STATE PAPERS. 



451 



risdictional Lords of restoration to 

 the rights of wliich they have 

 been arbitrarily despoiled by the 

 towns in their respective seigno- 

 ries, though preserved to them by 

 the decree of the Cortes, my Coun- 

 cil accedes to the recommendation 

 of my law officers, that the jus- 

 tice of the said claims be admitted, 

 and the proper remedies to prevent 

 such abuses be provided without 

 delay : therefore it is my royal re- 

 solution, in conformitj' with the 

 advice of my Council, to order, 

 that the said jurisdictional Lords 

 be immediately replaced in the en- 

 joyment of all the rents, emolu- 

 ments, payments, and rights be- 

 longing to their territorial and ma- 

 norial seigniory, and in that of all 

 the other rights which they en- 

 joyed prior to the 6th of August, 

 1811, and which they do not de- 

 rive their origin from jurisdiction 

 and exclusive privileges; without 

 prejudice to what 1 may hereafter 

 resolve, with the advice of my 

 Council, as to the nullity, con- 

 tinuance, or revocation of the said 

 decree of the Cortes, abolishing 

 seigniories. 1 The King. 



Given at the Palace, Sept. 15, 

 1814. 



Message of the President of the 

 United States of America. 



Washington, Sept. 20. 

 Fellow Citizens of the Senate 

 and House of Representatives — 

 Notwithstanding the early day 

 which had been fixed for your 

 session of the present year, 1 was 

 induced to call you together still 

 sooner, as well that any inade- 

 quacy in the existing provisions 

 ror the wants of the treasury might 



be supplied, as that no delay might 

 happen in providing for the result 

 of the negociation on foot with 

 Great Britain, whether it should 

 require arrangements adapted to a 

 return of peace, or further and 

 more effective provisions for pro- 

 secuting the war. 



The result is not yet known : if 

 on one hand the repeal of the 

 Orders in Council, and the general 

 pacification of Europe, which 

 withdrew the occasion on which 

 impressments from American ves- 

 sels were practised, suggest expec- 

 tations that peace and amity may 

 be established, we are compelled 

 on the other hand, by the refusal 

 of the British Government to ac- 

 cept the offered mediation of the 

 Emperor of Russia, by the delays 

 in giving effect to its own pro- 

 posals of a direct negociation, and, 

 above all, by the principles and 

 manner in which the war is now 

 avowedly carried on, to infer that 

 a strict hostility is indulged more 

 violent than ever against the rights 

 and prosperity of this country. 

 This increased violence is best ex- 

 plained by two important circum- 

 stances, that the great contest in 

 Europe for an equilibrium gua- 

 ranteeing all its States against the 

 ambition of any has been closed 

 without any check on the over- 

 bearing power of Great Britain on 

 the ocean, and that it has left in 

 her hands disposable armoury, 

 with which, forgetting the diffi- 

 culties of a remote war agamst a 

 free people, and yielding to the 

 intoxication of success with the 

 example of a great victim to it 

 before her eyes, she cherishes 

 hopes of still farther aggrandizing 

 a power already formidable in its 

 abuses to the tranquillity of the 

 2G2 



