py of a law to ratify on the part of the State of New Jersey certain
amendments to the Constitution of the United States, together with a
copy of a letter, which accompanied said ratification, from Hon. Elisha
Lawrence, esq., vice-president of the State of New Jersey, to the
President of the United States.

GO. WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, _August 7, 1790_.

_Gentlemen of the Senate:_

I lay before you a treaty between the United States and the chiefs of
the Creek Nation, now in this city, in behalf of themselves and the
whole Creek Nation, subject to the ratification of the President of the
United States with the advice and consent of the Senate.

While I flatter myself that this treaty will be productive of present
peace and prosperity to our Southern frontier, it is to be expected that
it will also in its consequences be the means of firmly attaching the
Creeks and the neighboring tribes to the interests of the United States.

At the same time it is to be hoped that it will afford solid grounds of
satisfaction to the State of Georgia, as it contains a regular, full,
and definitive relinquishment on the part of the Creek Nation of the
Oconee land in the utmost extent in which it has been claimed by that
State, and thus extinguishes the principal cause of those hostilities
from which it has more than once experienced such severe calamities.

But although the most valuable of the disputed land is included, yet
there is a certain claim of Georgia, arising out of the treaty made by
that State at Galphinston in November, 1785, of land to the eastward of
a new temporary line from the forks of the Oconee and Oakmulgee in a
southwest direction to the St. Marys River, which tract of land the
Creeks in this city absolutely refuse to yield.

This land is reported to be generally barren, sunken, and unfit for
cultivation, except in some instances on the margin of the rivers, on
which by improvement rice might be cultivated, its chief value depending
on the timber fit for the building of ships, with which it is
represented as abounding.

While it is thus circumstanced on the one hand, it is stated by the
Creeks on the other to be of the highest importance to them as
constituting some of their most valuable winter hunting ground.

I have directed the commissioner to whom the charge of adjusting this
treaty has been committed to lay before you such papers and documents
and to communicate to you such information relativ