ve not undergone any material change
within the past year. The incessant sanguinary conflicts in or between
those countries are to be greatly deplored as necessarily tending to
disable them from performing their duty as members of the community
of nations and rising to the destiny which the position and natural
resources of many of them might lead them justly to anticipate, as
constantly giving occasion also, directly or indirectly, for complaints
on the part of our citizens who resort thither for purposes of
commercial intercourse, and as retarding reparation for wrongs already
committed, some of which are by no means of recent date.

The failure of the Congress of Ecuador to hold a session at the time
appointed for that purpose, in January last, will probably render
abortive a treaty of commerce with that Republic, which was signed at
Quito on the 13th of June, 1839, and had been duly ratified on our
part, but which required the approbation of that body prior to its
ratification by the Ecuadorian Executive.

A convention which has been concluded with the Republic of Peru,
providing for the settlement of certain claims of citizens of the United
States upon the Government of that Republic, will be duly submitted to
the Senate.

The claims of our citizens against the Brazilian Government originating
from captures and other causes are still unsatisfied. The United States
have, however, so uniformly shown a disposition to cultivate relations
of amity with that Empire that it is hoped the unequivocal tokens of the
same spirit toward us which an adjustment of the affairs referred to
would afford will be given without further avoidable delay.

The war with the Indian tribes on the peninsula of Florida has during
the last summer and fall been prosecuted with untiring activity and
zeal. A summer campaign was resolved upon as the best mode of bringing
it to a close. Our brave officers and men who have been engaged in that
service have suffered toils and privations and exhibited an energy which
in any other war would have won for them unfading laurels. In despite
of the sickness incident to the climate, they have penetrated the
fastnesses of the Indians, broken up their encampments, and harassed
them unceasingly. Numbers have been captured, and still greater numbers
have surrendered and have been transported to join their brethren on the
lands elsewhere allotted to them by the Government, and a strong hope is
entertained that