contemplation, will be shortly completed. The time which they had allotted for the accomplishment of the work has more than elapsed. It remains for your consideration, how their successors may contribute their portion of toil and of treasure for the benefit of the succeeding age, in the gradual increase of our Navy. There is, perhaps, no part of the exercise of the Constitutional Powers of the Federal Government, which has given more general satisfaction to the people of the Union, than this. The system has not been thus vigorously introduced, and hitherto sustained, to be now departed from, or abandoned. In continuing to provide for the gradual increase of the Navy, it may not be necessary or expedient to add for the present any more to the number of our ships; but should you deem it advisable to continue the yearly appropriation of half a million to the same objects, it may be profitably expended, in providing a supply of timber, to be seasoned, and other materials for future use; in the construction of docks, or in laying the foundations of a School for Naval Education, as to the wisdom of Congress either of those measures may appear, to claim the preference.

Of the small portion of this Navy engaged in actual service during the peace, squadrons have continued to be maintained in the Pacific Ocean, in the West India Seas, and in the Mediterranean ; to which has been added a small armament, to cruise on the Eastern coast of South America. In all they have afforded protection to our commerce, have contributed to make our country advantage

ously known to foreign nations, have honourably employed multitudes of our seamen in the service of their country, and have inured numbers of youths of the rising generation to lives of manly hardihood and of nautical experience and skill. The piracies with which the West India Seas were for several years infested, have been totally suppressed. But, in the Mediterranean, they have increased in a manner afflictive to other nations, and but for the continual presence of our squadron, would probably have been distressing to our own. The war which has unfortunately broken out between the Republic of Buenos Ayres and the Brazilian Government, has given rise to very great irregularities among the Naval officers of the latter, by whom principles in relation to blockades, and to neutral navigation, have been brought forward, to which we cannot subscribe, and which our own commanders have found it necessary to resist. From the friendly disposition towards the United States constantly manifested by the Emperor of Brazil, and the very useful and friendly commercial intercourse between the United States and his dominions, we have reason to believe that the just reparation demanded for the injuries sustained by several of our citizens from some of his officers, will not be withheld. Abstracts from the recent despatches of the Commanders of our several squadrons, are communicated with the Report of the Secretary of the Navy to Congress.

A Report from the Postmaster General is likewise communicated, presenting in a highly satis

factory manner the result of a vigorous, efficient and economical administration of that Department. The revenue of the office, even of the year including the latter half of 1824, and the first half of 1825, had exceeded its expenditures by a sum of more than forty-five thousand dollars. That of the succeeding year has been still more productive. The increase of the receipts, in the year preceding the first of July last, over that of the year before, exceeds one hundred and thirty-six thousand dollars, and the excess of the receipts over the expenditures of the year has swollen from forty-five thousand to nearly eighty thousand dollars. During the same period, contracts for additional transportation of the mail, in stages, for about two hundred and sixty thousand miles, have been made, and for seventy thousand miles, annually, on horseback. Seven hundred and fourteen new Post Offices have been established within the year; and the increase of revenue within the last three years, as well as the augmentation of the transportation by mail, is more than equal to the whole amount of receipts, and of mail conveyance, at the commencement of the present century, when the seat of the General Government was removed to this place. When we reflect that the objects effected by the transportation of the mail are among the choicest comforts and enjoyments of social life, it is pleasing to observe, that the dissemination of them to every corner of our country has outstripped in their increase even the rapid march of our population.

By the Treaties with France and Spain, respectively ceding Lousiana and the Floridas to the United

States, provision was made for the security of land titles derived from the Governments of those nations. Some progress has been made, under the authority of various Acts of Congress, in the ascertainment and establishment of those titles: but claims to a very large extent remained unadjusted. The public faith, no less than the just rights of individuals, and the interest of the community itself, appears to require further provision for the speedy settlement of these claims, which I therefore recommend to the care and attention of the Legislature.

In conformity with the provisions of the act of 20th May last, to provide for Erecting a Penitentiary in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes, three Commissioners were appointed to select a site for the erection of a Penitentiary for the District, and also a site in the county of Alexandria for a county Jail: both of which objects have been effected. The building of the Penitentiary has been commenced, and is in such a degree of forwardness as to promise that it will be completed before the meeting of the next Congress.

This consideration points to the expediency of maturing, at the present session, a system for the regulation and government of the Penitentiary, and of defining the class of offences which shall be punishable by confinement in this edifice.

In closing this communication, I trust that it will not be deemed inappropriate to the occasion and purposes upon which we are here assembled, to indulge a momentary retrospect, combining, in a single glance, the period of our origin as a National Confedera

tion with that of our present existence, at the precise interval of half a century from each other. Since your last meeting at this place, the Fiftieth Anniversary of the day when our Independence was declared, has been celebrated throughout our land; and on that day, when every heart was bounding with joy, and every voice was tuned to gratulation, amid the blessings of Freedom and Independence, which the sires of a former age had handed down to their children, two of the principal actors in that solemn scene, the hand that penned the ever-memorable declaration, and the voice that sustained it in debate, were, by one summons, at the distance of seven hundred miles from each other, called before the Judge of all, to account for their deeds done upon earth. They departed cheered by the benedictions of their country, to whom they left the inheritance of their fame, and the memory of their bright exam

ple. If we turn our thoughts to the condition of their country, in the contrast of the first and last day of that half century, how resplendent and sublime is the tran sition from gloom to glory. Then glancing through the same lapse of time, in the condition of the individuals, we see the first day marked with the fulness and vi gour of youth, in the pledge of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honour, to the cause of freedom and of mankind. And on the last, extended on the bed of death, with but sense and sensibility left to breathe a last aspiration to Heaven of blessing upon their country; may we not humbly hope that to them, too, it was a pledge of transition from gloom to glory; and that while their mor tal vestments were sinking into the clod of the valley, their emancipated spirits were ascending to the bosom of their God.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. Washington, Dec. 5, 1826.

ARTICLE I.-His Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland agrees to pay, and the United States of America agree to receive, for the use of the persons entitled to indemnification and compensation by virtue of the said decision and Convention the sum of twelve hundred and four thousand nine hundred and sixty dollars, current money of the United States, in lieu of, and in full and com

plete satisfaction for, all sums claimed or claimable from Great Britain, by any person or persons whatsoever, under the said decision and Convention.

ARTICLE II. The object of the said Convention being thus fulfilled, that Convention is hereby declared to be cancelled and annulled, save and except the second article of the same, which has already been carried into execution by the Commissioners appointed

under the said Convention; and save and except so much of the third article of the same, as relates to the definitive list of claims, and has already likewise been carried into execution by the said Commissioners.

ARTICLE III.-The said sum of twelve hundred and four thousand nine hundred and sixty dollars shall be paid at Washington, to such person or persons as shall be duly authorized, on the part of the United States, to receive the same, in two equal payments as follows:

The payment of the first half to be made twenty days after official notification shall have been made, by the Government of the United States, to his Britannic Majesty's Minister in the said United States, of the ratification of the present Convention by the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate thereof.

And the payment of the second half to be made on the first day of August, 1827.

ARTICLE IV. The above sums being taken as a full and final liquidation of all claims whatsoever arising under the said decision and Convention, both the final adjustment of those claims, and the distribution of the sums so paid by Great Britain to the United States, shall be made in such manner as the United States alone shall determine; and the Government of Great Britain shall have no further concern or liability therein.

ARTICLE V.—It is agreed that, from the date of the exchange of

the ratifications of the present Convention, the Joint Commission appointed under the said Convention of St. Petersburgh, of the twelfth of July, 1822, shall be dissolved; and, upon the dissolution thereof, all the documents and papers in possession of the said Commission, relating to claims under that Convention, shall be delivered over to such person or persons as shall be duly authorized, on the part of the United States, to receive the same. And the British Commissioner shall make over to such person or persons, so authorized, all the documents and papers, (or authenticated copies of the same, where the original cannot conveniently be made over,) relating to claims under the said Convention, which he may have received from his Government for the use of the said Commission, conformably to the stipulations contained in the third article of the said Convention.

ARTICLE VI.-The present Convention shall be ratified, and the ratifications shall be exchanged in London, in six months from this date, or sooner, if possible.

In witness whereof, the Plenipotentiaries aforesaid, by virtue of their respective full powers, have signed the same, and have affixed thereunto the seals of their arms.

Done at London, this thirteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty six. Albert Gallatin,

[L. s.]

[L. S.]

William Huskisson,

[L. s.]

Henry Unwin Addington.

Whereas, by the sixth section of an act of Congress, entitled "An act to regulate the commercial intercourse between the United States and certain British Colonial ports," which was approved on the first day of March, in the year of our Lord 1823, it is enacted" that this act, unless repealed, altered, or amended, by Congress, shall be and continue in force so long as the above enumerated British Colonial ports shall be open to the admission of the vessels of the United States, conformably to the provisions of the British act of Parliament, of the twenty-fourth of June last, being the forty-fourth chapter of the Acts of the third year of George the Fourth But if at any time the trade and intercourse between the United States and all or any of the above enumerated British Colonial ports, authorized by the said act of Parliament, should be prohibited by a British Order in Council, or by Act of Parliament, then, from the day of the date of such Order in Council, or act of Parliament, or from the time that the same shall commence to be in force, proclamation to that effect having been made by the President of the United States, each and every provision of this act, so far as the same shall apply to the intercourse between the United States and the above enumerated British Colonial ports, in British vessels, shall cease to operate in their favour; and each and every provision of the Act concerning Navigation,' approved on the eighteenth of April, one thousand eight hundred and eighteen, and

of the act supplementary thereto, the fifteenth of approved on May, one thousand eight hundred and twenty, shall revive and be in full force."

And whereas, by an act of the British Parliament, which passed on the fifth day of July, in the year of our Lord 1825, entitled "An act to repeal the several laws relating to the customs," the said act of Parliament of the 24th June, 1822, was repealed; and by another act of the British Parliament passed on the 5th day of July, in the year of our Lord 1825, in the 6th year of the reign of George the Fourth, entitled "An act to regulate the trade of the British possessions abroad," and by an order of His Britannic Majesty in Council, bearing date the 27th July, 1826, the trade and intercourse authorized by the aforesaid act of Parliament, of the 24th June, 1822, between the United States and the greater part of the said British Colonial ports therein enumerated, have been prohibited upon and from the first day of December last past, and the contingency has thereby arisen on which the President of the United States was authorized by the 6th section aforesaid of the act of Congress of 1st March, 1823, to issue a proclamation to the effect therein mentioned:

Now, therefore, I, John Quincy Adams, President of the i ́nited States of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that the trade and intercourse authorized by the said act of Parliament of the 24th of June, 1822, between the United States and the British Colonial