The amount of duties secured on merchandise imported from the commencement of the year until the 30th of September last is $21,226,000, and the probable amount of that which will be secured during the remainder of the year is $5,774,000, forming a sum total of $27,000,000.  With the allowances for drawbacks and contingent deficiencies which may occur, though not specifically foreseen, we may safely estimate the receipts of the ensuing year at $22,300,000—­a revenue for the next equal to the expenditure of the present year.

The deep solicitude felt by our citizens of all classes throughout the Union for the total discharge of the public debt will apologize for the earnestness with which I deem it my duty to urge this topic upon the consideration of Congress—­of recommending to them again the observance of the strictest economy in the application of the public funds.  The depression upon the receipts of the revenue which had commenced with the year 1826 continued with increased severity during the two first quarters of the present year.  The returning tide began to flow with the third quarter, and, so far as we can judge from experience, may be expected to continue through the course of the ensuing year.  In the meantime an alleviation from the burden of the public debt will in the three years have been effected to the amount of nearly sixteen millions, and the charge of annual interest will have been reduced upward of one million.  But among the maxims of political economy which the stewards of the public moneys should never suffer without urgent necessity to be transcended is that of keeping the expenditures of the year within the limits of its receipts.  The appropriations of the two last years, including the yearly ten millions of the sinking fund, have each equaled the promised revenue of the ensuing year.  While we foresee with confidence that the public coffers will be replenished from the receipts as fast as they will be drained by the expenditures, equal in amount to those of the current year, it should not be forgotten that they could ill suffer the exhaustion of larger disbursements.

The condition of the Army and of all the branches of the public service under the superintendence of the Secretary of War will be seen by the report from that officer and the documents with which it is accompanied.

During the last summer a detachment of the Army has been usefully and successfully called to perform their appropriate duties.  At the moment when the commissioners appointed for carrying into execution certain provisions of the treaty of August 19, 1825, with various tribes of the Northwestern Indians were about to arrive at the appointed place of meeting the unprovoked murder of several citizens and other acts of unequivocal hostility committed by a party of the Winnebago tribe, one of those associated in the treaty, followed by indications of a menacing character among other tribes of the same region, rendered necessary an immediate