The encouragement of our own navigation has at all times appeared to us highly important. The point of view under which you have recommended it to us is strongly enforced by the actual state of things in Europe. It will be incumbent on us to consider in what mode our commerce and agriculture can be best relieved from an injurious dependence on the navigation of other nations, which the frequency of their wars renders a too precarious resource for conveying the productions of our own country to market.
The present state of our trade in the Mediterranean seems not less to demand, and will accordingly receive, the attention which you have recommended.
Having already concurred in establishing a Judiciary system, which opens the doors of justice to all without distinction of persons, it will be our disposition to incorporate every improvement which experience may suggest; and we shall consider, in particular, how far the uniformity which in other cases is found convenient in the administration of the General Government through all the States may be introduced into the forms and rules of executing sentences issuing from the Federal Courts.
The proper regulation of the jurisdiction and functions which may be exercised by Consuls of the United States in foreign countries, with the provisions stipulated to those of His Most Christian Majesty established here, are subjects of too much consequence to the public interest and honor not to partake of our deliberations.
We shall renew our attention to the establishment of the militia and other subjects unfinished at the last session, and shall proceed in them with all the despatch which the magnitude of all, and the difficulty of some of them, will allow.
Nothing has given us more satisfaction than to find that the revenues heretofore established have proved adequate to the purposes to which they were allotted. In extending the provision to the residuary objects, it will be equally our care to secure sufficiency and punctuality in the payments due from the Treasury of the United States. We shall also never lose sight of the policy of diminishing the public debt, as fast as the increase of the public resources will permit; and are particularly sensible of the many considerations which press a resort to the auxiliary resources furnished by the public lands.
In pursuing every branch of the weighty business of the present session, it will be our constant study to direct our deliberations to the public welfare. Whatever our success may be, we can at least answer for the fervent love of our country, which ought to animate our endeavors. In your co-operation, we are sure of a resource which fortifies our hopes that the fruits of the established Government will justify the confidence which has been placed in it, and recommend it more and more to the affection and attachment of our fellow-citizens.
To the foregoing Address the President was pleased to reply:
Gentlemen: The sentiments expressed in your Address are entitled to my particular acknowledgment. Having no object but the good of our country, this testimony of approbation and confidence, from its immediate representatives, must be among my best rewards, as the support of your enlightened patriotism has been among my greatest encouragements. Being persuaded that you will continue to be actuated by the same auspicious principle, I look forward to the happiest consequences from your deliberations during the present session.