condition of reciprocity provided for by the convention, the application of those engagements was readily acceded to by the Colombian government, and a decree was issued by the executive authority of that republic on the 30th of January last, a copy and translation of which are herewith communicated, securing to the citizens of the United States in the republic of Colombia the same advantages in regard to commerce and navigation which had been conceded to British subjects in the Colombian treaty with Great Britain.

It remains to the government of the United States to secure to the citizens of the republic of Colombia the reciprocal advantages to which they are entitled by the terms of the convention, to commence from the 30th of January last, for the accomplishment of which I invite the favorable consideration of the legislature.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

FEBRUARY 5, 1827.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

I SUBMIT to the consideration of Congress a letter from the agent of the United States with the Creek Indians, who invoke the protection of the government of the United States in defence of the rights and territory secured to that nation by the treaty concluded at Washington, and ratified, on the part of the United States, on the twenty-second of April last.

The complaint set forth in this letter, that surveyors from Georgia have been employed in surveying lands within the Indian territory, as secured by that treaty, is authenticated by information inofficially received from other quarters, and there is reason to believe that one or more of the surbeyors have been arrested in their progress by the Indians. Their forvearance, and reliance upon the good faith of the United States, will, it is hoped, avert scenes of violence and blood, which there is otherwise too much cause to apprehend will result from these proceedings.

By the fifth section of the act of Congress, of the 30th March, 1802, to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontiers, it is provided that, if any citizen of, or other person resident in, the United States, shall make a settlement on any lands belonging, or secured, or granted by treaty with the United States, to any Indian tribe, or shall survey, or attempt to survey, such lands, or designate any of the boundaries, by marking trees or otherwise, such offender shall forfeit a sum not exceeding one thousand dollars, and suffer imprisonment not exceeding twelve months. By the sixteenth and seventeenth sections of the same statute, two distinct processes are prescribed, by either or both of which the above enactment may be carried into execution. By the first, it is declared to be lawful for the military force of the United States to apprehend every person found in the Indian country, over and beyond the boundary line between the United States and the Indian tribes, in violation of any of the provisions or regulations of the act; and immediately to convey them, in the nearest convenient and safe route, to the civil authority of the United States, in some one of the three next adjoining states or districts, to be proceeded against in due course of law.

By the second, it is directed that, if any person charged with a violation

of any of the provisions or regulations of the act, shall be found within any of the United States, or either of their territorial districts, such offender may be there apprehended, and brought to trial in the same manner as if such crime or offence had been committed within such state or district; and that it shall be the duty of the military force of the United States when called upon by the civil magistrates, or any proper officer, or other person duly authorized for the purpose, and having a lawful warrant, to aid and assist such magistrates, officers, or other persons so authorized, in arresting such offender, and committing him to safe custody for trial, according to law.

The first of these processes is adapted to the arrest of the trespasser upon Indian territories, on the spot, and in the act of committing the offence. But, as it applies the action of the government of the United States to places where the civil process of the law has no authorized course, it is committed entirely to the functions of the military force to arrest the person of the offender; and, after bringing him within the reach of the jurisdiction of the courts, there to deliver him into custody for trial. The second makes the violator of the law amenable only after his offence has been consummated, and when he has returned within the civil jurisdiction of the Union. This process, in the first instance, is merely of a civil character, but may, in like manner, be enforced by calling in, if necessary, the aid of the military force.

Entertaining no doubt that, in the present case, the resort to either of these modes of process, or to both, was within the discretion of the executive authority, and penetrated with the duty of maintaining the rights of the Indians, as secured both by the treaty and the law, I concluded, after full deliberation, to have recourse on this occasion, in the first instance, only to the civil process. Instructions have accordingly been given by the secretary of war, to the attorney and marshal of the United States in the district of Georgia, to commence prosecutions against the surveyors complained of as having violated the law, while orders have at the same time been forwarded to the agent of the United States, at once to assure the Indians, that their rights, founded upon the treaty and the law, are recognised by this government, and will be faithfully protected; and earnestly to exhort them, by the forbearance of every act of hostility on their part, to preserve unimpaired that right to protection, secured to them by the sacred pledge of the good faith of this nation. Copies of these instructions and orders are herewith transmitted to Congress.

In abstaining, at this stage of the proceedings, from the application of any military force, I have been governed by considerations which will, I trust, meet the concurrence of the legislature. Among them, one of paramount importance has been, that these surveys have been attempted, and partly effected, under color of legal authority from the state of Georgia. That the surveyors are, therefore, not to be viewed in the light of individual and solitary transgressors, but as the agents of a sovereign state, acting in obedience to authority which they believed to be binding upon them. Intimations had been given, that, should they meet with interruption, they would, at all hazards, be sustained by the military force of the state; in which event, if the military force of the Union should have been employed to enforce its violated law, a conflict must have ensued, which would, in itself, have inflicted a wound upon the Union, and have presented the aspect of one of these confederated states at war with the rest. Anxious, above all, to avert this state of things, yet at the same time impressed with

the deepest conviction of my own duty, to take care that the laws shall be executed, and the faith of the nation preserved, I have used, of the means intrusted to the executive for that purpose, only those which, without resorting to military force, may vindicate the sanctity of the law by the ordinary agency of the judicial tribunals.

It ought not, however, to be disguised, that the act of the legislature of Georgia, under the construction given to it by the governor of that state, and the surveys made, or attempted, by his authority, beyond the boundary secured by the treaty of Washington, of April last, to the Creek Indians, are in direct violation of the supreme law of this land, set forth in a treaty, which has received all the sanctions provided by the constitution, which we have been sworn to support and maintain.

Happily distributed as the sovereign powers of the people of this Union have been, between their general and state governments, their history has already too often presented collisions between these divided authorities, with regard to the extent of their respective powers. No instance, however, has hitherto occurred, in which this collision has been urged into a conflict of actual force. No other case is known to have happened, in which the application of military force by the government of the Union has been prescribed for the enforcement of a law, the violation of which has, within any single state, been prescribed by a legislative act of the state. In the present instance, it is my duty to say, that, if the legislative and executive authorities of the state of Georgia should persevere in acts of encroachment upon the territories secured by a solemn treaty to the Indians, and the laws of the Union remain unaltered, a superadded obligation, even higher than that of human authority, will compel the executive of the United States to enforce the laws, and fulfil the duties of the nation, by all the force committed for that purpose to his charge. That the arm of military force will be resorted to only in the event of the failure of all other expedients provided by the laws, a pledge has been given, by the forbearance to employ it at this time. It is submitted to the wisdom of Congress, to determine whether any further act of legislation may be necessary or expedient, to meet the emergency which these transactions may produce.

PROCLAMATION.

MARCH 17, 1827.

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 one thousand eight hundred and twenty-three, 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 favor; 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, approved on the fifteenth of 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 one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five, entitled, "An act to repeal the several laws relating to the customs," the said act of parliament of the 24th of 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 one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five, in the sixth 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 sixth section aforesaid of the act of Congress of the 1st March, 1823, to issue a proclamation to the effect therein mentioned:

Now, therefore, I, John Quincy Adams, president of the United 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 ports enumerated in the aforesaid act of Congress of the 1st March, 1823, have been, and are, upon and from the 1st day of December, 1826, by the aforesaid two several acts of parliament, of the 5th of July, 1825, and by the aforesaid British order in council of the 27th day of July, 1826, prohibited.

Given under my hand at the city of Washington, this 17th day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, and the fifty-first year of the independence of the United States. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

MARCH 4, 1828.

To the Senate of the United States :

In compliance with a resolution of the senate of the 3d of January last, requesting the communication of information in my possession, relative to alleged aggression on the rights of citizens of the United States, by persons claiming authority under the government of New Brunswick, I com

municate a report from the secretary of state, with a copy of that of the special agent, mentioned in my message at the commencement of the present session of Congress as having been sent to visit the spot where the cause of complaint had occurred, to ascertain the state of the facts, and the result of whose inquiries I then promised to communicate to Congress when it should be received.

The senate are requested to receive this communication as the fulfilment of that engagement; and, in making it, I deem it proper to notice with just acknowledgment, the liberality with which the minister of his Britannic majesty residing here, and the government of the province of New Brunswick, have furnished the agent of the United States with every facility for the attainment of the information which it was the object of his mission to procure.

Considering the exercise of exclusive territorial jurisdiction upon the grounds in controversy, by the government of New Brunswick, in the arrest and imprisonment of John Baker, as incompatible with the mutual understanding existing between the governments of the United States and Great Britain on this subject, a demand has been addressed to the provincial authorities, through the minister of Great Britain, for the release of that individual from prison, and of indemnity to him for his detention. In doing this, it has not been intended to maintain the regularity of his own proceedings, or of those with whom he was associated, to which they were not authorized by any sovereign authority of this country.

The documents appended to the report of the agent, being original papers belonging to the files of the department of state, a return of them is requested, when the senate shall have no further use for them.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

APRIL 17, 1828.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :IN conformity with the practice of all my predecessors, I have, during my service in the office of president, transmitted to the two houses of Congress, from time to time, by the same private secretary, such messages as a proper discharge of my constitutional duty appeared to me to require. On Tuesday last he was charged with the delivery of a message to each house. Having presented that which was intended for the house of representatives, while he was passing, within the capitol, from their hall to the chamber of the senate, for the purpose of delivering the other message, he was waylaid and assaulted in the rotunda, by a person, in the presence of a member of the house, who interposed and separated the parties.

I have thought it my duty to communicate this occurrence to Congress, to whose wisdom it belongs to consider whether it is of a nature requiring from them any animadversion; and, also, whether any further laws or regulations are necessary to insure security in the official intercourse between the president and Congress, and to prevent disorders within the capitol itself.

In the deliberations of Congress upon this subject, it is neither expected nor desired that any consequence shall be attached to the private relation in which my secretary stands to me.