received a considerable
augmentation in the present year. The current receipts will exceed the
expenditures, although the transportation of the mail within the year
has been much increased. A report of the Postmaster-General, which is
transmitted, will furnish in detail the necessary information respecting
the administration and present state of this Department.

In conformity with a resolution of Congress of the last session, an
invitation was given to General Lafayette to visit the United States,
with an assurance that a ship of war should attend at any port of France
which he might designate, to receive and convey him across the Atlantic,
whenever it might be convenient for him to sail. He declined the offer
of the public ship from motives of delicacy, but assured me that he
had long intended and would certainly visit our Union in the course of
the present year. In August last he arrived at New York, where he was
received with the warmth of affection and gratitude to which his very
important and disinterested services and sacrifices in our Revolutionary
struggle so eminently entitled him. A corresponding sentiment has since
been manifested in his favor throughout every portion of our Union, and
affectionate invitations have been given him to extend his visits to
them. To these he has yielded all the accommodation in his power.
At every designated point of rendezvous the whole population of the
neighboring country has been assembled to greet him, among whom it
has excited in a peculiar manner the sensibility of all to behold the
surviving members of our Revolutionary contest, civil and military, who
had shared with him in the toils and dangers of the war, many of them
in a decrepit state. A more interesting spectacle, it is believed, was
never witnessed, because none could be founded on purer principles, none
proceed from higher or more disinterested motives. That the feelings
of those who had fought and bled with him in a common cause should
have been much excited was natural. There are, however, circumstances
attending these interviews which pervaded the whole community and
touched the breasts of every age, even the youngest among us. There
was not an individual present who had not some relative who had not
partaken in those scenes, nor an infant who had not heard the relation
of them. But the circumstance which was most sensibly felt, and which
his presence brought forcibly to the recollection of all, was the great