y those who have marched before me. Of those
of my immediate predecessor it might least become me here to speak. I
may, however, be pardoned for not suppressing the sympathy with which my
heart is full in the rich reward he enjoys in the benedictions of a
beloved country, gratefully bestowed for exalted talents zealously
devoted through a long career to the advancement of its highest interest
and happiness.

But the source to which I look for the aids which alone can supply my
deficiencies is in the well-tried intelligence and virtue of my
fellow-citizens, and in the counsels of those representing them in the
other departments associated in the care of the national interests. In
these my confidence will under every difficulty be best placed, next to
that which we have all been encouraged to feel in the guardianship and
guidance of that Almighty Being whose power regulates the destiny of
nations, whose blessings have been so conspicuously dispensed to this
rising Republic, and to whom we are bound to address our devout
gratitude for the past, as well as our fervent supplications and best
hopes for the future.

MARCH 4, 1809.

SPECIAL SESSION MESSAGE.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

On this first occasion of meeting you it affords me much satisfaction to
be able to communicate the commencement of a favorable change in our
foreign relations, the critical state of which induced a session of
Congress at this early period.

In consequence of the provisions of the act interdicting commercial
intercourse with Great Britain and France, our ministers at London and
Paris were without delay instructed to let it be understood by the
French and British Governments that the authority vested in the
Executive to renew commercial intercourse with their respective nations
would be exercised in the case specified by that act.

Soon after these instructions were dispatched it was found that the
British Government, anticipating from early proceedings of Congress at
their last session the state of our laws, which has had the effect of
placing the two belligerent powers on a footing of equal restrictions,
and relying on the conciliatory disposition of the United States, had
transmitted to their legation here provisional instructions not only to
offer satisfaction for the attack on the frigate _Chesapeake_, and
to make known the determination of His Britannic Majesty to send an
envoy extra