Special Message

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

I now communicate a digest of the information I have received relative to Louisiana, which may be useful to the Legislature in providing for the government of the country. A translation of the most important laws in force in that province, now in press, shall be the subject of a supplementary communication, with such further and material information as may yet come to hand.

TH; JEFFERSON.

NOVEMBER 24, 1803.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

In conformity with the desire expressed in the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 15th instant, I now lay before them copies of such documents as are in possession of the Executive relative to the arrest and confinement of Zachariah Cox by officers in the service of the United States in the year 1798. From the nature of the transaction some documents relative to it might have been expected from the War Office; but if any ever existed there they were probably lost when the office and its papers were consumed by fire.

TH: JEFFERSON.