mitted the treaty to the Senate, who have advised and consented to
its ratification. I therefore now lay it before both Houses of Congress
for the exercise of their constitutional powers as to the means of
fulfilling it.

TH. JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 30, 1808.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

The posts of Detroit and Mackinac having been originally intended by the
Governments which established and held them as mere depots for commerce
with the Indians, very small cessions of land around them were obtained
or asked from the native proprietors, and these posts depended for
protection on the strength of their garrisons. The principles of our
Government leading us to the employment of such moderate garrisons in
time of peace as may merely take care of the post, and to a reliance on
the neighboring militia for its support in the first moments of war,
I have thought it would be important to obtain from the Indians such a
cession in the neighborhood of these posts as might maintain a militia
proportioned to this object; and I have particularly contemplated,
with this view, the acquisition of the eastern moiety of the peninsula
between the lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie, extending it to the
Connecticut Reserve so soon as it could be effected with the perfect
good will of the natives.

By a treaty concluded at Detroit on the 17th of November last with the
Ottoways, Chippeways, Wyandots, and Pattawatimas so much of this country
has been obtained as extends from about Saguina Bay southwardly to the
Miami of the Lakes, supposed to contain upward of 5,000,000 acres, with
a prospect of obtaining for the present a breadth of 2 miles for a
communication from the Miami to the Connecticut Reserve.

The Senate having advised and consented to the ratification of this
treaty, I now lay it before both Houses of Congress for the exercise
of their constitutional powers as to the means of fulfilling it.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 2, 1808.

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

Having received an official communication of certain orders of the
British Government against the maritime rights of neutrals, bearing date
the 11th of November, 1807, I transmit them to Congress, as a further
proof of the increasing dangers to our navigation and commerce, which
led to the provident measure of the act of the present session laying an
embargo on our own vessels,

TH. JEFFERSON.