The question of our northeastern boundary still remains unsettled.  In my last annual message I explained to you the situation in which I found that business on my coming into office, and the measures I thought it my duty to pursue for asserting the rights of the United States before the sovereign who had been chosen by my predecessor to determine the question, and also the manner in which he had disposed of it.  A special message to the Senate in their executive capacity afterwards brought before them the question whether they would advise a submission to the opinion of the sovereign arbiter.  That body having considered the award as not obligatory and advised me to open a further negotiation, the proposition was immediately made to the British Government, but the circumstances to which I have alluded have hitherto prevented any answer being given to the overture.  Early attention, however, has been promised to the subject, and every effort on my part will be made for a satisfactory settlement of this question, interesting to the Union generally, and particularly so to one of its members.

The claims of our citizens on Spain are not yet acknowledged.  On a closer investigation of them than appears to have heretofore taken place it was discovered that some of these demands, however strong they might be upon the equity of that Government, were not such as could be made the subject of national interference; and faithful to the principle of asking nothing but what was clearly right, additional instructions have been sent to modify our demands so as to embrace those only on which, according to the laws of nations, we had a strict right to insist.  An inevitable delay in procuring the documents necessary for this review of the merits of these claims retarded this operation until an unfortunate malady which has afflicted His Catholic Majesty prevented an examination of them.  Being now for the first time presented in an unexceptionable form, it is confidently hoped that the application will be successful.

I have the satisfaction to inform you that the application I directed to be made for the delivery of a part of the archives of Florida, which had been carried to The Havannah, has produced a royal order for their delivery, and that measures have been taken to procure its execution.

By the report of the Secretary of State communicated to you on the 25th June last you were informed of the conditional reduction obtained by the minister of the United States at Madrid of the duties on tonnage levied on American shipping in the ports of Spain.  The condition of that reduction having been complied with on our part by the act passed the 13th of July last, I have the satisfaction to inform you that our ships now pay no higher nor other duties in the continental ports of Spain than are levied on their national vessels.

The demands against Portugal for illegal captures in the blockade of Terceira have been allowed to the full amount of the accounts presented by the claimants, and payment was promised to be made in three installments.  The first of these has been paid; the second, although due, had not at the date of our last advices been received, owing, it was alleged, to embarrassments in the finances consequent on the civil war in which that nation is engaged.