[Footnote 6: Stating that the information relative to the forcible rescue of two prisoners from the jail of Starr County, Tex., by an armed band of Mexicans had been transmitted by the President to the House of Representatives on the 12th instant.] WASHINGTON, D.C., _November 15, 1887_. _To the House of Representatives_: I transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to its resolution of the 12th instant, a report[7] from the Secretary of State. R.B. HAYES. [Footnote 7: Relating to the indemnity paid by Spain on account of the execution of General Ryan and others at Santiago de Cuba.] WASHINGTON, _November 20, 1877_. _To the House of Representatives_: In answer to a joint resolution of the House of Representatives of the 6th instant, requesting the opinions of the heads of the Departments respecting the obligatory use of the metrical system of weights and measures, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State. R.B. HAYES. WASHINGTON, _November 27, 1877_. _To the Senate of the United States_: I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratification, a declaration between the United States and the Government of Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, for the reciprocal protection of the marks of manufacture and trade in the two countries, signed on the 24th of October, 1877. R.B. HAYES. PROCLAMATION. BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A PROCLAMATION. The completed circle of summer and winter, seedtime and harvest, has brought us to the accustomed season at which a religious people celebrates with praise and thanksgiving the enduring mercy of Almighty God. This devout and public confession of the constant dependence of man upon the divine favor for all the good gifts of life and health and peace and happiness, so early in our history made the habit of our people, finds in the survey of the past year new grounds for its joyful and grateful manifestation. In all the blessings which depend upon benignant seasons, this has indeed been a memorable year. Over the wide territory of our country, with all its diversity of soil and climate and products, the earth has yielded a bountiful return to the labor of the husbandman. The health of the people has been blighted by no prevalent or widespread diseases. No great disasters of shipwreck upon our coasts or to our commerce on the seas have brought loss and hardship to merchants or mariners and clouded the happiness of the community with sympathetic sorrow.