ious recommendation to Congress for general amnesty. The
number engaged in the late rebellion yet laboring under disabilities is
very small, but enough to keep up a constant irritation. No possible
danger can accrue to the Government by restoring them to eligibility to
hold office.

I suggest for your consideration the enactment of a law to better secure
the civil rights which freedom should secure, but has not effectually
secured, to the enfranchised slave.

U.S. GRANT.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

WASHINGTON, _December 2, 1873_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I herewith transmit to Congress a report, dated the 2d instant, with
accompanying papers,[76] received from the Secretary of State, in
compliance with the requirements of the sixteenth and eighteenth
sections of the act entitled "An act to regulate the diplomatic and
consular systems of the United States," approved August 18, 1856.

U.S. GRANT.

[Footnote 76: Report of fees collected, etc., by consular officers of the
United States for 1872, list of consular officers and their official
residences, and tariff of consular fees.]

WASHINGTON, _January 5, 1874_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit, for the consideration of the Senate with a view to
ratification, a convention for the surrender of criminals between the
United States of America and the Republic of Honduras, which was signed
at Comayagua on the 4th day of June, 1873.

U.S. GRANT.

WASHINGTON, _January 5, 1874_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

In my annual message of December last I gave reason to expect that when
the full and accurate text of the correspondence relating to the steamer
_Virginius_, which had been telegraphed in cipher, should be received
the papers concerning the capture of the vessel, the execution of a part
of its passengers and crew, and the restoration of the ship and the
survivors would be transmitted to Congress.

In compliance with the expectations then held out, I now transmit the
papers and correspondence on that subject.

On the 26th day of September, 1870, the _Virginius_ was registered in
the custom-house at New York as the property of a citizen of the United
States, he having first made oath, as required by law, that he was "the
true and only owner of the said vessel, and that there was no subject or
citizen of any foreign prince or state, directly or indirectly, by way
of trust, confidence, or othe