deemed not only equal to the indemnification of the public, but to insure a considerable surplus to the city to be employed for its improvement, provided they are offered for sale only in sufficient numbers to meet the existing demand.  But the act of 1796 requires that they shall be positively sold in such numbers as shall be necessary for the punctual payment of the loans.  Nine thousand dollars of interest are lately become due, $3,000 quarter yearly will continue to become due, and $50,000, an additional loan, are reimbursable on the 1st day of November next.  These sums would require sales so far beyond the actual demand of the market that it is apprehended that the whole property may be thereby sacrificed, the public security destroyed, and the residuary interest of the city entirely lost.  Under these circumstances I have thought it my duty before I proceed to direct a rigorous execution of the law to submit the subject to the consideration of the Legislature.  Whether the public interest will be better secured in the end and that of the city saved by offering sales commensurate only to the demand at market, and advancing from the Treasury in the first instance what these may prove deficient, to be replaced by subsequent sales, rests for the determination of the Legislature.  If indulgence for the funds can be admitted, they will probably form a resource of great and permanent value; and their embarrassments have been produced only by overstrained exertions to provide accommodations for the Government of the Union

Th.  Jefferson.

JANUARY 12, 1802.

Gentlemen of the Senate: 

I now communicate to you a letter from the Secretary of State inclosing an estimate of the expenses which appear at present necessary for carrying into effect the convention between the United States of America and the French Republic, which has been prepared at the request of the House of Representatives.

Th.  Jefferson.

JANUARY 27, 1802.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: 

I lay before you the accounts of our Indian trading houses, as rendered up to the 1st day of January, 1801, with a report of the Secretary of War thereon, explaining the effects and the situation of that commerce and the reasons in favor of its further extension.  But it is believed that the act authorizing this trade expired so long ago as the 3d of March, 1799.  Its revival, therefore, as well as its extension, is submitted to the consideration of the Legislature.

The act regulating trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes will also expire on the 3d day of March next.  While on the subject of its continuance it will be worthy the consideration of the Legislature whether the provisions of the law inflicting on Indians, in certain cases, the punishment of death by hanging might not permit its commutation into death by military execution, the form of the punishment in the former way being peculiarly repugnant to their ideas and increasing the obstacles to the surrender of the criminal.