In the midst of the wrongs and vexations experienced from external causes there is much room for congratulation on the prosperity and happiness flowing from our situation at home. The blessing of health has never been more universal. The fruits of the seasons, though in particular articles and districts short of their usual redundancy, are more than sufficient for our wants and our comforts. The face of our country everywhere presents the evidence of laudable enterprise, of extensive capital, and of durable improvement. In a cultivation of the materials and the extension of useful manufactures, more especially in the general application to household fabrics, we behold a rapid diminution of our dependence on foreign supplies. Nor is it unworthy of reflection that this revolution in our pursuits and habits is in no slight degree a consequence of those impolitic and arbitrary edicts by which the contending nations, in endeavoring each of them to obstruct our trade with the other, have so far abridged our means of procuring the productions and manufactures of which our own are now taking the place. Recollecting always that for every advantage which may contribute to distinguish our lot from that to which others are doomed by the unhappy spirit of the times we are indebted to that Divine Providence whose goodness has been so remarkably extended to this rising nation, it becomes us to cherish a devout gratitude, and to implore from the same omnipotent source a blessing on the consultations and measures about to be undertaken for the welfare of our beloved country. JAMES MADISON. SPECIAL MESSAGES. DECEMBER 12, 1809. _To the House of Representatives of the United States_: According to the request of the House of Representatives expressed in their resolution of the 11th instant, I now lay before them a printed copy of a paper purporting to be a circular letter from Mr. Jackson to the British consuls in the United States, as received in a Gazette at the Department of State; and also a printed paper received in a letter from our minister in London, purporting to be a copy of a dispatch from Mr. Canning to Mr. Erskine of the 23d of January last. JAMES MADISON. DECEMBER 16, 1809. _To the Senate of the United States_: Agreeably to the request in the resolution of the 15th instant, I transmit a copy of the correspondence with the governor of Pennsylvania in the case of Gideon Olmstead, JAMES MADISON. DECEMBER 16, 1809. _To the House of Representatives of the United States_: Agreeably to the request expressed in the resolution of the 13th instant, I lay before the House extracts from the correspondence of the minister plenipotentiary of the United States at London. JAMES MADISON. DECEMBER 22, 1809. _To the Senate of the United States_: