It has been represented by our minister plenipotentiary near the French Republic that such of our commercial relations with France as may require the support of the United States in detail can not be well executed without a consul-general.  Of this I am satisfied when I consider the extent of the mercantile claims now depending before the French Government, the necessity of bringing into the hands of one agent the various applications to the several committees of administration residing at Paris, the attention which must be paid to the conduct of consuls, and vice-consuls, and the nature of the services which are the peculiar objects of a minister’s care, and leave no leisure for his intervention in business to which consular functions are competent.  I therefore nominate Fulwar Skipwith to be consul-general of the United States in France.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

UNITED STATES, June 25, 1795.

Gentlemen of the Senate: 

Just at the close of the last session of Congress I received from one of the Senators and one of the Representatives of the State of Georgia an application for a treaty to be held with the tribes or nations of Indians claiming the right of soil to certain lands lying beyond the present temporary boundary line of that State, and which were described in an act of the legislature of Georgia passed on the 28th of December last, which has already been laid before the Senate.  This application and the subsequent correspondence with the governor of Georgia are herewith transmitted.  The subject being very important, I thought proper to postpone a decision upon that application.  The views I have since taken of the matter, with the information received of a more pacific disposition on the part of the Creeks, have induced me now to accede to the request, but with this explicit declaration, that neither my assent nor the treaty which may be made shall be considered as affecting any question which may arise upon the supplementary act passed by the legislature of the State of Georgia on the 7th of January last, upon which inquiries have been instituted in pursuance of a resolution of the Senate and House of Representatives, and that any cession or relinquishment of the Indian claims shall be made in the general terms of the treaty of New York, which are contemplated as the form proper to be generally used on such occasions, and on the condition that one-half of the expense of the supplies of provisions for the Indians assembled at the treaty be borne by the State of Georgia.

Having concluded to hold the treaty requested by that State, I was willing to embrace the opportunity it would present of inquiring into the causes of the dissatisfaction of the Creeks which has been manifested since the treaty of New York by their numerous and distressing depredations on our Southwestern frontiers.  Their depredations on the Cumberland have been so frequent and so peculiarly destructive as to lead