_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:
On this first occasion of meeting you it affords me much satisfaction to
be able to communicate the commencement of a favorable change in our
foreign relations, the critical state of which induced a session of
Congress at this early period.
In consequence of the provisions of the act interdicting commercial
intercourse with Great Britain and France, our ministers at London and
Paris were without delay instructed to let it be understood by the
French and British Governments that the authority vested in the
Executive to renew commercial intercourse with their respective nations
would be exercised in the case specified by that act.
Soon after these instructions were dispatched it was found that the
British Government, anticipating from early proceedings of Congress at
their last session the state of our laws, which has had the effect of
placing the two belligerent powers on a footing of equal restrictions,
and relying on the conciliatory disposition of the United States, had
transmitted to their legation here provisional instructions not only to
offer satisfaction for the attack on the frigate _Chesapeake_, and
to make known the determination of His Britannic Majesty to send an
envoy extraordinary with powers to conclude a treaty on all the points
between the two countries, but, moreover, to signify his willingness in
the meantime to withdraw his orders in council, in the persuasion that
the intercourse with Great Britain would be renewed on the part of the
United States.
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