ency of the postal service, it is believed, has
also been much improved. The Postmaster-General has also opened a
correspondence through the Department of State with foreign governments
proposing a convention of postal representatives for the purpose of
simplifying the rates of foreign postage and to expedite the foreign
mails. This proposition, equally important to our adopted citizens and to
the commercial interests of this country, has been favorably entertained
and agreed to by all the governments from whom replies have been received.

I ask the attention of Congress to the suggestions of the
Postmaster-General in his report respecting the further legislation
required, in his opinion, for the benefit of the postal service.

The Secretary of the Interior reports as follows in regard to the public
lands:

"The public lands have ceased to be a source of revenue. From the 1st
July, 1861, to the 30th September, 1862, the entire cash receipts from the
sale of lands were $137,476.2--a sum much less than the expenses of our
land system during the same period. The homestead law, which will take
effect on the 1st of January next, offers such inducements to settlers
that sales for cash cannot be expected to an extent sufficient to meet the
expenses of the General Land Office and the cost of surveying and bringing
the land into market."

The discrepancy between the sum here stated as arising from the sales of
the public lands and the sum derived from the same source as reported from
the Treasury Department arises, as I understand, from the fact that the
periods of time, though apparently were not really coincident at the
beginning point, the Treasury report including a considerable sum now
which had previously been reported from the Interior, sufficiently large
to greatly overreach the sum derived from the three months now reported
upon by the Interior and not by the Treasury.

The Indian tribes upon our frontiers have during the past year manifested
a spirit of insubordination, and at several points have engaged in open
hostilities against the white settlements in their vicinity. The tribes
occupying the Indian country south of Kansas renounced their allegiance to
the United States and entered into treaties with the insurgents. Those
who remained loyal to the United States were driven from the country. The
chief of the Cherokees has visited this city for the purpose of restoring
the former relations of the tribe with the U