_Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives_:

I inclose a report of the Secretary of War, stating the trading houses
established in the Indian territories, the progress which has been made
in the course of the last year in settling and marking boundaries with
the different tribes, the purchases of lands recently made from them,
and the prospect of further progress in marking boundaries and in new
extinguishments of title in the year to come, for which some
appropriations of money will be wanting.

To this I have to add that when the Indians ceded to us the salt springs
on the Wabash they expressed a hope that we would so employ them as to
enable them to procure there the necessary supplies of salt. Indeed, it
would be the most proper and acceptable form in which the annuity could
be paid which we propose to give them for the cession. These springs
might at the same time be rendered eminently serviceable to our Western
inhabitants by using them as the means of counteracting the monopolies
of supplies of salt and of reducing the price in that country to a just
level. For these purposes a small appropriation would be necessary to
meet the first expenses, after which they should support themselves and
repay those advances. These springs are said to possess the advantage of
being accompanied with a bed of coal.

TH. JEFFERSON.



JANUARY 19, 1803.