iary engagements, which
should not be made without his approbation.

While the present salary of $2,000 a year appears adequate to the
consulates of Tunis and Tripoli, twice that sum probably will be
requisite for Algiers.

JOHN ADAMS.

UNITED STATES, _July 3, 1797_.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and Gentlemen of the House of Representatives_:

The whole of the intelligence which has for some time past been received
from abroad, the correspondences between this Government and the
ministers of the belligerent powers residing here, and the advices
from the officers of the United States, civil and military, upon the
frontiers all conspire to shew in a very strong light the critical
situation of our country. That Congress might be enabled to form a more
perfect judgment of it and of the measures necessary to be taken,
I have directed the proper officers to prepare such collections of
extracts from the public correspondences as might afford the clearest
information. The reports made to me from the Secretary of State and the
Secretary of War, with a collection of documents from each of them, are
now communicated to both Houses of Congress. I have desired that the
message, reports, and documents may be considered as confidential merely
that the members of both Houses of Congress may be apprised of their
contents before they should be made public. As soon as the two Houses
shall have heard them, I shall submit to their discretion the
publication of the whole, or any such parts of them as they shall
judge necessary or expedient for the public good.

JOHN ADAMS.

PROCLAMATION.

BY JOHN ADAMS, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas an act of the Congress of the United States was passed on the
9th day of February, 1793, entitled "An act regulating foreign coins,
and for other purposes," in which it was enacted "that foreign gold and
silver coins shall pass current as money within the United States and be
a legal tender for the payment of all debts and demands" at the several
and respective rates therein stated; and that "at the expiration of
three years next ensuing the time when the coinage of gold and silver
agreeably to the act intituled "An act establishing a mint and regulating
the coins of the United States" shall commence at the Mint of the United
States (which time shall be announced by the proclamation of the
President of the United States), all foreign gold coins and al