crowned the year with His goodness. If we find ourselves increasing
beyond example in numbers, in strength, in wealth, in knowledge, in
everything which promotes human and social happiness, let us ever
remember our dependence for all these on the protection and merciful
dispensations of Divine Providence.

Since your last adjournment Alexander McLeod, a British subject who was
indicted for the murder of an American citizen, and whose case has been
the subject of a correspondence heretofore communicated to you, has been
acquitted by the verdict of an impartial and intelligent jury, and has
under the judgment of the court been regularly discharged.

Great Britain having made known to this Government that the expedition
which was fitted out from Canada for the destruction of the steamboat
_Caroline_ in the winter of 1837, and which resulted in the destruction
of said boat and in the death of an American citizen, was undertaken
by orders emanating from the authorities of the British Government in
Canada, and demanding the discharge of McLeod upon the ground that
if engaged in that expedition he did but fulfill the orders of his
Government, has thus been answered in the only way in which she could be
answered by a government the powers of which are distributed among its
several departments by the fundamental law. Happily for the people of
Great Britain, as well as those of the United States, the only mode by
which an individual arraigned for a criminal offense before the courts
of either can obtain his discharge is by the independent action of the
judiciary and by proceedings equally familiar to the courts of both
countries.

If in Great Britain a power exists in the Crown to cause to be entered a
_nolle prosequi_, which is not the case with the Executive power of the
United States upon a prosecution pending in a State court, yet _there_
no more than _here_ can the chief executive power rescue a prisoner from
custody without an order of the proper tribunal directing his discharge.
The precise stage of the proceedings at which such order may be made is
a matter of municipal regulation exclusively, and not to be complained
of by any other government. In cases of this kind a government becomes
politically responsible only when its tribunals of last resort are shown
to have rendered unjust and injurious judgments in matters not doubtful.
To the establishment and elucidation of this principle no nation has
lent its authority mo