overnment in preparation for hostilities must ever be too slow for the
exigencies of unexpected war. I submit it, then, to you whether the
first duty we owe to the people who have confided to us their power is
not to place our country in such an attitude as always to be so amply
supplied with the means of self-defense as to afford no inducements to
other nations to presume upon our forbearance or to expect important
advantages from a sudden assault, either upon our commerce, our
seacoast, or our interior frontier. In case of the commencement of
hostilities during the recess of Congress, the time inevitably elapsing
before that body could be called together, even under the most favorable
circumstances, would be pregnant with danger; and if we escaped without
signal disaster or national dishonor, the hazard of both unnecessarily
incurred could not fail to excite a feeling of deep reproach. I
earnestly recommend to you, therefore, to make such provisions that
in no future time shall we be found without ample means to repel
aggression, even although it may come upon us without a note of warning.
We are now, fortunately, so situated that the expenditure for this
purpose will not be felt, and if it were it would be approved by those
from whom all its means are derived, and for whose benefit only it
should be used with a liberal economy and an enlightened forecast.

In behalf of these suggestions I can not forbear repeating the wise
precepts of one whose counsels can not be forgotten:

... The United States ought not to indulge a persuasion that, contrary
to the order of human events, they will forever keep at a distance
those painful appeals to arms with which the history of every other
nation abounds. There is a rank due to the United States among nations
which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of
weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it;
if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of
our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready
for war.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _January 27, 1836_.

The undersigned, His Britannic Majesty's charge d'affaires, has been
instructed to state to Mr. Forsyth, the Secretary of State of the United
States, that the British Government has witnessed with the greatest pain
and regret the progress of the misunderstanding which has lately grown
up between the Governments o