d States of America the thirty-second.

TH. JEFFERSON.

By the President:
JAMES MADISON,
_Secretary of State_.

SEVENTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.

OCTOBER 27, 1807.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

Circumstances, fellow-citizens, which seriously threatened the peace
of our country have made it a duty to convene you at an earlier period
than usual. The love of peace so much cherished in the bosoms of our
citizens, which has so long guided the proceedings of their public
councils and induced forbearance under so many wrongs, may not insure
our continuance in the quiet pursuits of industry. The many injuries
and depredations committed on our commerce and navigation upon the high
seas for years past, the successive innovations on those principles
of public law which have been established by the reason and usage of
nations as the rule of their intercourse and the umpire and security
of their rights and peace, and all the circumstances which induced
the extraordinary mission to London are already known to you. The
instructions given to our ministers were framed in the sincerest spirit
of amity and moderation. They accordingly proceeded, in conformity
therewith, to propose arrangements which might embrace and settle all
the points in difference between us, which might bring us to a mutual
understanding on our neutral and national rights and provide for a
commercial intercourse on conditions of some equality. After long and
fruitless endeavors to effect the purposes of their mission and to
obtain arrangements within the limits of their instructions, they
concluded to sign such as could be obtained and to send them for
consideration, candidly declaring to the other negotiators at the same
time that they were acting against their instructions, and that their
Government, therefore, could not be pledged for ratification. Some
of the articles proposed might have been admitted on a principle
of compromise, but others were too highly disadvantageous, and no
sufficient provision was made against the principal source of the
irritations and collisions which were constantly endangering the peace
of the two nations. The question, therefore, whether a treaty should
be accepted in that form could have admitted but of one decision, even
had no declarations of the other party impaired our confidence in it.
Still anxious not to close the door against friendly adjustment, new
modifications were fr