accepted the offer. It will be obviously improper to resort even to the mildest measures of a compulsory character until it is ascertained whether France has declined or accepted the mediation. I therefore recommend a suspens in of all proceedings on that part of my special message of the 15th of J auary last which proposes a partial nonintercourse with France. While we can not too highly appreciate the elevated and disinterested motives of the offer of Great Britain, and have a just reliance upon the great influence of that power to restore the relations of ancient friendship between the United States and France, and know, too, that our own pacific policy will be strictly adhered to until the national honor compels us to depart from it, we should be insensible to the exposed condition of our country and forget the lessons of experience if we did not efficiently and sedulously prepare for an adverse result. The peace of a nation does not depend exclusively upon its own will, nor upon the beneficent policy of neighboring powers; and that nation which is found totally unprepared for the exigencies and dangers of war, although it come without having given warning of its approach, is criminally negligent of its honor and its duty. I can not too strongly repeat the recommendation already made to place the seaboard in a proper state for defense and promptly to provide the means for amply protecting our commerce. ANDREW JACKSON.

To the Senate of the United States:

WASHINGTON, February 9, 1836.

In answer to the call made by the Senate in their resolution of the 3d instant, relative to the Indian hostilities in Florida, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War, accompanied by sundry explanatory papers.

To the House of Representatives:

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, February 10, 1836.

I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War, with copies of so much of the correspondence relating to Indian affairs called for by the resolution of the House of January 23, 1835, as can be furnished by that Department. I also transmit a report on the same subject from the Treasury Department, from which it appears that without a special appropriation or the suspension for a considerable period of much of the urgent and current business of the General Land Office it is impracticable to take copies of all the papers described in the resolution. Under these circumstances the subject is again respectfully submitted to the consideration of the House of Representatives.

ANDREW JACKSON

To the Senate of the United States:

FEBRUARY 11, 1836.

I herewith return to the Senate the resolution of the legislature of the State of Indiana requesting the President to suspend from sale a strip of land 10 miles in width, on a line from Munceytown to Fort Wayne, which resolution was referred to me on the 5th instant.

It appears from the memorial to which the resolution is subjoined that the lands embraced therein have been in market for several years past; that the legislature of the State of Indiana have applied to Congress for the passage of a law giving that State the right to purchase at such reduced prices as Congress may fix, and that their suspension from sale is requested as auxiliary to this application.

By the acts of Congress now in force all persons who may choose to make entries for these lands in the manner prescribed by law are entitled to purchase the same, and as the President possesses no dispensing power it will be obvious to the Senate that until authorized by law he can not rightfully act on the subject referred to him.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, February 15, 1836.

To the Senate of the United States: I transmit to the Senate, in pursuance of the resolutions passed by that body on the 3d instant, a report from the Secretary of State, accompanied by certain papers, relative to the existing relations between the United States and France.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, February 18, 1836.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

I transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to their resolutions of the February instant, reports from the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury, with accompanying documents, relating to the relations between the United States and France. For reasons adverted to by the Secretary of State, the resolutions of the House have not been more fully complied with.

ANDREW JACKSON.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

FEBRUARY 22, 1836.

I transmit herewith to Congress copies of the correspondence between the Secretary of State and the chargé d'affaires of His Britannic Majesty, relative to the mediation of Great Britain in our disagreement with France and to the determination of the French Government to execute

the treaty of indemnification without further delay on the application for payment by the agent of the United States.

The grounds upon which the mediation was accepted will be found fully developed in the correspondence. On the part of France the mediation had been publicly accepted before the offer of it could be received here. Whilst each of the two Governments has thus discovered a just solicitude to resort to all honorable means of adjusting amicably the controversy between them, it is a matter of congratulation that the mediation has been rendered unnecessary. Under such circumstances the anticipation may be confidently indulged that the disagreement between the United States and France will not have produced more than a temporary estrangement. The healing effects of time, a just consideration of the powerful motives for a cordial good understanding between the two nations, the strong inducements each has to respect and esteem the other, will no doubt soon obliterate from their remembrance all traces of that disagreement.

Of the elevated and disinterested part the Government of Great Britain has acted and was prepared to act I have already had occasion to express my high sense. Universal respect and the consciousness of meriting it are with Governments as with men the just rewards of those who faithfully exert their power to preserve peace, restore harmony, and perpetuate good will.

I may be permitted, I trust, at this time, without a suspicion of the most remote desire to throw off censure from the Executive or to point it to any other department or branch of the Government, to refer to the want of effective preparation in which our country was found at the late crisis. From the nature of our institutions the movements of the Government in preparation for hostilities must ever be too slow for the exigencies of unexpected war. I submit it, then, to you whether the first duty we owe to the people who have confided to us their power is not to place our country in such an attitude as always to be so amply supplied with the means of self-defense as to afford no inducements to other nations to presume upon our forbearance or to expect important advantages from a sudden assault, either upon our commerce, our seacoast, or our interior frontier. In case of the commencement of hostilities during the recess of Congress, the time inevitably elapsing before that body could be called together, even under the most favorable circumstances, would be pregnant with danger; and if we escaped without signal disaster or national dishonor, the hazard of both unnecessarily incurred could not fail to excite a feeling of deep reproach. I earnestly recommend to you, therefore, to make such provisions that in no future time shall we be found without ample means to repel aggression, even although it may come upon us without a note of warning. We are now, fortunately, so situated that the expenditure for this purpose will not be felt, and if it were it would be approved by those from whom all its means are derived. and

for whose benefit only it should be used with a liberal economy and an enlightened forecast.

In behalf of these suggestions I can not forbear repeating the wise precepts of one whose counsels can not be forgotten:

The United States ought not to indulge a persuasion that, contrary to the order of human events, they will forever keep at a distance those painful appeals to arms with which the history of every other nation abounds. There is a rank due to the United States among nations which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, January 27, 1836.

The undersigned, His Britannic Majesty's chargé d'affaires, has been instructed to state to Mr. Forsyth, the Secretary of State of the United States, that the British Government has witnessed with the greatest pain and regret the progress of the misunderstanding which has lately grown up between the Governments of France and of the United States. The first object of the undeviating policy of the British cabinet has been to maintain uninterrupted the relations of peace between Great Britain and the other nations of the world, without any abandonment of national interests and without any sacrifice of national honor. The next object to which their anxious and unremitting exertions have been directed has been by an appropriate exercise of the good offices and moral influence of Great Britain to heal dissensions which may have arisen among neighboring powers and to preserve for other nations those blessings of peace which Great Britain is so desirous of securing for herself.

The steady efforts of His Majesty's Government have hitherto been, fortunately, successful in the accomplishment of both these ends, and while Europe during the last five years has passed through a crisis of extraordinary hazard without any disturbance of the general peace, His Majesty's Government has the satisfaction of thinking that it has on more than one occasion been instrumental in reconciling differences which might otherwise have led to quarrels, and in cementing union between friendly powers.

But if ever there could be an occasion on which it would be painful to the British Government to see the relations of amity broken off between two friendly states that occasion is undoubtedly the present, when a rupture is apprehended between two great powers, with both of which Great Britain is united by the closest ties-with one of which she is engaged in active alliance; with the other of which she is joined by community of interests and by the bonds of kindred.

Nor would the grounds of difference on the present occasion reconcile the friends and wellwishers of the differing parties to the misfortune of an open rupture between them.

When the conflicting interests of two nations are so opposed on a particular question as to admit of no possible compromise, the sword may be required to cut the knot which reason is unable to untie.

When passions have been so excited on both sides that no common standard of justice can be found, and what one party insists on as a right the other denounces as a wrong, prejudice may become too headstrong to yield to the voice of equity, and those who can agree on nothing else may consent to abide the fate of arms and to allow that the party which shall prove the weakest in the war shall be deemed to have been wrong in the dispute.

But in the present case there is no question of national interest at issue between France and the United States. In the present case there is no demand of justice made by one party and denied by the other. The disputed claims of America on France, which were founded upon transactions in the early part of the present century and were for many years in litigation, have at length been established by mutual consent and are admitted by a treaty concluded between the two Governments. The money due by France has been provided by the Chambers, and has been placed at the disposal of the French Government for the purpose of being paid to the United States. But questions have arisen between the two Governments in the progress of those transactions affecting on both sides the feelings of national honor, and it is on this ground that the relations between the parties have been for the moment suspended and are in danger of being more seriously interrupted.

In this state of things the British Government is led to think that the good offices of a third power equally the friend of France and of the United States, and prompted by considerations of the highest order most earnestly to wish for the continuance of peace, might be useful in restoring a good understanding between the two parties on a footing consistent with the nicest feelings of national honor in both.

The undersigned has therefore been instructed by His Majesty's Government formally to tender to the Government of the United States the mediation of Great Britain for the settlement of the differences between the United States and France, and to say that a note precisely similar to the present has been delivered to the French Government by His Majesty's ambassador at Paris. The undersigned has, at the same time, to express the confident hope of His Majesty's Government that if the two parties would agree to refer to the British Government the settlement of the point at issue between them, and to abide by the opinion which that Government might after due consideration communicate to the two parties thereupon, means might be found of satisfying the honor of each without incurring those great and manifold evils which a rupture between two such powers must inevitably entail on both.

The undersigned has the honor to renew to Mr. Forsyth the assurance of his most distinguished consideration.

CHARLES BANKHEAD.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, February 3, 1836.

CHARLES BANKHEAD, Esq.:

The undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States, has had the honor to receive the note of the 27th ultimo of Mr. Charles Bankhead, His Britannic Majesty's chargé d'affaires, offering to the Government of the United States the mediation of His Britannic Majesty's Government for the settlement of the differences unhappily existing between the United States and France. That communication having been submitted to the President, and considered with all the care belonging to the importance of the subject and the source from which it emanated, the undersigned has been instructed to assure Mr. Bankhead that the disinterested and honorable motives which have dictated the proposal are fully appreciated. The pacific policy of His Britannic Majesty's cabinet and their efforts to heal dissensions arising among nations are worthy of the character and commanding influence of Great Britain, and the success of those efforts is as honorable to the Government by whose instrumentality it was secured as it has been beneficial to the parties more immediately interested and to the world at large.

The sentiments upon which this policy is founded, and which are so forcibly displayed in the offer that has been made, are deeply impressed upon the mind of the President. They are congenial with the institutions and principles as well as with the interests and habits of the people of the United States, and it has been the con