There the matter rested until December 6, when Congress met. Even at so exciting a moment, senators were slow in arriving at Washington, and a week passed before a quorum was formed. Not till December 15 could the Annual Message be read. No message could be more pacific in tone. The President discussed everything except the danger which engrossed men’s minds. He talked of peace and friendship, of law, order, and religion, of differential duties, distressed seamen, the blockade of Tripoli, Georgia lands, Indian treaties, the increase in revenue, “the emancipation of our posterity from that mortal canker” a national debt, “by avoiding false objects of expense;” he said that no change in the military establishment was deemed necessary, but that the militia might be improved; he regretted that the behavior of the Barbary Powers rendered a small squadron still necessary to patrol the Mediterranean, but at the same time he strongly urged Congress to take measures for laying up the whole navy, by constructing a large dry-dock on the Eastern Branch, where the seven frigates might be stowed away side by side under cover, and kept from decay or expense. All these subjects he touched in a spirit of peace and good-will toward mankind; but when he came to the question of Louisiana, about which he had written so many alarming letters to Europe, he spoke in a tone of apparent indifference. “The cession of the Spanish province of Louisiana to France,” he said, “which took place in the course of the late war, will, if carried into effect, make a change in the aspect of our foreign relations which will doubtless have a just weight in any deliberations of the Legislature connected with that subject.” No allusion was made to the closure of the Mississippi. Nothing could more disconcert the war party than this manner of ignoring their existence. Jefferson afterward explained that his hope was to gain time; but he could not more effectually have belittled his Federalist enemies than by thus telling them that a French army at New Orleans would “make a change in the aspect of our foreign relations.” This manner of treating Congress was the more dexterous, because if the President did not at once invite the Legislature to realize the alarming state of foreign affairs, he abstained only in order to carry out other tactics. Two days after the Message was read, December 17, John Randolph, the Administration leader in the House, moved for the papers relating to the violated right of deposit. Great curiosity was felt to know what course the President meant to take.