UNITED STATES, May 5, 1796.

Gentlemen of the Senate: 

I lay before you, for your consideration and advice, an explanatory article proposed to be added to the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation between the United States and Great Britain, together with a copy of the full power to the Secretary of State to negotiate the same.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, May 25, 1796.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: 

The measures now in operation for taking possession of the posts of Detroit and Michilimackinac render it proper that provision should be made for extending to these places and any others alike circumstanced the civil authority of the Northwestern Territory.  To do this will require an expense to defray which the ordinary salaries of the governor and secretary of that Territory appear to be incompetent.

The forming of a new county, or new counties, and the appointment of the various officers, which the just exercise of government must require, will oblige the governor and secretary to visit those places, and to spend considerable time in making the arrangements necessary for introducing and establishing the Government of the United States.  Congress will consider what provision will in this case be proper.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, May 28, 1796.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: 

The extraordinary expenses to be incurred in the present year in supporting our foreign intercourse I find will require a provision beyond the ordinary appropriation and the additional $20,000 already granted.

I have directed an estimate to be made, which is sent herewith, and will exhibit the deficiency for which an appropriation appears to be necessary.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

EIGHTH ANNUAL ADDRESS.

UNITED STATES, December 7, 1796.

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

In recurring to the internal situation of our country since I had last the pleasure to address you, I find ample reason for a renewed expression of that gratitude to the Ruler of the Universe which a continued series of prosperity has so often and so justly called forth.

The acts of the last session which required special arrangements have been as far as circumstances would admit carried into operation.

Measures calculated to insure a continuance of the friendship of the Indians and to preserve peace along the extent of our interior frontier have been digested and adopted.  In the framing of these care has been taken to guard on the one hand our advanced settlements from the predatory incursions of those unruly individuals who can not be restrained by their tribes, and on the other hand to protect the rights secured to the Indians by treaty—­to draw them nearer to the civilized state and inspire them with correct conceptions of the power as well as justice of the Government.