ns which assembled
at Panama, after a short session there, adjourned to meet again at a
more favorable season in the neighbourhood of Mexico. The decease of one
of our ministers on his way to the Isthmus, and the impediments of the
season, which delayed the departure of the other, deprived us of the
advantage of being represented at the first meeting of the congress.
There is, however, no reason to believe that any of the transactions of
the congress were of a nature to affect injuriously the interests of the
United States or to require the interposition of our ministers had they
been present. Their absence has, indeed, deprived us of the opportunity
of possessing precise and authentic information of the treaties which
were concluded at Panama; and the whole result has confirmed me in the
conviction of the expediency to the United States of being represented
at the congress. The surviving member of the mission, appointed during
your last session, has accordingly proceeded to his destination, and a
successor to his distinguished and lamented associate will be nominated
to the Senate. A treaty of amity, navigation, and commerce has in the
course of the last summer been concluded by our minister plenipotentiary
at Mexico with the united states of that Confederacy, which will also be
laid before the Senate for their advice with regard to its ratification.

In adverting to the present condition of our fiscal concerns and to the
prospects of our revenue the first remark that calls our attention is
that they are less exuberantly prosperous than they were at the
corresponding period of the last year. The severe shock so extensively
sustained by the commercial and manufacturing interests in Great Britain
has not been without a perceptible recoil upon ourselves. A reduced
importation from abroad is necessarily succeeded by a reduced return to
the Treasury at home. The net revenue of the present year will not equal
that of the last, and the receipts of that which is to come will fall
short of those in the current year. The diminution, however, is in part
attributable to the flourishing condition of some of our domestic
manufactures, and so far is compensated by an equivalent more profitable
to the nation. It is also highly gratifying to perceive that the
deficiency in the revenue, while it scarcely exceeds the anticipations
of the last year's estimate from the Treasury, has not interrupted the
application of more than eleven millio