Alexandria Advertiser And Commercial Intelligencer

The following message was delivered to the two houses on Tuesday last.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives,

The commissioners who were appointed to carry into execution the 6th article of the treaty of amity, commerce and navigation between the United States and Great Britain, having differed in their construction of that article, and separated in consequence of that difference, the President of the United States took immediate measures for obtaining conventional explanations of that article for the government of the commissioners; finding, however, great difficulties opposed to a settlement in that way, he authorized our minister at the court of London to meet a proposition that the United States, by the payment of a fixed sum should discharge themselves from their responsibility for such debts as cannot be recovered from the individual debtors. A convention has accordingly been signed, fixing the sum to be paid at six hundred thousand pounds sterling, in three equal annual instalments, which has been ratified by me with the advice and consent of the Senate.

I now transmit copies thereof to the two houses of Congress, trusting that, in the free exercise of the authority which the constitution has given them on the subject of public expenditures, they will deem it for the public interest to appropriate the sums necessary for carrying this convention into execution.

TH. JEFFERSON.

April 27, 1802.

[Here follows the convention, as lately inserted in the Advertiser.]