December 08, 1868
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit a copy of a note of the 24th of November last addressed to the Secretary of State by the minister of Great Britain, communicating a decree of the district court of the United States for the southern district of New York ordering the payment of certain sums to the defendants in a suit against the English schooner Sibyl, libeled as a prize of war. It is requisite for the fulfillment of the decree that an appropriation of the sums specified therein should be made by Congress. The appropriation is recommended accordingly.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson, Special Message Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/203021