war, with a celerity so unexampled, and with a slaughter of the enemy so disproportionate to the loss in the Hornet, as to claim for the conquerors the highest praise, and the full recompence provided by Congress in preceding cases. Our public ships of war in general, as well as the private armed vessels, have continued also their activity and success against the commerce of the enemy, and by their vigilance and address have greatly frustrated the efforts of the hostile squadrons distributed along our coasts, to intercept them in returning into port, and resuming their cruises. The augmentation of our naval force, as authorised at the last Session of Congress, is in progress. On the lakes our superiority is near at hand, where it is not already established.

"The event of the campaign, so far as they are known to us, furnish matter of congratulation, and show, that under a wise organization and efficient direction, the army is destined to a glory not less brilliant than that which already encircles the navy. The attack and capture of York is, in that quarter, a presage of future and greater victories, while on the western frontiers, the issue of the late siege of Fort Meigs leaves nothing to regret but a single act - of inconsiderate valour.

"The sudden death of the distinguished Citizen who represented the United States in France, without any special arrangements by him for such a contingency, has left us without the expected sequel to his last communications; nor has the French Government taken any measures for bringing the depending negociations to a

conclusion through its Representative in the United States. This failure adds to delays before so unusually spun out. A successor to our departed Minister has been appointed, and is ready to proceed on his mission. The course which he will pursue in fulfilling it, is that prescribed by a steady regard to the true interests of the United States, which equally avoids an abandonment of their just demands, and a connection of their features with the system of other Powers.

"The receipts into the Treasury from the 1st of October to the 31st of March last, including the sums received on account of Treasury notes, and of the loans authorised by the Acts of the last and the preceding Session of Congress, have amounted to 15,412,000, dollars. The expenditures during the same period amounted to 15,920,000, and left in the Treasury on the 1st of April 1,857,000 dollars. The loan of 16,000,000 of dollars, authorised by the Act of the 8th of February last, has been contracted for. Of that sum more than a million of dollars had been paid into the Treasury prior to the 1st of April, and formed a part of the receipts as above stated. The remainder of that loan, amounting to near 15,000,000 of dollars, with the sum of 5,000,000 of dollars authorized to be issued in Treasury notes, and the estimated receipts from the customs, and the sales of public lands, amounting to 9,000,000 dollars, and making in the whole 29,300,000 dollars, to be received during the last nine months of the present year, will be necessary to meet the expenditures already authorized, and the engagements.con

tracted

tracted in relation to the public debt. These engagements amount during that period to 10,500,000 dollars, which, with near one million for the civil, miscellaneous, and diplomatic expenses, both foreign and domestic, and 17,800,000 for the military and naval expenditares, including the ships of war building, and to be built, will leave a sum in the Treasury at the end of the present year, equal to that of the 1st of April last. A part of this sum may be considered as a resource for defraying any extraordinary expenses already authorized by law, beyond the sun above mentioned; and further resource for any emergency may be found in the sum of 1,000,000 of dollars, the loan of which to the United States has been authorized by the State of Pennsylvania, but which has not yet been brought into effect.

"This view of our finances, whilst it shews that due provision has been made for the expenses of the current year, shews at the same time, by the limited amount of the actual revenue, and the dependence on loans, the necessity of providing more adequately for the future supplies of the Treasury. This can best be done by a welldigested system of internal revenue, in aid of existing sources; which will have the effect both of abridging the amount of necessary loans, and on that account, as well as by placing the public credit on a more satisfactory basis, of improving the terms on which loans may be obtained.

"The loan of sixteen millions was not contracted for at a less interest than about seven and an half per cent. and although other causes may have had an agency,

it cannot be doubted, that with. the advantage of a more extended and less precarious revenue, a lower rate of interest might have sufficed, A longer postponement of the advantage could not fail to have a still greater influence on future loans.

In recommending to the National Legislature this resort to additional taxes, I feel great, satisfaction in the assurance, that our constituents, who have already displayed so much zeal and firmness in the cause of their country, will cheerfully give other proofs of their. patriotism which it calls for. Hap pily no people, with local and territorial exceptions never to be wholly avoided, are more able than the people of the United States to spare for the public wants a portion of their private means, whether regard be had to the ordinary profits of industry, or the ordinary price of subsistence in our country, compared with those in any other. And in no case could stronger reasons be felt for the yielding the requisite contributions.

By rendering the public resources certain, and commensurate to the public exigencies, the Constituted Authorities will be able to prosecute the war more rapidly to its proper issue: every hostile hope founded on a calculated failure of our resources, will be cut off; and, by adding to the evidence of bravery and skill, in combats on the ocean and on the land, and an alacrity in supplying the Treasury, necessary to give them their fullest effect, and thus demonstrating to the world the public energy which our political institutions combine, with the personal liberty distinguishing them, the best security will be pro

vided against future enterprises on the rights, or the peace of the nation. "The contest in which the United States are engaged appeals for its support to every motive that can animate an uncorrupted and enlightened people,-to the love of country,-to the pride of liberty, to the glorious founders of their independence, by a successful vindication of its violated attributes ; to the gratitude and sympathy which demands security from the most degrading wrongs of a class of citizens, who have proved so worthy of the protection of their country by their heroic zeal in its defence; and finally to the sacred obligations, of transmitting entire to future generations that precious patrimony of national rights and independence, which is held in trust by the present from the goodness of Divine Providence.

"Being aware of the inconveniences to which a protracted Session, at this season, would be liable, I limit the present communication to objects of primary importance. In special messages which may ensue, regard will be had to the same consideration.

"JAMES MADISON." "Washington, May 25, 1813."

Remonstrance to the Hon. the Senate, and the Hon. the House of Representatives of the United States, in Congress assembled. The Legislature of Massachusetts, deeply impressed with the sufferings of their Constituents, and excited by the apprehensions of still greater evils in prospect, feel im pelled, by a solemn sense of duty,

to lay before the National Govern→ ment their view of the public in. terests, and to express with the plainness of freemen, the senti ments of the people of this ancient and extensive Commonwealth.

Although the precise limits of the powers reserved to the several State Sovereignties have not been defined in the Constitution, yet we, fully coincide in the correctness of the opinion advanced by our venerable Chief Magistrate, that "our Constitution ensures to us the freedom of speech, and that at this momentous period it is our right and duty to inquire into the grounds and origin of the present war, to reflect on the state of public affairs, and to express our sentiments concerning them with decency and frankness, and to endeavour, as far as our influence extends, to promote, by temperate, and constitutional means, an ho nourable reconciliation.

If then such are the rights and duties of the people, surely those, who, at this solemn crisis, are selected by them, and who are specially honoured with their confidence, may venture respectfully, but frankly, to express the sentiments and feelings of those whom they have the honour to repre

Congress of the United States. For although the numerous petitions and remonstrances of the people of the State in relation to such measures as they deemed dangerous to their rights and ruinous To their interests, have heretofore been received in a manner little calculated to produce that harmouy, and cement that union which ought to be the permanent aim of the General Government, yet we cannot but indulge the hope, that new councils and a. more conciliatory spirit will distinguish the several branches of the present National Legislature-that they will endeavour, by the exercise of justice and impartiality, to allay the apprehensions and restore the confidence of the Eastern and Commercial States-10 remove their actual sufferings, andto replace them in the happy and prosperous condition from which they have been driven by a succession of measures hostile to the rights of commerce, and destructive to the peace of the nation.

It is not to be expected that a hardy and industrious people, instructed in the nature of their rights, and tenacious of their exercise, whose enterprise was a source of individual wealth and national prosperity, should find themselves obliged to abandon their accustomed employments, and relinquish the means of subsistence, without complaint; or that a moral and Christian people should contribute their aid in the prosecution of an offensive war, without the fullest evidence of its justice and necessity.

The United States, from the form of their Government, from the principles of their history they have made, from the maxims trans

mitted to them by patriots and sages, whose loss they can never sufficiently deplore, as well as from a regard to the best and dearest interests, ought to be the last na tion to engage in a war of ambition and conquest.

The recent establishment of their institutions, the pacific, moral, and industrious character of their citizens, the certainty that time and prudent application of their resources would have induced a wise and provident, an impartial and temperate administration to overlook, it it had been necessary, any temporary evils, which either the ambition, the interest, cupidity, or the injustice of foreign powers might occasionally, and without any deep and lasting injury, have inflicted.

With these maxims and these views we cannot discern any thing in the policy of foreign nations towards us, which in point of expediency, required the sacrifice of so many and so certain blessings, as might have been our portion, for such dreadful and inevitable evils, as all wars, especially in a Republic, entail upon the people.

But when we review the alleged causes of this war against Great Britain, and more particularly the pretence for its continuance after the principal one was removed, we are constrained to say, that it fills the mind of the people of this Commonwealth with infinite anxiety and alarm. We cannot but recollect, whatever the pretences of the Emperor of France may have been-pretences which have uniformly preceded and accompanied the most violent acts of injustice that he was the sole author of a system calculated and

intended