advanced, others have been added. We have reason to believe, their success has been satisfactory, although such returns have not been received, as enable me to present you a statement of the numbers engaged.

I have not thought it necessary, in the course of the last season, to call for any general detachments of militia, or of volunteers, under the laws passed for that purpose; for the ensuing season, however, they will he required to be in readiness, should their service be wanted. Some small and special detachments have been necessary to maintain the laws of embargo, on that portion of our Northern frontier which offered peculiar facilities for invasion; but these were replaced as soon as it could be done, by bodies of new recruits. By the aid of these, and of the armed vessels called into ser'vice in other quarters, the spirit of disobedience and abuse, which manifested itself early, and with sensible effect, while we were unprepared to meet it, has been considerably rẻpressed.

Considering the extraordinary character of the times in which we live, our attention should unremittingly be fixed on the safety of our country. For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well organized and armed militia is their best security. It is therefore incumbent on us at every meeting, to revise the condition of the militia, and to ask ourselves if it is prepared to repel a powerful enemy at every point of our territories exposed to invasion. Some of the states have paid a laudable attention to this object, but every degree of neglect is to be found among others. Congress alone having the power to produce an uniform state of preparation in this great organ of defence, the interests which they so deeply feel in their own and their country's secuity, will present this as among the

most important objects of their deliberation.

Under the acts of March 11,`` and April 23, respecting arms, the difficulty of procuring them from abroad, during the present situation and dispositions of Europe, induced us to direct our whole efforts to the means of internal supply; the public factories have, therefore, been enlarged, additional machineries erected, and, in proportion as artificers can be found or formed, their effect already more than doubled, may be increased so as to keep pace with the yearly increase of the militia. The annual sums appropriated by the latter act, have been directed to the encouragement of private factories of arms; and contracts have been entered into with individual undertakers, to nearly the amount of the first year's appropriation.

The suspension of our foreign commerce, produced by the injustice of the belligerent powers, and the consequent losses and sacrifices of our citizens, are subjects of just concern. The situation into which we have thus been forced, has impelled us to apply a portion of our industry and capital to internal manufactures and improvements. The extent of this conversion is daily increasing, and little doubt remains that the establishments formed and forming, will, under the auspices of cheaper materials and subsistence, the freedom of labour from taxation with us, and of protecting duties and prohibitions, become permanent. The commerce with the Indians' too, within our own boundaries, is likely to receive abundant aliment from the same internal source, and will secure to them peace and the progress of civilization, undisturbed by practices hostile to both.

The accounts of the receipts and expenditures during the year end♣ ing on the 30th day of September last, being not yet made up, a correct statement will hereafter be

transmitted from the treasury. In the mean time, it is ascertained, that the receipts have amounted to near eighteen millions of dollars, which, with the eight millions and a half in the treasury at the beginning of the year, have enabled us, after meeting the current demands and interests incurred, to pay two millions three hundred thousand dollars of the principal of our funded debt, and left us in the treasury on that day, near fourteen millions of dollars; of these, five millions three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, will be necessary to pay what will be due on the first day of January next, which will complete the reimbursement of the eight per cent. stock. These payments, with those made in the six years and a half preceding, will have extinguished thirtythree millions five hundred and eighty thousand dollars of the principal of the funded debt, being the whole which could be paid or purchased within the limits of the law, and of our contracts; and the amount of principal thus discharged, will have liberated the revenue from about two millions of dollars of interest, and added that sum annualty to the disposable surplus. The probable accumulation of the surplusses of revenue, beyond what can be applied to the payment of the public debt, whenever the freedom and safety of our commerce shall be restored, merits the consideration of congress. Shall it be unproductive in the public vaults? Shall the revenue be reduced? or shall it not rather be appropriated to the improvement of roads, canals, rivers, education, and other great foundations of prosperity and union, under the powers which congress may already possess, or such amendment of the constitution as may be approved by the states: while, uncertain of the course of things, the time may be advantageously employed in obtaining the powers ne

cessary for a system of improvement should that be thought best.

Availing myself of this, the last occasion which will occur, of addressing the two houses of legislature at their meeting, I cannot omit the expression of my sincere gratitude, for the repeated proofs of confidence manifested to me by them-selves and their predecessors, since my call to the administration, and the many indulgencies experienced at their hands; the same grateful, acknowledgments are due to my fellow-citizens generally, whose support has been my great encouragement under all embarrassments. In the transaction of their business, I cannot have escaped error-it is incident to our imperfect nature; but I may say, with truth, my errors have been of the understanding, not of intention; and that the advancement of their rights and interests has been the constant motive for every measure. On these conside rations, I solicit their indulgence. Looking forward with anxiety to their future destinies, I trust, that in their steady character, unshaken by difficulties in their love of liberty, obedience to law, and support, of the public authorities, I see a sure guarantee of the permanence of our republic; and, retiring from the charge of their affairs, I carry with me the consolation of a firm persuation, that Heaven has in store for our beloved country, long ages to come of prosperity and happiness.

Nov. S. TH. JEFFERSON.

Letter from Mr. Pinckney, to Mr. Secretary Canning. Dated Great Cumberland Place, Aug. 23, 1808. SIR; I have had the honour, in consequence of the orders of the president, to recall your attention, in the course of several recent interviews, to the British orders in council, of the 7th January and 11th of November, 1807, and to the various orders founded upon, or in execution of them; and I now take the liberty to renew, in the mode which I have understood to be indis

pensable, my instances on that subject. I need scarcely remind you, Sir, that the government of the United States has never ceased to consider these orders as violating its rights, and affecting most destructively its interests, upon grounds wholly inadmissible, both in principle and fact. The letters of Mr. Madison to Mr. Erskine, of the 20th aud 29th of March, 1807, produced by the official communication of that minister of the order of the 7th of January, and the answer of Mr. Madison of the 25th of March, 1808, to a Jike communication of the order of the 11th of November, containing the most direct remonstrances against the system which these orders introduce and execute, and expressed the confident expectation of the president, that it would not be persisted in. That expectation has not yet been fulfilled, but it has, notwithstanding, not been relinquished. The president is still persuaded that its accomplishment will result from a careful review, by his Majesty's government, made in the spirit of moderation and equity, of the facts and considerations which belong to the occasion. It is not my purpose to recapitulate, in this note, the sentiments and reasonings contained in the above-mentioned let ters of Mr. Madison, in support of the claim of the government of the United States, that the British orders be revoked. I content myself with referring to those letters for proofs, which it is not necessary to repeat, and for arguments which I could not hope to improve. But there are explanations which those letters do not contain, and which it is proper for me now to make. Even these, however, may be very briefly given, since you have already been made acquainted in our late couversations, with all their bearings and details. These explanations go to shew, that, while every motive of justice conspires to produce a disposition to recall the orders, of which my government complains, it is become apparent, that even their professed object will be best attained by their revocation. I had the honour to state to you, Sir, that it was the intention of the president, in case Great Britain repealed her orders as regarded the United States, to exercise the power vested in him, by the act of the last session of congress, entitled "an act to authorise the president of the United States. under certain coudi

tions, to suspend the operation of the act laying an embargo on all ships and vessels in the ports and harbours of the United States, and the several acts supplementary thereto," by suspending the embargo law and its supplements, as regards Great Britain. I am authorised to give you this assurance in the most formal manner; and, I trust, that upon impartial inquiry, it will be found to leave no inducement to perscvere in the British orders, while it dictates the most powerful inducements of equity and policy to abandon thein. On the score of justice it does not seem possible to mistake the footing upon which this overture places the subject; and I veuture to believe. that in any other view there is as little room for doubt. If, as I propose, your orders should be rescinded as to the United States, and our embargo rescinded as to Great Britain, the effect of these concurrent acts will be, that the commercial intercourse of the two countries will be immediately resumed; while, if France should adhere to maxims and conduct derogatory to the neutral rights of the United States, the embargo, continuing as to her, will take the place of your orders, and lead with an efficacy, not merely equal to theirs, but probably much greater, to all the consequences that ought to result from them. On the other hand, if France should concur in respecting those rights, and commerce should thus regain its fair immunities, and the law of nations its just dominions, all the alledged purposes of the British orders will have been at once fulfilled. If I forbear to pursue these ideas through all the illustrations of which they are susceptible, it is because the personal conferences to which I have before alluded, as well as the obvious nature of the ideas themselves, render it unnccessary. I cannot conclude this note without expressing my sincere wish, that what I have now suggested, in conformity with the liberal sentiments and enlightened views of the president, may contribute not only to remove the more immediate obstacles to the ordinary intercourse of trade between your country and mine, in a manner consis tent with the honour of both, but to prepare the way for a satisfactory adjustment of every question important to their future friendship.-I have the honour to be, with the highest conside

ration, Sir, your most obedient humble WM. PINCKNEY,

servant.

(Signed) Extract of a letter from Mr. Pinckney to the Secretary of State. Duted London, Sept. 24. 1808.

I am now able to transmit to you a copy of Mr. Canning's answer, received only last night, to my note of the 23d of August.-I regret extremely, that the views which I have been in structed to lay before this government, have not been met by it, as I had at first been led to expect. The overture cannot fail, however, to place in a strong light the just and liberal sentiments by which our government is animated; and, in other respects, to be useful and honourable to our own country.

Letter from Mr. Canning to Mr. Pinkney. Foreign Office, Sept. 28. The undersigned, his Majesty's prineipal secretary of state for foreign affairs, had the honour to receive the official letter addressed to him, by Mr. Pinkney, minister plenipotentiary of the United States, respecting the orders in council, issued by his Majesty on the 7th of January and 11th November, 1807.-He has laid that letter before the King, and he is commanded to as spre Mr. Pinkney that the answer to the proposal which Mr. Pinkney was instructed to bring forward, has been deferred only in the hope that the renewed application which was understood to be recently made by the government of the United States to that of France, might, in the new state of things which has arisen in Europe, have met with such a reception in France as would have rendered the compliance of his Majesty with that proposal, consis tent as much with his Majesty's own dignity, and with the interests of his people, as it would have been with his Majesty's disposition towards the United States. Unhappily there is now no longer any reason to believe that such a hope is likely to be realised; and the undersigned is therefore commanded to communicate to Mr. Pinkney the decision which, under the circumstances as they stand, his Majesty feels himself compelled, however unwillingly, to adopt.

The mitigated measure of retaliation announced by his Majesty in the order in council of the 7th January, and the further extension of that measure (an

extension in operation but not in prin“ ciple) by the orders in council of November, are founded (as has been already repeatedly avowed by his Ma jesty) on the " unquestionable right of his Majesty to retort upon the enemy the evils of his own injustice; and upon the consideration that "if third parties incidentally suffered by these retaliatory measures, they were to seek their redress from the power by whose original aggression that retaliation was occasioned."

His Majesty sees nothing in the embargo laid on by the President of the United States of America, which varies this original and simple state of the question.

If considered as a measure of impartial hostility against both belligerents, the embargo appears to his Majesty to have been manifestly unjust, as, accor ding to every principle of justice, that redress ought to have been first sought from the party originating the wrong. And his Majesty cannot consent to buy off that hostility which America ought not to have extended to him, at the expence of a concession made not to America, but to France.

If, as it has more generally been represented by the government of the United States, the embargo is only to be considered as an innocent municipal regulation which affects none but the United States themselves, and with which no foreign state has any concern; viewed in this light, his Majesty does not conceive that he has the right or the pretension to make any complaint of it, and he has made none. this light there appears not only no reciprocity, but no assignable relation between the repeal by the United States of a measure of voluntary self-restric tion, and the surrender by his Majesty of his right of retaliation against his enemies.

But in

The government of the United States is now to be informed that the Berlin decree of November 21, 1806, was the practical commencement of an attempt not merely to check or impair the prosperity of Great Britain, but utterly to annihilate her political existence, through the ruin of her commercial prosperity; that in this attempt almost all the powers of the European continent have been compelled, more or less, to co-operate; and that the American embargo, though most assuredly