Part 30

I lay before you a communication from the Secretary of War, which is accompanied by one from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, suggesting the propriety of setting apart a tract of country west of the Mississippi for the Seminole Indians, so that they may be separate from the Creeks, and representing the necessity of a small appropriation for supplying the immediate wants of those who have been removed; and I respectfully recommend these subjects for the early consideration and favorable action of Congress.

M. VAN BUREN.

JANUARY 17, 1839.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I herewith communicate to Congress a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, in respect to the Florida claims under the treaty of 1819 and the subsequent acts of Congress passed to enforce it.

The propriety of some additional legislation on this subject seems obvious. The period when the evidence on the claims shall be closed ought, in my opinion, to be limited, as they are already of long standing, and, as a general consequence, the proof of their justice every day becoming more and more unsatisfactory.

It seems also that the task of making the final examination into the justice of the awards might advantageously be devolved upon some other officer or tribunal than the Secretary of the Treasury, considering the other responsible, laborious, and numerous duties imposed on him at the present juncture.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, _January 17, 1839_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, which presents for the consideration of Congress the propriety of so changing the second section of the act of March 2, 1837, as that the existing humane provisions of the laws for the relief of certain insolvent debtors of the United States may be extended to such cases of insolvency as shall have occurred on or before the 1st day of January, 1839.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, _January 17, 1839_.

The SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:

In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 14th instant, calling for information as to the proceedings under the act of Congress of the 28th of June last, providing for examinations of inventions designed to prevent the explosion of steam boilers, I transmit herewith a copy of a report of the Secretary of the Navy, which was made to the Senate in answer to a similar call from that body, as containing the information called for.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, _January 18, 1839_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

In addition to the information contained in a report from the Secretary of State communicated with my message of the 30th April, 1838, I transmit to the House of Representatives a report[45] from the Secretary of War, dated the 16th instant, in answer to a resolution of the House of the 19th March last, and containing so much of the information called for by said resolution as could be furnished by his Department.

M. VAN BUREN.

[Footnote 45: Relating to the intermeddling of any foreign government, or subjects or officers thereof, with the Indian tribes in Michigan, Wisconsin, the territory beyond the Rocky Mountains, or elsewhere within the limits of the United States, etc.]

WASHINGTON, _January 21, 1839_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit herewith to the Senate, for their consideration in reference to its ratification, a treaty of commerce and navigation between the United States of America and His Majesty the King of the Netherlands, signed at this place on the 19th instant by the Secretary of State and the charge d'affaires of the Netherlands in the United States.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, _January 21, 1839_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit for the consideration of the Senate with a view to its ratification a convention for the adjustment of claims of citizens of the United States upon the Government of the Mexican Republic, concluded and signed in this city on the 10th of September last by John Forsyth, Secretary of State of the United States, and Francisco Pizarro Martinez, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the Mexican Republic, on the part of their respective Governments.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, _January 21, 1839_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit a treaty negotiated with the New York Indians, which was submitted to your body in June last and amended. The amendments have, in pursuance of the requirement of the Senate, been submitted to each of the tribes, assembled in council, for their free and voluntary assent or dissent thereto. In respect to all the tribes except the Senecas the result of this application has been entirely satisfactory. It will be seen by the accompanying papers that of this tribe, the most important of those concerned, the assent of only 42 out of 81 chiefs has been obtained. I deem it advisable under these circumstances to submit the treaty in its modified form to the Senate, for its advice in regard of the sufficiency of the assent of the Senecas to the amendments proposed.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, _January 24, 1839_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit herewith to the Senate, for their consideration in reference to its ratification, a treaty of commerce and navigation between the United States of America and His Majesty the King of Sardinia, signed at Genoa on the 26th of November last by the plenipotentiaries of the contracting parties.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, _January 25, 1839_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I herewith transmit to the Senate a report[46] from the Secretary of State, in answer to their resolution of the 22d instant.

M. VAN BUREN.

[Footnote 46: Stating that there has been no correspondence with Great Britain in relation to the northeastern boundary since December 3, 1838.]

WASHINGTON, _January 26, 1839_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I lay before you, for your consideration, a treaty concluded with the Omaha, Ioway, and Otoe tribes of Indians, and sanctioned by the Yancton and Santie bands of Sioux, by which a tract of land situated on the south side of the Missouri between the Great and Little Nemahaw rivers has been ceded to the United States.

It appears that the consent of the half-breeds of the above-mentioned tribes and bands is wanting to perfect the treaty. This tract of land was ceded by the treaty of 15th July, 1830, to them by the above-mentioned tribes and bands of Indians, and can not be taken from them, even for such a valuable consideration as will relieve their wants, without their assent. In order to avoid unnecessary delay, I submit it to your consideration in order to receive an expression of your opinion as to the manner of obtaining the assent of the minors, whereby all unnecessary delay in the final action upon the treaty will be avoided.

M. VAN BUREN.

JANUARY 28, 1839.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I transmit herewith a communication received from the Secretary of the Treasury, on the subject of the balances reported on the books of the Treasury against collecting and disbursing agents of the Government, to which I beg leave to invite the early attention of Congress.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, _January 30, 1839_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I herewith transmit a report from the Secretary of the Treasury, on the subject of commissions claimed by agents or officers employed by the General Government.

The propriety of new legislation regulating the whole matter by express laws seems very apparent, and is urgently recommended to the early attention of Congress.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, _February 2, 1839_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, assigning reasons which render it probable that the time limited for the exchange of the ratifications of the convention for the adjustment of claims of citizens of the United States on the Government of the Mexican Republic may expire before that exchange can be effected, and suggesting that the consent of the Senate be requested for an extension of that time. The object of this communication, accordingly, is to solicit the approval by the Senate of such an extension upon the conditions mentioned in the report of the Secretary of State.

M. VAN BUREN.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

_Washington, February 2, 1839_.

The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

The Secretary of State has the honor to report to the President that, according to his instructions, Mr. Martinez, the Mexican minister plenipotentiary, was invited to the Department of State in order to ascertain if he had any recent information on the subject of the convention between the United States and Mexico, transmitted by him to Mexico for ratification by his Government. Mr. Martinez called yesterday and stated that he was without definite information, but expected daily to receive it. He supposed the delay was occasioned by the troubled condition of Mexican affairs, and hoped we would make all due allowances for unavoidable delays. When asked if he had power to enlarge the time for the exchange of ratifications, he said that all his instructions had been fulfilled on the signature of the treaty. The Secretary called his attention to information just received at the Department from Mexico that the treaty was about to be submitted to the Mexican Congress, and he was requested to state what had changed the views of his Government on the question of ratifying the convention, he himself having stated, pending the negotiation, that the President, Bustamente, believed he had full power under the decree of the 20th of May, 1837, to ratify the convention without a reference of it to Congress. He replied that he did not know the causes which had produced this change of opinion. Mr. Martinez appeared to be very solicitous to have it understood that he had done everything in his power to hasten the exchange of ratifications, and to have every allowance made in consequence of the disturbed state of Mexico and her pending war with France. From this conversation and the accompanying extracts from two letters from the consul of the United States at Mexico the President will see that it is by no means improbable, if the ratification of the convention should have been decreed by the Congress of Mexico, that the ratification may not reach the city of Washington until after the 10th of February. The Secretary therefore respectfully represents to the President whether it is not advisable to ask the consent of the Senate to the exchange of the ratifications after the expiration of the time limited, if such exchange shall be offered by the Mexican Government by their agent duly authorized for that purpose. Unless this authority can be granted, a new convention will have to be negotiated and the whole subject passed over until after the next session of Congress.

All which is respectfully submitted.

JOHN FORSYTH.

[Extract of a letter from the consul of the United States at Mexico, dated November 17, 1838.]

On the 13th Mr. Basave did me the honor to call on me, and informed me that he was requested by his excellency the minister of foreign relations, Mr. Cuevas, to inform me that in consequence of his having to go to Jalapa to meet Admiral Baudin, the French minister plenipotentiary, he could not attend to the matters relating to the American question in time for Mr. Basave to go back in the _Woodbury_, and wished, therefore, that she might not be detained, as was intended, for the purpose of conveying to the United States Messrs. Basave and Murphy.

[Extract of a letter from the consul of the United States at Mexico, dated December 31, 1838.]

On a visit to the minister of foreign relations yesterday he informed me that he was writing a friendly letter to the President of the United States and another to Mr. Forsyth, and said he was about to lay the convention entered into between the two Governments before the new Congress, and if ratified should request of me to procure for it a conveyance to the United States by one of our men-of-war, the time for its ratification being nearly expired.

WASHINGTON, D.C., _February 6, 1839_.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

I transmit to the House of Representatives a report[47] from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents, in answer to a resolution of that body bearing date on the 28th ultimo.

M. VAN BUREN.

[Footnote 47: Relating to the demand upon the British Government for satisfaction for the burning of the steamboat _Caroline_ and murdering of unarmed citizens on board, at Schlosser, N.Y., December 29, 1837.]

WASHINGTON, _February 6, 1839_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 19th December last, I communicate to the Senate a report[48] from the Secretary of State, accompanying copies of the correspondence called for by said resolution.

M. VAN BUREN.

[Footnote 48: Relating to the commerce and navigation carried on within the Turkish dominions and in the Pashalic of Egypt.]

WASHINGTON, _February 6, 1839_.

The SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

SIR: I transmit herewith the report of the commissioners appointed under the act of 28th of June last and the supplementary act of July following to test the usefulness of inventions to improve and render safe the boilers of steam engines against explosions.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, D.C., _February 9, 1839_.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

I transmit herewith to the House of Representatives a report from the Secretary of State, together with the documents which accompanied it, in answer to the resolution of the 28th ultimo, requesting information touching certain particulars in the territorial relations of the United States and Great Britain on this continent.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, _February 13, 1839_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I herewith transmit to the Senate a report[49] from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents, in answer to their resolution of the 1st instant.

M. VAN BUREN.

[Footnote 49: Relating to compensation by Great Britain in the cases of the brigs _Enterprise, Encomium_, and _Comet_, slaves on board which were forcibly seized and detained by local authorities of Bermuda and Bahama islands.]

WASHINGTON, _February 16, 1839_.

_To the Senate_:

I transmit for the constitutional action of the Senate treaties recently concluded with the Creek, Osage, and Iowa tribes of Indians, with communications from the Department of War.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, _February 19, 1839_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I transmit a report from the War Department in relation to the investigations had by the commissioners under the resolution of 1st July, 1836, on the sales of reservations of deceased Creek Indians.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, _February 21, 1839_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit for the constitutional action of the Senate articles supplementary to the treaty with the Chippewas, for the purchase of 40 acres of land at the mouth of the Saginaw River, which are esteemed necessary in the erection and use of a light-house at that point.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, _February 22, 1839_.

The SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:

I herewith transmit a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents, on the subject of the blockades of the Mexican coast and of the Rio de la Plata, in answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 11th instant.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, _February 25, 1839_.

_To the Senate_:

I transmit for the constitutional action of the Senate a supplemental article to the treaty with the Chippewas of Saganaw, which accompanied my communication of the 21st instant, and explanatory papers from the War Department.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, _February 26, 1839_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I lay before Congress several dispatches from his excellency the governor of Maine, with inclosures, communicating certain proceedings of the legislature of that State, and a copy of the reply of the Secretary of State, made by my direction, together with a note from H.S. Fox, esq., envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Great Britain, with the answer of the Secretary of State to the same.

It will appear from those documents that a numerous band of lawless and desperate men, chiefly from the adjoining British Provinces, but without the authority or sanction of the provincial government, had trespassed upon that portion of the territory in dispute between the United States and Great Britain which is watered by the river Aroostook and claimed to belong to the State of Maine, and that they had committed extensive depredations there by cutting and destroying a very large quantity of timber. It will further appear that the governor of Maine, having been officially apprised of the circumstance, had communicated it to the legislature with a recommendation of such provisions in addition to those already existing by law as would enable him to arrest the course of said depredations, disperse the trespassers, and secure the timber which they were about carrying away; that, in compliance with a resolve of the legislature passed in pursuance of his recommendation, his excellency had dispatched the land agent of the State, with a force deemed adequate to that purpose, to the scene of the alleged depredations, who, after accomplishing a part of his duty, was seized by a band of the trespassers at a house claimed to be within the jurisdiction of Maine, whither he had repaired for the purpose of meeting and consulting with the land agent of the Province of New Brunswick, and conveyed as a prisoner to Frederickton, in that Province, together with two other citizens of the State who were assisting him in the discharge of his duty.

It will also appear that the governor and legislature of Maine, satisfied that the trespassers had acted in defiance of the laws of both countries, learning that they were in possession of arms, and anticipating (correctly, as the result has proved) that persons of their reckless and desperate character would set at naught the authority of the magistrates without the aid of a strong force, had authorized the sheriff and the officer appointed in the place of the land agent to employ, at the expense of the State, an armed posse, who had proceeded to the scene of these depredations with a view to the entire dispersion or arrest of the trespassers and the protection of the public property.

In the correspondence between the governor of Maine and Sir John Harvey, lieutenant-governor of the Province of New Brunswick, which has grown out of these occurrences and is likewise herewith communicated, the former is requested to recall the armed party advanced into the disputed territory for the arrest of trespassers, and is informed that a strong body of British troops is to be held in readiness to support and protect the authority and subjects of Great Britain in said territory. In answer to that request the provincial governor is informed of the determination of the State of Maine to support the land agent and his party in the performance of their duty, and the same determination, for the execution of which provision is made by a resolve of the State legislature, is communicated by the governor to the General Government.

The lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, in calling upon the governor of Maine for the recall of the land agent and his party from the disputed territory, and the British minister, in making a similar demand upon the Government of the United States, proceed upon the assumption that an agreement exists between the two nations conceding to Great Britain, until the final settlement of the boundary question, exclusive possession of and jurisdiction over the territory in dispute. The important bearing which such an agreement, if it existed, would have upon the condition and interests of the parties, and the influence it might have upon the adjustment of the dispute, are too obvious to allow the error upon which this assumption seems to rest to pass for a moment without correction. The answer of the Secretary of State to Mr. Fox's note will show the ground taken by the Government of the United States upon this point. It is believed that all the correspondence which has passed between the two Governments upon this subject has already been communicated to Congress and is now on their files. An abstract of it, however, hastily prepared, accompanies this communication. It is possible that in thus abridging a voluminous correspondence, commencing in 1825 and continuing to a very recent period, a portion may have been accidentally overlooked; but it is believed that nothing has taken place which would materially change the aspect of the question as therein presented. Instead of sustaining the assumption of the British functionaries, that correspondence disproves the existence of any such agreement. It shows that the two Governments have differed not only in regard to the main question of title to the territory in dispute, but with reference also to the right of jurisdiction and the fact of the actual exercise of it in different portions thereof.

Always aiming at an amicable adjustment of the dispute, both parties have entertained and repeatedly urged upon each other a desire that each should exercise its rights, whatever it considered them to be, in such a manner as to avoid collision and allay to the greatest practicable extent the excitement likely to grow out of the controversy. It was in pursuance of such an understanding that Maine and Massachusetts, upon the remonstrance of Great Britain, desisted from making sales of lands, and the General Government from the construction of a projected military road in a portion of the territory of which they claimed to have enjoyed the exclusive possession; and that Great Britain on her part, in deference to a similar remonstrance from the United States, suspended the issue of licenses to cut timber in the territory in controversy and also the survey and location of a railroad through a section of country over which she also claimed to have exercised exclusive jurisdiction.