1508.] 
ceedings, and the evidence publicly exhibited 
on the arraignment of the principal offenders 
before the District Court of Virginia. You 
will be enabled to judge whether the defect 
was in the teftimony, in the law, or in the 
administration of the law; and wherever it 
shall be found, the Legislature alone can 
apply »r originate the remedy’ The framers 
of our Constitution certainly supposed they 
had guarded, as well their Government 
against destruction by treason, as their Citi- 
zens against oppression, under pretence of it; 
and if these ends are not attained, it is of 
importance to inquire by what means, more 
effectual, they may be secured. 
The accounts of the receipts of revenue, 
during the year ending on the 30th day of 
September last, being not yet made up, a 
correct statement will be hereafter trans- 
mitted from the Treasury. In the mean 
time it is ascertained that the receipts have 
amounted to near sixteen millions of dollars 5 
which, with the five millions anda half in 
the Treasury at the beginning of the year, 
have enabled us, after meeting the current 
demands and interest incurred, to pay more 
than four millions of the principal of our 
funded debt. ‘These payments, with those 
of the preceding five anda half years, have 
extinguished of the funded debt twenty-five 
millions and a half of dollars, being the 
whole which could be paid or purchased 
within the limits of the law, and of our con- 
tracts; and have left us in the Treasury 
eight millions and a half of dollars. A por- 
tion of this sum may be considered as a com- 
mencement of accumulation of the surplusses 
of revenue, which, after paying the instal- 
ments of debt, as they shall become payable, 
will remain without any specific object. It 
may partly, indeed, be applied towards com- 
picting the defence of the exposed points of 
our country, on such a scale as shall be 
adapted to our principles and circumstances. 
This object is doubtless among the first 
entitled to attention in such a state of our 
finances, and it is one which, whether we 
have peace or ‘war, will provide security 
where it is due. Whether what shall re- 
main of this, with the future surplusses, 
may be usefully applied to purposes already 
authorised, or more usefully to others re- 
quiring new authorities, or how otherwise 
they shall be disposed of, are questions call- 
ing for the notice of Congress: unless, in- 
ceed, they shall be superseded by a change 
in our public relations, now awaiting the de- 
termination of others. Whatever be that 
determination, it is a great consolation that 
it will become known at a moment when the 
Supreme Council of the nation is assembled 
at its post, and ready to give the aids of its 
wisdom and authority to whatever course the 
good of our country shall then call us to 
pursue. 
Matters of minor importance will be the 
Subjects of future communications ; and no- 
MontTHLY Mac., No. 165. 
State of Public Affairs in December. 
595 
thing shall be wanting on my part which 
may give information or dispatch to the pro- 
ceedings of the Legislature, in the exercise of 
their high duties, and at a moment so inte~ 
resting to the public welfare. 
Tu. JEFFERSON. 
GREAT BRITAIN. 
Gazette Extraurdinary, Saturday, Dec. 19, 
1807. 
DECLARATION. 
The Declaration issued at St. Petersburgh 
by his Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, 
has excited in his Majesty’s mind the strongest 
sensations of astonishment and regret. 
His Majesty was not unaware of the nature 
of those secret engagements, which had been 
imposed upon Russia in the conferences of 
Tilsit- But his Majesty had entertained the 
hope, that a review of the transactions of 
that unfortunate Negotiation, and a just 
estimate of its effects upon the glory of the 
Russian name, and upon the interests of the 
Russian Empire, would have induced his 
Imperial Majesty to extricate himself from 
the embarrassment of those new counsels 
and connections which he had adopted in a 
moment of déspondency and alarm, and to re- 
turn to a policy more congenial to the princi- 
ples which he has so invariably professed, 
and more conducive to the honour of his crown; 
and to the prosperity of his dominions. 
This hope has dictated to his Majesty the 
utmost forbearance and moderation in all his 
diplomatic intercourse with the court of St. 
Petersburgh since the peace of Tilsit. 
His Majesty had much cause for suspicion, 
and just ground of complaint. But he ab- 
stained from the language of reproach. His 
Majesty deemed it necessary to require spe- 
cific explanation with respect to those ar-: 
rangements with France, the concealment of 
which from his Majesty, could not but con- 
firm the impression already received of their 
character and tendency. But his Majesty, 
nevertheless, directed the demand of that 
explanation to be made, not only withowt 
asperity or the indication of any hostile dis- 
position, but with that considerate regard 
to the feelings and situation of the Emperor cf 
Russia, which resulted from the recollection 
of former friendship, and from confidence in- 
terrupted but not destroyed. 
The declaration of the Emperor of Russia 
proves that the object of his Majesty’s for- 
bearance and moderation has not been attained. 
It proves, unhappily, that the influence of 
that power, which is equally and essentially 
the enemy both of Great Britain and Russia, 
has acquired a decided ascendancy in the 
counsels of, the cabinet of St. Petersburgh, 
and has been able to excite a causeless en- 
mity between two nations, whose long estab 
lished connection, and whose mutual interests 
prescribed the most intimate union and co- 
Operation. 
His Majesty deeply laments the extension 
of the calamities of war. Bugcalled upon as 
4] he 
