Part 106

Mr. SPEAKER, attended by the members of this House, then withdrew to the Senate Chamber, for the purpose expressed in the above message.

And being returned, the SPEAKER laid before the House a copy of the Speech, delivered by the PRESIDENT (which will be found in the proceedings of the Senate),

Which being read, it was, on motion, committed to the consideration of a Committee of the whole House to-morrow.

THURSDAY, December 9.

JAMES JACKSON and GEORGE MATHEWS, from Georgia, appeared and took their seats.

Address to the President.

On motion, the House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the Speech of the President of the United States, Mr. LIVERMORE in the chair.

On motion of Mr. LAWRENCE, the committee agreed to a resolution, which the committee rose and reported to the House, which was concurred with as follows:

Resolved, that it is the opinion of this committee, that an Address ought to be presented by the House to the President of the United States, in answer to his Speech to both Houses, with assurances that this House will, without delay, proceed to take into consideration the various and important matters recommended to their attention.

And Messrs. MADISON, AMES, and TUCKER, were appointed to prepare the Address.

FRIDAY, December 10.

GEORGE PARTRIDGE, from Massachusetts; JONATHAN TRUMBULL and JEREMIAH WADSWORTH, from Connecticut; THOMAS SINNICKSON, from New Jersey; and WILLIAM SMITH, from Maryland, appeared and took their seats.

SATURDAY, December 11.

A translation of the Letter from the President of the Commonalty of Paris, addressed to the Federal Legislature, was read as follows:

Mr. President--Gentlemen:

The news has reached our ears--FRANKLIN is no more!--FRANKLIN, the citizen of the world!--All nations are indebted to him for instruction in every branch of science. They are all bound to participate in the grief occasioned by this common loss. But the Assembly of the Representatives of the Commonalty of our capital, thinking it their duty, in addition to the general mourning, to pay to his memory a further tribute of honor, have ordered, by a public decree, that the virtues and talents of this great philosopher should be perpetuated to distant ages, in a public and solemn Eulogy--the first of the kind ever bestowed by our nation on civic worth.

By order of the Assembly I transmit it to your hands; and, with the most lively sensations of pleasure, embrace the opportunity of paying due homage to a body of men, who not only possess, but are justly entitled to enjoy the sweets of Liberty.

May the approbation of your Assembly attend, as well the present itself, as the fraternal and respectful sentiments with which

I am, Mr. President--Gentlemen, Your most obedient humble servant, BENIERE,

Doctor of the Sorbonne, Suppletory Member of the National Assembly, and President of the Commonalty of Paris.

To the PRESIDENT and CONGRESS of the United States.

The letter accompanied twenty-six copies of the Eulogium on Dr. FRANKLIN, delivered by the Abbé Fauchet, pursuant to a decree of that body.

Mr. BOUDINOT proposed that thirteen copies of the Eulogium be returned to the President of the United States and the Senate; which was done.

Mr. SMITH (of South Carolina) observed, that it would be proper to request the President of the United States to return an answer to the President of the Commonalty of Paris, or that a Joint Committee of the House and Senate should be appointed for the purpose. He was not tenacious of any particular mode, but supposed it highly proper that some notice should be taken of the polite attention shown the Government by the President of the Commonalty of Paris. The business was specially committed to the SPEAKER.

Agreeably to the order of the day, the House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole, to take into consideration the Address to the President of the United States, in answer to his Speech to both Houses, as reported yesterday. Mr. LIVERMORE in the chair.

The Address was read by the clerk, and then discussed by the committee in paragraphs.

On reading the clause respecting the Western expedition against the Indians,

Mr. JACKSON rose and observed, that he was as fully impressed with the importance of an Indian war, and of extending the protection of Government to our defenceless frontiers, as any man whatever, and had no doubt of the necessity of the measures taken to chastise the banditti on the Ohio; but as a Representative from the State of Georgia, he should think himself inexcusable were he not to express his astonishment that no notice is taken in the President's speech of the treaty with the Creek Nation; a treaty which has spread alarm among the people of that State--a treaty by which more than three millions of acres of land, the property of the State of Georgia, guarantied to that State by the Constitution of the United States, are ceded away without any compensation. Mr. J. then adverted to several articles of the treaty, which he said controverted the plainest principles of the constitution, particularly those parts which secure to every citizen the rights of property. He contrasted the present situation of the inhabitants of Georgia, with what it was under the British Government, and said this treaty placed them in a less eligible situation in respect to the Indians.