domestic manufacturer.

It is deemed of great importance to give encouragement to our domestic
manufacturers. In what manner the evils which have been adverted to may
be remedied, and how far it may be practicable in other respects to
afford to them further encouragement, paying due regard to the other
great interests of the nation, is submitted to the wisdom of Congress.

The survey of the coast for the establishment of fortifications is
now nearly completed, and considerable progress has been made in the
collection of materials for the construction of fortifications in the
Gulf of Mexico and in the Chesapeake Bay. The works on the eastern bank
of the Potomac below Alexandria and on the Pea Patch, in the Delaware,
are much advanced, and it is expected that the fortifications at the
Narrows, in the harbor of New York, will be completed the present year.
To derive all the advantages contemplated from these fortifications it
was necessary that they should be judiciously posted, and constructed
with a view to permanence, The progress hitherto has therefore been
slow; but as the difficulties in parts heretofore the least explored
and known are surmounted, it will in future be more rapid. As soon as
the survey of the coast is completed, which it is expected will be done
early in the next spring, the engineers employed in it will proceed to
examine for like purposes the northern and northwestern frontiers.

The troops intended to occupy a station at the mouth of the St. Peters,
on the Mississippi, have established themselves there, and those who
were ordered to the mouth of the Yellow Stone, on the Missouri, have
ascended that river to the Council Bluff, where they will remain
until the next spring, when they will proceed to the place of their
destination. I have the satisfaction to state that this measure has
been executed in amity with the Indian tribes, and that it promises to
produce, in regard to them, all the advantages which were contemplated
by it.

Much progress has likewise been made in the construction of ships of war
and in the collection of timber and other materials for shipbuilding. It
is not doubted that our Navy will soon be augmented to the number and
placed in all respects on the footing provided for by law.

The Board, consisting of engineers and naval officers, have not yet
made their final report of sites for two naval depots, as instructed
according to the resolutions of March 18 and April 20, 1818