vent their being involved therein.

It might not have been necessary to have requested your opinion on
this business had not the commissioner, with good intentions, but
incautiously, made certain ratifications of lands unauthorized by
his instructions and unsupported by the Constitution.

It therefore became necessary to disavow the transaction explicitly in a
letter written by my orders to the governor of New York on the 17th of
August last.

The speeches to the Complanter and other Seneca chiefs, the instructions
to Colonel Proctor, and his report, and other messages and directions
are laid before you for your information and as evidences that all
proper lenient measures preceded the exercise of coercion.

The letters to the chief of the Creeks are also laid before you, to
evince that the requisite steps have been taken to produce a full
compliance with the treaty made with that nation on the 7th of
August, 1790.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, _October 27, 1791_.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

I lay before you a copy of a letter and of sundry documents which I have
received from the governor of Pennsylvania, respecting certain persons
who are said to have fled from justice out of the State of Pennsylvania
into that of Virginia, together with a report of the Attorney-General of
the United States upon the same subject.

I have received from the governor of North Carolina a copy of an act of
the general assembly of that State, authorizing him to convey to the
United States the right and jurisdiction of the said State over 1 acre
of land in Occacock Island and 10 acres on the Cape Island, within the
said State, for the purpose of erecting light-houses thereon, together
with the deed of the governor in pursuance thereof and the original
conveyances made to the State by the individual proprietors, which
original conveyances contain conditions that the light-house on Occacock
shall be built before the 1st day of January, 1801, and that on the Cape
Island before the 8th day of October, 1800. And I have caused these
several papers to be deposited in the office of the Secretary of State.

A statement of the returns of the enumeration of the inhabitants of
the United States which have been received will at this time be laid
before you.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, _October 27, 1791_.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

I have dir