l be hereafter transmitted from the Treasury. In the meantime, it is
ascertained that the receipts have amounted to near $16,000,000, which,
with the five millions and a half in the Treasury at the beginning
of the year, have enabled us, after meeting the current demands and
interest incurred, to pay more than four millions of the principal of
our funded debt. These payments, with those of the preceding five and a
half years, have extinguished of the funded debt $25,500,000, being the
whole which could be paid or purchased within the limits of the law and
of our contracts, and have left us in the Treasury $8,500,000. A portion
of this sum may be considered as a commencement of accumulation of the
surpluses of revenue which, after paying the installments of debt as
they shall become payable, will remain without any specific object. It
may partly, indeed, be applied toward completing the defense of the
exposed points of our country, on such a scale as shall be adapted to
our principles and circumstances. This object is doubtless among the
first entitled to attention in such a state of our finances, and it is
one which, whether we have peace or war, will provide security where it
is due. Whether what shall remain of this, with the future surpluses,
may be usefully applied to purposes already authorized or more usefully
to others requiring new authorities, or how otherwise they shall be
disposed of, are questions calling for the notice of Congress, unless,
indeed, they shall be superseded by a change in our public relations now
awaiting the determination of others. Whatever be that determination, it
is a great consolation that it will become known at a moment when the
supreme council of the nation is assembled at its post, and ready to
give the aids of its wisdom and authority to whatever course the good
of our country shall then call us to pursue.

Matters of minor importance will be the subjects of future
communications, and nothing shall be wanting on my part which may give
information or dispatch to the proceedings of the Legislature in the
exercise of their high duties, and at a moment so interesting to the
public welfare.

TH. JEFFERSON.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

NOVEMBER 11, 1807.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

Some time had elapsed after the receipt of the late treaty between
the United States and Tripoli before the circumstance drew particular
attention that, although by the third article the wife