From Great Britain I have the satisfaction to inform you that I continue to receive assurances of the most amicable disposition, which have on my part on all proper occasions been promptly and sincerely reciprocated.  The attention of that Government has latterly been so much engrossed by matters of a deeply interesting domestic character that we could not press upon it the renewal of negotiations which had been unfortunately broken off by the unexpected recall of our minister, who had commenced them with some hopes of success.  My great object was the settlement of questions which, though now dormant, might here-after be revived under circumstances that would endanger the good understanding which it is the interest of both parties to preserve inviolate, cemented as it is by a community of language, manners, and social habits, and by the high obligations we owe to our British ancestors for many of our most valuable institutions and for that system of representative government which has enabled us to preserve and improve them.  The question of our North-East boundary still remains unsettled.  In my last annual message I explained to you the situation in which I found that business on my coming into office, and the measures I thought it my duty to pursue for asserting the rights of the United States before the sovereign who had been chosen by my predecessor to determine the question, and also the manner in which he had disposed of it.  A special message to the Senate in their executive capacity afterwards brought before them to the question whether they would advise a submission to the opinion of the sovereign arbiter.  That body having considered the award as not obligatory and advised me to open a further negotiation, the proposition was immediately made to the British Government, but the circumstances to which I have alluded have hitherto prevented any answer being given to the overture.  Early attention, however, has been promised to the subject, and every effort on my part will be made for a satisfactory settlement of this question, interesting to the Union generally, and particularly so to one of its members.

The claims of our citizens on Spain are not yet acknowledged.  On a closer investigation of them than appears to have heretofore taken place it was discovered that some of these demands, however strong they might be upon the equity of that Government, were not such as could be made the subject of national interference; and faithful to the principle of asking nothing but what was clearly right, additional instructions have been sent to modify our demands so as to embrace those only on which, according to the laws of nations, we had a strict right to insist.  An inevitable delay in procuring the documents necessary for this review of the merits of these claims retarded this operation until an unfortunate malady which has afflicted His Catholic Majesty prevented an examination of them.  Being now for the first time presented in an unexceptionable form, it is confidently hoped that the application will be successful.