GEORGE WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, February 19, 1793.

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives: 

It has been agreed on the part of the United States that a treaty or conference shall be held at the ensuing season with the hostile Indians northwest of the Ohio, in order to remove, if possible, all causes of difference and to establish a solid peace with them.

As the estimates heretofore presented to the House for the current year did not contemplate this object, it will be proper that an express provision be made by law as well for the general expenses of the treaty as to establish the compensation to be allowed the commissioners who shall be appointed for the purpose.

I shall therefore direct the Secretary of War to lay before you an estimate of the expenses which may probably attend this measure.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, February 27, 1793.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: 

I lay before you a copy of an exemplification of an act of the legislature of New York ceding to the United States the jurisdiction of certain lands on Montauk Point for the purpose mentioned in said act, and the copy of a letter from the governor of New York to the Secretary of State, which accompanied said exemplification.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, February 28, 1793.

Gentlemen of the Senate: 

I was led by a consideration of the qualifications of William Patterson, of New Jersey, to nominate him an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.  It has since occurred that he was a member of the Senate when the law creating that office was passed, and that the time for which he was elected is not yet expired.  I think it my duty, therefore, to declare that I deem the nomination to have been null by the Constitution.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

PROCLAMATIONS.

[From Freneau’s National Gazette of December 15, 1792.]

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Whereas I have received authentic information that certain lawless and wicked persons of the western frontier in the State of Georgia did lately invade, burn, and destroy a town belonging to the Cherokee Nation, although in amity with the United States, and put to death several Indians of that nation; and

Whereas such outrageous conduct not only violates the rights of humanity, but also endangers the public peace, and it highly becomes the honor and good faith of the United States to pursue all legal means for the punishment of those atrocious offenders: 

I have therefore thought fit to issue this my proclamation, hereby exhorting all the citizens of the United States and requiring all the officers thereof, according to their respective stations, to use their utmost endeavors to apprehend and bring those offenders to justice.  And I do moreover offer a reward of $500 for each and every of the above-named persons who shall be so apprehended and brought to justice and shall be proved to have assumed or exercised any command or authority among the perpetrators of the crimes aforesaid at the time of committing the same.