ns may be necessary for the
ensuing years.

Reserving for future occasions in the course of the session whatever
other communications may claim your attention, I close the present by
expressing my reliance, under the blessing of Divine Providence, on the
judgment and patriotism which will guide your measures at a period
particularly calling for united councils and inflexible exertions for
the welfare of our country, and by assuring you of the fidelity and
alacrity with which my cooperation will be afforded.

JAMES MADISON.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

DECEMBER 12, 1810.

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

I lay before Congress, and recommend to their early attention, a report
of the Secretary of State, from which it will be seen that a very
considerable demand beyond the legal appropriations has been incurred
for the support of seamen distressed by seizures, in different parts of
Europe, of the vessels to which they belonged.

JAMES MADISON.

WASHINGTON, _January 3, 1811_.

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

I communicate to Congress, in confidence, a letter of the 2d of December
from Governor Folch, of West Florida, to the Secretary of State, and
another of the same date from the same to John McKee.

I communicate in like manner a letter from the British charge d'affaires
to the Secretary of State, with the answer of the latter. Although the
letter can not have been written in consequence of any instruction from
the British Government founded on the late order for taking possession
of the portion of West Florida well known to be claimed by the United
States; although no communication has ever been made by that Government
to this of any stipulation with Spain contemplating an interposition
which might so materially affect the United States, and although no call
can have been made by Spain in the present instance for the fulfillment
of any such subsisting engagement, yet the spirit and scope of the
document, with the accredited source from which it proceeds, required
that it should not be withheld from the consideration of Congress.

Taking into view the tenor of these several communications, the posture
of things with which they are connected, the intimate relation of the
country adjoining the United States eastward of the river Perdido to
their security and tranquillity, and the peculiar interest they
otherwise have in its destiny, I re