ty of the officer charged with this object, every thing that can be done may be expected. Should the present season not admit of complete Buccess, the progress made will ensure for the next a naval ascendency where it is essential to a permanent peace with, and control over, the savages. Among the incidents to the measures of the war, I am constrained to advert to the refusal of the governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut to furnish the required detachments of militia towards the defence of the maritime frontier. The refusal was founded on a novel and unfortunate exposition of the provision of the constitution relating to the militia. The correspondence, which will be laid before you, contains the requisite information on the subject. It is obvious, that if the authority of the United States to call into service and command the militia for the public defence, can be thus frustrated, even in a state of declared war, and of course under apprehensions of invasion preceding war, they are not one nation for the purpose most of all requiring it, and that the public safety may have no other resource than those large and permanent military esta blishments which are forbidden by the principles of our free government, and against the necessity of which the militia were meant to be a constitutional bulwark.

On the coasts and on the ocean, the war has been as successful as circumstances from its early stages could promise. Our public ships and private cruizers, by their activity, and, where there was occasion, by their intrepidity, have made the enemy sensible of the difference between a reciprocity of captures, and the long confinement of them to their side. Our

trade, with little exception, has safely reached our ports, having been much favoured in it by the course pursued by a squadron of our frigates under the command of Commodore Rodgers; and in the instance in which skill and bravery were more particu larly tried with those of the enemy, the American flag had an auspicious triumph. The frigate Constitution, commanded by Captain Hull, after a close and short engagement, completely disabled and captured a British frigate; gaining for that officer, and all on board, a praise which cannot be too liberally bestowed,-not merely for the victory actually achieved, but for that prompt and cool exertion of commanding talents, which, giving to courage its highest character, and to the force applied its full effect, proved that more could have been done in a contest requiring more.

Anxious to abridge the evils from which a state of war cannot be exempt, I lost no time after it was de clared, in conveying to the British government the terms on which its progress might be arrested, without waiting the delays of a formal and final pacification: and our charge d'affaires at London was at the same time authorised to agree to an armistice founded upon them. These terms required, that the orders in council should be repealed, as they affected the United States, without a revival of the blockades violating ac knowledged rules; that there should be an immediate discharge of Ameri can seamen from British ships, and a stop to impressments from American ships, with an understanding that an exclusion of the seamen of each na tion from the ships of the other should be stipulated, and that the ar

mistice should be improved into a definitive and comprehensive adjustment of depending controversies.

Although a repeal of the orders, susceptible of explanations meeting the views of this government had taken place before this pacific advance was communicated to that of Great Britain, the advance was declined from an avowed repugnance to a sus pension of the practice of impress ment during the armistice, and with`out any intimation that the arrangement proposed with respect to seamen would be accepted. Whether the subsequent communications from this government, affording an occasion for re-considering the subject on the part of Great Britain, will be viewed in a more favourable light, or received in a more accommodating spirit, remains to be known. It would be unwise to relax our measures, in any respect, on a presumption of such a result.

The documents from the depart. ment of state, which relate to this subject, will give a view also of the propositions for an armistice, which have been received here,-one of them, from the authorities at Halifax and in Canada, the other from the British government itself, through admiral Warren; and of the grounds upon which neither of them could be accepted.

Our affairs with France retain the posture which they held at my last communication to you.

Notwithstanding the authorised expectation of an early as well as favourable issue of the discussions on foot, these have been procrastinated to the latest date. The only intervening ocence meriting attention, is the promulgation of a French decree, purporting to be a definitive repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees. This proceeding, although made the ground

of the repeal of the British orders in council, is rendered, by the time and manner of it, liable to many objec tions.

The final communications from our special minister to Denmark, af. ford further proofs of the good effects of his mission, and of the amicable disposition of the Danish government. From Russia we have the satisfaction to receive assurances of continued friendship, and that it will not be af fected by the rupture between the United States and Great Britain. Sweden also professes sentiments favourable to existing harmony.

With the Barbary powers, excepting that of Algiers, our affairs remain on the ordinary footing. The consul-general residing with that regen. cy, has suddenly, and without cause, been banished, together with all the American citizens found there. Whe ther this was the transitory effect of capricious despotism, or the first act of predetermined hostility, is not ascertained. Precautions were taken by the consul on the latter supposition.

The Indian tribes, not under foreign instigations, remain at peace, and receive the civilising attentions which have proved so beneficial to them.

With a view to that vigorous prosecution of the war to which our national faculties are adequate, the attention of congress will be particularly drawn to the insufficiency of the existing provisions for filling up the military establishment. Such is the happy condition of our country, arising from the facility of subsistence, and the high wages for every species of occupation, that, notwithstanding the augmented inducements provided at the last session, a partial success only has attended the recruit

ing service. The deficiency has been necessarily supplied during the campaign by other than regular troops, with all the inconveniences and expences incident to them. The remedy lies in establishing more favourably for the private soldier, the proportion between his recompense and the term of his enlistment: and it is a subject which cannot too soon or too seriously be taken into consideration. The same insufficiency has been experienced in the provisions for volunteers made by an act of the last session. The recompense for the service required in this case, is still less attractive than in the other; and although patriotism alone has sent into the field some valuable corps of that description, those alone who can afford the sacrifice, can reasonably be expected to yield to the impulse. It will merit consideration also, whether, as auxiliary to the security of our frontier, corps may not be advantageously organized, with a restriction of their services, to particular districts convenient to them; and whether the local or occasional services of marines or others in the seaport towns, under a similar organization, would not be a proper addition to the means of their defence. I recommend a provision for an increase of the general officers of the army, the deficiency of which has been illustrated by the number and distance of separate commands, which the cause of the war, and the advantage of the service, have required; and I cannot press too strongly on the earliest attention of the legislature, the importance of the re-organization of the staff establishment, with a view to render more distinct and definite the relations and responsibilities of its several departments: that there is room for improvements which will

materially promote both economy and success, in what appertains to the army and the war, is equally inculcated by the examples of other countries, and by the experience of our own.

A revision of the militia laws, for the purpose of rendering them more systematic, and better adapting them to emergencies of the war, is at this time particularly, desirable. Of the additional ships authorised to be fitted for service, two will be shortly ready to sail; a third is under repair, and delay will be avoided in the repair of the residue. Of the appropriations for the purchase of materials for ship-building, the greater part has been applied to that object, and the purchases will be continued with the balance. The enterprising spirit which has characterized our naval force, and its success both in restraining insults and depredations on our coasts, and in reprisals on the enemy, will not fail to recommend an enlargement upon it.

There being reason to believe, that the act prohibiting the acceptance of British licenses is not a sufficient guard against the use of them, for purposes favourable to the interestsand views of the enemy: further provisions on that subject are highly important. Nor is it less so, that penal enactments should be provided for cases of corrupt and perfidious intercourse with the enemy, not amounting to treason, nor yet embraced by any statutory provisions.

A considerable number of American vessels, which in England, when the revocation of the orders in council took place, were laden with British manufactures, under an errone. ous impression that the non-importation act would immediately cease to operate, have arrived in the United States. It did not appear proper to

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 actually 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 nation 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 consola. tion 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 pre ceded by a patience without example, under wrongs accumulating without end; and that it was finally not declared 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.