All the papers in the War Office or its bureaus known or supposed to have any relation to the alleged frauds which Lieutenant-Colonel Hitchcock was charged to investigate are herewith transmitted.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
I herewith transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to their resolution of the 28th ultimo, a report[87] from the Secretary of State.
[Footnote 87: Stating that no information is in possession of the Government of any negotiation of a treaty, or of any overtures to treat, for a cession of California by Mexico to England.]
In order to enable Congress to approve or disapprove the selection of a site for a Western armory made by the board of commissioners appointed by me for that purpose pursuant to the act of September 9, 1841, I transmit herewith their report and proceedings, as required by that act.
I herewith transmit to the House of Representatives a report made to me on the 9th instant by the Secretary of the Treasury, on the subject of the present and prospective condition of the finances.
You will perceive from it that even if the receipts from the various sources of revenue for the current year shall prove not to have been overrated and the expenditures be restrained within the estimates, the Treasury will be exhausted before the close of the year, and that this will be the case although authority should be given to the proper Department to reissue Treasury notes. But the state of facts existing at the present moment can not fail to awaken a doubt whether the amount of the revenue for the respective quarters of the year will come up to the estimates, nor is it entirely certain that the expenditures which will be authorized by Congress may not exceed the aggregate sum which has hitherto been assumed as the basis of the Treasury calculations.
Of all the duties of the Government, none is more sacred and imperative than that of making adequate and ample provision for fulfilling with punctuality its pecuniary engagements and maintaining the public credit inviolate. Any failure in this respect not produced by unforeseen causes could only be regarded by our common constituents as a serious neglect of the public interests. I feel it, therefore, to be an indispensable obligation, while so much of the session yet remains unexpired as to enable Congress to give to the subject the consideration which its great importance demands, most earnestly to call its attention to the propriety of making further provision for the public service of the year.