H. OF R.] Adjournment. [MARCH, 1805. $7,640,000 worth, and the 12 per cent. rate fell upon 31 millions of dollars worth. The average of all the ad valorems was about 18 per centum; and such was the cheapness of this simplicity of impost, that the cost of collection was only about 4 per centum, and the revenue cutter service almost null. The net revenue yielded was twelve millions and a quar ter, of which there went to the principal and interest of the public debt, about eight millions; to the army and navy, about two millions; miscellanies, about half a million; tribute to Algiers, near $200,000; diplomatic intercourse, $60,000; and about $600,000 to the civil list-comprehending the entire support of the Government in all its branches-executive, judicial, and legislative. And thus the moderate duties of that time, upon the moderate importation of that time, with the economy of that time, produced nearly twenty times the amount of revenue which the support of the Federal Government required. internal taxes had been repealed: the custom house duties | $425,000 of that quantity, while the 15 per cent. fell upon had not been increased. For, though the change of many articles from the ad valorem to the specific list, had the effect of increasing the revenue, yet it did not increase the duty, the object being to prevent frauds and to simplify and cheapen the collection. The duties themselves, both the specific and the ad valorem, remained at the low and moderate rates which characterized the early periods of our Government. The average of the specifics, on the leading articles, were: on spirits, 29 cents per gallon; on wines, 32 cents per gallon; on teas, 16 cents per pound; on coffee, 5 cents per pound; on sugars, 24 cents per pound; on molasses, 5 cents per gallon. The ad valorems were simplified to three rates, which in fact were but two, the third and highest rate only applying to luxuries, which were but little imported; and the lowest rate applying to the bulk of the importations. Thus the highest rate (20 per centum) in an importation of near forty million dollars worth of merchandise paying ad valorem duties, only fell upon DECEMBER, 1805.] Proceedings. NINTH CONGRESS.-FIRST SESSION. [SENATE. BEGUN AT THE CITY OF WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 2, 1805. PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE.* 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. SAMUEL L. MITCHILL, from New York. GEORGE LOGAN and SAMUEL MACLAY, from SAMUEL WHITE, from Delaware. DAVID STONE, from North Carolina. tor by the Legislature of the State of Delaware, March last; of JAMES FENNER, appointed a Senfor the term of six years, from the 3d day of ator 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. THOMAS SUMTER and JOHN GAILLARD, from KITCHEL, Mr. PICKERING, and Mr. SMITH of South Carolina. ABRAHAM BALDWIN, from Georgia. The VICE PRESIDENT being absent, the Sen- 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 Sena LIST OF MEMBERS OF THE SENATE. Tennessee; also, to Mr. SUMTER, appointed a 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 Delaware.-Samuel White, James A. Bayard. North Carolina.-David Stone, James Turner. SENATE.] Proceedings. [DECEMBER, 1805. such committee as the House of Representatives | tice, they have plundered and sunk them by the way, may appoint on their part, to wait on the Presi- or in obscure places, where no evidence could arise dent of the United States and notify him that a against them; maltreated the crews, and abandoned quorum of the two Houses is assembled, and them in boats in the open sea, or on desert shores, ready to receive any communication that he without food or covering. These enormities appearmay be pleased to make to them. ing 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 TUESDAY, December 3. in for trial as pirates. JOSEPH ANDERSON, from the State of Tennes-limits of the Gulf Stream, and to bring the offenders see; 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 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 jus harbors, under color of seeking enemies, has been The same system of hovering on our coasts and 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 opposition to a doctrine so injurious to the rights of obligation of providing an effectual and determined 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. Spolistions 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, On the Mobile, and are already of great amount. 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 bellige rent powers, the moderation, the firmness, and the wisdom, of the Legislature will all be called into sction. 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. DECEMBER, 1805.] Proceedings. [SENATE. But should any nation deceive itself by false calcula- | yields subsistence with less labor and more certainty tions, 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. 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 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. 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 war-particularly so, as, with the small point on the river, fare 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. 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. 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 The receipts at the Treasury during the year endsound a footing as it has been at any preceding time. ing on the 30th day of September last, have exceedStill, it will not be expedient to withdraw, imme-ed the sum of thirteen millions of dollars, which, with diately, the whole of our force from that sea. half preceding, have extinguished of the funded debt nearly eighteen millions of principal. not quite five millions in the Treasury at the beginThe law providing for a Naval Peace Establishment ning of the year, have enabled us, after meeting other fixes the number of frigates which shall be kept in demands, to pay nearly two millions of the debt conconstant service in time of peace, and prescribes tracted under the British treaty and convention, upthat they shall be manned by not more than two- wards of four millions of principal of the public debt, thirds of their complement of seamen and ordinary and four millions of interest. These payments, with seamen. Whether a frigate may be trusted to two-those which had been made in three years and a 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 preferThe limitation suggested by the number of seamen would admit a selection of vessels best adapted to the service. ence. 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 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. [DECEMBER, 1805. positions toward us. It was first manifested by her protest against the right of France to alienate LouisiOn the first occasion of addressing Congress, since, ana to us; which, however, was soon retracted, and by the choice of my constituents, I have entered on a the right confirmed: then high offence was manisecond term of administration, I embrace the oppor-fested at the act of Congress establishing a collection tunity to give this public assurance, that I will exert district on the Mobile, although, by an authentic demy best endeavors to administer faithfully the Ex- claration, immediately made, it was expressly conecutive Department, and will zealously co-operate fined to our acknowledged limits; and she now rewith you in every measure which may tend to secure fused to ratify the convention signed by her own the liberty, property, and personal safety, of our fel- Minister, under the eye of his sovereign, unless we low-citizens, and to consolidate the republican forms would consent to alterations of its terms, which would and principles of our Government. have affected our claims against her for the spoliations by French subjects carried into Spanish ports. 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. DECEMBER 3, 1805. TH. JEFFERSON. 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 than a declaration that we had no rights eastward of satisfaction as to the boundaries of Louisiana, other 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 citi zens 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 docuference that it is their intention to advance on our ments now communicated. They authorize the inpossessions, 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 neces sary 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 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 re- The conduct of France, and the part she may take quire from that Government indemnifications for our in the misunderstandings between the United States injured citizens; a convention was accordingly enter- and Spain, are too important to be unconsidered. ed into between the Minister of the United States at She was prompt and decided in her declarations, that Madrid, and the Minister of that Government for our demands on Spain for French spoliations carried Foreign Affairs, by which it was agreed that spolia- into Spanish ports were included in the settlement tions committed by Spanish subjects, and carried in-between the United States and France: she took at to 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 dis 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 |