Total,

199 35

79 70 392 06

84 02

363 12

79 70

392 06

392 06

572 94

935 28

54 51

402 78

61 12

2,026 73

457 34

664,566 06148,053 31 850,030 39 12,140 10 55,680 04/10,921 921,741,391 87 54,621 08787,224 72 74,945 72 39,419 12

government to establish itself there. Georgia became a member of the Confederacy which eventuated in our Federal Union, as a sovereign State, always asserting her claim to certain limits; which having been originally defined in her colonial charter, and subsequently recognised in the treaty of peace, she has ever since continued to enjoy, except as they have been circumscribed by her own voluntary transfer of a portion of her territory to the United States, in the articles of cession of 1802. Alabama was admitted into the Union on the same footing with the original States, with boundaries which were prescribed by Congress. There is no constitutional, conventional, or legal provision, which allows them. less power over the Indians within their borders, than is possessed by Maine or New York. Would the People of Maine permit the Penobscot tribe to erect an independent government within their State? and unless they did, would it not be the duty of the General Government to support them in resisting such a measure? Would the People of New York permit each remnant of the Six Nations within her borders, to declare itself an independent people under the protection of the United States? Could the Indians establish a separate republic on each of their reservations in Ohio? and if they were so disposed, would it be the duty of this Government to protect them in the attempt? If the principle involved in the obvious answer to these questions be abandoned, it will follow that the objects of this Government are

reversed; and that it has become a part of its duty to aid in destroying the States which it was established to protect.

Actuated by this view of the subject, I informed the Indians inhabiting parts of Georgia and Alabama, that their attempt to establish an independent government would not be countenanced by the Executive of the United States; and advised them to emigrate beyond the Mississippi, or submit to the laws of those States.

Our conduct towards these people is deeply interesting to our national character. Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. Our ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and force, they have been made to retire from river to river, and from mountain to mountain; until some of the tribes have become extinct, and others have left but remnants to preserve, for a while, their once terrible names. Surrounded by the whites, with their arts of civilization; which, by destroying the resources of the savage, doom him to weakness and decay; the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware, is fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them, if they remain within the limits of the States, does not admit of a doubt. Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity. It is too late to inquire whether it was just in the United States to include them and their territory within the

Total enrolled and licensed tonnage,

Licensed vessels, under 20 tons, employed in the coasting trade,

Do

do

do

Total licensed tonnage under 20 tons,

codfishery

Of the enrolled and licensed tonnage, there were employed in the coasting trade,

787,224 72

Do

Do

do do

do do

whale fishery, codfishery,

66,602 01

757,998 29

in steam navigation 39,419 12 tons. Of the enrolled and licensed tonnage employed in the coasting trade, amounting, as above stated, to 862,170 49 tons, there were engaged The registered tonnage, employed other than in the whale fishery during the year 1828, amounted to

Amount employed in the whale fishery