and its growing population call for an
additional department, to be charged with duties now overburdening other
departments and with such as have not been annexed to any department.

The course of experience recommends, as another improvement in the
executive establishment, that the provision for the station of
Attorney-General, whose residence at the seat of Government, official
connections with it, and the management of the public business before
the judiciary preclude an extensive participation in professional
emoluments, be made more adequate to his services and his
relinquishments, and that, with a view to his reasonable accommodation
and to a proper depository of his official opinions and proceedings,
there be included in the provision the usual appurtenances to a public
office.

In directing the legislative attention to the state of the finances it
is a subject of great gratification to find that even within the short
period which has elapsed since the return of peace the revenue has far
exceeded all the current demands upon the Treasury, and that under any
probable diminution of its future annual products which the vicissitudes
of commerce may occasion it will afford an ample fund for the effectual
and early extinguishment of the public debt. It has been estimated that
during the year 1816 the actual receipts of revenue at the Treasury,
including the balance at the commencement of the year, and excluding
the proceeds of loans and Treasury notes, will amount to about the sum
of $47,000,000; that during the same year the actual payments at the
Treasury, including the payment of the arrearages of the War Department
as well as the payment of a considerable excess beyond the annual
appropriations, will amount to about the sum of $38,000,000, and that
consequently at the close of the year there will be a surplus in the
Treasury of about the sum of $9,000,000.

The operations of the Treasury continued to be obstructed by
difficulties arising from the condition of the national currency, but
they have nevertheless been effectual to a beneficial extent in the
reduction of the public debt and the establishment of the public credit.
The floating debt of Treasury notes and temporary loans will soon be
entirely discharged. The aggregate of the funded debt, composed of
debts incurred during the wars of 1776 and 1812, has been estimated
with reference to the 1st of January next at a sum not exceeding
$110,000,000. The ordina