TH.  JEFFERSON.

DECEMBER 15, 1806,

To the House of Representatives of the United States: 

I lay before Congress a report of the surveyor of the public buildings, stating the progress made on them during the last season and what is proposed for the ensuing one.

I took every measure within my power for carrying into effect the request of the House of Representatives of the 17th of April last to cause the south wing of the Capitol to be prepared for their accommodation by the commencement of the present session.  With great regret I found it was not to be accomplished.  The quantity of freestone necessary, with the size and quality of many of the blocks, was represented as beyond what could be obtained from the quarries by any exertions which could be commanded.  The other parts of the work, which might all have been completed in time, were necessarily retarded by the insufficient progress of the stonework.

TH.  JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 5, 1807.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

I transmit to each House of Congress a copy of the laws of the Territory of Michigan passed by the governor and judges of the Territory during the year 1805.

TH.  JEFFERSON.

JANUARY 22, 1807.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

Agreeably to the request of the House of Representatives communicated in their resolution of the 16th instant, I proceed to state, under the reserve therein expressed, information received touching an illegal combination of private individuals against the peace and safety of the Union, and a military expedition planned by them against the territories of a power in amity with the United States, with the measures I have pursued for suppressing the same.

I had for some time been in the constant expectation of receiving such further information as would have enabled me to lay before the Legislature the termination as well as the beginning and progress of this scene of depravity so far as it has been acted on the Ohio and its waters.  From this the state of safety of the lower country might have been estimated on probable grounds, and the delay was indulged the rather because no circumstance had yet made it necessary to call in the aid of the legislative functions.  Information now recently communicated has brought us nearly to the period contemplated.  The mass of what I have received in the course of these transactions is voluminous, but little has been given under the sanction of an oath so as to constitute formal and legal evidence.  It is chiefly in the form of letters, often containing such a mixture of rumors, conjectures, and suspicions as renders it difficult to sift out the real facts and unadvisable to hazard more than general outlines, strengthened by concurrent information or the particular credibility of the relator.  In this state of the evidence, delivered sometimes, too, under the restriction of private confidence, neither safety nor justice will permit the exposing names, except that of the principal actor, whose guilt is placed beyond question.