VENTH ANNUAL MESSAGE--TREATY WITH THE INDIANS--OTHER
INDIAN RELATIONS--TREATY WITH ALGIERS--TREATY WITH SPAIN--PICTURE OF
NATIONAL PROSPERITY--FORBEARANCE IN CONGRESS RECOMMENDED--RESPONSES
TO THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE--ACTION OF LEGISLATURES ON THE
TREATY--LETTER TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS--WASHINGTON'S POLITICAL
CREED--HE IS PREPARED TO MEET ANY ACTION OF CONGRESS--PRESENTATION
OF THE FRENCH FLAG TO THE UNITED STATES--THE FRENCH CONSTITUTION AND
THE NATIONAL CONVENTION--ACTION IN CONGRESS CONCERNING THE FRENCH
FLAG.

On the eighth of December, 1795, Washington read his seventh annual
address to the assembled Congress. It contained a gratifying summary of
the events of the year in which his government and country were
concerned. He had the pleasure of informing them officially of the
"termination of the long, expensive, and distressing war," in which the
army had been engaged with the Indians of the Northwest Territory, by
the treaty made by Wayne at Grenville, to which we have already alluded.
That treaty was doubtless more easily consummated, after Wayne's
victories, because of the knowledge that the western posts were about to
be given up to the United States. By that treaty, a tract of twenty-five
thousand square miles was ceded to the United States, lying in one body
east of a defined line, and including the eastern and southern part of
the present state of Ohio. They also ceded sixteen detached portions of
territory in the region westward of that line, most of them two miles
square, but several of them much larger. These included the sites of
some of our most flourishing villages and cities in the West. As an
equivalent for these cessions, the Indians were to receive goods to the
amount of twenty thousand dollars in presents, and an annual allowance
of articles to the value of nine thousand, five hundred dollars, to be
distributed proportionately among the tribes who were parties to the
treaty.

"At the exchange of prisoners which took place on this occasion,"
(conclusion of the treaty,) says Hildreth, "many affecting incidents
occurred. The war as against Kentucky had lasted for almost twenty
years, during which period a large number of white people had been
carried into captivity. Wives and husbands, parents and children, who
had been separated for years, were now restored to each other. Many of
the younger captives had quite forgotten their native language, and some
of them absolute