they exist and are defined by the law of nations, to enter into the articles now submitted to the Senate.

The treaty which I now submit to you proposes no alteration, mitigation, or modification of the rules of the law of nations. It provides simply that each of the two governments shall maintain on the coast of Africa a sufficient squadron to enforce, separately and respectively, the laws, rights, and obligations of the two countries for the suppression of the slave trade.

Another consideration of great importance has recommended this mode of fulfilling the duties and obligations of the country. Our commerce along the western coast of Africa is extensive, and supposed to be increasing. There is reason to think that, in many cases, those engaged in it have met with interruptions and annoyances, caused by the jealousy and instigation of rivals engaged in the same trade. Many complaints on this subject have reached the government. A respectable naval force on the coast is the natural resort and security against further Occurrences of this kind.

The surrender to justice of persons who, having committed high crimes, seek an asylum in the territories of a neighboring nation, would seem to be an act due to the cause of general justice, and properly belonging to the present state of civilization and intercourse. The British provinces of North America are separated from the states of the Union by a line of several thousand miles; and along portions of this line the amount of population on either side is quite considerable, while the passage of the boundary is always easy.

Offenders against the law, on the one side, transfer themselves to the other. Sometimes, with great difficulty, they are brought to justice, but very often they wholly escape. A consciousness of immunity, from the power of avoiding justice in this way, instigates the unprincipled and reckless to the commission of offenses; and the peace and good neighborhood of the border are consequently often disturbed.

In the case of offenders fleeing from Canada into the United States, the governors of states are often applied to for their surrender; and questions of a very embarrassing nature arise from these applications. It has been thought highly important, therefore, to provide for the whole case by a proper treaty stipulation. The article on the subject in the proposed treaty is carefully confined to such offenses as all mankind agree to regard as heinous, and destructive of the security of life and property. In this careful and specific enumeration of crimes, the object has been to exclude all political offenses, or criminal charges, arising from wars or intestine commotions. Treason, misprision of treason, libels, desertion from military service, and other offenses of similar character, are excluded.

And, lest some unforeseen inconvenience or unexpected abuse should arise from the stipulation, rendering its continuance, in the opinion of one or both of the parties, not longer desirable, it is left in the power of either to put an end to it at will.

The destruction of the steam-boat Caroline at Schlosser, four or five years ago, occasioned no small degree of excite ment at the time, and became the subject of correspondence between the two governments. That correspondence having been suspended for a considerable period, was renewed in the spring of the last year, but, no satisfactory result having been arrived at, it was thought proper, though the occurrence had ceased to be fresh and recent, not to omit attention to it on the present occasion. It has only been so far discussed, in the correspondence now submitted, as it was accomplished by a violation of the territory of the United States. The letter of the British minister, while he attempts to justify that violation upon the ground of a pressing and overruling necessity, admitting, nevertheless, that, even if justifiable, an apology was due for it, and accompanying this acknowledgment with assurances of the sacred regard of his government for the inviolability of national territory, has seemed to me sufficient to warrant forbearance from any further remonstrance against what took place, as an aggression on the soil and territory of the country.

On the subject of the interference of the British authorities. in the West Indies, a confident hope is entertained that the correspondence which has taken place, showing the grounds taken by this government, and the engagements entered into by the British minister, will be found such as to satisfy the just expectation of the people of the United States.

The impressment of seamen from merchant vessels of this country by British cruisers, although not practiced in time of peace, and, therefore, not at present a productive cause of difference and irritation, has, nevertheless, hitherto been so prominent a topic of controversy, and is so likely to bring on renewed contentions at the first breaking out of an European war, that it has been thought the part of wisdom now to take it into serious and earnest consideration. The letter from the Secretary of State to the British minister explains the grounds which the government has assumed, and the principles which it means to uphold. For the defense of these grounds, and the maintenance of these principles, the most perfect reliance is placed on the intelligence of the American people, and on their firmness and patriotism, in whatever touches the honor of the country, or its great and essential interest.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

[A PROCLAMATION.]

Whereas, a treaty between the United States of America and her majesty, the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was concluded and signed by their plenipotentiaries, at Washington, on the ninth day of August, one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, which treaty is, word for word, as follows:

A Treaty to settle and define the Boundaries between the Territories of the United States and the Possessions of her Britannic Majesty in North America: For the final Suppression of the African Slave Trade; and for the giving up of Criminals, fugitive from Justice, in certain Cases.

Whereas, certain portions of the line of boundary between the United States of America and the British dominions in North America, described in the second article of the Treaty of Peace of 1783, have not yet been ascertained and determined, notwithstanding the repeated attempts which have been heretofore made for that purpose; and whereas, it is now thought to be for the interest of both parties that, avoiding further discussion of their respective rights arising in this respect under the said treaty, they should agree on a conventional line in said portions of the said boundary, such as may be convenient to both parties, with such equivalents and compensations as are deemed just and reasonable; and whereas, by the treaty concluded at Ghent, on the 24th day of December, 1814, between the United States and his Britannic majesty, an article was agreed to and inserted, of the following tenor, viz.: "ARTICLE 10. Whereas the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of humanity and justice; and whereas, both his majesty and the United States are desirous of continuing their efforts to promote its entire abolition, it is hereby agreed that both the contracting parties shall use their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object;" and whereas, notwithstanding the laws which have at various times been passed by the two governments, and the efforts made to suppress it, that criminal traffic is still prosecuted and carried on; and whereas, the United States of America and her majesty, the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, are determined that, so far as may be in their power, it shall be effectually abolished; and whereas, it is found expedient for the better administration of justice, and the prevention of crime within the territories and jurisdiction of the two parties, respectively, that persons committing the crimes hereinafter enumerated, and being fugitives from justice, should, under

certain circumstances, be reciprocally delivered up: the United States of America and her Britannic majesty, having resolved to treat on these several subjects, have for that purpose appointed their respective plenipotentiaries to negotiate and conclude a, treaty; that is to say: the President of the United States has, on his part, furnished with full powers Daniel Webster, Secretary of State of the United States; and her majesty, the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, has, on her part, appointed the Right Honorable Alexander Lord Ashburton, a peer of the said United Kingdom, a member of her majesty's most honorable privy counsel, and her majesty's minister plenipotentiary on a special mission to the United States, who, after a reciprocal communication of their respective full powers, have agreed to and signed the following articles:

ARTICLE I.

It is hereby agreed and declared that the line of boundary shall be as follows: Beginning at the monument at the source of the River St. Croix, as designated and agreed to by the commissioners under the fifth article of the treaty of 1794, between the governments of the United States and Great Britian; thence north, following the exploring line run and marked by the surveyors of the two governments in the years 1817 and 1818, under the fifth article of the Treaty of Ghent, to its intersection with the River St. John, and to the middle of the channel thereof; thence up the middle of the main channel of the said River St. John to the mouth of the River St. Francis ; thence up the middle of the channel of the said River St. Francis, and of the lakes through which it flows, to the outlet of the Lake Pohenagamook; thence, southwesterly, in a straight line to a point on the northwest branch of the River St. John, which point shall be ten miles distant from the main branch of the St. John, in a straight line, and in the nearest direction; but if the said point shall be found to be less than seven miles from the nearest point of the summit, or crest, of the Highlands that divide those rivers which empty themselves into the River St. Lawrence from those which fall into the River St. John, then the said point shall be made to recede down the said northwest branch of the River St. John, to a point seven miles in a straight line from the said summit or crest; thence in a straight line, in a course about south, eight degrees west, to the point where the parallel of latitude of 46 degrees 25 minutes north intersects the southwest branch of the St. John's; thence, southerly, by the said branch, to the source. thereof in the Highlands, at the Metjarmette Portage; thence down along the said Highlands which divide the waters which emp

ty themselves into the River St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to the head of Hall's Stream; thence down the middle of said stream, till the line thus run intersects the only line of boundary surveyed and marked by Valentine and Collins previously to the year 1774, as the 45th degree of north latitude, and which has been known and understood to be the line of actual division between the States of New York and Vermont on one side, and the British province of Canada on the other; and from said point of intersection, west, along the said dividing-line, as heretofore known and understood, to the Iroquois or St. Lawrence River.

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ARTICLE II.

It is, moreover, agreed that from the place where the joint commissioners terminated their labors under the sixth article of the Treaty of Ghent, to, wit: at a point in the Neebish Channel, near Muddy Lake, the line shall run into and along the ship-channel between St. Joseph's and St. Tammany Islands, to the division of the channel at or near the head of St. Joseph's Island; thence, turning eastwardly and northwardly, around the lower end of St. George's or Sugar Island, and following the middle of the channel which divides St. George's from St. Joseph's Island; thence up the east Neebish Channel, nearest to St. George's Island, through the middle of Lake George; thence, west of Jonas's Island, into St. Mary's River, to a point in the middle of that river, about one mile above St. George's or Sugar Island, so as to appropriate and assign the said island to the United States; thence, adopting the line traced on the maps by the commissioners, through the River St. Mary and Lake Superior, to a point north of Ile Royale, in said lake, one hundred yards to the north and east of Ile Chapeau, which last-mentioned island lies near the northeastern point of lle Royale, where the line marked by the commissioners terminates; and from the last-mentioned point, southwesterly, through the middle of the sound between Ile Royale and the northwestern main-land, to the mouth of Pigeon River, and up the said river to and through the North and South Fowl Lakes, to the lakes of the height of land between Lake Superior and the Lake of the Woods; thence along the water communication to Lake Saisaginaga, and through that lake; thence to and through Cypress Lake, Lac du Bois Blanc, Lac la Croix, Little Vermilion Lake, and Lake Namecan, and through the several smaller lakes, straits, or streams connecting the lakes here mentioned, to that point in Lac la Pluie, or Rainy Lake, at the Chaudière Falls, from which the commissioners traced the line to the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods; thence along the said line to the