purposes. Several of them are in situations not likely to be accommodated to future purposes. The loss of the records prevents a detailed statement of these until they can be supplied by inquiry. In the meantime, one of them, containing 88 acres, in the county of Essex, in New Jersey, purchased in 1799 and sold the following year to Cornelius Vermule and Andrew Codmas, though its price has been received, can not be conveyed without authority from the Legislature.

I inclose herewith a letter from the Secretary of War on the subject of the islands in the lakes and rivers of our northern boundary, and of certain lands in the neighborhood of some of our military posts, on which it may be expedient for the Legislature to make some provisions.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 16, 1802.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

I now transmit a statement of the expenses incurred by the United States in their transactions with the Barbary Powers, and a roll of the persons having office or employment under the United States, as was proposed in my messages of December 7 and 22. Neither is as perfect as could have been wished, and the latter not so much so as further time and inquiry may enable us to make it.

The great volume of these communications and the delay it would produce to make out a second copy will, I trust, be deemed a sufficient reason for sending one of them to the one House, and the other to the other, with a request that they may be interchanged for mutual information rather than to subject both to further delay.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 18, 1802.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

In a message of the 2d instant I inclosed a letter from the Secretary of War on the subject of certain lands in the neighborhood of our military posts on which it might be expedient for the Legislature to make some provisions. A letter recently received from the governor of Indiana presents some further views of the extent to which such provision may be needed, I therefore now transmit it for the information of Congress.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 24, 1802.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

I communicate to both Houses of Congress a report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the subject of our marine hospitals, which appear to require legislative attention.

As connected with the same subject, I also inclose information respecting the situation of our seamen and boatmen frequenting the port of New Orleans and suffering there from sickness and the want of accommodation. There is good reason to believe their numbers greater than stated in these papers. When we consider how great a proportion of the territory of the United States must communicate with that port singly, and how rapidly that territory is increasing its population and productions, it may perhaps be thought reasonable to make hospital provisions there of a different order from those at foreign ports generally.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 25, 1802.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

No occasion having arisen since the last account rendered by my predecessor of making use of any part of the moneys heretofore granted to defray the contingent charges of the Government, I now transmit to Congress an official statement thereof to the 31st day of December last, when the whole unexpended balance, amounting to $20,911.80, was carried to the credit of the surplus fund, as provided for by law, and this account consequently becomes finally closed,

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 26, 1802.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

Some statements have been lately received of the causes decided or depending in the courts of the Union in certain States, supplementary or corrective of those from which was formed the general statement accompanying my message at the opening of the session. I therefore communicate them to Congress, with a report of the Secretary of State noting their effect on the former statement and correcting certain errors in it which arose partly from inexactitude in some of the returns and partly in analyzing, adding, and transcribing them while hurried in preparing the other voluminous papers accompanying that message.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 1, 1802.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

I transmit for the information of Congress letters recently received from our consuls at Gibraltar and Algiers, presenting the latest view of the state of our affairs with the Barbary Powers. The sums due to the Government of Algiers are now fully paid up, and of the gratuity which had been promised to that of Tunis, and was in a course of preparation, a small portion only remains still to be finished and delivered.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 9, 1802.

Gentlemen of the Senate:

The governor of New York has desired that, in addition to the negotiations with certain Indians already authorized under the superintendence of John Taylor, further negotiations should be held with the Oneidas and other members of the Confederacy of the Six Nations for the purchase of lands in and for the State of New York, which they are willing to sell, as explained in the letter from the Secretary of War herewith sent. I have therefore thought it better to name a commissioner to superintend the negotiations specified with the Six Nations generally, or with any of them.

I do accordingly nominate John Taylor, of New York, to be commissioner for the United States, to hold a convention or conventions between the State of New York and the Confederacy of the Six Nations of Indians, or any of the nations composing it.

This nomination, if advised and consented to by the Senate, will comprehend and supersede that of February 1 of the same John Taylor so far as it respected the Seneca Indians,

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 10, 1802.

Gentlemen of the Senate:

I now submit for the ratification of the Senate a treaty entered into by the commissioners of the United States with the Choctaw Nation of Indians, and I transmit therewith so much of the instructions to the commissioners as related to the Choctaws, with the minutes of their proceedings and the letter accompanying them.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 29, 1802.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

The Secretary of State, charged with the civil affairs of the several Territories of the United States, has received from the marshal of Columbia a statement of the condition, unavoidably distressing, of the persons committed to his custody on civil or criminal process and the urgency for some legislative provisions for their relief. There are other important cases wherein the laws of the adjoining States under which the Territory is placed, though adapted to the purposes of those States, are insufficient for those of the Territory from the dissimilar or defective organization of its authorities. The letter and statement of the marshal and the disquieting state of the Territory generally are now submitted to the wisdom and consideration of the Legislature.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 29, 1802.

Gentlemen of the Senate:

The commissioners who were appointed to carry into execution the sixth article of the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation between the United States and His Britannic Majesty having differed in opinion as to the objects of that article and discontinued their proceedings, the Executive of the United States