For the discharge of such miscellaneous claims against the United States, not otherwise provided for, as shall have been admitted in due course of settlement at the treasury, 4,000 The following additional appropriations were made, at the end of the session: For defraying the expences which have been or For defraying the expence of additional clerks, In the office of the auditor, $625,000 1,000 700 1,000 For the bounty, subsistence, clothing, and other expences of the marine corps, 189,291 For the bounty and pay of seamen for 1814, in addition to the sum already appropriated, 122,700 $9. Congress adjourned on the 18th of April, after fixing on the last Monday in October for their next meeting. STATE PAPERS LAID BEFORE CONGRESS. 13th CONGRESS2d SESSION. Message from the President of the United States to both Houses of Congress, at the Commencement of the Second Session of the Thirteenth Congress. Fellow-Citizens of the Senate & of the House of Representatives. IN meeting you at the present interesting conjuncture, it would have been highly satisfactory if I could have communicated a favourable result to the mission charged with negociations for restoring peace. It was a just expectation from the respect due to the distinguished sovereign who had invited them by his offer of mediation; from the readiness with which the invitation was accepted on the part of the United States; and from the pledge to be found in an act of their legislature for the liberality which their plenipotentiaries would carry into the negociations, that no time would be lost by the British government in embracing the experiment for hastening a stop to the effusion of blood. A prompt and cordial acceptance of the mediation on that side was the less to be doubted as it was of a nature not to submit rights or pretensions on either side to the decision of an umpire; but to afford merely an opportunity, honourable and desirable to both, for discussing, and if possible adjusting them for the interest of both. The British cabinet, either mistaking our desire of peace for a dread of British power, or misled by other fallacious calculations, has disappointed this reasonable anticipation. VOL. III. [A] No communications from our envoys having reached us, no information on the subject has been received from that source. But it is known that the mediation was declined in the first instance, and there is no evidence, notwithstanding the lapse of time, that a change of disposition in the British councils has taken place, or is to be expected. Under such circumstances, a nation proud of its rights, and conscious of its strength, has no choice but an exertion of the one in support of the other. To this determination, the best encouragement is derived from the success with which it has pleased the Almighty to bless our arms, both on the land and on the water. Whilst proofs have been continued of the enterprize and skill of our cruisers, public and private, on the ocean, and a new trophy gained in the capture of a British by an American vessel of war, after an action giving celebrity to the name of the victorious commander, the great inland waters, on which the enemy were also to be encountered, have presented achievements of our naval arms, as brilliant in their character as they have been important in their consequences. On Lake Erie, the squadron under command of captain Perry having met the British squadron of superior force, a sanguinary conflict ended in the capture of the whole. The conduct of that officer, adroit as it was daring, and which was so well seconded by his comrades, justly entitles them to the admiration and gratitude of their country, and will fill an early page in its naval annals, with a victory, never surpassed in lustre, however much it may have been in magnitude. On Lake Ontario, the caution of the British commander, favoured by contingencies, frustrated the efforts of the American commander to bring on a decisive action. Captain Chauncey was able, however, to establish an ascendancy on that important theatre; and to prove, by the manner in which he effected every thing possible, that opportunities only were wanted, for a more shining display of his own talents and the gallantry of those under his command. The success on Lake Erie having opened a passage to the territory of the enemy, the officer commanding the northwestern army transferred the war thither, and rapidly pursuing the hostile troops fleeing with their savage associates, forced a general action, which quickly terminated in the capture of the British, and dispersion of the savage force. This result is signally honourable to major-general Harrison, by whose military talents it was prepared; to colonel |