ernment of
Spain. The minister of the United States to that court was specially
instructed to urge the necessity of the immediate and effectual
interposition of that Government, directing restitution and indemnity
for wrongs already committed and interdicting the repetition of them.
The minister, as has been seen, was debarred access to the Spanish
Government, and in the meantime several new cases of flagrant outrage
have occurred, and citizens of the United States in the island of Porto
Rico have suffered, and others been threatened with assassination for
asserting their unquestionable rights even before the lawful tribunals
of the country.

The usual orders have been given to all our public ships to seize
American vessels engaged in the slave trade and bring them in for
adjudication, and I have the gratification to state that not one so
employed has been discovered, and there is good reason to believe
that our flag is now seldom, if at all, disgraced by that traffic.
It is a source of great satisfaction that we are always enabled to
recur to the conduct of our Navy with pride and commendation. As a
means of national defense it enjoys the public confidence, and is
steadily assuming additional importance. It is submitted whether a more
efficient and equally economical organization of it might not in several
respects be effected. It is supposed that higher grades than now exist
by law would be useful. They would afford well-merited rewards to those
who have long and faithfully served their country, present the best
incentives to good conduct, and the best means of insuring a proper
discipline; destroy the inequality in that respect between military and
naval services, and relieve our officers from many inconveniences and
mortifications which occur when our vessels meet those of other nations,
ours being the only service in which such grades do not exist.

A report of the Postmaster-General, which accompanies this
communication, will shew the present state of the Post-Office Department
and its general operations for some years past.

There is established by law 88,600 miles of post-roads, on which the
mail is now transported 85,700 miles, and contracts have been made
for its transportation on all the established routes, with one or two
exceptions. There are 5,240 post-offices in the Union, and as many
postmasters. The gross amount of postage which accrued from the 1st
July, 1822, to the 1st July, 1823, was $1,114,345.1