APRIL 26, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

In pursuance of the act entitled "An act supplemental to the act
entitled 'An act for an amicable settlement of limits with the State
of Georgia, and authorizing the establishment of a government in the
Mississippi Territory,'" James Madison, Secretary of State, Albert
Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, and Levi Lincoln, Attorney-General
of the United States, were appointed commissioners to settle by
compromise with the commissioners appointed by the State of Georgia the
claims and cession to which the said act has relation.

Articles of agreement and cession have accordingly been entered into and
signed by the said commissioners of the United States and of Georgia,
which, as they leave a right to Congress to act upon them legislatively
at any time within six months after their date, I have thought it my
duty immediately to communicate to the Legislature.

TH. JEFFERSON.

APRIL 27, 1802.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

The commissioners who were appointed to carry into execution the sixth
article of the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation between the
United States and Great Britain having differed in their construction
of that article, and separated in consequence of that difference, the
President of the United States took immediate measures for obtaining
conventional explanations of that article for the government of the
commissioners. Finding, however, great difficulties opposed to a
settlement in that way, he authorized our minister at the Court of
London to meet a proposition that the United States by the payment of a
fixed sum should discharge themselves from their responsibility for such
debts as can not be recovered from the individual debtors. A convention
has accordingly been signed, fixing the sum to be paid at L600,000 in
three equal and annual installments, which has been ratified by me with
the advice and consent of the Senate.

I now transmit copies thereof to both Houses of Congress, trusting that
in the free exercise of the authority which the Constitution has given
them on the subject of public expenditures they will deem it for the
public interest to appropriate the sums necessary for carrying this
convention into execution.

TH. JEFFERSON.

SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE.

DECEMBER 15, 1802

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