To render the justice of the war on our part the more conspicuous, the reluctance to commence it was followed by the earliest and strongest manifestations of a disposition to arrest its progress.  The sword was scarcely out of the scabbard before the enemy was apprised of the reasonable terms on which it would be resheathed.  Still more precise advances were repeated, and have been received in a spirit forbidding every reliance not placed on the military resources of the nation.

These resources are amply sufficient to bring the war to an honorable issue.  Our nation is in number more than half that of the British Isles.  It is composed of a brave, a free, a virtuous, and an intelligent people.  Our country abounds in the necessaries, the arts, and the comforts of life.  A general prosperity is visible in the public countenance.  The means employed by the British cabinet to undermine it have recoiled on themselves; have given to our national faculties a more rapid development, and, draining or diverting the precious metals from British circulation and British vaults, have poured them into those of the United States.  It is a propitious consideration that an unavoidable war should have found this seasonable facility for the contributions required to support it.  When the public voice called for war, all knew, and still know, that without them it could not be carried on through the period which it might last, and the patriotism, the good sense, and the manly spirit of our fellow-citizens are pledges for the cheerfulness with which they will bear each his share of the common burden.  To render the war short and its success sure, animated and systematic exertions alone are necessary, and the success of our arms now may long preserve our country from the necessity of another resort to them.  Already have the gallant exploits of our naval heroes proved to the world our inherent capacity to maintain our rights on one element.  If the reputation of our arms has been thrown under clouds on the other, presaging flashes of heroic enterprise assure us that nothing is wanting to correspondent triumphs there also but die discipline and habits which are in daily progress.

MARCH 4, 1813.

SPECIAL SESSION MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON, May 25, 1813.

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

At an early day after the close of the last session of Congress an offer was formally communicated from His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Russia of his mediation, as the common friend of the United States and Great Britain, for the purpose of facilitating a peace between them.  The high character of the Emperor Alexander being a satisfactory pledge for the sincerity and impartiality of his offer, it was immediately accepted, and as a further proof of the disposition on the part of the United States, to meet their adversary in honorable experiments for terminating