To the Senate of the United States: In response to the resolution of the Senate of the 21st ultimo, calling for certain correspondence touching the construction of a ship canal through Nicaragua, I transmit herewith a report from the…

I transmit herewith a report of the Secretary of State, in answer to the resolution of the Senate of December 8, 1886, relative to the claims of Antonio Pelletier and A. H. Lazare against the Republic of Hayti.

I transmit herewith, with a view to its ratification, a draft of declaration explanatory of Articles II and IV of the convention for the protection of submarine cables.

The matter is presented for the consideration of Congress.

I transmit herewith a communication of the 7th ultimo from the Secretary of the Interior.

To the House of Representatives: I transmit herewith a letter from the Secretary of State, inclosing statement of customs duties levied by foreign nations upon the produce and manufactures of the United States.

Mr. Matthews has now been in occupancy of the office to which he was nominated for more than four months.

I have ventured, therefore, in view of the demonstrated fitness of this nominee, to again submit this nomination to the Senate for confirmation.

I nominate James C. Matthews, of New York, to be recorder of deeds in the District of Columbia, in the place of Frederick Douglass, resigned.

I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, in relation to the invitation from Her Britannic Majesty to this Government to participate in an international exhibition which is to be held at Adelaide, South Australia, in 1887.

Legislation is needed to execute the provisions of our Chinese convention of 1880 touching the opium traffic.

A convention between the United States and certain other powers for the protection of submarine cables was signed at Paris on March 14, 1884, and has been duly ratified and proclaimed by this Government.

I express my unhesitating conviction that the intimacy of our relations with Hawaii should be emphasized.

Our Government has consistently maintained its relations of friendship toward all other powers and of neighborly interest toward those whose possessions are contiguous to our own.

The claims for interest upon the amount of tonnage dues illegally exacted from certain German steamship lines were favorably reported in both Houses of Congress at the last session.

Nothing can be accomplished, however, in the direction of this much-needed reform unless the subject is approached in a patriotic spirit of devotion to the interests of the entire country.

The cruel treatment of inoffensive Chinese has, I regret to say, been repeated in some of the far Western States and Territories.

The moral right and duty of the United States to assist in all proper ways in the maintenance of its integrity is obvious.