In closing this my last annual communication, permit me, fellow-citizens, to congratulate you on the prosperous condition of our beloved country.  Abroad its relations with all foreign powers are friendly, its rights are respected, and its high place in the family of nations cheerfully recognized.  At home we enjoy an amount of happiness, public and private, which has probably never fallen to the lot of any other people.  Besides affording to our own citizens a degree of prosperity of which on so large a scale I know of no other instance, our country is annually affording a refuge and a home to multitudes, altogether without example, from the Old World.

We owe these blessings, under Heaven, to the happy Constitution and Government which were bequeathed to us by our fathers, and which it is our sacred duty to transmit in all their integrity to our children.  We must all consider it a great distinction and privilege to have been chosen by the people to bear a part in the administration of such a Government.  Called by an unexpected dispensation to its highest trust at a season of embarrassment and alarm, I entered upon its arduous duties with extreme diffidence.  I claim only to have discharged them to the best of an humble ability, with a single eye to the public good, and it is with devout gratitude in retiring from office that I leave the country in a state of peace and prosperity.

MILLARD FILLMORE.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

WASHINGTON, December 7, 1852.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratification, a treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation, between the United States and the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, signed at Montevideo on the 28th of August last.

MILLARD FILLMORE.

WASHINGTON, December 8, 1852.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratification, an additional article, signed in this city on the 16th ultimo, to the convention for the mutual delivery of criminals fugitives from justice in certain cases between the United States on the one part and Prussia and other States of the Germanic Confederation on the other part, concluded on the 15th of June, 1852.

MILLARD FILLMORE.

WASHINGTON, January 4, 1853.

To the Senate of the United States: 

In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 30th ultimo, requesting information in regard to the establishment of a new British colony in Central America, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the documents by which it was accompanied.

MILLARD FILLMORE.

WASHINGTON, January 4, 1853.

To the Senate of the United States: 

In answer to the Senate’s resolution of the 3d instant, calling for information relative to a proposed tripartite convention on the subject of the island of Cuba, I transmit to the Senate a report from the Secretary of State and the papers which accompanied it.