ing and more defenseless than Greytown have been chastised
with much greater severity, and where not cities only have been laid in
ruins, but human life has been recklessly sacrificed and the blood of
the innocent made profusely to mingle with that of the guilty.

Passing from foreign to domestic affairs, your attention is naturally
directed to the financial condition of the country, always a subject
of general interest. For complete and exact information regarding the
finances and the various branches of the public service connected
therewith I refer you to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury,
from which it will appear that the amount of revenue during the last
fiscal year from all sources was $73,549,705, and that the public
expenditures for the same period, exclusive of payments on account of
the public debt, amounted to $51,018,249. During the same period the
payments made in redemption of the public debt, including interest and
premium, amounted to $24,336,380. To the sum total of the receipts of
that year is to be added a balance remaining in the Treasury at the
commencement thereof, amounting to $21,942,892; and at the close of the
same year a corresponding balance, amounting to $20,137,967, of receipts
above expenditures also remained in the Treasury. Although, in the
opinion of the Secretary of the Treasury, the receipts of the current
fiscal year are not likely to equal in amount those of the last, yet
they will undoubtedly exceed the amount of expenditures by at least
$15,000,000. I shall therefore continue to direct that the surplus
revenue be applied, so far as it can be judiciously and economically
done, to the reduction of the public debt, the amount of which at the
commencement of the last fiscal year was $67,340,628; of which there had
been paid on the 20th day of November, 1854, the sum of $22,365,172,
leaving a balance of outstanding public debt of only $44,975,456,
redeemable at different periods within fourteen years. There are also
remnants of other Government stocks, most of which are already due, and
on which the interest has ceased, but which have not yet been presented
for payment, amounting to $233,179. This statement exhibits the fact
that the annual income of the Government greatly exceeds the amount of
its public debt, which latter remains unpaid only because the time of
payment has not yet matured, and it can not be discharged at once except
at the option of public creditors, who pr