ng
it. The delays which have taken place in the formation of the new
government have as yet prevented the execution of those instructions,
but there is every reason to hope that these vast countries will be
eventually opened to our commerce.

A treaty of commerce has been concluded between the United States and
the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, which will be laid before the Senate.
Should this convention go into operation, it will open to the commercial
enterprise of our citizens a country of great extent and unsurpassed in
natural resources, but from which foreign nations have hitherto been
almost wholly excluded.

The correspondence of the late Secretary of State with the Peruvian
charge d'affaires relative to the Lobos Islands was communicated to
Congress toward the close of the last session. Since that time, on
further investigation of the subject, the doubts which had been
entertained of the title of Peru to those islands have been removed,
and I have deemed it just that the temporary wrong which had been
unintentionally done her from want of information should be repaired
by an unreserved acknowledgment of her sovereignty.

I have the satisfaction to inform you that the course pursued by Peru
has been creditable to the liberality of her Government. Before it was
known by her that her title would be acknowledged at Washington, her
minister of foreign affairs had authorized our charge d'affaires at Lima
to announce to the American vessels which had gone to the Lobos for
guano that the Peruvian Government was willing to freight them on its
own account. This intention has been carried into effect by the Peruvian
minister here by an arrangement which is believed to be advantageous to
the parties in interest.

Our settlements on the shores of the Pacific have already given a great
extension, and in some respects a new direction, to our commerce in that
ocean. A direct and rapidly increasing intercourse has sprung up with
eastern Asia. The waters of the Northern Pacific, even into the Arctic
Sea, have of late years been frequented by our whalemen. The application
of steam to the general purposes of navigation is becoming daily more
common, and makes it desirable to obtain fuel and other necessary
supplies at convenient points on the route between Asia and our Pacific
shores. Our unfortunate countrymen who from time to time suffer
shipwreck on the coasts of the eastern seas are entitled to protection.
Besides these s