Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

Considering it as expedient, under existing circumstances and prospects,
that a general embargo be laid on all vessels now in port, or hereafter
arriving, for the period of sixty days, I recommend the immediate
passage of a law to that effect.

JAMES MADISON.

APRIL 20, 1812.

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

Among the incidents to the unexampled increase and expanding interests
of the American nation under the fostering influence of free
constitutions and just laws has been a corresponding accumulation of
duties in the several Departments of the Government, and this has been
necessarily the greater in consequence of the peculiar state of our
foreign relations and the connection of these with our internal
administration.

The extensive and multiplied preparations into which the United States
are at length driven for maintaining their violated rights have caused
this augmentation of business to press on the Department of War
particularly, with a weight disproportionate to the powers of any single
officer, with no other aids than are authorized by existing laws. With a
view to a more adequate arrangement for the essential objects of that
Department, I recommend to the early consideration of Congress a
provision for two subordinate appointments therein, with such
compensations annexed as may be reasonably expected by citizens duly
qualified for the important functions which may be properly assigned to
them.

JAMES MADISON.

MAY 26, 1812.

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

I communicate to Congress, for their information, copies and extracts
from the correspondence of the Secretary of State and the minister
plenipotentiary of the United States at Paris. These documents will
place before Congress the actual posture of our relations with France.

JAMES MADISON.

WASHINGTON, _June 1, 1812_.

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

I communicate to Congress certain documents, being a continuation of
those heretofore laid before them on the subject of our affairs with
Great Britain.

Without going back beyond the renewal in 1803 of the war in which
Great Britain is engaged, and omitting unrepaired wrongs of inferior
magnitude, the conduct of her Government presents a series of acts
hostile to the United States as an independent and neutral na