st
every observance of honor which custom has established as appropriate
to the memory of one so eminent as a public functionary and so
distinguished as a citizen.

The Acting Secretary of State will communicate this sad intelligence to
the diplomatic corps near this Government and, through our ministers
abroad, to foreign governments.

The members of the Cabinet are requested, as a further testimony of
respect for the deceased, to wear the usual badges of mourning for
thirty days.

I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant,

MILLARD FILLMORE.

THIRD ANNUAL MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON, _December 6, 1852_.

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

The brief space which has elapsed since the close of your last session
has been marked by no extraordinary political event. The quadrennial
election of Chief Magistrate has passed off with less than the usual
excitement. However individuals and parties may have been disappointed
in the result, it is, nevertheless, a subject of national congratulation
that the choice has been effected by the independent suffrages of a free
people, undisturbed by those influences which in other countries have
too often affected the purity of popular elections.

Our grateful thanks are due to an all-merciful Providence, not only
for staying the pestilence which in different forms has desolated some
of our cities, but for crowning the labors of the husbandman with an
abundant harvest and the nation generally with the blessings of peace
and prosperity.

Within a few weeks the public mind has been deeply affected by the
death of Daniel Webster, filling at his decease the office of Secretary
of State. His associates in the executive government have sincerely
sympathized with his family and the public generally on this mournful
occasion. His commanding talents, his great political and professional
eminence, his well-tried patriotism, and his long and faithful services
in the most important public trusts have caused his death to be lamented
throughout the country and have earned for him a lasting place in our
history.

In the course of the last summer considerable anxiety was caused for
a short time by an official intimation from the Government of Great
Britain that orders had been given for the protection of the fisheries
upon the coasts of the British Provinces in North America against the
alleged encroachments of the fishing vessels of the United States and