From the Territories of Orleans, Louisiana, and Michigan complete returns have not yet been received.

It will be perceived that some of these are not of recent dates, and that from the States of Maryland and Delaware no returns are stated.

Unwilling to take any measures which might preclude a peaceable accommodation of differences, the officers of the United States were ordered to confine themselves within the country on this side of the Sabine River.

It was reasonably expected that while the limits between the territories of the United States and of Spain were unsettled neither party would have innovated on the existing state of their respective positions.

I have thought it proper to communicate to Congress the letter detailing this incident, that they may fully understand the state of things in that quarter and be enabled to make such provision for its security as, in their wisdom, they shall deem sufficient.

We have no information of this letter but through the channel of the party interested in the ship, nor any proof of it more authentic than that now communicated.

On this subject any further desire which the Senate shall think proper to express shall be complied with.

If these be within the scope of the request of the Senate, the printed copies can be sent in immediately, but if translations be necessary some considerable time will be requisite for their execution.

Having been disappointed, after considerable preparation, in the purpose of sending an exploring party up that river in the summer of 1804, it was thought best to employ the autumn of that year in procuring a knowledge of an interesting branch of the river called the Washita.

We entered the Missouri May 14, 1804, and on the 1st of November took up our winter quarters near the Mandan towns, 1,609 miles above the mouth of the river.

The examination of the Red River itself is but now commencing.

Although nothing forbids the substance of these letters from being communicated without reserve, yet so many ill effects proceed from the publications of correspondences between ministers remaining still in office that I can not but recommend that these letters be not permitted to be formally published.

The river of Beaufort, particularly, said to be accessible to ships of very large size and capable of yielding them a protection which they can not find elsewhere but very far to the north, is from these circumstances so interesting to the Union in general as to merit particular attention and inquiry as to the positions on it best calculated for health as well as safety.

The Senate having advised and consented to the ratification of these several treaties and conventions, I now lay them before both Houses of Congress for the exercise of their constitutional powers as to the means of fulfilling them.

I am not informed whether the positions ceded are the best which can be taken for securing their respective objects.

No doubt is entertained that the legislature deemed them such.

Having received from sundry merchants at Baltimore a memorial on the same subject with those I communicated to Congress with my message of the 17th instant, I now communicate this also as a proper sequel to the former, and as making a part of the mass of evidence of the violations of our rights on the ocean.

These, with my message to both Houses of the 17th instant and the documents accompanying it, fulfill the desires of the Senate as far as it can be done by any information in my possession which is authentic and not publicly known.