The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-18 00:00:00

THE INDIAN TRIBES.

The annexation of Texas, and the acquisition of Ca-
lifornia and New Mexico, have given increased import-
ance to our Indian relations. The various tribes brought
under our jurisdiction by these enlargements of our
boundaries are estimated to embrace a population of
124,000.
Texas and New Mexico are surrounded by powerful
tribes of Indians, who are a source of constant terror
and annoyance to the inhabitants. Separating into
small predatory bands, and always mounted, they
overrun the country, devastating farms, destroying
crops, driving off whole herds of cattle, and occasionally
murdering the inhabitants or carrying them
into captivity. The great roads leading into the
country are infested with them, whereby travelling is
rendered extremely dangerous, and immigration is al•
most entirely arrested. The Mexican frontier, which,
by the 11th article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,
we are bound to protect against the Indians within our
borders, is exposed to those incursions equally with our
own. The military force stationed in that country
i (al-
though forming a large proportion cf our army) s re-
presented as entirely inadequate to our own protection,
and the fulfilment of our treaty stipulations with Mexico.
The principal deficiency is in cavalry, and I recommend
that Congress should, at as early a period as practicable,
provide for the raising of cne or more regiments of
mounted men.

For further suggestions on this subject, and others
connected with our domestic interests, and the defence
of our frontier, I refer you•to the report of the Secre-
tary of the Interior and the Secretary of War.
THE AWAY AND NAVY.

I commend also to your favourable consideration the
suggestion contained in the last-mentioned report, and
in the letter of the General. in-Chief, relative to the es-
tablishment of an asylum for the relief of disabled and
destitute soldiers. This subject appeals so strongly to
your sympathies, that it would be superfluous in me to
say anything more than barely to express my cordial
approbation of the proposed object.
The navy continues to give protection to our com-
merce and other national interests in the different quar-
ters of the globe, and, with the exception of a single
steamer on the northern lakes, the vessels in commission
are distributed in six different squadrons.
The report of the head of that department will ex-
hibit the services of these squadrons, and of the se-
veral vessels employed in each during the past year. It
is a source of gratification that, while they have been_
constantly prepared for any hostile emergency, they
have
eelvl etroy
twhhee
dr eigmn
iett with
yas
tothe
the respect
peaceful
ns due,and
just purposes of the nation.

rft
(

The two brigantines accepted by theoQi4;linittu'—'

- -
a generous citizen of Neve York, and —lakedirader.the
command of an offs •er of the navy t
.pWied-ettjthet
Arctic seas in quest o: the Brithh coin. dbr, 5ir,1349,
Franklin, and his companions,in complier' with the!Ael
had,h ejL_"lis
heard ar Congress,
from, a
penetratedproved ilent flay
a highlast;lortlierffa.l. Etta&
but the success o' this noble and humane enterprise is
: et uncertain.
I invite your attention to the view of our present naval
establishment and resources presented in the report of
the Secretary of the Navy, and the suggestions therein
made for its improvement, together with the naval policy
ec om men de d for the security of our Pacific coast, and
the protection and extension of our commerce with East-
ern Asia. Our facilities for a larger participation in the
trade of the east, by means of our recent settlements on
the shores of the Pacific, are too obvious to be over-
looked or disregarded.
The questions in relation to rank in the army and
navy, and relative rank between officers of the two
branches of the service, presented to the Executive by
certain rerolutions of the House of Representatives, at
the last session of Congress, have been submitted to a
board of officers in each branch of the service, and their
report may be expected at an early day.
I also earnestly recommend the enactment of a law
authorising efficers of the army and navy to he retired
from the service, when incompetent for its vigorous
and active duties, taking care to make suitable pro-
vision for those who have faithfully served their coun-
try, and awarding distinctions, by retaining in appro-
priate commands those who have been particularly
conspicuous for gallantry and good conduct. While
feeling the obligation of the country to maintain and
honour those who, to the exclusion of other pursuits,
have devoted themselves to its hazardous service, this
obligation should not be permitted to interfere with the
efficiency of the service itself.
I am gratified in being able to state that the estimates
of expenditure for tho navy in the ensuing year are less,
by more than one million of dollars, than those of the
present, excepting the appropriation which may become
necessary for the construction of a dock on the coast of
the Pacific, propositions for which are now being con-
sidered, and on which a special report may be expected
early in your present session.
There is an evident justness in the suggestion of the
same report, that appropriations for the naval service
proper should be separated from those for fixed and per-
monent objects, such as building docks and navy yards,
and the fixtures attached; and from the extraordinary
objects under the care of the department which, how-
ever important, are not essentially naval.
A revision of the code for the government of the navy
seems to require the immediate consideration of Con-
gress. Its system of crimes and punishments had under-
gone no change for half a century until last session,
though its defects have been often and duly pointed out,
and the abolition of a particular species of corporal
punishment, which then took place, without providing
any substitute, has left the service in a state of defec-
tiveness, which calls for prompt correction. I therefore
recommend that the whole subject be revised without
delay, and such a system established for the enforcement
of discipline as shall be at once humane and effectual.

TUE POST. OFFICE.
The accompanying report of the Postmaster-General
presents a satisfactory view of the oparationa and con-
dition of that department.
At the close of the last fiscal year the length of the
inland mail routes in the United States (not embracing
the service in Oregon and California) was 178,672
miles; the annual transportation thereon 46,541,423
miles; and the annual cost of such transportation
2,724,426 dollars.

The increase of the annual transportation over that of
the preceding year was 3,997,3i4 miles; and the increase
in cost was 342,440 dollars.
The number of post offices in the United States, on
the Ist day of July last, was 18,417—being an increase
of 1,670 during the preceding year.
The gross revenues of the department for the fiscal
year ending June 30, 1850, amounted to 5,552,971 dolls.
48 cents, including the annual appropriation 200,000
dolls. for the franked matter of the departments, and ex-
cluding the foreign postages collected for and payable to
the British Government.

The expenditures for the same period were 5,212,953
dolls. and 43 cents, leaving a balance of revenue over ex-
penditures of 340,018 dolls. and 5 cents.
I am happy to fiad that the fiscal condition of the de-
p:atment is such as to justify the Postmaster-General
in recommending the reduction of our inland letter post-
age to 3 cents the single letter when prepaid, and 6 cents
when not prepaid. He also recommends that the pre-
paid rate shall be reduced to 2 cents whenever
the revenues of the department, after the reduction,
shall exceed its expenditures by more than 5 per cent.
for two consecutive years; that the postage upon Cali-
fornia and other letters sent by our ocean steamers shall
be much reduced, and that the rates of postage on news-
papers, pamphlets, periodicals, and other printed matter,
shall be modified, and some reduction thereon made.
It cannot be doubted that the proposed reductions
Kill for the present diminish the revenues of the depart-
ment. It is believed that the deficiency, after the sur-
plus already accumulated shall be exhausted, may be
almost wholly met either by abolishing the existing pri-
vih Fs of 6,nding free matter through the mails, or by
raying Out of the Treasury to the Post-office department
a sum equivalent to the postage of which it is deprived
by such privileges. The last is supposed to be the pre-
ferable inode, and will, if not entirely, so nearly supply
that deficiency as to make any further appropriation that
may be found necessary so inconsiderable as to form no
obstacle to the proposed reductions.
PUBLIC WORKS.
I enterbin no doubt of the authority of Congress to
make cppropriations for leading objects in that class of
puLlic woile.l comprising what are usually called works
of internal improvement. This authority I suppose to
he derived chiefly from the power of regulating com-
merce with foreign nations, and among the states, and
the power of laying and collecting imposts. Where
commerce is to be carried on and imposts collected, there
must be ports and harbours, as well as wharfs and cus-
tom-houses. If ships, laden with valuable cargoes, ap-
proach the shore, or sail along the coast, light-houses
are necessary at suitable points for the protection of life
and property. Other facilities and securities for com-
merce and navigation are hardly less important; and
those clauses of the constitution, therefore, to which
I have referred, have received from the origin of
the Government a liberal and beneficial construc-
tion. Not only have light-houses, buoys, and bea-
cons been established, and floating lights main-
tained, but harbours have been cleared and improved,
piers constructed, and oven breakwaters for the safety of
shipping, and sea walls to protect harbours from being
filled up, and rendered useless by the action of the
ocean, have been erected at very great expense. And
this construction of the constitution appears the more
reasonable from the consideration, that if these works,
of such evident importance and utility, are not to be ac-
complished by Congress, they cannot be accomplished
at all. By the adoption of the constitution, the several
states voluntarily parted with the power of collecting
duties of impost in their own ports, and it is not to be
expected that they should raise money, by internal taxa-
tion, direct or indirect, fur the benefit of that commerce,
the revenues derived from which do not, either in whole
or in part, go into their own treasuries.

Nor doI perceive any difference between the power of
Congress to make appropriations for objects of this kind
on the ocean and the power to make appropria-
tions for similar objects on lakes and rivers
wherever they are large enough to bear on their
waters an extensive traffic. The magnificent Mississippi
and its tributaries, and the vast lakes of the north and
north-west, appear to me to fall within the exercise of
the power, as justly and as clearly as the ocean and the
Gult of Mexico. It is a mistake to regard expenditures
judiciously made for these objects as expenditures for
local purposes. The position or site of the work is
necessarily local; but its utility is general. A ship canal
aroend the falls of St. Mary, of less than a mile in
length, though local in its construction, would yet be
national in its purpose and its benefits; as it would re-
move the only cbstruction to a navigation of more than
a thousand miles, affecting several states, as well as our
commercial relations with Canada. So, too, the break-
water at the mouth of the Delaware is erected, not for
the exclusive benefit of the states bordering on the bay
and river of that name, but for that of the whole
coastwise navigation of the United States, and, to a
considerable extent, also, of foreign commerce. If a
ship be lost on the bar, at the entrance of a southern port,
for want of sufficient depth of water, it is very likely to
be a northern ship; and if a steam-boat be sunk in any
part of the Mississipi, on account of its channel not hav-
ing been properly cleared of obstructions, it may be a
boat belonging to either of eight or ten states. I may
add, as somewhat remarkable, that among all the 31
states there is none that is not, to a greater or less ex-
tent, bounded on the ocean, or the Gulf of Mexico, or
one of the great lakes, or some navigable river.
In fulfilling our constitutional duties, fellowcitisens,
on this subject, as in carrying into effect all other
powers conferred by the constitution, we should consider
ourselves as deliberating and acting for one and the
same country, and bear constantly in mind that our re-
gard and our duty are due, not to a particular part only,
but to the whole.

I therefore recommend that appropriations be made
for completing such works as have been already begun,
and for commencing such others as may seem to the wis•
dom of Congress to be_of public and general importance.
SETTLEMENT OF PRIVATE CLAIMS.
The difficulties and delays incident to the settlement
of private claims by Congress, amount in many cases
to a denial of justice. There is reason to apprehend
that many unfortunate creditors of the Govern-
ment have thereby been unavoidably ruined.
Congress has so much business of a publics
character that it is impossible it should give much
attention to mere private claims, and their accumulation
is now so great that many claimants must despair of
ever being able to obtain a bearing. It may well be
doubted whether Congress, from the nature of its organ-
izstion, is properly constituted to decide upon such
cases. It is impossible that each member should ex-
amine the merits of every claim on which he is com-
pelled to vote; and it is preposterous to ask ajudge to
decide a case which he has never heard. Such deci-
sions may, and frequently must, do injustice either to
the claimant or the Government, and I perceive no
better remedy for this growing evil than the establish-
ment of some tribunal to adjudicate upon such claims.
I beg leave, therefore, most respectfully to recommend
that provision bo made by law for the appointment of a
commission to settle all private claims against the
United States; and as an ex parte hearing must in all
contested cases be very unsatisfactory, I also recommend
the appointment of a solicitor, whose duty it shall be to
represent the Government before such commission, and
protect it against all illegal, fraudulent, or unjust claims,
which may be presented for their adjudication.
This district, which has neither voice nor vote in your
deliberations, looks to you for protection and aid, and I

commend all its wants to your favourable consideration,
with a full confidence that you will meet them not only
with justice but with liberality. It should be borne in
mind that in this city, laid out by Washington, and
consecrated by his name, is located the capital of our
nation, the emblem of our Union, and the symbol of
our greatnes3. Here also are situated all the public
buildings necessary for the use of the Government, and
all these are exempt from taxation. It should be the
pride of Americans to render this place attractive to the
people of the whole Republic, and convenient and safe
for the transaction of the public business and the pre-
servation of the public records. The Government
should, therefore, bear a liberal proportion of the bur-
dens of all necessary and useful improvements. And as
nothing could contribute: more to the health, comfort,
and. safety cf the city, and the security of the public
buildings and records than an abundant supply of pure
water,. I sespsctfully recommend that you make such
provisions for obtaining the same as in your wisdom
you may deem proper.

BOUNDARY BETWEEN TEXAS AND MEXICO,

The Act passed at your last session, making certain
propositions to Texas for settling the disputed boundary
between that state and the territory of New Mexico, was,
immediately on its passage, transmitted by express to
the Governor of Texas, to be laid by him before the
General Assembly for its agreement thereto. Its receipt
was duly acknowledged, but no official information has
yet been received of the action of the General Assembly
thereon; it may, however, be very soon expected, as, by
the terms of the propositions submitted, they were to
have been acted upon, on or before the first day of the
present month.