GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, April 15, 1794.
Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:
I lay before you a letter from the minister plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty to the Secretary of State; a letter from the secretary of the territory south of the river Ohio, inclosing an ordinance and proclamation of the governor thereof; the translation of so much of a petition of the inhabitants of Post Vincennes, addressed to the President, as relates to Congress, and certain dispatches lately received from our commissioners at Madrid. These dispatches from Madrid being a part of the business which has been hitherto deemed confidential, they are forwarded under that view.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
UNITED STATES, April 16, 1794.
Gentlemen of the Senate:
The communications which I have made to you during your present session from the dispatches of our minister in London contain a serious aspect of our affairs with Great Britain. But as peace ought to be pursued with unremitted zeal before the last resource, which has so often been the scourge of nations, and can not fail to check the advanced prosperity of the United States, is contemplated, I have thought proper to nominate, and do hereby nominate, John Jay as envoy extraordinary of the United States to His Britannic Majesty.
My confidence in our minister plenipotentiary in London continues undiminished. But a mission like this, while it corresponds with the solemnity of the occasion, will announce to the world a solicitude for a friendly adjustment of our complaints and a reluctance to hostility. Going immediately from the United States, such an envoy will carry with him a full knowledge of the existing temper and sensibility of our country, and will thus be taught to vindicate our rights with firmness and to cultivate peace with sincerity.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.