In further response to the Senate resolutions of the 10th of May and 10th of July, 1886, touching the seizure and detention of American vessels in Canadian waters, I transmit herewith a letter from the Secretary of State dated the 29th instant, accompanied by a report from the consul-general at Halifax relative to the subject.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 31, 1886.

To the House of Representatives: 

I have approved House bill No. 4335, entitled “An act making an appropriation to continue the construction of a public building at Clarksburg, W. Va., and changing the limit of cost thereof.”

A law passed by the last Congress authorized the construction of this building and appropriated $50,000 for that purpose, which was declared to be the limit of its cost.  A site has been purchased for said building, and, as is too often the case, it is now discovered that the sum appropriated is insufficient to meet the expense of such a building as is really needed.

The object of the bill which I have approved is to extend the limit of the cost to $80,000 and to make the additional appropriation to reach that sum.  The first section fixes the limit above mentioned, but the second section appropriates $35,000, and thus, with the appropriation of $50,000 heretofore made, the aggregate appropriations exceed the sum to which the cost of the building is limited by $5,000.

Inasmuch as this latter sum can not properly be applied to the construction of the building, attention is called to the existence of this excess of appropriation and the suggestion made that it be returned to the Treasury.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 2, 1886.

To the Senate of the United States: 

In response to the resolution of your honorable body of the 26th ultimo, I transmit a report of the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers, communicating the information possessed by the Department of State “concerning the alleged illegal detention of A.K.  Cutting, an American citizen, by the Mexican authorities at El Paso del Norte;” and as to the further inquiry contained in said resolution, “whether any additional United States troops have been recently ordered to Fort Bliss,” I answer in the negative.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 2, 1886.

To the House of Representatives: 

In performance of the duty imposed upon me by the Constitution, I herewith transmit for your information (the same having heretofore been communicated to the Senate in response to a resolution of inquiry adopted by that body July 26, 1886) certain correspondence and accompanying documents in relation to the arrest and imprisonment at Paso del Norte by Mexican authority of A.K.  Cutting, a citizen of the United States.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 2, 1886.