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imposed or levied within the ports of the said nation upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States or upon merchandise the produce or manufacture thereof imported in the same, the President is thereby authorized to issue his proclamation declaring that the foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are and shall be suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of the said nation and the merchandise of its produce or manufacture imported into the United States in the same, the said suspension to take effect from the time of such notification being given to the President of the United States and to continue so long as the reciprocal exemption of vessels belonging to citizens of the United States and merchandise as aforesaid therein laden shall be continued, and no longer; and

Whereas satisfactory evidence was given to the President of the United States on the 30th day of May last by Count Lucchesi, consul-general of His Holiness the Pope, that all foreign and discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the dominions of His Holiness, so far as respected the vessels of the United States and the merchandise of their produce or manufacture imported in the same, were suspended and discontinued:

Now, therefore, I, John Quincy Adams, President of the United States, conformably to the fourth section of the act of Congress aforesaid, do hereby proclaim and declare that the foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are and shall be suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of the subjects of His Holiness the Pope and the merchandise of the produce or manufacture of his dominions imported into the United States in the same, the said suspension to take effect from the 30th of May aforesaid and to continue so long as the reciprocal exemption of vessels belonging to citizens of the United States and merchandise as aforesaid therein laden shall be continued, and no longer.

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this 7th day of June, A. D. 1827, and of the Independence of the United States the fifty-first. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

By the President:

H. CLAY,

Secretary of State.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas Willis Anderson, of the County of Alexandria, in the District of Columbia, is charged with having recently murdered Gerrard Arnold, late of the said county; and

Whereas it is represented to me that the said Willis Anderson has

absconded and secretes himself, so that he can not be apprehended and brought to justice for the offense of which he is so charged; and

Whereas the apprehension and trial of the said Willis Anderson is an example due to justice and humanity, and would be every way salutary in its influence:

Now, therefore, I have thought fit to issue this my proclamation, hereby exhorting the citizens of the United States, and particularly those of this District, and requiring all officers, according to their respective stations, to use their utmost endeavors to apprehend and bring the said Willis Anderson to justice for the atrocious crime with which he stands charged as aforesaid; and I do moreover offer a reward of $250 for the apprehension of the said Willis Anderson and his delivery to an officer or officers of justice in the county aforesaid, so that he may be brought to trial for the murder aforesaid and be otherwise dealt with according to law. In testimony whereof I have hereunto signed my name and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed to these presents.

[SEAL.]

Done at Washington, this 10th day of September, A. D. 1827, and of the Independence of the United States the fifty-second. J. Q. ADAMS. By the President:

H. CLAY,

Secretary of State.

THIRD ANNUAL MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON, December 4, 1827.

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

A revolution of the seasons has nearly been completed since the representatives of the people and States of this Union were last assembled at this place to deliberate and to act upon the common important interests of their constituents. In that interval the never-slumbering eye of a wise and beneficent Providence has continued its guardian care over the welfare of our beloved country; the blessing of health has continued generally to prevail throughout the land; the blessing of peace with our brethren of the human race has been enjoyed without interruption; internal quiet has left our fellow-citizens in the full enjoyment of all their rights and in the free exercise of all their faculties, to pursue the impulse of their nature and the obligation of their duty in the improvement of their own condition; the productions of the soil, the exchanges of commerce, the vivifying labors of human industry, have combined to mingle in our cup a portion of enjoyment as large and liberal as the indulgence of Heaven has perhaps ever granted to the imperfect state of man upon

earth; and as the purest of human felicity consists in its participation with others, it is no small addition to the sum of our national happiness at this time that peace and prosperity prevail to a degree seldom experienced over the whole habitable globe, presenting, though as yet with painful exceptions, a foretaste of that blessed period of promise when the lion shall lie down with the lamb and wars shall be no more. To preserve, to improve, and to perpetuate the sources and to direct in their most effective channels the streams which contribute to the public weal is the purpose for which Government was instituted. Objects of deep importance to the welfare of the Union are constantly recurring to demand the attention of the Federal Legislature, and they call with accumulated interest at the first meeting of the two Houses after their periodical renovation. To present to their consideration from time to time subjects in which the interests of the nation are most deeply involved, and for the regulation of which the legislative will is alone competent, is a duty prescribed by the Constitution, to the performance of which the first meeting of the new Congress is a period eminently appropriate, and which it is now my purpose to discharge.

Our relations of friendship with the other nations of the earth, political and commercial, have been preserved unimpaired, and the opportunities to improve them have been cultivated with anxious and unremitting attention. A negotiation upon subjects of high and delicate interest with the Government of Great Britain has terminated in the adjustment of some of the questions at issue upon satisfactory terms and the postponement of others for future discussion and agreement. The purposes of the convention concluded at St. Petersburg on the 12th day of July, 1822, under the mediation of the late Emperor Alexander, have been carried into effect by a subsequent convention, concluded at London on the 13th of November, 1826, the ratifications of which were exchanged at that place on the 6th day of February last. A copy of the proclamation issued on the 19th day of March last, publishing this convention, is herewith communicated to Congress. The sum of $1,204,960, therein stipulated to be paid to the claimants of indemnity under the first article of the treaty of Ghent, has been duly received, and the commission instituted, comformably to the act of Congress of the 2d of March last, for the distribution of the indemnity to the persons entitled to receive it are now in session and approaching the consummation of their labors. This final disposal of one of the most painful topics of collision between the United States and Great Britain not only affords an occasion of gratulation to ourselves, but has had the happiest effect in promoting a friendly disposition and in softening asperities upon other objects of discussion; nor ought it to pass without the tribute of a frank and cordial acknowledgment of the magnanimity with which an honorable nation, by the reparation of their own wrongs, achieves a triumph more glorious than any field of blood can ever bestow.

The conventions of 3d July, 1815, and of 20th October, 1818, will expire by their own limitation on the 20th of October, 1828. These have regulated the direct commercial intercourse between the United States and Great Britain upon terms of the most perfect reciprocity; and they effected a temporary compromise of the respective rights and claims to territory westward of the Rocky Mountains. These arrangements have been continued for an indefinite period of time after the expiration of the above-mentioned conventions, leaving each party the liberty of terminating them by giving twelve months' notice to the other. The radical principle of all commercial intercourse between independent nations is the mutual interest of both parties. It is the vital spirit of trade itself; nor can it be reconciled to the nature of man or to the primary laws of human society that any traffic should long be willingly pursued of which all the advantages are on one side and all the burdens on the other. Treaties of commerce have been found by experience to be among the most effective instruments for promoting peace and harmony between nations whose interests, exclusively considered on either side, are brought into frequent collisions by competition. In framing such treaties it is the duty of each party not simply to urge with unyielding pertinacity that which suits its own interest, but to concede liberally to that which is adapted to the interest of the other. To accomplish this, little more is generally required than a simple observance of the rule of reciprocity, and were it possible for the statesmen of one nation by stratagem and management to obtain from the weakness or ignorance of another an overreaching treaty, such a compact would prove an incentive to war rather than a bond of peace. Our conventions with Great Britain are founded upon the principles of reciprocity. The commercial intercourse between the two countries is greater in magnitude and amount than between any two other nations on the globe. It is for all purposes of benefit or advantage to both as precious, and in all probability far more extensive, than if the parties were still constituent parts of one and the same nation. Treaties between such States, regulating the intercourse of peace between them and adjusting interests of such transcendent importance to both, which have been found in a long experience of years mutually advantageous, should not be lightly canceled or discontinued. Two conventions for continuing in force those above mentioned have been concluded between the plenipotentiaries of the two Governments on the 6th of August last, and will be forthwith laid before the Senate for the exercise of their constitutional authority concerning them.

In the execution of the treaties of peace of November, 1782, and September, 1783, between the United States and Great Britain, and which terminated the war of our independence, a line of boundary was drawn as the demarcation of territory between the two countries, extending over near 20 degrees of latitude, and ranging over seas, lakes, and mountains, then very imperfectly explored and scarcely opened to the geo

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