exercise on unforeseen cases of such magnitude, the ordinary powers vested in the treasury department, to mitigate forfeitures without previously affording congress an opportunity of making on the subject such provisions as they may think proper. In their decisions they will, doubtless, equally consult what is due to equitable considerations, and to the public interest.

The receipts into the treasury during the year ending on the 30th of September last, have exceeded sixteen millions and a half of dollars; which have been sufficient to defray all the demands on the treasury to that day, including a necessary reimbursement of near three millions of the principal of the public debt. In these receipts are included a sum of near 8,850,000 received on account of the loans authorised by the acts of last session. The whole sum actual ly obtained on loan, amounts to ele. ven millions of dollars, the residue of which being receivable subsequent to the 30th of September, will, together with the current revenue, enable us to defray all the expenses of this year. The duties on the late unexpected importations of British manufactures will render the revenue of the ensuing year more productive than could have been anticipated. The situation of our country, fellow-citizens, is not without its difficulties, though it abounds in animating considerations, of which the view here presented of our pecuniary resources is an example. With more than one nation we have serious and unsettled controversies; and with one powerful in the means and habits of war, we are at war. The spirit and strength of this na tion are, nevertheless, equal to the support of all its rights, and to carry it through all its trials. They can

be met in that confidence. Above all, we have the inestimable consolation of knowing that the war in which we are actually engaged, is a war neither of ambition nor vain glory; that it is waged, not in violation of the rights of others, but in the maintenance of our own; that it was preceded by a patience without example, under wrongs accumulating without end; and that it was finally not de clared until every hope of averting it was extinguished by the British sceptre falling into new hands, clinging to former councils, and until declarations were reiterated in the last hour through the British envoy here, that the hostile edicts against our com mercial rights and our maritime independence could not be revoked, with out violating the obligations of Great Britain to other powers as well as to her own interests. To have shrunk, under such circumstances, from manly resistance, would have been a degradation blasting our best and proudest hopes. It would have struck us from the high rank where the virtuous struggles of our fathers had placed us, and would have betrayed the magnificent legacy which we hold in trust for future generations. It would have acknowledged, that on the element which forms theee-fourths of the globe we inhabit, and where all independent nations have equal and common rights, the American people were not an independent people, but colonists and vassals.

It was at this moment, and with such an alternative, that war was chosen. The nation felt the necessity of it, and called for it. The appeal was accordingly made in a just cause, to the just and powerful Being, who holds in his hands the chain of events and the destiny of nations. It

remains only, that, faithful to our selves, entangled with no connections with the views of other powers, and ever ready to accept peace from the hand of justice, we prosecute that war with united council, and with the am

ple faculties of the nation, until peace be so obtained, and as the only means under the divine blessing of speedily obtaining it. JAMES MADISON.

Nov. 4, 1812,