I understand the country ceded by this treaty is considered a valuable one and its acquisition important to that section of the Union. Under these circumstances, as the objection to a ratification applies to those stipulations in the third article which provide that $100,000 and $150,000 shall be granted in satisfaction of claims to reservations and for debts due from the Indians to individuals, I recommend that the treaty be ratified, with the condition that an agent be appointed to proceed to Chicago investigate the justice of these claims. If they are all well founded and have been assented to by the Indians with a full knowledge of the circumstances, a proper investigation of them will do the claimants no injury, but will place the matter beyond suspicion. If, on the other hand, they are unjust and have not been fully understood by the Indians, the fraud will in that event vitiate them, and they ought not to be paid. To the United States, in a mere pecuniary point of view, it is of no importance to whom the money provided by this treaty is paid. They stipulate to pay a given amount, and that amount they must pay, but the consideration is yielded by the Indians, and they are entitled to its value. Whatever is granted in claims must be withheld from them, and if not so granted it becomes theirs. Considering the relations in which the Indians stand to the United States, it appears to me just to exercise their supervisory authority. It has been done in more than one instance, and as its object in this case is to ascertain whether any fraud exists, and if there does to correct it, I consider such a ratification within the proper scope of the treaty-making power. ANDREW JACKSON. WASHINGTON, _January 22, 1834_. _To the Senate_: I transmit to the Senate a report[2] from the Secretary of State, containing the information requested by their resolution of the 9th instant, with the documents which accompany that report. ANDREW JACKSON. [Footnote 2: Relating to presents from foreign governments to officers of the United States.] WASHINGTON, _January 25, 1834_. _To the House of Representatives of the United States_: I transmit herewith to the House of Representatives a letter from the Secretary of State, together with the accompanying papers, relating to a claim preferred to that Department, through the British legation at Washington, for indemnification for losses alleged to have been sustained by the owners of the ship _Francis and Eliza_, libeled at New Orleans in 1819, and condemned and sold by the sentence and decree of the district court of the United States for the district of Louisiana, but afterwards restored upon an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, that such legislative provision may be made by Congress in behalf of those interested as shall appear just and proper in the case. ANDREW JACKSON. FEBRUARY 4, 1834. _To the Senate and House of Representatives_: