Special Message

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

I communicate to Congress a letter from the Secretary of War, together with a report of the Chief Engineer, and certain acts of the legislature of the State of New York proposing to the Government of the United States the purchase of the fortifications erected at the expense of the State on Staten Island, with the ordnance and other apparatus belonging to or connected with the same. These papers were prepared at the close of the last session of Congress, at too late a period to be then acted upon.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.