manner conformable to equity, as well as to the relations of good intelligence and sincere friendship which unite the two countries, the reclamations formed by the respective Governments, have, for this purpose, named for their plenipotentiaries, to wit: the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, William C. Rives, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the said United States near His Majesty the King of the French, and His Majesty the King of the French, the Count Horace Sebastiani, Lieutenant General of his Armies, his Minister Secretary of State for the Department of Foreign Affairs, &c. &c., who, after having exchanged their full powers, found in good and due form, have agreed upon the following articles : ARTICLE 1. The French Government, in order to liberate itself completely from all the reclamations preferred against it by the citizens of the United States, for unlawful seizures, captures, sequestrations, confiscations, or destructions of their vessels, cargoes, or other property, engages to pay a sum of twentyfive millions of francs to the Government of the United States, who shall distribute it among those entitled, in the manner, and according to the rules which it shall determine. ART. 2. The sum of twentyfive millions of francs, above stipulated, shall be paid at Paris, in six annual instalments, of four millions one hundred and sixtysix thousand six hundred and sixtysix francs sixtysix centimes each, into the hands of such person or persons as shall be authorized by the Government of the United States to receive it. The first instalment shall be paid at the expiration of one year next following the exchange of· ratifications of this convention, and the others at successive intervals of a year, one after another, till the whole shall be paid. To the amount of each of the said instalments shall be added interest at four per cent. thereupon, as upon the other instalments then remaining unpaid; the said interest to be computed from the day of the exchange of the ratifications of the present convention. ART. 3. The Government of the United States, on its part, for the purpose of being liberated completely from all the reclamations presented by France, on behalf of its citizens, or of the Royal Treasury, (either for ancient supplies or accounts, the liquidation of which had been reserved, or for unlawful seizures, captures, detentions, arrests, or destructions of French vessels, cargoes, or other property,) engages to pay to the Government of his Majesty (which shall make distribution of the same in the manner and according to the rules to be determined by it) the sum of one million five hundred thousand francs. ART. 4. The sum of one million five hundred thousand francs, stipulated in the preceding article, shall be payable in six annual instalments, of two hundred and fifty thousand francs; and the payment of each of the said instalments shall be effected by a re servation of so much out of the annual sums which the French government is bound, by the second article above, to pay to the Government of the United States. To the amount of each of these instalments shall be added interest at four per cent. upon the instalment then paid, as well as upon those still due; which payment of interest shall be effected by means of a reservation, similar to that already indicated for the payment of the principal. The said interest shall be computed from the day of the exchange of the ratifications of the present Convention. ART. 5. As to the reclamations of French citizens against the Government of the United States, and the reclamations of the citizens of the United States against the French government, which are of a different nature from those which it is the object of the present convention to adjust, it is understood that the citizens of the two nations may prosecute them in their respective countries, before the competent judicial or administrative authorities, in complying with the laws and regulations of the country, the dispositions and benefit of which shall be applied to them in like manner as to native citizens. ART. 6. The French government and the Government of the United States reciprocally engage to communicate to each other, by the intermediary of the respective legations, the documents, titles or other informations proper to facilitate the examination and liqui dation of the reclamations comprised in the stipulations of the present convention. ART. 7. The wines of France, from and after the exchange of the ratifications of the present Convention, shall be admitted to consumption in the States of the Union at duties which shall not exceed the following rates by the gallon, (such as it is used at present for wines in the United States) to wit: six cents for red wine in casks; ten cents for white wine in casks, and twentytwo cents for wine of all sorts in bottles. The proportion existing between the duties on French wines thus reduced, and the general rates of the tariff which went into operation the 1st of January 1829, shall be maintained, in case the Government of the United States should think proper to diminish those general rates in a new tariff. In consideration of this stipulation, which shall be binding on the United States for ten years, the French government abandons the reclamations which it had formed in relation to the eighth. article of the Treaty of Cession of Louisiana. It engages, moreover, to establish on the long staple cottons of the United States, which, after the exchange of the ratifications of the present Convention, shall be brought directly thence to France by the vessels of the United States, or by French vessels, the same duties as on short staple cottons. ART. 8. The present convention shall be ratified, and the ratifications shall be exchanged, at Washington, in the space of Treaty between the United States and the Choctaw Indians. A TREATY of perpetual friendship, cession and limits entered into by John H. Eaton and John Coffee, for and in behalf of the Government of the United States and the Mingoes, Chiefs, Captains and Warriors of the Choctaw Nation, begun and held at Dancing Rabbit Creek, on the fifteenth of September in the year Eighteen Hundred and Thirty. WHEREAS the General Assembly of the State of Mississippi has extended the laws of said State to persons and property within the chartered limits of the same, and the President of the United States has said that he cannot protect the Choctaw people from the operation of these laws; Now, therefore, that the Choctaw may live under their own laws in peace with the United States and the State of Mississippi, they have determined to sell their lands east of the Mississippi, and have accordingly agreed to the following articles of treaty: ART. 1. Perpetual peace and friendship is pledged and agreed upon by and between the United States and the Mingoes, Chiefs, and Warriors of the Choctaw Nation of Red People; and that this may be considered the Treaty existing between the parties, all other Treaties heretofore existing and inconsistent with the provisions of this, are hereby declared null and void. ART. 2. The United States under a grant especially to be made by the President of the United States shall cause to be conveyed to the Choctaw Nation a tract of country west of the Mississippi River, in fee simple to them and their descendants, to inure to them while they shall exist as a nation and live on it, beginning near Fort Smith where the Arkansas boundary crosses the Arkansas River, running thence to the source of the Canadian fork, if in the limits of the United States, or to those limits; thence due south to Red River, and down Red River to the west boundary of the Territory of Arkansas; thence north along that line to the beginning. The boundary of the same to be agreeably to the Treaty made and concluded at Washington City in the year 1825. The grant to be executed so soon as the present Treaty shall be ratified. ART. 3 In considera tion of The amount of debentures out- Consisting of six per cents. $6,444,556 Three per cents. 12,792,000 The payments made on account of the public debt during 1830, were for interest $1,912, 415, towards the reduction of the principal $11,354,630,-leaving the total debt of the United States on the first of January, 1831, $39,123,192. bill was reported to the House, and upon its coming under consideration the next day, a debate arose on the amendment, proposed in the committee, increasing the appropriation for the survey of the public lands to $130,000, and $8,000 for surveying private land claims. Mr McCoy opposed the amendment. He said the surveys pro Four and one half per cents. 15,994,064 posed were not necessary. There 13,296,250 were lands already surveyed, and 42,536 not sold, to the amount of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred millions of acres, and there was no good reason, why one hundred millions of acres more should be surveyed and thrown into the market. Some of the public lands, he said, were not worth surveying. He was in favor of surveying as fast as the lands would sell, and was disposed to authorise the surveying of the good lands as fast as purchasers could be found for them. Mr M'C. alluded to the great extent of lands surveyed, and said that a considerable portion of them would have to be resurveyedsuch, for instance, as the prairie lands, in which fires very often took place, and burnt up the marks which had been placed there by the surveyors. Under his present impressions he moved to strike from the amendment $130,000, and insert $60,000. The bills providing for the different departments of the government having been reported from the Committee of Ways and Means, that making provision for the revolutionary and invalid pensioners was taken up in the House on the eleventh of January, and having received the assent of both Houses, became a law. By this act $1,011,100 were appropriated for the revolutionary, and $276,720 for the invalid pensioners, and $5000 for the widows and orphans of those, who had fallen in the public service. The bill making appropriations for the support of the Government for the year 1831, was brought forward in the committee of the whole House, on the eleventh of January. After making and proposing various amendments, the Mr Test said he generally had a great respect for the opinions of the gentleman from Virginia, who had addressed the House; but, he considered his motion to lessen the sum proposed for surveys, to say the least of it, inexpedient. He spoke of the pub lic lands as an increasing source of revenue, and remarked that lands to the amount of half a million of dollars had been sold in the State of Indiana. Mr Clay, of Alabama, said the effects of withdrawing the appropriation which was proposed, would obviously be twofold-first, to check the tide of emigration to the West; and-secondly, to cut down and materially lessen this branch of the public revenue. If the public lands were not surveyed they could not be sold, and individuals would not be disposed to remove to this new region, and devote their time, labor, and money to improving and preparing lands for cultivation, of which they could entertain no hope of becoming proprietors, at least within any reasonable time. Mr C. said, the public lands, too, had been an important source of revenue. The receipts from that source had been gradually increasing, until they had grown to an amount of no small importance. The amount paid by purchasers during the year ending on the thirtieth September, 1830, was almost two millions of dollars, -exceeding, by about half a million, he believed, the amount received in any former year. Mr C. asked if gentlemen were disposed to change the present land systém, and cut off this important branch of revenue? The gentleman from Virginia (Mr McCoy) speaks of the large quantity of land already surveyed and remaining unsold. Mr C. said, if the gentleman would examine a document laid before Congress two or three years ago, he would find that a large portion of that quantity, perhaps thirty millions of acres, was sterile and worthless, and about eightythree millions too inferior in quality to command the minimum price.In the State from which he came, said Mr C., good land, or that which was fit for cultivation, seldom remained long unsold, after it had been surveyed and put in market; and he presumed that was very much the case in the other new States. No danger, he conceived, was to be apprehended that good land would, anywhere, remain long in market for want of purchasers. Again, Mr C. asked, if it were desirable in point of policy, that the public lands should he long settled and improved before they were offered for sale? This would certainly be the case if the surveys were suspended; and Congress might again, and would properly be, appealed to, and importuned by petitions, for the right of pre-emption. Those gentlemen who were opposed to the pre-emption principle ought certainly, in Mr C's judgment, to oppose a suspension of surveys. The lands would be settled as fast as they were acquired. It had been long the practice to permit such settlement, and, when occupied and improved, the right of pre-emption had been, and Mr C. hoped always would be, accorded. Looking, either to the settlement of new tracts of country, or the interest of the Government, Mr C. saw no good reason for withholding the appropriation. There had been none made last year; in consequence of which |