M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, February 21, 1839.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I transmit for the constitutional action of the Senate articles supplementary to the treaty with the Chippewas, for the purchase of 40 acres of land at the mouth of the Saginaw River, which are esteemed necessary in the erection and use of a light-house at that point.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, February 22, 1839.

The SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: 

I herewith transmit a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents, on the subject of the blockades of the Mexican coast and of the Rio de la Plata, in answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 11th instant.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, February 25, 1839.

To the Senate: 

I transmit for the constitutional action of the Senate a supplemental article to the treaty with the Chippewas of Saganaw, which accompanied my communication of the 21st instant, and explanatory papers from the War Department.

M. VAN BUREN.

WASHINGTON, February 26, 1839.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I lay before Congress several dispatches from his excellency the governor of Maine, with inclosures, communicating certain proceedings of the legislature of that State, and a copy of the reply of the Secretary of State, made by my direction, together with a note from H.S.  Fox, esq., envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Great Britain, with the answer of the Secretary of State to the same.

It will appear from those documents that a numerous band of lawless and desperate men, chiefly from the adjoining British Provinces, but without the authority or sanction of the provincial government, had trespassed upon that portion of the territory in dispute between the United States and Great Britain which is watered by the river Aroostook and claimed to belong to the State of Maine, and that they had committed extensive depredations there by cutting and destroying a very large quantity of timber.  It will further appear that the governor of Maine, having been officially apprised of the circumstance, had communicated it to the legislature with a recommendation of such provisions in addition to those already existing by law as would enable him to arrest the course of said depredations, disperse the trespassers, and secure the timber which they were about carrying away; that, in compliance with a resolve of the legislature passed in pursuance of his recommendation, his excellency had dispatched the land agent of the State, with a force deemed adequate to that purpose, to the scene of the alleged depredations, who, after accomplishing a part of his duty, was seized by a band of the trespassers at a house claimed to be within the jurisdiction of Maine, whither he had repaired for the purpose of meeting and consulting with the land agent of the Province of New Brunswick, and conveyed as a prisoner to Frederickton, in that Province, together with two other citizens of the State who were assisting him in the discharge of his duty.