. MORROW of Ohio, Mr. PARKE, Mr. HAMILTON, Mr. SMITH of South Carolina, Mr. WALTON, and Mr. VAN CORTLANDT.

A petition of the Legislative Council and House of Representatives of the Indiana Territory was presented to the House and read, praying that the introduction of slaves into the said Territory may be permitted by Congress; that the right of suffrage therein may be enlarged; that the salt licks and springs in the said Territory may be ceded to them on certain conditions; that a certain description of claimants to land, in the said Territory, may be permitted to make entry thereof in the mode therein stated; that no division of the said Territory may take place; and that the citizens thereof may be permitted to form a State government as soon as their population will permit the measure.

Also, a petition of sundry purchasers of land settled, and intending to settle, on that part of the Indiana Territory west of Ohio, and east of the boundary line running from the mouth of Kentucky River, praying that the said tract of country may be added to and made part of the State of Ohio.

_Ordered_, that the said petitions be severally referred to the committee last appointed; that they do examine the matter thereof, and report the same, with their opinion thereupon, to the House.

Mr. VARNUM, from the committee appointed on the sixth instant, presented a bill establishing rules and articles for the government of the armies of the United States; which was read twice and committed to a Committee of the Whole on Friday next.

_General Moses Hazen._

On motion of MR. THOMAS the House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the bill “supplementary to the act entitled an act regulating the grants of land appropriated for the refugees from the British Provinces of Canada and Nova Scotia.”

This bill directs the following locations of land and patents to be granted:

“To Charlotte Hazen, widow of Moses Hazen, sixteen hundred acres; Elijah Ayre, senior, one thousand acres; Elijah Ayre, jun., three hundred and twenty acres; and Anthony Burk, two hundred and fifty acres.”

Mr. Thomas explained the grounds on which this bill is predicated, in virtue of inexecuted resolutions of the old Congress; when the committee rose and reported it without amendment: in which report the House immediately concurred, and ordered the bill to a third reading to-morrow.

TUESDAY, December 24.

Another member, to wit: ROGER NELSON, from Maryland, appeared, produced his credentials, was qualified, and took his seat in the House.

FRIDAY, December 27.

Two other members, to wit: SETH HASTINGS and WILLIAM STEDMAN, from Massachusetts, appeared, produced their credentials, were qualified, and took their seats in the House.

MONDAY, December 30.

Another member, to wit: CHRISTOPHER CLARK, from Virginia, appeared, produced his credentials, was qualified, and took his seat in the House.

_Road to the Ohio River._

The bill from the Senate to regulate the laying out and making a road from Cumberland, on the Potomac, to the river Ohio, in the State of Ohio, was read and referred to a Committee of the Whole on Thursday.

[This bill authorizes the President of the United States to appoint three Commissioners to lay out a road from Cumberland on the Potomac to the river Ohio, in the State of Ohio, to be four rods in width. The Commissioners are directed to make a report to the President of their proceedings, as well as the expense of making the road passable. The President is authorized to accept or reject the report in whole or part. If he shall accept it, he is then authorized to obtain the consent of the States through which the road may pass; and, having obtained such consent, to make a turnpike. Fifty thousand dollars are appropriated, payable first out of the proceeds of the reservation from the sale of lands in Ohio, and, secondly, out of the Treasury of the United States, the last sum to be chargeable to the preceding fund.]

TUESDAY, December 31.

Another member, to wit: MATTHEW LYON, from Kentucky, appeared, produced his credentials, was qualified, and took his seat in the House.

MONDAY, January 6, 1806.

_Impressment of a Revolutionary Soldier’s Son._

The SPEAKER laid before the House a letter received by him from David Rumsey, representing that his son, though possessed of a protection, had been impressed by the British; and that, notwithstanding his most strenuous exertions, he is unable to obtain his release. The letter is couched in unlettered, but pathetic terms, and concludes in the following manner: “I lost an estate by lending money to carry on the Revolutionary war, and I suffered every thing but death by being a prisoner among them (the British) in Canada. I lay fifteen months in close confinement, when I bore the rank of full captain; and if this is all the liberty I have gained, to be bereaved of my children in that form, and they made slaves, I had rather be without it. I hope that Congress will take some speedy methods to relieve our poor distressed children from under their wretched hands, whose tenderest mercy is cruelty.”--Referred to the Secretary of State.

_Impressed Seamen._

Mr. CROWNINSHIELD observed that, at the last session, there had been a return made to the House of the American Seamen impressed by British vessels, which had not been acted upon. Since that period these impressments had increased in a most astonishing degree. It was a fact that from 2,500 to 3,000 of our best seamen were detained by the British. We want the services of this useful class of men. That the attention of the House may be drawn to the subject, in order that proper measures may be taken by the Government, I have drawn up the following resolution:--

_Resolved_, That the Secretary of State be directed to lay before this House a return of the number of American seamen who have been impressed or detained by the ships of war, or privateers of Great Britain, whose names have been reported to the Department of State since the statement was made to the House at the last session of Congress, mentioning the names of the persons impressed, with the names of the ships and vessels by which they were impressed, and the time of the impressment, together with any facts and circumstances in relation to the same which may have been reported to him; stating, also, the whole number of American seamen impressed, from the commencement of the present war in Europe, and including, in a separate column, the number of passengers, if any, who may have been taken out of American vessels coming to the United States from Europe.

Mr. ELLIOT said that, in seconding the motion of the gentleman from Massachusetts, he felt it a duty to express a hope that the resolution would not only be adopted with perfect unanimity, but that we should no longer stop at the precise point of the adoption of a simple resolution, calling for information on this interesting subject. The information which was laid before the House at the last session, with that which has since been derived from the public papers, has produced a loud expression of public indignation, which it is our duty to echo with energy. To prefer every consequence to insult and habitual wrong, is a sentiment of the Executive, which has been admitted even by its opponents to be correct and honorable. Has the time arrived when it has become indispensably necessary to reduce this principle to practice? Do we suffer insult and habitual wrong? Our merchants call loudly for the redress of injuries. I hope we shall redress them. Let us extend to them the arm of national protection, but let us extend it also to another class of injured citizens; while we give it to the rich, let us not withhold it from the poor. The groans of our impressed fellow-citizens mingle with the murmurs of every gale from the ocean! The queen of that element ought no longer to be suffered to bespangle her diadem with the tears of American seamen, or to substitute her will and her interest for the laws of nature and of nations. It is to be hoped that, upon this subject, we shall take an attitude worthy of the nation--an attitude not to be abandoned but by obtaining complete justice.

The resolution was then agreed to unanimously.

THURSDAY, January 9.

_Naval Peace Establishment._

Mr. GREGG, from the committee appointed on so much of the President’s Message as relates to a Naval Peace Establishment, having obtained leave, submitted a bill in addition to an act, entitled an act supplementary to the act providing for a Naval Peace Establishment, and for other purposes; which was referred to a Committee of the whole House on Tuesday.

[This bill repeals the second and fourth sections of the act recited in the title, authorizes the President to keep in actual service in time of peace so many of the frigates and other public armed vessels, as in his judgment the nature of the service may require, and to cause the residue to be laid up in ordinary, in convenient ports--directs the public armed vessels in actual service in time of peace to be officered and manned as the President shall direct, provided that the officers shall not exceed thirteen captains, nine masters commandant, seventy-two lieutenants, and one hundred and fifty midshipmen, who are to receive no more than half their monthly pay while not under orders for actual service, and provided that the whole number of able seamen, ordinary seamen, and boys, shall not exceed nine hundred and twenty-five; the President being at liberty to appoint for the vessels in actual service, as many surgeons, surgeons’ mates, sailingmasters, chaplains, pursers, boatswains, gunners, sailmakers, and carpenters, as may in his opinion be necessary.]

TUESDAY, January 14.

The House commenced their proceedings this morning, at eleven o’clock, in secret sitting, having yesterday adjourned while the doors continued closed, and while confidential business was depending.

The House continued sitting until three o’clock, when the doors were opened, and an adjournment ensued.

FRIDAY, January 17.

_Indiana Territory--Slavery._

A memorial and petitions of sundry inhabitants of the counties of Randolph and St. Clair, in the Indiana Territory, were presented to the House and read, suggesting the expediency of a division of the Indiana Territory, and the erection into a separate Territorial government of a part thereof; of the formation of a Western State; of the admission of slavery into the said Territory, either unconditional or under such restrictions as Congress may impose; and, also, praying redress against certain oppressive acts of the Executive authority of the said Territory.--Referred to the committee appointed, on the nineteenth ultimo, on a letter from William Henry Harrison, Governor of the Indiana Territory.

MONDAY, January 20.

_Importation of Slaves._

The House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on a motion of the tenth ultimo, “for imposing a tax or duty of ten dollars per head upon all slaves hereafter imported into any of the United States.”

Mr. SLOAN said, he would not take up much of the time of the House in discussing a resolution, the object of which was so plain as rendered it scarcely possible to elucidate it. He would read that section of the constitution which gave Congress the power of legislating on this subject, which was so clear as to require nothing to be said in addition to it.

The ninth section of the first article is in these words:

“The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress, prior to the year 1808; but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.”

I conceive, said Mr. SLOAN, that, by this article, slaves are made an article of importation, in common with other articles imported. Congress have the same power to lay a tax of ten dollars a head on them, as they have to lay an unlimited tax on every other imported article. I presume every member of this committee has duly considered the subject, and has made up his mind on the expediency of the resolution. For my own