Part 34

I communicate to Congress the inclosed letters from Governor Hull, respecting the Indians in the vicinity of Detroit residing within our lines. They contain information of the state of things in that quarter which will properly enter into their view in estimating the means to be provided for the defense of our country generally.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 8, 1808.

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

I now render to Congress the account of the fund established for defraying the contingent expenses of Government for the year 1807. Of the sum of $18,012.50, which remained unexpended at the close of the year 1806, $8,731.11 have been placed in the hands of the Attorney-General of the United States, to enable him to defray sundry expenses incident to the prosecution of Aaron Burr and his accomplices for treasons and misdemeanors alleged to have been committed by them, and the unexpended balance of $9,275.39 is now carried according to law to the credit of the surplus fund.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 15, 1808.

To the Senate of the United States:

The posts of Detroit and Mackinac having been originally intended by the Governments which established and held them as mere depots for commerce with the Indians, very small cessions of land around them were obtained or asked from the native proprietors, and these posts depended for protection on the strength of their garrisons. The principles of our Government leading us to the employment of such moderate garrisons in time of peace as may merely take care of the post, and to a reliance on the neighboring militia for its support in the first moments of war, I have thought it would be important to obtain from the Indians such a cession in the neighborhood of these posts as might maintain a militia proportioned to this object; and I have particularly contemplated, with this view, the acquisition of the eastern moiety of the peninsula between lakes Michigan and Huron, comprehending the waters of the latter and of Detroit River, so soon as it could be effected with the perfect good will of the natives. Governor Hull was therefore appointed a commissioner to treat with them on this subject, but was instructed to confine his propositions for the present to so much of the tract before described as lay south of Saguina Bay and round to the Connecticut Reserve, so as to consolidate the new with the present settled country. The result has been an acquisition of so much only of what would have been acceptable as extends from the neighborhood of Saguina Bay to the Miami of the Lakes, with a prospect of soon obtaining a breadth of 2 miles for a communication from the Miami to the Connecticut Reserve. The treaty for this purpose entered into with the Ottoways, Chippeways, Wyandots, and Pottawattamies at Detroit on the 17th of November last is now transmitted to the Senate, and I ask their advice and consent as to its ratification.

I communicate herewith such papers as bear any material relation to the subject.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 15, 1808.

To the Senate of the United States:

Although it is deemed very desirable that the United States should obtain from the native proprietors the whole left bank of the Mississippi to a certain breadth, yet to obliterate from the Indian mind an impression deeply made in it that we are constantly forming designs on their lands I have thought it best where urged by no peculiar necessity to leave to themselves and to the pressure of their own convenience only to come forward with offers of sale to the United States.

The Choctaws, being indebted to certain mercantile characters beyond what could be discharged by the ordinary proceeds of their huntings, and pressed for payment by those creditors, proposed at length to the United States to cede lands to the amount of their debts, and designated them in two different portions of their country. These designations not at all suiting us, their proposals were declined for that reason, and with an intimation that if their own convenience should ever dispose them to cede their lands on the Mississippi we should be willing to purchase. Still urged by their creditors, as well as by their own desire to be liberated from debt, they at length proposed to make a cession which should be to our convenience. James Robertson, of Tennessee, and Silas Dinsmore were thereupon appointed commissioners to treat with them on that subject, with instructions to purchase only on the Mississippi. On meeting their chiefs, however, it was found that such was the attachment of the nation to their lands on the Mississippi that their chiefs could not undertake to cede them; but they offered all their lands south of a line to be run from their and our boundary at the Omochita eastwardly to their boundary with the Creeks, on the ridge between the Tombigbee and Alabama, which would unite our possessions there from Natchez to Tombigbee. A treaty to this effect was accordingly signed at Pooshapekanuk on the 16th of November, 1805; but this being against express instructions, and not according with the object then in view, I was disinclined to its ratification, and therefore did not at the last session of Congress lay it before the Senate for their advice, but have suffered it to lie unacted on.

Progressive difficulties, however, in our foreign relations have brought into view considerations other than those which then prevailed. It is now, perhaps, become as interesting to obtain footing for a strong settlement of militia along our southern frontier eastward of the Mississippi as on the west of that river, and more so than higher up the river itself. The consolidation of the Mississippi Territory and the establishing a barrier of separation between the Indians and our Southern neighbors are also important objects. The cession is supposed to contain about 5,000,000 acres, of which the greater part is said to be fit for cultivation, and no inconsiderable proportion of the first quality, on the various waters it includes; and the Choctaws and their creditors are still anxious for the sale.

I therefore now transmit the treaty for the consideration of the Senate, and I ask their advice and consent as to its ratification. I communicate at the same time such papers as bear any material relation to the subject, together with a map on which is sketched the northern limit of the cession, rather to give a general idea than with any pretension to exactness, which our present knowledge of the country would not warrant.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 20, 1808.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

Some days previous to your resolutions of the 13th instant a court of inquiry had been instituted at the request of General Wilkinson, charged to make the inquiry into his conduct which the first resolution desires, and had commenced their proceedings. To the judge-advocate of that court the papers and information on that subject transmitted to me by the House of Representatives have been delivered, to be used according to the rules and powers of that court.

The request of a communication of any information which may have been received at any time since the establishment of the present Government touching combinations with foreign agents for dismembering the Union or the corrupt receipt of money by any officer of the United States from the agents of foreign governments can be complied with but in a partial degree.

It is well understood that in the first or second year of the Presidency of General Washington information was given to him relating to certain combinations with the agents of a foreign government for the dismemberment of the Union, which combinations had taken place before the establishment of the present Federal Government. This information, however, is believed never to have been deposited in any public office, or left in that of the President's secretary, these having been duly examined, but to have been considered as personally confidential, and therefore retained among his private papers. A communication from the governor of Virginia to President Washington is found in the office of the President's secretary, which, although not strictly within the terms of the request of the House of Representatives, is communicated, inasmuch as it may throw some light on the subjects of the correspondence of that time between certain foreign agents and citizens of the United States.

In the first or second year of the Administration of President Adams Andrew Ellicott, then employed in designating, in conjunction with the Spanish authorities, the boundaries between the territories of the United States and Spain, under the treaty with that nation, communicated to the Executive of the United States papers and information respecting the subjects of the present inquiry, which were deposited in the Office of State. Copies of these are now transmitted to the House of Representatives, except of a single letter and a reference from the said Andrew Ellicott, which, being expressly desired to be kept secret, is therefore not communicated, but its contents can be obtained from himself in a more legal form, and directions have been given to summon him to appear as a witness before the court of inquiry.

A paper on "The Commerce of Louisiana," bearing date the 18th of April, 1798, is found in the Office of State, supposed to have been communicated by Mr. Daniel Clark, of New Orleans, then a subject of Spain, and now of the House of Representatives of the United States, stating certain commercial transactions of General Wilkinson in New Orleans. An extract from this is now communicated, because it contains facts which may have some bearing on the questions relating to him.

The destruction of the War Office by fire in the close of 1800 involved all information it contained at that date.

The papers already described therefore constitute the whole of the information on the subjects deposited in the public offices during the preceding Administrations, as far as has yet been found; but it can not be affirmed that there may be no other, because, the papers of the office being filed for the most part alphabetically, unless aided by the suggestion of any particular name which may have given such information, nothing short of a careful examination of the papers in the offices generally could authorize such an affirmation.

About a twelvemonth after I came to the administration of the Government Mr. Clark gave some verbal information to myself, as well as to the Secretary of State, relating to the same combinations for the dismemberment of the Union. He was listened to freely, and he then delivered the letter of Governor Gayoso, addressed to himself, of which a copy is now communicated. After his return to New Orleans he forwarded to the Secretary of State other papers, with a request that after perusal they should be burnt. This, however, was not done, and he was so informed by the Secretary of State, and that they would be held subject to his orders. These papers have not yet been found in the office. A letter, therefore, has been addressed to the former chief clerk, who may perhaps give information respecting them. As far as our memories enable us to say, they related only to the combinations before spoken of, and not at all to the corrupt receipt of money by any officer of the United States; consequently they respected what was considered as a dead matter, known to the preceding Administrations, and offering nothing new to call for investigations, which those nearest the dates of the transactions had not thought proper to institute.