Having forborne to declare war until to other aggressions had been added the capture of nearly a thousand American vessels and the impressment of thousands of American seafaring citizens, and until a final declaration had been made by the Government of Great Britain that her hostile orders against our commerce would not be revoked but on conditions as impossible as unjust, whilst it was known that these orders would not otherwise cease but with a war which had lasted nearly twenty years, and which, according to appearances at that time, might last as many more; having manifested on every occasion and in every proper mode a sincere desire to arrest the effusion of blood and meet our enemy on the ground of justice and reconciliation, our beloved country, in still opposing to his persevering hostility all its energies, with an undiminished disposition toward peace and friendship on honorable terms, must carry with it the good wishes of the impartial world and the best hopes of support from an omnipotent and kind Providence.

JAMES MADISON.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

SEPTEMBER 26, 1814.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

I transmit to Congress, for their information, copies of a letter from Admiral Cochrane, commanding His Britannic Majesty’s naval forces on the American station, to the Secretary of State, with his answer, and of a reply from Admiral Cochrane.

JAMES MADISON.

WASHINGTON, October 10, 1814.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

I lay before Congress communications just received from the plenipotentiaries of the United States charged with negotiating peace with Great Britain, showing the conditions on which alone that Government is willing to put an end to the war.

The instructions to those plenipotentiaries, disclosing the grounds on which they were authorized to negotiate and conclude a treaty of peace, will be the subject of another communication.

JAMES MADISON.

WASHINGTON, October 13, 1814.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

I now transmit to Congress copies of the instructions to the plenipotentiaries of the United States charged with negotiating a peace with Great Britain, as referred to in my message of the 10th instant.

JAMES MADISON.

DECEMBER 1, 1814.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

I transmit, for the information of Congress, the communications last received from the ministers extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the United States at Ghent, explaining the course and actual state of their negotiations with the plenipotentiaries of Great Britain.

JAMES MADISON.